#82 Mental Agility & Focus

In today's fast-paced and ever-changing world, the ability to be agile and resilient is crucial for success. Being rigid and fragile can hinder progress and lead to missed opportunities. In this blog post, we'll explore the concepts of agility and resilience and discuss practical steps to enhance these qualities in our lives.

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro to Mental Agility & Focus
02:00 Opposite of Agile
07:45 Baseline Agility
08:30 What is Agility
17:45 Avoiding Fragility
23:00 Building Resilience
38:00 Increasing Mental Agility
42:45 Boosting Mental Resilience
 

SHOW NOTES

Embracing Agility:
Agility is about being flexible, adaptable, and responsive to change. Here's what it means to be agile:

Moving quickly and easily, both in business and personal life, to respond to market shifts, customer needs, and external factors.

Research suggests that individuals with a growth mindset, who believe they can learn and grow from challenges, tend to be more resilient and adaptable when faced with change.

Avoiding Fragility:
Fragility is the opposite of agility, making it important to recognize and overcome. Here's what it means to be fragile:

Being easily broken and struggling to cope with challenges and setbacks.

Low emotional intelligence and impostor syndrome can contribute to fragility, leading to higher stress levels, anxiety, and depression.

Building Resilience:
Resilience is the ability to bounce back from difficult situations. Here's what it means to be resilient:

Recovering quickly from challenges while maintaining a positive outlook and managing emotions effectively.

Resilience is a skill that can be developed and strengthened over time, rather than something people are born with.

Increasing Mental Agility:
To enhance mental agility, consider taking the following steps:

Stay curious and embrace new experiences to expand your perspective.

Develop self-awareness to understand your strengths and areas for growth.

Cultivate empathy to better understand and relate to others.

Boosting Mental Resilience:
To cultivate mental resilience, incorporate these science-backed strategies:

• Build a strong support system of trusted individuals who provide encouragement and guidance.
• Practice optimism and positive thinking to reframe challenges as opportunities.
• Find purpose and meaning in your work and personal life to stay motivated.
• Engage in mindfulness and meditation to foster mental clarity and emotional well-being.
• Take care of your physical health through exercise, proper nutrition, and sufficient rest.
• Develop problem-solving skills to approach challenges with confidence.

Conclusion:
Embracing agility and resilience is essential for navigating change and achieving success. By adopting a growth mindset, staying open to new experiences, cultivating self-awareness and empathy, and incorporating strategies to build resilience, we can thrive in the face of challenges and lead fulfilling lives. Remember, strength is not always visible, and by focusing on our own growth, we can overcome battles unknown to others. Embrace agility and resilience, and conquer the ever-changing world with confidence.

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Transcript

Intro to Mental Agility & Focus

Speaker 1 0:00

Bro ,

Speaker 2 0:00

What's up?

Speaker 1 0:01

Everyone wants a silver bullet.

Speaker 2 0:03

Yeah. I know.

Speaker 1 0:03

They wanna be su successful and rich overnight.

Speaker 2 0:06

I know when the internet was , was around when I was younger, I was like 19. I was always looking for that thing, you know? Yeah . What is it? The hack. What's the hack,

Speaker 1 0:12

Bro? Well, I think I found it. What

Speaker 2 0:14

You got?

Speaker 1 0:15

Well, it just requires these three things. It's all you need.

Speaker 2 0:19

Okay. Three's, three's not that many. That seems doable.

Speaker 1 0:22

Yeah. You just have to be agile, resilient, and extremely focused.

Speaker 2 0:29

So there's not like a stock market trading bot or an algorithm we can just use to get rich overnight.

Speaker 1 0:35

No , that doesn't exist.

Speaker 2 0:36

Well, me, <laugh> .

Speaker 1 0:39

It takes years of introspective work, meditation , uh, focus , uh, peeling back layers, discipline. And , uh, but if you have,

Speaker 2 0:50

That's not what the internet told me , bro. <laugh>

Speaker 1 0:53

You mean that course that if you pay $500 for, you'll make $100,000 a month <laugh>.

Speaker 2 0:59

Oh , so being unbreakable, basically.

Speaker 1 1:02

Yeah. Well, being flexible,

Speaker 2 1:04

Flexible,

Speaker 1 1:05

Resilient, and focused as

Speaker 2 1:10

Well. You know what? I think we should talk about this silver bullet.

Speaker 1 1:13

I think we should. Let's go

Speaker 2 1:26

Jonathan Noel . And

Speaker 1 1:27

I'm Brian Noelle. This is the

Speaker 2 1:28

Focus cast where

Speaker 1 1:28

We remove distractions, increase

Speaker 2 1:31

Focus,

Speaker 1 1:31

So we can live a life with intention . Intention .

Speaker 2 1:35

Oh , let's get focused as

Speaker 1 1:39

I like that one better.

Speaker 2 1:41

Same <laugh> . I like that. Live with intentions, bro.

Speaker 1 1:44

Yeah, me too. So how do we live a life with intention? It probably requires agility, resilience, and focus. Yeah . So first we're gonna talk about agility, but what is the opposite of being agile?

Speaker 2 1:57

Rigid.

Speaker 1 1:58

Rigid.

Speaker 2 1:59

Old. Rigid.

Speaker 1 2:00

You know what I define rigid as hard to move. Tense in a fixed mindset.

Speaker 2 2:05

Yeah. Like when I think of a, a rigid personality. Yeah. I think of like the old fuddy duddy. Yeah . You know, in the front yard yelling at the kids in the street or something.

Speaker 1 2:14

Yeah. Yes. Uh, I , I picture the, the dude in the office with pleated khaki pants and an oversized button down. Oh, yeah. Telling everyone in a meeting. This is just the way we've always done it. Yeah. That's what I picture him .

Speaker 2 2:28

I don't question why

Speaker 1 2:30

<laugh>?

Speaker 2 2:30

This is just how it's always been

Speaker 1 2:32

Done. It's always been done this way. What do you , what do you mean we should change it? What do you mean?

Speaker 2 2:36

Um, yeah, so <laugh> That's funny. So yeah .

Speaker 1 2:40

This is a good study. You ready for this?

Speaker 2 2:42

Yeah. Let's hear it , bro.

Speaker 1 2:43

Small business administration. According to the study by sba , about 20% of small businesses fell within the first year, and about 50% fell within the next five years. 70% doesn't make it past seven years. That's kind of funny. Yeah. 1 20, 1 55 and 77 years. 70% seven years. So each year there's another 10 percent's gonna be hacked off.

Speaker 2 3:05

It makes sense. It does. I mean, it really does.

Speaker 1 3:08

I mean, I've started, I haven't actually listed the things that I've started. Not that all of 'em are official LLCs. Yeah. But

Speaker 2 3:16

I mean, things change even. I mean, for one, people realize, okay, I don't wanna do all this. Yeah. But also just life happens. Yeah. But , uh, I'm not surprised by any of these stats.

Speaker 1 3:26

Yeah.

Speaker 2 3:27

So, but it seems like if you want to have a long lasting successful business, you're gonna need some attributes.

Speaker 1 3:35

Yes.

Speaker 2 3:36

Like, agility, resilience, and focus.

Speaker 1 3:38

That's right. That's why we're talking about it. That's why we're talking about it today. Honestly, we're talking about it because I feel like if you focus on introspectively being these three things, you're unstoppable. I'm unstoppable.

Speaker 2 3:49

Nice, bro. <laugh> .

Speaker 1 3:50

That's what I believe. <laugh> .

Speaker 2 3:52

All right . So next we got another stad here. This is from , uh, in a site . Yeah . They found the average lifespan of companies in the s and p 500 has decreased, and it's actually gone from 61 years in 1958 to just 18 years in 2018.

Speaker 1 4:07

Now, that is an incredible reduction of longevity.

Speaker 2 4:10

No kidding. I mean, when you , when I think of the s and p 500, what do you think of? I think of like blue

Speaker 1 4:15

Chips, a hundred , a hundred year companies.

Speaker 2 4:17

Exactly. You know, dividend Kings blue chips Yeah. That have been increasing their dividends for 50 years plus.

Speaker 1 4:24

Yeah. That's gone, man.

Speaker 2 4:26

<laugh>

Speaker 1 4:26

18 years.

Speaker 2 4:27

18 years. That's nothing .

Speaker 1 4:28

That's nothing.

Speaker 2 4:31

So that's why you don't put all your eggs in one basket, right ? Yeah . When you're investing, like Uber's gonna be the, I put all my money in Uber and then 18 years later.

Speaker 1 4:40

18 years later, see

Speaker 2 4:41

Ya .

Speaker 1 4:42

Bye .

