200 – Partner Mindset Mastery: Celebrating 200 Episodes with Michael Gervais

Dr. Mike Gervais Join Ultimate Guide to Partnering®

Welcome to a milestone episode of the “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” podcast! I can hardly believe it’s our 200th episode. To mark this special occasion, we’re diving into a foundational principle of partnership that we believe is often overlooked but incredibly vital. At Ultimate Partner, we emphasize the importance of cultivating the right mindset, be it a growth mindset, an infinite mindset, or a partnership mindset. This mindset is the key to unlocking the full potential of partnership leaders and achieving their greatest results. We’re passionate about this topic, and we’re thrilled to explore it further today.

In this episode, we have a remarkable guest with us, Mike Gervais. He’s not only a dear friend but also a high-performance leader and coach, known for working with CEOs, Olympic athletes, and individuals from diverse backgrounds to help them reach their peak potential. Mike is the host of the Finding Mastery Podcast and also the author of a compelling new book, “The First Rule of Mastery.” This marks his fourth appearance on “Ultimate Guide to Partnering,” and we’re diving deep into his book’s principles and how they can empower you to achieve your greatest results.

So, sit back, relax, and get ready to absorb insights from Mike Gervais as we celebrate our 200th episode of “Ultimate Guide to Partnering.”

What You’ll Learn?

1. Mindset and partnership principles for success.0:00
2. Overcoming fear of others’ opinions in personal and professional growth.2:11
   • Dr. Michael Gervais wrote his book “The First Rule of Mastery” to explore the science of excellence and the importance of being at home with oneself, even in set environments.
   • Dr. Gervais struggled with conforming and shapeshifting to fit in with others’ expectations, which limited his freedom and potential for success.
   • Dr. Michael Gervais discusses the cost of excessive worry about others’ opinions, which hinders potential and shows up in benign ways in organizations.
   • Dr. Michael Gervais argues that people’s desire for acceptance and approval from others can lead to living life on other people’s terms, rather than one’s own.
   • He believes this can result in a lack of self-confidence and potential, as well as a fear of rejection that can hinder organizational potential.
3. Overcoming fear of others’ opinions in leadership roles.9:43
   • The importance of psychology in leadership and decision-making, recognizing that personal emotions and thoughts can impact organizational success.
   • Dr. Michael Gervais emphasizes the role of psychology in unlocking potential within individuals and organizations, highlighting the need for self-awareness and different choices to make progress.
   • Dr. Gervais highlights the pressure to succeed in organizational settings, particularly for early career professionals, and how this pressure can lead to playing it small and not reaching one’s potential.
   • Dr. Gervais offers advice for partner leaders dealing with fear of other people’s opinions, suggesting they prioritize their own potential and well-being over external validation.
4. FOMO, mindfulness, and leadership.14:24
   • Dr. Michael Gervais highlights the importance of recognizing and addressing the “hidden epidemic” of people pleasing in the workplace, which can lead to burnout and decreased productivity.
   • He uses the analogy of two fish swimming in different directions to illustrate how people may fail to notice the water they’re swimming in, and the need to bring awareness to this issue through open conversations.
   • Dr. Michael Gervais explains how to create psychological safety by being vulnerable and acknowledging mistakes, leading to increased investment in purpose and mission rather than identity.
   • Dr. Gervais: Thoughts and emotions work together, grinding only leads to exhaustion.
5. Mental skills training in business leadership.20:48
   • Dr. Michael Gervais highlights the importance of recovery and mindfulness practices in the workplace, citing elite sport as a model for how to prioritize well-being and performance.
   • He emphasizes the need for leaders to adopt these practices to help their teams manage excessive worry and find a competitive advantage in the modern workplace.
   • Dr. Michael Gervais suggests starting meetings by sharing mistakes or areas for improvement to create “radical honesty” and increase awareness of FOMO.
   • He emphasizes the importance of investing in growth mindset principles, such as self-awareness, self-talk, and deep learning, to build confidence and resilience in the face of stress.
6. Partner-led growth and wellbeing in business.26:21
   • Partner leader struggles to drive organizational change and growth.
   • Leaders must prioritize wellbeing and high performance to retain employees and avoid burnout.
7. Meditation and mindfulness in leadership.30:08
   • Dr. Michael Gervais suggests leading by example and sharing the benefits of meditation with the team to make it more approachable and appealing.
   • He encourages leaders to bring in someone to help with the process and provide air cover, especially if they are new to it.
   • Dr. Michael Gervais recommends a 6-minute breathing exercise to increase awareness and focus.
   • He explains how to shift from a performance-based identity to a purpose-based identity, shedding external validation and focusing on personal growth.
8. Purpose, leadership, and personal growth.34:36
   • Dr. Michael Gervais emphasizes the importance of clarifying one’s purpose and being true to it, rather than just focusing on performance.
   • He encourages listeners to start small by thinking about their purpose for today, this week, or this month, rather than trying to tackle life purpose all at once.
   • Leaders should prioritize creating space for team members to share their purpose, foster relationships, and develop competence.
9. Purpose, alignment, and mindfulness in leadership.39:30
   • Dr. Michael Gervais and Speaker 1 discuss the importance of understanding one’s purpose and how it can be aligned with an organization’s purpose to achieve greater success.
   • Satya Nadella’s leadership approach at Microsoft is highlighted as a model for aligning individual purposes with the company’s purpose, inspiring employees to find mastery in service of their unique goals.
   • Dr. Michael Gervais discusses the importance of having open conversations with teammates and recognizing the potential constrictors of human potential, such as fear of others’ opinions.
   • Research by Professor Gilovich at Cornell shows that only 25% of people are paying attention to us at any given time, highlighting the importance of mindfulness and purpose-based identity.
10. Mental skills and leadership with Dr. Michael Gervais.44:18
    • Dr. Michael Gervais helps elite athletes and performers explore their mental skills and how they want to show up in their respective fields, focusing on the “how” rather than the “what.”
    • He works backwards from the desired mental state to identify the skills needed to achieve it, emphasizing the importance of knowing oneself and one’s team to be great together.
    • Dr. Michael Gervais imagines a world where one in five people are flourishing, fueled by anxiety and rigid thinking.
    • Dr. Michael Gervais emphasizes the importance of investing in people’s flourishing, rather than just focusing on productivity and efficiency.
    • He believes that by committing to people’s growth from the inside out and matching outside resources, we can change the world.