Speaker 2 4:42

I'm , I'm not picking on Uber. I like Uber, but,

Speaker 1 4:44

So Society for Human Resources Management found that 67% of employees experience some level of resistance when faced with change in the workplace. So that's almost 70%. So your business isn't lasting as long as it used to. Yeah. Uh , big business. So this is affecting small businesses and big business. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and , um, and the majority of your employees. Anytime you wanna change anything in this , um, seemingly ever evolving

Speaker 2 5:14

Yeah .

Speaker 1 5:14

Life we live in now. Um ,

Speaker 2 5:16

Yeah . So I was dating someone , uh, and she worked for Kohler. Yeah . Big company. And you've seen the toilets. They make all kinds of stuff. Oh , yeah . Sinks. I mean, huge business. Yeah.

Speaker 1 5:26

Tough . Right ?

Speaker 2 5:27

But just hearing these stories about the guys in the foundry, you know, these old guys who've been there for years. Any , anytime something was gonna change, they just, their brains couldn't handle it. <laugh> , they're freaking out. Yeah . I was like, why Raro doing this? Why is this gonna change? They just don't have that, you know, they , they're so stuck in that day to day , everything being the same.

Speaker 1 5:49

I can totally see that, because the toilet hasn't changed that much since its invention. <laugh> . I mean, it's the same porcelain. Yeah . Plastic, whatever piece of, but

Speaker 2 6:00

If you've seen the commercial, the Kohler toilets suck down more golf balls. <laugh>, they're on top of their game, bro. I'm just kidding. I don't even know. I don't know that much about toilets.

Speaker 1 6:09

They're in their innovation room and they're like, listen, we need,

Speaker 2 6:11

We need to suck down. Or maybe it's ping pong balls.

Speaker 1 6:13

Ping pong balls. Yeah. Uh , with all of the that Americans are eating, we

Speaker 2 6:17

Gotta step up our flush ability . <laugh>,

Speaker 1 6:21

There's one thing that we need more of in America , and that's the ability to flush more down the toilet.

Speaker 2 6:26

<laugh> , Hey, the most American thing ever is not, Hey, let's get our citizens healthier. It's No, let's design a toilet that can flush down this extra processed turds .

Speaker 1 6:33

<laugh> . Yeah. I mean, honestly, in my opinion, I think , uh, if I build a house, you know, other cultures, they just stand over the hole , which is more actually healthy. Yeah . I get more, more , uh, feces out of your intestines. Yeah.

Speaker 2 6:47

When you

Speaker 1 6:47

Squat. Squat when you squat. Yeah . We're meant to squat. We're

Speaker 2 6:50

Meant to squat.

Speaker 1 6:51

So here it is. We've said this before on this podcast, but there's just another perfect American invention that's actually makes us less

Speaker 2 6:58

Healthy. Less healthy.

Speaker 1 7:00

Yeah.

Speaker 2 7:02

American in a nutshell,

Speaker 1 7:03

American in a nutshell. So rigid is , uh, fixed mindset, unable to move. And honestly , uh, I don't, you know, again, we always talk about introspective work. We're definitely gonna take an introspective spin on this. Yeah . So it's , it's not outward facing , it's inward facing . Like, and it's not, you're either fixed or growth mindset. Right . It's not that you're rigid or agile, it's usually based on the day, based on the circumstance. It's always

Speaker 2 7:28

A combination.

Speaker 1 7:28

Yeah. So,

Speaker 2 7:30

But there's also kind of like your overall mindset. There's your baseline. Yeah . You know, where you spend most of your time and then, you know, you'll fluctuate in and out of it, but where do you want your baseline to be?

Baseline Agility

Speaker 1 7:40

Yeah. That's the goal. That's a good point. Yeah. And when we set our baseline , um, against being rigid, what we want to be is

Speaker 2 7:49

Agile.

Speaker 1 7:49

We wanna be agile. We wanna function with mental, physical, spiritual agility.

Speaker 2 7:56

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 7:57

We wanna be bendable without breaking, you know, the story of the wheat grass and the big oak tree. And the oak tree is like, I'm so strong and I'm so tall. And the wheatgrass is like just flowing mm-hmm. <affirmative> . And then the wind comes and the oak tree falls, but the wheat grass just flows in the

Speaker 2 8:18

Wind. Floats in the wind. Yeah.

Speaker 1 8:19

That's what we wanna be.

Speaker 2 8:20

Exactly. Nice piece of wheatgrass in the field. <laugh>

Speaker 1 8:24

Sounds, it sounds quite pleasant. It

What is Agility

Speaker 2 8:27

Does. So agility is the ability to move quickly and easily, to be flexible and adaptable also to respond and ch respond to changes and challenges in a timely and effective manner. Yeah.

Speaker 1 8:41

You know, when I met with Alex Staler, who's my , um, uh, um, a massage body therapist. Yeah . Um, you know, we talk about agility. Um, when I was in TaeKwonDo, you know, we talked about agility a lot, right? Yep . Because your ability to do some of those , uh, techniques require agility. I mean, honestly, I , I think that's the greatest benefit to Yeah . Karate is increasing your agility. But , um, you know, it was funny because Alex mentioned that, you know, these people, they'll, they want big biceps. Yeah. So they'll work out their biceps all the time for hours for years, and then all of a sudden they can't even barely move their arms. Their arms are so restricted because the way they built their muscle, they can't even fully extend their arm. Right . Or fully retract their arm because their muscles won't let them. Yeah . And to me, that's the perfect example of a business or a company where they take something that they think is their strength and they overbuild it to where they become, they lack agility. And then competition comes and just wipes 'em out overnight. Yeah. And they were like, but we had the best system, the best thing, the best, whatever it was. But

Speaker 2 9:49

You doubled down on it. You tripled down on it . Yeah.

Speaker 1 9:51

You tripled down on it,

Speaker 2 9:52

And you tripled on the double down .

Speaker 1 9:54

Yeah. And then you became so rigid in that thing that was your strength Yeah. That you couldn't flex. And you,

Speaker 2 10:01

I kind of like to , uh, your partner or business partner, I should say, Donny Yeah . Talks about, all right . You wanna be an athlete. Yeah. You know, you don't want to be able to just shoot three pointers. Yeah. Cause that doesn't mean. Yeah. If you can only do that. Right. You know , that's just one thing.

Speaker 1 10:19

That's just one thing. It's

Speaker 2 10:20

One that doesn't make you amazing at a sport if you can only do one thing. Yeah. So

Speaker 1 10:27

You gotta be able to , you gotta be able to be a team player,

Speaker 2 10:29

Move record plus everything changes so fast.

Speaker 1 10:31

Yeah.

Speaker 2 10:32

I know. It's like all of a sudden TikTok might not exist. Something gets taken over a new app , you know, someone creates a new app, then boom, everyone's off of the old one. Yeah. Remember there was, for the people my age, there was Zenga. I

Speaker 1 10:44

Don't even know what that is exactly. Missed that one. It's gone

Speaker 2 10:47

<laugh> . Remember MySpace?

Speaker 1 10:48

I do remember that one. Remember

Speaker 2 10:50

On , remember I used to find all kinds of new music on MySpace?

Speaker 1 10:53

Oh, wow .

Speaker 2 10:53

Yeah. MySpace music.

Speaker 1 10:55

I saw this guy. Um , it was the MySpace creator, and people were roasting him on the comments. Yeah. This was like post MySpace. Yeah . And he is like, yeah. So I sold out for like 60 million , uh, what are you doing with your pathetic little life <laugh> ? And I was like, boom, roasted.

Speaker 2 11:12

I remember that too. <laugh> .

Speaker 1 11:15

So anyway, yeah. So in the context of business, the ability to quickly respond to changes in the market customer needs, so that's just what we're talking about, right? Like, like customers change , uh, political environment changes. Yeah. Um, trade wars. I mean, there's just so much. Um , like one day , uh, we were in a pandemic , uh, now we're in chemical warfare against citizens. You know what I mean? Yeah . So it's like, it's like every, I mean, from my time of being in high school , um, we've been at war

Speaker 2 11:46

Yeah. Pretty much the whole time.

Speaker 1 11:48

The whole time. Yeah. Um, and there's been, you know, like we've kind of felt safe in our country, but like there's always been some war going on. Um, there's always been some opportunity for terroristic threat. Um , yeah.

Speaker 2 12:02

Market crashes.

Speaker 1 12:03

Yeah . Market crashes. We've, we went through 2000 crash . There's 93 . The 2008 crash. Yeah. Um , I mean, this is just since my adulthood. Yeah. Um, I lost , uh, I lost , uh, $30,000 on my house in 2006. Oh , we bought it in 2006. Yeah . Sold in 2008. Now we bought the least expensive new home in our county. Mm .

Speaker 2 12:26

Yeah . We

Speaker 1 12:27

Wanted a new house. And we've literally found a two bedroom, one bathroom. It was the lowest price due home Yeah . In the county. Yeah . So we didn't lose too much money, but , um, but anyway , so yeah. And then here we are now financial uncertainty, like Oh ,

Speaker 2 12:44

Always. Yeah .

Speaker 1 12:45

Like with China and Russia moving to gold and, and a lot of the oil experts moving off the dollar like that <laugh> . That's , that's gonna be crazy.

Speaker 2 12:54

Yeah. And guess what? We have to be agile.

Speaker 1 12:57

Yeah. We gotta be

Speaker 2 12:57

Agile <laugh> . Exactly. I mean, it's just, I mean, our , when you look at our, what we've already gone through in our lives Yeah. You know , when someone like our grandfather saw like great depressions, wars, you know, like real depressions, like bread lines and soup lines and. Yeah. So, you know, that's for all those people out there, like , that's not gonna happen.

Speaker 1 13:16

Yeah. It's gonna happen. <laugh> ,

Speaker 2 13:18

If you're , if you end up , if you plan on being alive for 80, 90, a hundred years, something's gonna happen.

Speaker 1 13:22

You gonna see some, something's

Speaker 2 13:24

Gonna happen. So just go ahead and , uh, you know, work on that agility. Yeah.

Speaker 1 13:28

Yeah. I mean, you can over plan .

Speaker 2 13:31

I

Speaker 1 13:31

Mean Yeah. You can also be agile. Yeah. And then you can do both

Speaker 2 13:34

<laugh> . Exactly. And

Speaker 1 13:35

That's probably the sweet spot.

Speaker 2 13:36

Yeah. I mean, if you spend every single dollar you have, building a bunker and drying buy , buying dried beans, that might be excessive.

Speaker 1 13:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2 13:45

Yeah. Just only do that with 85% of your mind. <laugh>.

Speaker 1 13:48

So a study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that people who have a growth mindset or a belief that they can learn and grow from challenges and failures are more resilient and adaptable to face the change.

Speaker 2 14:00

Yeah.

Speaker 1 14:01

I mean, okay, so here's, here's a perfect example of this that happened last week for me personally. So, you know, told you we're , um, I'm launching a footwear company this year. And , um, we , um, the , the name we came up with was like completely outside of context of anything remotely, footwear.

Speaker 2 14:19

Right.

Speaker 1 14:20

So I was like, I didn't even think about trademarks. I didn't even think about, you know, I didn't even think about any of that stuff. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And , um, so then we found this incredible designer out of the country, Georgia. He made the most beautiful logo I've ever seen in my life.

Speaker 2 14:34

Yes . It's beautiful . It's amazing.

Speaker 1 14:34

Yeah. The proudest thing I've ever, ever, ever seen and been a part of from a logo design standpoint. And , um, and on a call, it was like, Hey, don't forget to check the trademark stuff. And I was like, oh yeah, good call. Let me just go ahead and look it up. Looked it up. Company you with the same name who does footwear and has a trademark Now their logo's different. So at first I just, I , it was funny, like at first I immediately was like frozen. Yeah. Cuz that's my typical tendency is just to kind of freeze delay.

Speaker 2 15:04

Okay. Like,

Speaker 1 15:06

Oh , that's a lot of mental energy to think about if we have to change all that. Um, so I'm just gonna ignore it. So instead I found it, emailed the team and said, this is what I found. We have four options.

Speaker 2 15:21

Yeah.

Speaker 1 15:23

Reach out to the company, hire a trademark attorney, ask them if we should reach out to the company and, you know, get their opinion if we should, and just say, Hey, we're in completely different spaces, different titles of that kinda stuff. Like whatever. Um, or, you know, to the other extreme, which is just go ahead and change the name.

Speaker 2 15:41

Yeah.

Speaker 1 15:42

And , um, and send it to the team. I'm gonna talk to an attorney and see what they say, and then we're just gonna take action and keep moving. Whatever.

Speaker 2 15:49

That's all you can do. It is what it is. It is what it is . Yeah. You can't have too many attachments.

Speaker 1 15:53

Yeah. So

Speaker 2 15:55

Anyway. Yeah. You're a , you know , agility, if you get attached to what do you expect is gonna happen? That's when you're starting to become rigid. Yeah.

Speaker 1 16:03

Yeah. I could , I could over obsess about it. Yeah . We could like, just move forward with it. Yeah. And then like, get sued or get a cease and desist, you know, whatever. Yeah . Like ,

Speaker 2 16:14

All right. So attachment.

Speaker 1 16:17

So that's agility. What's next? Well,

Speaker 2 16:18

What's the opposite of agility? Uh ,

Speaker 1 16:20

Well, we talked about rigid, but the next thing is resilience. Oh . So we got, we wanna be agile and we wanna be resilient. So what's the opposite of resilience? Fragile. Yeah. Ooh , when I looked up the opposite of resilience , uh, there was a couple of different options. <laugh>. Yeah.

Speaker 2 16:40

<laugh> .

Speaker 1 16:40

But , um, fragile . Fragile I thought was , um,

Speaker 2 16:43

Makes the most sense here.

Speaker 1 16:44

Yeah. So in my mind, fragile is easy to break,

Speaker 2 16:47

Easy to break mentally, fragile individuals may have difficulty coping with challenges and setbacks.

Speaker 1 16:53

Yeah. Yeah. So talent smart , a company that specializes in emotional intelligence training found that only 36% of over 1 million people they surveyed were able to accurately identify their emotions as they happen . So again, this, the , the reason I pulled this stat up is because out being resilient right. Is , um, is really the ability to recover quickly. So, yeah . Uh , the reason I said like fragile is like, you're easy to break.

Speaker 2 17:24

Yeah. Like,

Avoiding Fragility

Speaker 1 17:25

You're easy to push down Yeah . And you don't get back up, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So , um, in my mind I was thinking like, well, what does that even mean? Like , um, the opposite of resilient. And for me, I really found that it's people that are struggling with low emotional intelligence. Right. Like you say one thing that may be constructive criticism and they like spin for a week. Yeah. And like whatever negative, like they're just, they're you , they're broke. You push 'em down and they're down <laugh>. Yeah.

Speaker 2 18:01

Yeah.

Speaker 1 18:02

So, but when I found this, 36% of, of, they , they , they had a million people in the survey, which is crazy. But only 36% was able to identify their emotions when they happened, which means the overwhelming majority of people can't even articulate,

Speaker 2 18:15

Identify the emotions . Yeah . That's 63% they

Speaker 1 18:17

Happen . Yeah.

Speaker 2 18:18

Yeah.

Speaker 1 18:19

That's crazy.

Speaker 2 18:20

That's crazy to even think about. Yeah.

Speaker 1 18:22

64%, by the way,

Speaker 2 18:24

What did I say? 63? Yeah. Yeah. 64%. Nice. <laugh> . Um, yeah. That's crazy. Isn't that wild? That's wild.

Speaker 1 18:34

But what's funny is, like, until I started going to therapy, like, I mean, we know, like I'm mad, I'm, I'm sad. Yeah . I'm happy. But like I , outside of that, like

Speaker 2 18:44

Whatever, like this is bothering me because I have deep seated emotions about a thing that happened in my childhood. Yeah.

Speaker 1 18:49

Like, people don't do that.

Speaker 2 18:51

<laugh> Yeah.

Speaker 1 18:52

But to be resilient is like, when someone says something to you and you like, you like, something triggers and like this, like a rage starts building and then like, again, that can like wipe you out for a week or two weeks or three weeks. Or like, you can literally quit a business or fire someone or whatever. Something, something that's a little bit more dramatic. But to your point, like instead if it's like, oh, this has nothing to do with you, it's all me. Um, I'm gonna work through this. I need to do this. These are my steps. I'm gonna go take a walk. I'm gonna meditate, I'm gonna do this. We're gonna have a good crucial conversation and then bam, we're gonna be back working in no time. Like, that's resilience.

Speaker 2 19:27

Yeah. Yeah. So we got another study here. Yes,

Speaker 1 19:31

We do,

Speaker 2 19:32

Bro. It said this is a LinkedIn study. Nearly half, 46% of professionals surveyed reporting feeling imposter syndrome at work.

Speaker 1 19:40

Yeah.

Speaker 2 19:41

So yeah , we talked about imposter syndrome. Yeah.

Speaker 1 19:43

We did a whole episode on the imposter syndrome. Yeah. So how many people feel the imposter syndrome but then quit?

Speaker 2 19:50

I don't know . I don't know . I wonder how, I don't know if there's even a stat for that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 19:54

I don't know how many people , how many people may , maybe they don't quit. Cuz that's extreme. But maybe they literally stop at the ceiling. Cuz imposter syndrome is I'm not qualified to be here. Yeah . So what if they literally stop there because they don't feel qualified to go forward? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> again, to me that's the opposite of resilience.

Speaker 2 20:12

Yeah. Because

Speaker 1 20:13

Resilience is , I may not feel qualified to be in this room, but I'm in this room and let's go

Speaker 2 20:18

<laugh>. Yeah .