Mike’s New Book & Breathing Exercise

http://www.findingmastery.com/book

Breathing Exercise

Ultimate Partner LIVE—Dallas, TX, Nov 13-15, 2023

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Announcing Ultimate Partner LIVE – Dallas TX – November 13-15 2023 Ultimate Partner LIVE – The Americas Summit

I’m beyond excited to launch our first LIVE event. Consider this the “double-click” from Microsoft’s Inspire Conference to provide the prescriptive guidance and executive engagement to align, leverage, and scale your Microsoft Partnership.

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• Deep-dive sessions that build on insights from Microsoft’s Inspire Conference.
• A unique assembly of 300+ participants, including Microsoft executives from GPS, SMC, and Marketplace.
• A confluence of industry experts offering prescriptive guidance through real-world experiences, frameworks, and best practices.

Interactive Experience:

• Bidirectional keynotes
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• Breakout and boardroom sessions

Networking:

• Connect with Microsoft Executives, SMC Leaders, GPS, and Marketplace Experts.
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Limited Early Bird Pricing is now available. You can secure your seat today for what promises to be a transformative experience. https://cvent.me/8DN9bP?RefId=Company+Website

I look forward to hosting you and seeing you in Dallas, TX, November 13-15!

Vince Menzione

Why Ultimate Partner?