Speaker 1 20:18

That's resilience. Yeah. Resilience is walking into a room and someone actually commenting that you're not qualified to be in the room and you say, you, I'm qualified to be in this room. Let's go

Speaker 2 20:28

<laugh> . Right. That's resilience. If you are, hopefully you're not lying about it. Well, and,

Speaker 1 20:32

And how, how many of us in this world are a hundred percent qualified to be anywhere?

Speaker 2 20:37

Yeah. What is a hundred percent qualified to be anywhere.

Speaker 1 20:39

Exactly.

Speaker 2 20:40

It's just what are your past experiences? What's your knowledge on the thing? Right.

Speaker 1 20:43

And you know what, sometimes the person in the room who's new is the best fresh perspective.

Speaker 2 20:48

There's definitely, so

Speaker 1 20:49

Maybe we're all qualified to be in the room.

Speaker 2 20:51

Well that's the Yeah. That's a whole nother thing. Like , uh, people who are unwilling to learn from others. Yeah. You know, just because they might be less experienced or younger or whatever. Yeah .

Speaker 1 21:03

The only time that I think that I would not want that person in the room as if they're performing surgery on me. I prefer to have someone that's well experienced and

Speaker 2 21:10

Confident. You don't want the new guy on the never know.

Speaker 1 21:13

Preferably not

Speaker 2 21:15

<laugh> .

Speaker 1 21:17

So next in, you know, we're talking about low emotional intelligence. The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that individuals with low emotional intelligence tend to have higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. So a lot of people in business, I think , um, you know, they , they get overwhelmed. Yeah. Um , they get filled with stress and anxiety and uh , according to the stats they give up within the first year,

Speaker 2 21:38

You're letting your emotions run unchecked. Yeah. You're letting the emotions run, run amuck. Right.

Speaker 1 21:44

Run amuck

Speaker 2 21:45

Because you have low emotional intelligence.

Speaker 1 21:48

Yeah .

Speaker 2 21:49

Brutal. Brutal. Got another study here. Journal of Managerial Psychology found that leaders with low emotional intelligence tend to have low levels of employee engagement, job satisfaction and productivity and higher levels of turnover.

Speaker 1 22:04

Yeah. So if you're not resilient , um, you have low emotional intelligence and you start a company and everyone you hire quits because you suck. Mm .

Speaker 2 22:14

It's not gonna , sorry,

Speaker 1 22:15

That's a harsh term because you have low emotional intelligence and you haven't done the introspective work to work through that and become higher emotionally intelligent and work with humans better. Yeah.

Speaker 2 22:23

That's

Speaker 1 22:24

Better than saying suck <laugh> . Maybe that's why your business is fail , because Yeah . No one can work for you.

Speaker 2 22:33

Yeah. I've seen it before with the restaurants. Yeah . You know, the owner maybe the, the main chef or whatever Yeah . Impossible to work with. Yeah . <laugh> . And then the turnover rate, just restaurant and the turnover rate in restaurants is already high. Yeah .

Speaker 1 22:45

Well , I can't make throw don't

Speaker 2 22:47

Make it worse. Yeah . Yeah . Then you throw in some, a freaking manager or a chef who just like goes ballistic every day . Yeah . No one wants to be there.

Building Resilience

Speaker 1 22:56

Yeah. It's interesting because like when, a lot of times in our modern society, when we think of resilience, you know, we think of like, you know, two boxers and the guy that gets knocked out, but or like hit down, he's barely back up . Yeah . Gets back up and he gets back up, then he wins to fight. So we pitch like this strong fighter, but what's interesting is most people don't win the battle in their own minds. So our picture of resilience is like this strong confident person, man or woman. But honestly I think resilience is the person who's like the mindfulness person, the introspective person, the calm person, the grounded person.

Speaker 2 23:37

Well, even to your example right here with the , the fighter, was it their muscles that made them get back up? Or was it their willpower? Was it it their mind? Ooh .

Speaker 1 23:47

Right . Well I didn't even plan that.

Speaker 2 23:48

Right. I mean, I wasn't

Speaker 1 23:49

Even thinking that. But that is a ,

Speaker 2 23:51

Let's be real. It's you're talking about the mental game. Well, there it is too. There it is . I mean, yeah, you have to have the strength to even be there to be able to take a punch and you have to have the body and the training. Yeah. But when you get punched in the face, I've never actually been punched in the face by a boxer or whatever. But in that moment, like, what's making you go? Yeah. It's willpower, right? Yeah. Isn't it?

Speaker 1 24:13

It has to be.

Speaker 2 24:15

I mean, it's mental.

Speaker 1 24:16

Your body is probably screaming like, get out of this area. Like, it's gotta be all.

Speaker 2 24:22

So, I mean, it is a mindset.

Speaker 1 24:24

I got a good boxing story. Let's go . I have been knocked out.

Speaker 2 24:27

Yeah.

Speaker 1 24:29

So there was this guy who was older than me. Um , I was in early high school, maybe 10th grade or something. 11th grade. Yeah. And he was like, graduated already, but we all hung out with him cuz he was cool and , um, had a house, <laugh> and um,

Speaker 2 24:40

A place to hang out and drink and Yeah.

Speaker 1 24:42

Oh, yeah. Drinking smoke. Um, he , um, he boxed, yeah, he was a good fighter. Known for being a good fighter. And , um, I didn't really understand boxing. Yeah . At the time I didn't realize how hard boxing was. Oh yeah. So I was like, I bet I can stay up for 10 minutes. Who? 10 minutes. Anyone who , who's ever boxed? Like, just laughed . They just laughed. Yeah. Because 10 minutes is like, I mean that's, that's two five minute rounds. Yeah. Um, so , um, and , and just punching a punching bag for 10 minutes is like Yeah . Yeah . We'll , we'll wear your out. Yeah . I mean, really a minute is hard. Uh , but anyway , so he's, he's , uh, he's uh , you know, we're we , we , we hit go, you know , someone says go, we're in the living room. Uh , this is , uh, this is , uh, one couch, one TV living room, right? Yeah. No, no . Nothing on the wall, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and Bachelor pad. Um, so we, we, we start and he's kind of toying with me, you know, I'm not landing any punches. He's kind of jabbing me. Yeah. You know, it's like a , it's like a lion, you know, you see the lion and the prey still alive. Right. But

Speaker 2 25:43

It's just kind of they playing with it. Yeah .

Speaker 1 25:44

They let it run for a second and then they like eat a piece of its leg. Yeah. And then they let it hobble for a minute, then they eat another piece of the leg. Yeah.

Speaker 2 25:50

They're just playing.

Speaker 1 25:51

They're just playing, you know . And um, so he was, he was doing a little bit of that. And then , um, uh, and then I woke up and I was on the floor and I was like, what happened?

Speaker 2 26:01

He was like , he , he's like , I stopped playing. I stopped playing

Speaker 1 26:04

<laugh> , but he was a good guy, man. He gave me a hug and he said, man, if you need anything money, girls drugs, just let me know. <laugh> . It was a great experience. I felt super loved.

Speaker 2 26:15

That's awesome.

Speaker 1 26:17

Anyway, so that's my boxing store . So , uh, but I got back up.

Speaker 2 26:20

Yeah. I remember Clifton and I, we had just, we had some boxing gloves and we were just kind of punching each other. Uh , did not, no one got knocked out, but I had a headache for two hours.

Speaker 1 26:29

<laugh> . Yeah.

Speaker 2 26:30

And , uh, that's when I was like, yeah, this is a pretty brutal sport. And , uh, I'm good on that.

Speaker 1 26:35

<laugh> . Yeah. So , um, getting back up, what does it mean to be resilient? I mean, I think it's pretty obvious here, but be able to recover quickly from a difficult or challenging situation. Yeah . And this can be, this can be, you're walking down the road and like literally from behind. Someone punches you in the back of the head. Like, and then like you wake up in the hospital and like you walk down that road the next day. Right. It can be something that's external. It's everything blindside you. Yeah. And it can be internal too, right? I mean , it can be like some emotional trigger, some whatever.

Speaker 2 27:05

We've seen those people, you know, online where something happens, maybe they lose a leg in an accident. Yeah. And then you see 'em and they're still like, they're just making jokes. They're, they're like, oh, you know, they , they turn it into like a positive thing. Like , yeah. Now I don't have to worry about this or Yeah. You know , now I don't have to worry about getting sunburn on my left arm cuz I don't have one. Yeah . <laugh> , here's some. I don't know. Yeah . Whatever the , whatever the story is that they , they tell themselves, but they just don't let it ruin the rest of their life.

Speaker 1 27:30

Yeah.

Speaker 2 27:31

You know,

Speaker 1 27:32

I was reading stories of resilience and I don't remember the young lady's name, but when she was 13, her left arm got eaten by a shark.

Speaker 2 27:39

Yeah.

Speaker 1 27:40

And um , but she's a world renowned surfer. She kept surfing. She was a surfer arm, got eaten by a shark , still surfing .