Over six years ago, I embarked on a mission to empower partners struggling to navigate the complex world of tech giants like Microsoft, Google, and AWS. Today, I’m thrilled to announce the launch of Ultimate Partner, an extraordinary media, events, and advisory company dedicated to transforming your Cloud Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy and fostering Ecosystem Led Growth.

Having witnessed the industry from multiple perspectives – leading a $4.6 billion Ecosystem at Microsoft, spearheading partnerships for a billion-dollar company, and hosting 200 episodes of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering®, I’ve gained invaluable insights and crafted a manifesto of principles to guide your success.

In an era defined by tectonic shifts, such as the global pandemic, economic headwinds, and the rise of AI, the role of hyperscalers has become increasingly critical. With investments of billions of dollars in ecosystems, technology, and customer acquisition costs, they have secured over $200 billion in customer commitments to durable cloud budgets. We stand on the precipice of a marketplace moment where simplifying and streamlining economic models associated with co-selling and ecosystem-led growth will shape the decade ahead.

Yet, as vendors and organizations demand more from us while resources diminish, we ask, “Where do we go? How do we navigate these seismic shifts? How do we thrive during this decade of the ecosystem?”

If you’re a partner, you’re likely grappling with these questions. The watering holes of the past no longer offer the guidance required to transform into a Cloud GTM and embrace Ecosystem Led Growth. That’s why Ultimate Partner exists – to be your trusted compass amidst the noise.

A Word from AG1 Transcription – by Otter.ai – Expect Many Typos

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

purpose, great, organization, mindfulness, people, principles, world, happening, leaders, talk, thinking, room, invest, work, direct reports, mike, ag, hbr, partnering, vince

SPEAKERS

Vince Menzione, Dr. Michael Gervais, Announcer

Vince Menzione 00:00

I’m excited to welcome you to the 200th episode of ultimate guide to partnering. I’m Vince Menzione, your host, and today we’re going to dive into a foundational principle of partnership that we don’t discuss often enough. You see it ultimate partner, we believe that having the right mindset, whether it’s a growth mindset, an infinite mindset, or a partnership mindset, sets up partnership leaders to achieve their greatest results. And it’s a topic we don’t discuss often enough. So welcome to the 200th episode of ultimate guide to partnering.

Announcer 00:38

This is the ultimate guide to partnering the top partnership podcast. In this podcast Vince Menzione, a proven partner sales executive shares his mission to help leaders like you achieve your greatest results through successful partnering. And now your host, Vince Menzione.

Vince Menzione 00:58

Welcome to or welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to partnering. I’m Vince Menzione, your host and today I will. Mike Gervais is both a friend and a high performance leader and coach. He works with CEOs of Olympic athletes and individuals from all walks of life to unlock their potential. He’s also the author of a new book, The first rule of mastery. I’m so excited to welcome him back for his fourth appearance on Ultimate Guide to partnering, where we’ll dive in on this new book, and how its principles apply to help you achieve your greatest results. I hope you enjoy and learn from this discussion as much as I enjoyed welcoming back. Mike Turvey. So I’m so excited to have Mike Dovey. Someone that I like to refer to as a friend and a high performance coach, to performers of all work walks of life. CEOs, Olympic athletes, and of the arts joins us today, Mike, so glad to welcome you back to ultimate guide to Partnering for our 200th Episode

Dr. Michael Gervais 02:11

200 As I’m talking about congratulations, and how fun that I get to, you know, sit with yet 200. So thank you for having me back. And congratulations on the community that you’ve built and supported and helped influence like, in really positive ways. So really nice. Nicely done.

Vince Menzione 02:31

Well, you know, we’d normally have you back for the holiday special, right? We’ve done this now three years in a row. But we have a special reason to have you on early, you’re releasing your first written book, right, because you’ve done an audio book, you’ve done a course, the first rule of mastery, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to have you back today. So I really want to dive in here, especially as we all prepare for this holiday season. But can you tell our listeners about the book and why you wrote it?