Speaker 2 27:45

It's funny surfing . We both referenced the left arm.

Speaker 1 27:48

God , that's weird.

Speaker 2 27:48

That's weird. But she kept going, she

Speaker 1 27:50

Kept surfing,

Speaker 2 27:51

You know, and how many people would've just been like, I'm never going in the water again. Me

Speaker 1 27:54

<laugh>

Speaker 2 27:57

Me. <laugh> . That's amazing.

Speaker 1 28:00

So there's your survey. One outta one person you've asked.

Speaker 2 28:05

Oh . So another , uh, couple of attributes for resilience looks like , uh, resilient individuals are able to maintain a positive outlook like we were just talking about. Yeah . Manage their emotions and adapt to new circumstances.

Speaker 1 28:17

Yeah. And you said it before, right? Like, like managing your emotions. Yeah. Um, if, I mean, to me the opposite of resilience is like, you can't manage your emotions. Like you're, you're constantly just like I said before, like one thing happens and like you're the person in the office that just goes nuts.

Speaker 2 28:37

I think the real question is, is like, are you in control at that point? No. No. You're not controlling your life.

Speaker 1 28:43

No.

Speaker 2 28:44

Because anything happens and now you've, your emotions override your default network. Yeah . Or they are your default network. Yes. It just overrides everything.

Speaker 1 28:54

Yeah. And to empathize, like , um, like , uh, the the , the first reaction is to try to micromanage your emotions.

Speaker 2 29:04

Yeah.

Speaker 1 29:04

When really you should probably just go to therapy. <laugh> and therapy may be walks in meditation for you. Right. Yeah. I'm just saying like, like don't try to like, like overextend yourself, micromanaging your emotions. If that's someone that you're not resilient, like, and you struggle with controlling your emotions, like, like, like do the work. Like truly get to the core of that. Figure that out this

Speaker 2 29:28

Real quick, this is the whole, one of the whole freaking points of the cold showers, right?

Speaker 1 29:32

Yeah. Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 29:33

Okay. You are making yourself do something you don't want to do.

Speaker 1 29:38

Yep .

Speaker 2 29:39

And then in that you gain that power in the mind. Yes. You're , you're building that muscle to where you're like, I'm in control. Yeah. I'm not letting outside influences emotions and control me. Yep . Um , cuz people think they're, they're the one like steering the wheel. Yeah. They think that their brain, oh man, I'm in control. But are you really? Yeah. I mean, look at all your unconscious habits. Yeah. Look at everything you're doing in your life. Every time you say, man, I shouldn't be doing this, but you do it. Yeah. Every little habit where you're like, why am I eating this? Why know I shouldn't, why am I doing this when I know I shouldn't?

Speaker 1 30:13

Why am I not exercising when I should ?

Speaker 2 30:14

Why am I not doing every single thing that I know I should do and I'm not doing it?

Speaker 1 30:19

Yeah.

Speaker 2 30:20

So tell me now, are you actually in control? Right.

Speaker 1 30:23

No. No. You're right.

Speaker 2 30:26

You know, so that's the whole point of these exercises, the meditation. That's the whole point of making yourself exercise or making yourself do the things that you could just sit around and not do. Yeah. Because you're training that muscle.

Speaker 1 30:38

Yeah. That's a good point. How many things do you say? Um , oh, I would do that if I had time. That's really just you saying I'm not gonna do it.

Speaker 2 30:46

That's you're saying I haven't prioritized it at all.

Speaker 1 30:48

Yeah. I don't have time to exercise. Well then you're not in control of your life.

Speaker 2 30:53

Plain and simple. I don't

Speaker 1 30:54

Have time to meditate. You're not in control of your life. Yep . I don't have time for my family. You're not in control of your

Speaker 2 30:59

Life. You're just not, you're not prioritizing.

Speaker 1 31:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2 31:02

Yeah.

Speaker 1 31:03

You're not in control.

Speaker 2 31:04

I mean, and it's okay if you realize that. Yes . Once you realize that <laugh>

Speaker 1 31:09

Yeah. That's the goal.

Speaker 2 31:11

So anyway,

Speaker 1 31:12

Resilience is not something that people are born with, but rather it is a skill. Oh my gosh, Jonathan. I love it when you say something and then the next bullet, like, like back to resilience. You're not born resilient or non resilient. It's a skill. Right? It's, it's adaptability. Yeah . It's the learning that can be strengthened over time. So to your point , the cold showers , um, you know, making , um, starting the habits but forcing yourself to do things that then become habits like exercising , um, going for walks, meditation , uh, you know, yeah . Sleep habits, eat habits, all that kind of stuff. Like that's improving resilience. And you'll see in a minute when we talk about , uh, steps to increase mental resilience. Cuz we got a science backed article down there in our notes. Um, but yeah , these things really contribute to that.

Speaker 2 31:55

I was, I mean, I was lucky to be in the industry for like 10 years where you have to be agile. Yeah. Someone calls you, they're like inhaled in Texas, start driving to Dallas, Fort Worth area, <laugh> , you know, and I could sit there and be like, what, what part of town? Where should I stay? Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , what should , when's the start ? When does everything start? You know? Cuz some people wouldn't be able to handle that. Yeah. But you just pack your, hop in the car , start heading that way . You start driving to this , to this city and you'll figure it out when you get there and everything's changing like this. Yeah. Like, okay, alright , it held somewhere else. You're only gonna be here for two more days and then you're done. Then you're gonna head to Kansas <laugh> and then you're gonna do this. And it's just like,

Speaker 1 32:35

That's wild .

Speaker 2 32:36

It's just moving and moving and moving. If you're not agile. Some people can't handle that. Yeah. They can't handle, what do you mean you drive to a town and you don't, you don't know what hotel you're gonna book a hotel when you get there, you don't know where you're staying. <laugh> you know, some people that they can't, it

Speaker 1 32:51

Just,

Speaker 2 32:51

They literally can't handle it. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, I drive. I don't know where the I'm staying, but I'll figure it out when I get there. Yeah. And it's just the ultimate <laugh> , like in the moment . Agility. Yeah. So I've just been doing it.

Speaker 1 33:05

Yeah.

Speaker 2 33:06

So

Speaker 1 33:07

I think , um, one , um, one highlight rail , uh, I can speak to that requires incredible agility.

Speaker 2 33:15

A starting and

Speaker 1 33:16

Resilience. Sorry , is , um, adopting

Speaker 2 33:20

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 33:21

So both of our kids are adopted. Yeah . And like for our second kid who's now six, we gotta call on Thursday and said , if you want him , you gotta come pick him up by Tuesday and signed the paperwork.

Speaker 2 33:36

That's crazy.

Speaker 1 33:38

Got a call on Thursday and Yeah . Met him on Tuesday.

Speaker 2 33:43

Yeah.

Speaker 1 33:44

<laugh> six years later.

Speaker 2 33:45

Yeah.

Speaker 1 33:46

But also,

Speaker 2 33:46

Yeah. It's amazing you got the call and then, Hey bro, you know, those people are like, I , I I can't, I don't have time for that.

Speaker 1 33:53

Yeah,

Speaker 2 33:54

You made time for that, right? Yeah. You didn't , you didn't just you don't have time, you make time. Right.

Speaker 1 34:01

And so it was not on the schedule,

Speaker 2 34:03

It was

Speaker 1 34:03

Not on to get a random call

Speaker 2 34:04

<laugh> , it was not on the schedule to have four days or whatever, whatever, how many days that was

Speaker 1 34:08

To drive nine hours

Speaker 2 34:09

To drive nine hours, go sign paperwork and adopt a child.

Speaker 1 34:12

And we , uh, he was in the nicu . So we stayed there for a month. Actually, my wife did. And then I ended up having to drive back and forth.

Speaker 2 34:19

Yeah.

Speaker 1 34:19

And we had to stay in a hotel.

Speaker 2 34:20

That's agility. Yeah.

Speaker 1 34:22

We didn't know we were gonna stay.

Speaker 2 34:24

Yeah. And most people would not be able to handle that.

Speaker 1 34:28

Yeah. Well, most people are like , uh, we can't have kids because we're not financially ready.

Speaker 2 34:35

<laugh>. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 34:38

So I don't know if you're , I don't know if we're financially ready for anything. We're not financially ready for this. Hey ,

Speaker 2 34:43

You're only financially ready until you realize you're not. Yeah.

Speaker 1 34:47

I mean,

Speaker 2 34:47

I mean, you're never financially ready until whatever.

Speaker 1 34:49

Were we financially ready for a pandemic?

Speaker 2 34:53

I don't know .

Speaker 1 34:54

Anyway. Probably not. Here's a quote that I think I pulled. It's , uh, the quote is from unknown <laugh> , but I love this quote. The strongest people are not those who show strength in front of us, but those who win the battles we know nothing about.