Dr. Michael Gervais 02:59

Yes, thank you. Okay, the first rule of mastery, essentially, is to work from the inside out, to invest in your invisible world, which is some of the most powerful sets of processes and practices that have an outsized impact on not only your performance, but the quality of your life. So this is a this is a book about the science of excellence. And essentially excellence to us means to me means the ability to be at home with yourself, wherever you are. And now if you take that idea and add it to mastery, it’s the ability to be at home with yourself wherever you are. And the mastery piece is to have the ability to artistically express yourself in set environments. And so this is the first rule of mastery. And I’ll tell you how it started Vince is that I wrote an article to HBr about this thing that I had privately struggled with. And it was this thing that was getting in the way of my life. And I first noticed that when I was 15, that I was over indexing and over carrying on what other people were thinking of things. And I was conforming and sometimes contorting. And I was shapeshifting. And I built these excellent, you know, social skills to be able to read a room and then fit in. But I was living life on other people’s terms. And I was living life for their approval for their my fear of their rejection. And it wasn’t clinical. It wasn’t like I was, again, I’m a you know, classically trained psychologist, so it didn’t rise to that level. But it certainly was not allowing me to be fully free to really go for it in life. Because I had this extra little variable that was accounting for which is are they going to approve of me? Is this okay in their eyes? Or are they going to push me right out of the tribe? And so 24 months after I wrote If the article HBr called and said, Okay, look, you were the number one downloaded article for for two years in a row

Vince Menzione 05:07

was right.

Dr. Michael Gervais 05:09

Okay, that’s fun. So I dug into the science of, you know, what is this thing? Why did it paying so many people and really touch a nerve in the business world? Come to find out I wasn’t alone. The world’s best athletes and executives and artists that you mentioned at the top, they were in it with me too. And come to find out that apparently the entire HBr community vibe with it. Yeah. So I think it’s available to most of us. And I’m really excited to share some of the best practices.

Vince Menzione 05:42

Well, you know, this translates so well into the principles that I teach around, you know, what makes successful partnering and mindset being the first principle, right, which is my first rule, in a way, but this mastery of this first rule is just so important. You, you mentioned HBr, right? So obviously, this is coming at it from an organizational perspective. And we talk to organizations we profess to help organizations with successful partnering and I want to translate it here for our listeners who are mostly in partnership, and Oregon, a technical organization space, a lot of the organizations that you’ve worked with Microsoft being one of them. And I was wondering how we could talk about that specifically, like, how does this apply? How does, you know fear of people’s opinions specifically apply to how we show up in at work, and then how we shape organizations and how we drive and carve out successful organizations.

Dr. Michael Gervais 06:43

I think the cost is immense across organizations. Let’s first start with the individual, the cost here, of this chronic excessive worry about what they might think of me later, is, I think one of the greatest constructors of one’s potential. And it shows up in really benign ways. And so it’s like when you’re at a social event, or you’re at lunch, or you’re walking in a hallway, or wherever it might be, and you’re checking your phone, for the purpose to look busy or important or is if you’re in demand. That’s photo photo is laughing at a joke that you don’t quite think is cool, or funny or kind even. That’s photo photo, it also shows up when you don’t, you’re holding a cup, an alcohol cup at a party, and you don’t really want to drink, but you don’t want to be the weird one, like photo shows up in weird, non obvious ways. And so the deeper cost is your living life on other people’s terms. So their first principles, what they think is acceptable now has become your source of acceptance. And there is an all outsourcing of your self esteem, your self worth your self confidence to other people. So they’re, again, you’re living in line with their principles and to and by the way, so many people are doing this, it ends up being this kind of snake eating its tail experience from a social setting. But again, I’ll be super clear as you’re living life on their terms, according to their first principles. And what ends up happening is you don’t really live towards what you’re capable of, because your first dictum is to follow the brain’s dictum. And this three pounds of tissue that sits on our skull is designed for safety. And yes, we’re our ancestry figured out how to help us fight well, they’re beasts, okay, your ancestry, my ancestry did that just fine. Okay. The second part of survival that’s really important, and maybe under talked about, is that our ancestry also your lineage, and my lineage figured out how to be accepted by the tribe. Because being pushed out of the tribe, hundreds of 1000s of years ago, was nearly a death sentence. It was it’s too hard to hunt, and gather and forge and create a fire and shelter and protect your, maybe, maybe your spouse and kids and a couple cousins, you know, the six of you trying to figure out how to survive the wild, as opposed to being in the pack of the 600. It was a near death sentence. So for the brain dump in modern times, to to to acceptance and tune to the slightest hint of rejection is like the origin for FOMO fear of people’s opinions. And so the cost is great to human potential. The cost is even greater, I think, to organizational potential. We don’t speak up.