Speaker 2 35:09

Yeah.

Speaker 1 35:11

And to me, like when we talk about mindfulness people and monks and like the grounded people and you know, the the person who is like on the meeting and they're like, you don't know how hard I worked.

Speaker 2 35:23

Oh gosh. Yeah. Like ,

Speaker 1 35:26

I don't respect that person.

Speaker 2 35:28

I don't give a how hard you worked personally. Yeah. In fact, I don't even care about working hard. I care about working smart

Speaker 1 35:34

Personally. Yeah . Usually , usually when someone makes that statement, they're just projecting that they worked harder than everyone else. So I reject that statement. Yeah. Yay.

Speaker 2 35:42

Yay . Yeah, we good for you. We talk about, you know, we talk about what we do like on the podcast and it's great and it's actually, I are feeding off of each other's better habits. Yeah. You know, and it's cool to see progress, but a lot of this I was gonna do no matter what.

Speaker 1 36:00

Right.

Speaker 2 36:01

So even though I wasn't gonna talk about it, like, and I'm not running around telling everyone, dude, I took one cold shower and I put this in my coffee and it felt great and I did 10 burpees and I woke up and I did some deep breathing <laugh> . I'm not just gonna sit there and tell everyone. Yeah. It's all the little things you do throughout the day Yeah . For yourself. They're not for anyone else.

Speaker 1 36:22

And you know what's great, bro? What's that? You don't have to say it. I can feel it.

Speaker 2 36:27

You can feel it . And when people see you and they're like, you're different. You , you , you look different. You, your energy is different. Like Yeah. That's all the I'm doing that I don't talk about. Yeah. That's literally what that is. Yep . Do you wanna be that person where when someone sees you, they're like,

Speaker 1 36:42

Wow.

Speaker 2 36:42

Yeah. They can just, people can tell,

Speaker 1 36:44

People can tell. People

Speaker 2 36:45

Can tell. We don't give ourselves enough credit on our intuition. Some of us do. Yeah. But a lot of people aren't sitting there thinking like, man , I have great intuition, but you know. Yeah. You know, you see someone. Yeah. And they're glowing. Whatever word you wanna put there. Yeah . They're vibrating. Yeah. And you're like, man, this is what they're doing. It's right here. The strongest people are the ones who don't show strength in front of us, but those who , uh, win the battles. Yeah . That people know nothing about. They're little battles every day . Mm-hmm. <affirmative> , they they woke up. They were resilient. They did their workout when they said they were going to Yeah . They did their cold shower because they told themselves they were going to Yeah . They didn't compromise internally. Yeah . They set their stuff out and they did it.

Speaker 1 37:29

You want, you want the, you wanna work for the person who didn't do this? And they come in and they sh they're stressed and they're projecting all their personal stuff and vomiting it. Yeah. All over, all over the team constantly. Because they're not,

Speaker 2 37:44

They're not doing their little, they're not winning their little battles. Yeah . They're a little quiet.

Speaker 1 37:49

No, no.

Speaker 2 37:53

Yeah.

Speaker 1 37:54

Anyway, so steps to increase mental agility. I love this first one.

Speaker 2 37:58

Stay curious.

Increasing Mental Agility

Speaker 1 37:59

Stay curious. Woo . Mental agility. Stay curious. Yeah.

Speaker 2 38:03

Gotta see, I, I love learning. Yeah. I'm curious about if someone who's really knowledgeable was telling me it could basically be any topic. Yeah. And I'll listen. I'll be like, man, that's awesome. Yeah . I had no idea about dolphins doing this or whatever. Yeah. I don't give a what it is about.

Speaker 1 38:17

Yeah. It's just really,

Speaker 2 38:19

It's fun to learn. Yeah.

Speaker 1 38:20

It's like those , uh, how things are made. Oh yeah . The show like , oh yeah. Um, yeah. It's fascinating. Um, like , uh, when Mr. Rogers, my kids watch Mr. Rogers. Yeah. It's like this eighties episode when he went to the pretzel factory.

Speaker 2 38:34

Oh, dude, that sounds awesome.

Speaker 1 38:35

I'm sure that's not how pretzels are made anymore, but <laugh>, that's how they were in the eighties at a small company Yeah. In Mr. Rogers neighborhood. Man. But stay curious, but I think, I think it's learning new things, but it's also like when someone says like, this is, this is how we do it. Why?

Speaker 2 38:50

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 38:52

Uh , yeah. I can't talk to that person. Why?

Speaker 2 38:56

Yeah.

Speaker 1 38:56

I get really frustrated and because of that person.

Speaker 2 39:00

Why? Yeah. Ask why for basically everything.

Speaker 1 39:04

Yeah. So stay curious. Here's the last thing I'll , I'll I'll say on stay curious, introspective curiosity.

Speaker 2 39:13

Yeah.

Speaker 1 39:14

I can't do that. Why? Why can't I do that? I'm not creative. You're not creative. What do you mean you're not creative? This is the internal narrative. Yeah.

Speaker 2 39:24

Yeah . I gotcha .

Speaker 1 39:25

Like stay curious introspectively. And I think that will radically increase mental agility. Yeah. Embrace new experiences.

Speaker 2 39:39

Yeah. I've been there.

Speaker 1 39:40

You say it all the time. Like just drive a different way to work sometimes these little tiny things, these little bread crumbs.

Speaker 2 39:46

Yeah.

Speaker 1 39:47

Increase agility.

Speaker 2 39:49

Yeah. No, seriously. Yeah . Brush your teeth with your left hand.

Speaker 1 39:53

Ooh . Yeah. It's funny. Uh, um, Alex Staler mentioned him again, but he said , um, when you go into a stretch, you always wanna come out of the stretch the same way you went into it. It's actually better for your body. Mm . Um , but he is like, I was with some kids or something. I don't remember the story context, but he's like, I , I showed , I said, throw ball now do it in reverse. It's really weird.

Speaker 2 40:17

Yeah.

Speaker 1 40:18

Really weird to think about that. Um , but again, just another opportunity for mental agility. Try something new.

Speaker 2 40:26

It's just little things every day for real . You know,

Speaker 1 40:29

You know what a really good new experience is.

Speaker 2 40:32

What's that?

Speaker 1 40:33

If you've only hung out with people that are your race,

Speaker 2 40:36

There you go.

Speaker 1 40:37

Hang out with some people that are like different race, different culture, different background. Yeah . Yeah . Different nationality. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. That's one way to increase that mental agility. Big time <laugh> .

Speaker 2 40:46

I think. So. You're like ,

Speaker 1 40:48

Wow, all my biases were wrong. <laugh>. Or they'll be like, no, your bias dead on with that <laugh>. That true <laugh> . You know, you never know. But yeah. Mental agility, like , uh, hang out with people that are not in your ,

Speaker 2 41:02

Uh, just meet a lot of people. Yeah.

Speaker 1 41:04

Me people from all over. That's a big one .

Speaker 2 41:06

Yeah. Develop self-awareness.

Speaker 1 41:09

Yeah. We talk about that one a lot. Just be self-aware when you're not being agile and why

Speaker 2 41:15

Yeah. More empathetic.

Speaker 1 41:17

Yeah. It's funny we talk about introspective work, but also in , in part of being empathetic is the opportunity to put yourself in someone's shoes, fill someone else's emotions, things like that. So it's, it's a healthy balance between , um, introspective work that's not narcissistic. Like, I'm gonna think about me all day today. I'm gonna work on me, I'm gonna do me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? But , um, but it's a healthy balance between , um, understand yourself and self-awareness, but also spend time with other people and , and turn off yourself and active, listen and understand who they are and where they come from and why they feel the way they feel and their perspectives and you know, all that stuff that really helps. Mental agility.

Speaker 2 42:00

Yeah. I mean, what is that the phrase? Kind of like how everyone's acting is just a reflection of your internal world.

Speaker 1 42:09

Yes.

Speaker 2 42:10

You know?

Speaker 1 42:11

That's good.

Speaker 2 42:12

That's why I mean, I'm not blaming people for anything. Yeah. You know, I don't know what they went through.

Speaker 1 42:17

We're all on the, we're all trying to figure it out.

Speaker 2 42:20

We're all trying to figure this out . Yeah . Plain and simple.

Speaker 1 42:23

And we live in a culture and a society where it's not easy. <laugh>

Speaker 2 42:27

Where you're bred to be a worker. Yeah. More or less

Speaker 1 42:31

Yeah.

Speaker 2 42:31

A cog in the machine. Yep . All right , bro. Uh , looks like you found some steps to increase mental resilience.

Speaker 1 42:38

Yeah. So this is from an article seven Science backed Strategies for Building Resilience.

Boosting Mental Resilience

Speaker 2 42:43

Okay. Science backed . I like that. I mean ,

Speaker 1 42:45

Hey,

Speaker 2 42:45

Hey. Who paid for the science though? I'm just kidding. <laugh> . Uh, yeah, <laugh> , what do we got? Let's hit that first one.

Speaker 1 42:53

Cultivate a strong support system.

Speaker 2 42:56

Mm . Makes sense. Yeah. You know, all your friends from high school that kept doing drugs and are , you know, losers.

Speaker 1 43:05

I think about , um, for those of , uh, our listeners who have been in a friendly mosh pit

Speaker 2 43:12

Versus a ,

Speaker 1 43:13

Versus a non-friendly mosh pit <laugh> . So in a friendly mosh pit, you're having fun. Yeah. Um ,

Speaker 2 43:19

You might get knocked down and someone helps you up . Someone

Speaker 1 43:20

Picks you up immediately. Yeah. And a non-friendly mosh pit, they just trample on your face.

Speaker 2 43:26

Yep .

Speaker 1 43:27

So to me, the reason resilience having a strong network is so important is because you might get knocked down so hard that you need your peers to pick you up. Yeah . You might get your knocked out. Yeah.

Speaker 2 43:39

Hey , let's just be real. easier with friends.

Speaker 1 43:43

Yeah. It really is good friends. Yeah. You

Speaker 2 43:44

Know, I've helped, I've helped Brian move like 12 times.

Speaker 1 43:47

I couldn't have done it without you.

Speaker 2 43:48

And you always call up somehow you magically get 15 people to show up. I you send out a text thread, you know, with 75 people and usually 10 or 15 show up.

Speaker 1 43:59

Yeah. It's really the , the three big moves in my life. We had a crew of about 15 people. Yeah . But I'm organized. I project manage it. There's a truck there, the pre-work is done. Oh yeah. People show up, they

Speaker 2 44:11

Eat. Oh my

Speaker 1 44:12

Gosh. They drink beer. We fill the truck twice, we unload the truck twice and everyone goes home.

Speaker 2 44:17

Probably the main rule here for helping someone move is if you show up and the not in boxes yet,

Speaker 1 44:22

You leave immediately. Uh ,

Speaker 2 44:24

That's not your friend anymore. That's someone who just <laugh>.

Speaker 1 44:27

Yeah, yeah. No, you're right. Here . Here's , here's the , here's the, here's the way to navigate that. You're right. If someone shows up and is like, yeah, man, helping me move. And it's like there's like, the boxes aren't even put together yet. Like , oh , can you help

Speaker 2 44:38

Me ? There's stack of boxes. Can you help me fold clothes and put 'em in boxes?

Speaker 1 44:41

Your next response is, yeah, man, I'll help you however you need me. Um , I got two hours and then I gotta go to blah, blah, blah. So man, I got two hours,

Speaker 2 44:51

Man .

Speaker 1 44:51

Just playing your As .

Speaker 2 44:52

Don't be that person. Don't

Speaker 1 44:53

Do it .

Speaker 2 44:54

All right . Um , next one, this list practice optimism and positive thinking.

Speaker 1 44:58

Yeah. And I love the word practice.

Speaker 2 45:01

Yeah.

Speaker 1 45:02

Like, you can decide right now. Um , I had a great breakfast and I'm thankful for that.

Speaker 2 45:08

Yeah, for sure. Gratitude.

Speaker 1 45:10

I had sex with my spouse last night and I'm grateful for that.

Speaker 2 45:13

Yeah, totally .

Speaker 1 45:14

You can have a positive, you can, you can force yourself. You can intentionally think about the positive things.

Speaker 2 45:20

Yeah. Yeah. You're stuck in traffic, right? You're like , man, I'm stuck in traffic. I'm freaking out. Yeah. Or like, man, I'm really enjoying this podcast now I have an extra 10 minutes to listen to this.

Speaker 1 45:31

Yeah. And you know what? The car you have is better than 80% of the houses people live in, in this world. <laugh> .

Speaker 2 45:38

So true. Yeah. Absolutely. It's all perspective. It's

Speaker 1 45:42

Perspective.

Speaker 2 45:43

I mean , yeah.

Speaker 1 45:45

Anyway. And , um, uh, uh, positive thinking. Like , uh, in that moment you , you can be like , uh, yeah , it's adaptability, right? It's like, oh , if I leave it this time, I'm gonna hit school traffic. So I'm either going to not have morning meetings and leave later, or I'm gonna leave earlier.

Speaker 2 46:01

What is it? Pivot. We , we had the episode with Alex Stadler, one of our guest episodes, and he said, there's not problems. There's opportunities. There

Speaker 1 46:08

You go.

Speaker 2 46:10

So you think you turn your problems into opportunities.

Speaker 1 46:13

That's right. That sounds like some awesome agility. That sounds like a

Speaker 2 46:16

Resilience book. <laugh> ,

Speaker 1 46:18

Uh , we got develop a sense of purpose and meaning.

Speaker 2 46:23

I think people need purpose.

Speaker 1 46:24

Yeah. If you get knocked down, it's like, nah, I don't wanna do that anyway. <laugh>, you're not gonna get whatever.

Speaker 2 46:31

I mean , maybe getting knocked down is what makes you realize you don't wanna do it. Good point. And the agility is the

Speaker 1 46:38

Oh

Speaker 2 46:39

Yeah. Is having the mental awareness to say, actually I don't wanna , I don't do that. Don't , I don't wanna be a dot , dot dot .

Speaker 1 46:46

I , I'd rather

Speaker 2 46:47

Do this. I don't wanna do this for the rest of my life. That

Speaker 1 46:49

Is a good point. Quitting the fight isn't necessarily a bad thing. Yeah. If you go and do the thing that you want to do,

Speaker 2 46:57

It just looks at, you have to look at your purpose. Yeah . Is this serving my main purpose or not? Yeah . Like , oh , you know, actually I don't care about this. This is not the main purpose I want in life, so I don't wanna be a yada , yada

Speaker 1 47:08

Yada. It's funny that you say that because I was at Thea's house, her sister Yeah . Saturday we're just chilling out. And , um, she said, for so long I thought that , uh, I wanted to be a start a business. And I was trying the entrepreneurial thing. And then she, she came to some self-awareness of like, I don't think I want to be a business owner or an entrepreneur. I think I just wanted to do that because that's what I thought would get respect from people.

Speaker 2 47:34

Yeah.

Speaker 1 47:35

And she's like, I, I like, I like being a part of a team and I honestly love supporting someone else's mission and vision and helping them be successful. I'm, I'm completely fine with that. Yeah . And I just was like, how did that feel to like,

Speaker 2 47:47

Figure that out? Take

Speaker 1 47:48

That pressure off, like, yeah. Oh, you don't have to be a start a business to be successful or valuable as a human being, and now you can just take that pressure off the plate. And it doesn't mean that you might change your mind in 10 years, but who cares? That's 10 years from now , who cares? But right now, pressure's off.

Speaker 2 48:04

Yeah. That's why I keep talking. I say it every episode now. There's no book that fell out of the sky that said, you have to do this. You

Speaker 1 48:12

Have to do this to be a valuable human being .

Speaker 2 48:13

You have to do, or, or , or , or this happens. Yeah . It's all. You , we all make ourselves miserable with these things. Yeah . Like, you don't have to do anything. Yeah,

Speaker 1 48:24

Man.

Speaker 2 48:25

I mean, if you want friends or if you want things, you have to be a certain kind of person. But like, yeah. We don't have to start a business because you're someone in your family or your close friend did and now they're rich or like, have to do. Yeah. I mean, in Thea's case, our sister, she realized, okay, I don't wanna be an entrepreneur. Yeah . She's okay with supporting someone's vision. Now you just have to find a business or an organization that you support. Yeah. Like , okay, I'll work for this person. Yeah . They , they care or they have the qualities that I'm looking for. Yeah. You know? Yeah . But now you have a path. You have a path . Say , I'm not gonna work for psychopath and make them rich. Right. I wanna work for someone I respect. Yeah . And we can grow together. Yep . Yeah. But now you're not forcing yourself in a mold you don't give a about.

Speaker 1 49:13

Yeah. God, that's good. What else, bro ?

Speaker 2 49:18

Anyway . Um,

Speaker 1 49:19

I feel like it's one we say all the time. Practice ,

Speaker 2 49:21

Um , mindfulness and meditation. Yeah . Oh

Speaker 1 49:23

My gosh. That increases mental resilience.

Speaker 2 49:25

Yeah. I imagine that. Yeah. We can just go ahead and these , the last ones are pretty

Speaker 1 49:29

Take care of your physical health. Yeah. Uh , it was funny, Joe Rogan , uh, I just saw a clip on him just yesterday that said , um, um, he was reading a study from, I don't know , Australia or somewhere, but , um, that people that were active physically , um, the percentage less, it , it was more effective to be physically active than to take the top three drugs , um, for depression. So this was for depression , um, to be physically active, outperform the top three drugs , uh, used to , uh, treat depression, depression and um, and counseling. So that's just , again, physical activity just changes the brain makes you more resilient. Yeah. I mean, if you're used to sitting in a chair and not moving all day, your brain is probably not used to being resilient. <laugh> . It's like,

Speaker 2 50:22

Yeah. I think we say this every time, every episode. Right . Um , you know, you don't have to go to the gym. I don't care about the gym. You don't care about the gym. Just start with walking.