Vince Menzione 09:43

You know, you bring up some really great and valid points here, right, because this partner leaders we are generally trailblazing we are the people in the room who are saying the things that are more provocative around why we should operate differently, right. We’re Sometimes we are in conflict with the chief revenue officer or the chief marketing officer, even the CEO, in fact, who is following a rule or a methodology around direct sales, and yet we’re coming in the room. And we have to take that risk, right, we have to lead a new charge, we need to try and trailblaze as I mentioned, specifically, and if we’re at fear of our own risk, right, as you mentioned, like waking up at three o’clock in the morning worrying about, let’s call it the crocodiles or the alligator in the room, we’re not going to show up that way, we’re not going to show up as leaders, we’re going to be thinking behind, you know, in our own minds, you know, what, what issues we’re having to deal with, who we’re, you know, our jobs at risk, and then going in the room, we’re not going to be as convicted in our principles, and helping to shape the right opinions and strategy for the organization. Is that what I’m hearing?

Dr. Michael Gervais 10:53

Yeah, you are nailing it, because I love the frontier language. What’s really important, if you want to live the good life, if you want to push on the edges of what’s possible, from an organizational and personal life, psychology is going to matter. Your psychology is going to matter, the way that you use your mind, the way that you experience emotions, is going to matter. And so that’s kind of the whole focus of this book is I just want to pull back the curtain on the power of it, give another lens into it, it also squares nicely with my life purpose, which is to help unlock the potential within people. And I wanted to illuminate this process that lives just beneath the surface, where people can recognize how they’re thinking and behaving in response to the perceived judgments of others, and how that shows up. And hopefully, you know, provide the skills to help them make different choices. And in an organizational setting, it’s compounded because that is that that is the social world that matters so much to so many of us. And it’s not social media them out there, the 200 people or 200,000 people on your social media accounts. It’s the social aspect of the people that are responsible for you being included in the thing that is providing for your family. So the social pressure inside of teams meetings, and our in person meetings or board meetings, like it’s intense. And so it’s right below the surface for most of us that pressure to succeed, especially at an early age where we are, we’re bombarded with external rewards and metrics and validation. And football is just running rampant when you add social media to the mix. But for us adults, that came from a richly valued, performance obsessed culture, where there’s a fixation on how well we perform, and that has seeped into work and life in a way that is, I don’t want to use the word unprecedented, but it’s different than it’s ever been before. And so what happens in organizations is we don’t raise our hand, we don’t, we don’t want to push against the fray too much. We play it safe, play it small, we don’t really go for it, and in return, the organization doesn’t thrive in the way it could. And in return, we never really get to know what it’s like to live that forward facing forward facing experience where we’re really pushing into our potential. So I think the cost is great, both individually. And from a organizational standpoint,

Vince Menzione 13:41

you hit a point on playing it small, right? We, we tend to go inside, right? And you know, we’ve talked about mindfulness, right? You taught mindfulness, you got me meditating a couple of years ago, and that has made a profound impact on my ability to, you know, apply towards my own individual performance and achieve things beyond what I expected and move from being small. How would you how would you remedy for if I’m a partner leader? What would you tell me to do differently? If I’m dealing with fear of other people’s opinions? Like how, how am How would you if you were counseling me, what would you tell me to do differently? And what is the book prescribe?