Speaker 1 50:32

Yeah.

Speaker 2 50:33

Just, just move the body. Yeah. Literally.

Speaker 1 50:36

Yeah. Like you're doing pull-ups on the ladder over there.

Speaker 2 50:39

Yeah. And it's little things throughout the day, you know? Yeah . I don't, I don't not work out all week. And then on Sunday I go on a hours 40 mile run and kill myself. Yeah. You know, I'll do a couple burpees.

Speaker 1 50:52

You'll probably do a hundred burpees by the end of the office day in here.

Speaker 2 50:55

You know, I'll do a couple burpees here. I'll work at the computer, I'll do a couple pull-ups, we'll go on a walk. Yeah. And that's every day .

Speaker 1 51:01

Every day . Yeah.

Speaker 2 51:02

You know?

Speaker 1 51:03

Yeah.

Speaker 2 51:04

So,

Speaker 1 51:05

Develop problem solving skills. So back to my example, the footwear company, like developing problem solving skills. Again, like we live in a culture where our parents solve all of our problems. We're told what to do, not how to think. Um, so like, we don't like the brains, just that there's a skill associated with problem solving and

Speaker 2 51:22

You're not gonna learn it in school. We talked about that school doesn't teach you how to learn or solve problems. Really. Yeah. There's there's one answer. Yeah.

Speaker 1 51:29

One answer, which

Speaker 2 51:29

There's usually more than one answer.

Speaker 1 51:31

<laugh> , right. Um, so developing your problem solving skills is , um, you know, anytime something comes up, it's just sit down, list your options, get some counsel and make a move.

Speaker 2 51:45

And most, most problems are not, if the person who lost their leg in the car accident can figure it out

Speaker 1 51:51

And

Speaker 2 51:52

They're not depressed and you know, they're still living amazing life and they f found a positive spin on it, then you can figure it out when you know the name for your website's taken.

Speaker 1 52:03

Yeah . <laugh> , you know ,

Speaker 2 52:04

Or some like that. Right. You know, this was the perfect name. The name was gonna make me Rich <laugh> , you know ? No, it wasn't.

Speaker 1 52:11

So , no.

Speaker 2 52:12

Anyway,

Speaker 1 52:12

Anyway, yeah. So honestly , uh, out of everything we've talked about in everything I've ever read?

Speaker 2 52:20

Yeah. What's that? Um , or I mean, what you got.

Speaker 1 52:24

I think if we can be agile, resilient, and focused, we'll be, we'll accomplish whatever it is. I won't say successful because that's a relative term, but I'll just say we can, we'll keep moving in the right direction.

Speaker 2 52:40

Yeah. And not everyone has to be the freaking nine figure entrepreneur.

Speaker 1 52:45

Yeah. But , um,

Speaker 2 52:47

But you still need these, even if you want to , if all you wanna do is start a homestead Yeah. If you wanna start a small farm or whatever, I think

Speaker 1 52:54

That takes more resilience than farmers

Speaker 2 52:56

Are the most, most resilient people on the planet. Dead serious. Yeah .

Speaker 1 53:00

Dead serious.

Speaker 2 53:01

That's no insane . But , uh, no matter what you wanna do in life, and part of emotional intelligence is realizing, do I wanna do this because my, everyone in my family was a veteran, or was a , was a , this, everyone in my family did it. Maybe , uh, maybe you don't wanna do that.

Speaker 1 53:19

Yeah.

Speaker 2 53:20

So you have to , you have to figure this out.

Speaker 1 53:22

Yeah. I watched the , um, house of Gucci movie. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> about the founding family of Gucci. Yeah. No, there's no Gucci family that owns Gucci anymore. The movie's fantastic. By, by

Speaker 2 53:34

The way. Really ? Who owns Gucci?

Speaker 1 53:35

Uh , just some investment company. Wow. Um, but , um, the family , um, um, I forgot the main actress. She's a singer, lady Gaga. What's her name? What's her real name?

Speaker 2 53:50

No idea.

Speaker 1 53:51

Anyway , um, I think she was one of the actresses did a phenomenal job. Um , but anyway , house of Gucci and like , um, you know, like the , the son of one of the main founders, there was a couple brothers that were founders and the son of the main founder, like didn't, didn't wanna follow in his father's footsteps. And , um, and then he married his wife and she convinced him to get back in it. And he did. And he ousted a couple uncles and he had 50%, a hundred percent we had, it was mixed. Yeah. Between the investment and his family, he ousted his uncles, all that made him all mad. And then once he got his 50% , um, his wife had him murdered and he got shot and he died. So that's the story of Gucci.

Speaker 2 54:46

Wow.

Speaker 1 54:48

So

Speaker 2 54:49

Well

Speaker 1 54:49

Follow what you wanna do cuz

Speaker 2 54:51

Maybe doing what other people want you to do is not the answer.

Speaker 1 54:55

<laugh> might have a hard path.

Speaker 2 54:58

Oh. If you want to be miserable, if you just wanna be miserable. If you wanna make your life as difficult as possible. I personally don't think life was supposed to be like, maybe for some people, you know what , everyone's path is different. Yeah. But my path is not to struggle every day with something I really despise doing. Yeah. I just, I'm not here to do that. Yeah. That's just me though. I don't,

Speaker 1 55:20

It goes back to,

Speaker 2 55:21

And I'm not saying that's not the same as not working hard.

Speaker 1 55:23

Right, right, right. It goes back to there's a threshold that's required monetarily to eat and stay in shelter. Yeah. But at the end of the day , um, our base that we believe is required is much higher than most people in the world. Hmm . Yeah. So we can be pretty content in a small house and it just doesn't, even though things are very expensive, it doesn't, it still doesn't cost a lot. Yeah. To have a good old Honda Civic Oh yeah. Live in a well-maintained little house. We've

Speaker 2 56:00

Talked about this too. The immigrant comes from some country and all they have is a little apartment and a 2007 Honda Civic. Yeah . You know, with 280,000 miles. Yep . And they're , they love life so much. They love life . They're like , sweet. I get to wake up and not worry about bombs. Yeah . Our gunshots , our freaking warlords, our Yeah . Rival factions showing up <laugh> , you know, and , uh, freaking , uh, pickup trucks with 50 cows mounted to 'em and they

Speaker 1 56:28

Buy their , they buy their 20 bag of rice. I get to just , and they cook from home and they make the most beautiful, epic meals .

Speaker 2 56:33

Yeah. I get to just live. Yeah . And it's amazing. So it's like we , we've been sold this idea. Yeah . That happiness is all this crazy. Yeah. When really you might, all you need, I mean, I don't need a bunch of crazy. Yeah. You know? Mm . Just 400 acres. I'm just kidding. <laugh> . No. But , uh, yeah , that's the whole thing. It's, but life is funny like that, right? Yeah . That's just being born in America. Yeah. So

Speaker 1 56:59

All I need is a hundred acres and a Ford Super Duty, two 50 trimmer edition . If

Speaker 2 57:05

My F two 50, if it ain't a King Ranch or a platinum, I don't want it. <laugh> .

Speaker 1 57:12

If you got a King Ranch, you ain't got . That's

Speaker 2 57:14

What , when you're in , when I work in Texas, trucks , trucks started at , at , uh, 25 hundreds.

Speaker 1 57:21

Oh yeah. Start at 80 grand .

Speaker 2 57:23

No. Yeah . But I'm saying like, you know, there's like 15 hundreds, you know, F-150 is 15 hundreds. Oh yeah . So like ram trucks out there, they start at two 50 or 15 or 25 hundreds.

Speaker 1 57:32

1500 is like , that's like the toy car

Speaker 2 57:35

In Texas. That's for your wife <laugh>,

Speaker 1 57:37

You know ? Yeah .

Speaker 2 57:38

That's for your 16 year old daughter going to high school. She gets the , the 1500 gets ,

Speaker 1 57:43

It's still four by four though. Still forward

Speaker 2 57:44

Track . Yeah . Even though Texas is flat, no snow, but hey, you need it to haul the , the cattle.

Speaker 1 57:50

That's right.

Speaker 2 57:51

But uh, yeah . Yeah . It's pretty funny out there . Anyway, now we're just bullshitting. Yeah.

Speaker 1 57:57

Time to go. Yeah, let's go.

Speaker 3 57:59

Thank you for listening to the Focus cast . Go youtube.com/the focus cast and slap that subscribe button, babe . Head to the focus cast.com , share what you wanna hear next. Go forth and be focused then Boy, boy .