Dr. Michael Gervais 14:26

Okay, one, I think you’re, you’re asking the right question, because the first order of business is to recognize that it is a hidden epidemic, and, and it’s happening amongst so many as evidenced by the cord that it struck, you know, on the HBR article. So the first step is to recognize that it’s likely happening for your teammates for your direct reports might be happening for you as well. And just to bring awareness to it, and instead of trying to scamper around the world to please others, and, you know, having people think that we matter, you know, to in outsourcing that to their approval of us. The idea is to, to weave it into a narrative where you bring it out of the shadows. And you talk about it in the way that David Foster Wallace, you know, told the story, one of the great poets and writers told the story about two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way. And he nods the two young fish and says, morning, boys, how’s the water? And then the two young fish swim on for a little bit not recognizing that the question, and then eventually, one of them looks over the other and goes, How is water? So the older fishes question here, how’s the water is meant to help the young fish think about their own reality? And the things that are they’re so ingrained in their existence that they fail to even notice them? I think that that’s what foe pose. Yeah, I think it’s one of the most important hidden, you know, kind of issues in plain sight. But until we recognize that it is the air that we breathe, the water that we swim in, it’s a little bit like the movie sixth sense, like, where are the ghosts? They’re everywhere. Yeah, I think that that’s what’s happening. So just bringing awareness to it, and, and having the conversation. And this is I’ll give you another fun story is I was I spent time in Formula One. And at the end of race debriefs, what would happen for the team, this is one of the top winning teams in the league is the, the two heads of departments. At the end of the debrief, it’s still kind of intense, the noise from the track is still happening, headphones are on, you know, just 100 yards from the racetrack. And the two principles would say, Alright, here’s where I screwed up on today’s race, or here’s a mistake that I made that I need to go sort out, or here’s something I learned, I didn’t even know, that was part. So they were inoculating the fear of people’s opinions by stepping into a place of vulnerability. So FOMO fear of people’s opinions is born out of not wanting to be rejected, right. So when somebody that has the potential to create air cover, when somebody like the leader, when some when those folks are able to step into a place of vulnerability and say, here’s where I screwed up. And here’s the mistake I made. And I’m not even sure how this happened. But I need to go investigate that the others go, oh, this is about the purpose. This is about the mission. This is not about one’s identity. So so how do you do it, increase the awareness of it to create some air cover by being vulnerable in those ways that you’re not being vulnerable, where if a mongoose was pissed off at you, or not a mongoose, but a raccoon was pissed off, it would just gut you, let’s hop in. So mongooses work or raccoons work is. And so you’re bleeding out from the inside, I don’t know where I’m going with this analogy. But you’re doing it in a way to create psychological safety for other people. And when you do that, you get people to feel more invested in the purpose and the mission, as opposed to their identity. Like I said, purpose based identity is the off ramp to one of the significant on ramps to faux pas. So the on ramp to FOMO is a performance based identity. It’s this idea that I am what I do, and how good I am as a person is related to how good I am at what I do. And it becomes this snake eating its tail experience again, where we just don’t quite realize how to get out of that. That interlocking loop of just wanting to look good based on how we how well we perform. That’s one of the reasons we’re so exhausted.

Vince Menzione 18:49

isn’t it also true that we have so many thoughts? Let’s think it’s 60 or 70,000 thoughts a day. And the fact that we pick up our phone first thing in the morning is first thing we do is look at our Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn account, we’re looking to see how many likes we have. We’re looking for that validation. And, and we’re spending our time there. And then questioning like why am I not like someone so comparing them ourselves to other people, versus focusing in on the objective or the goal, like quieting the mind. I know you’ve talked about this and coming back to some of your earlier principles around quieting the mind around getting mindful and really thinking about like, what is it what is the objective that I’m trying to achieve? Isn’t isn’t that it, Mike?

Dr. Michael Gervais 19:35

Yeah, so you’re squaring two ideas, which I love. You’re threading these two together, which is unless you have the ability to work from the inside out. And you become schooled or learned on how your thoughts and emotions work together. You just gotta grind and that the cost of being a grinder and listen, we all need to work and we all do need to grind But grinding only is a path to exhaustion. And so until you go upstream to learn how thoughts, your thoughts and emotions work together, you find that you’re constantly in the rapids of life as opposed to the upstream, you know, watching what’s happening and being able to guide where your boat goes, rather than just like, Why am I always in the rapids. And I think that that practice of mindfulness has been such an important one for me in so many in the research is so clear, it begs the question, why are we not doing it? Why are we not as an organization investing in a, one of the more incredible psychological practices of mindfulness? And the answer that I’ve come to learn is twofold. One is, many leaders are operating from fear. And so they’ve got this tension about meeting quarterly deadlines or, you know, meeting the, the market demands. And so they say they turn to their direct reports with that anxiety, whether it’s obviously expressed or not, but they’re trying to extract high work ethic and extract talent, or I’m sorry, the, the the best out of people to give to the purpose or the mission of the company, but not showing them how to refuel, refuel and replenish not showing them how to work like from settling into the present moment, as opposed to being anxious about what’s coming next. They’re not, we’re not yet showing people. And again, I didn’t make this explicit, big sport, elite sport, which is where I come from, they’re about 10 to 15 years ahead of big business. And in, in big sport. It’s a daily practice of recovery, sleeping, eating, napping, Muzak, can’t take a nap, you can take 12 minutes to quiet down, maybe you don’t fully fall asleep. But you can take time to find those moments to down regulate in a purposeful way. I can go on and on about best practices of recovery, so that you can work with great intensity when you’re in it. And mindfulness is one of those great core capabilities. And in big sport, right now people are meditating. And it’s not suggested to go meditate later, they are meditating in the rhythm of their business, it’s coming now, to corporate worlds, it’s coming to business, modern leaders are going to fold or are going to start folding in the best practices of psychology in between nine to five, and those that are doing that are finding a competitive advantage in a meaningful way. Because their people are not exhausted. They’re actually using psychology, the science of psychology to help lift performance, but not at the cost of well being. And Firpo is definitely one of them. And so raise awareness, go from performance based identity to purpose based identity, we explained that in the book, which is cool, and then invest in a whole set of practices to downregulate. From the intensity of the day, all of those help to relieve that, that excessive worry about being okay.

Vince Menzione 23:11

And you know, we all need to grab a copy of this book once it comes out in early November. But maybe you could take us through some of those steps, right as the partner leader, what would be some of the things you would tell me to do?

Dr. Michael Gervais 23:23

Well, I would suggest, like what we’re starting just a minute ago, is start your meetings with ways that you have made some mistakes, or some things that you’re aware of that are happening for you. And start with that because it does create radical air cover. The second is to increase awareness of FOMO that it’s a thing happening and you can tie it to biology, you can tie it back to look, it’s as simple as saying, our brains are designed to be accepted, to not be rejected. And that’s happening here. And we might call a group thing, we might call it biases. But what’s actually happening is, we just want to know that we’re okay in the eyes of our teammates. And so one of the things we’re going to do is let’s just address that, what what is not okay, let’s address the things that we don’t want to tolerate any more, is just nodding is just being okay with the status quo. Let’s use our intellect. Let’s be emotional in how we’re working. And let’s take care of each other. Let’s listen. So investing in all of the growth mindset principles. And again, growth mindset is amazingly powerful if you train your mind to be a great learner, even during moments of stress, if you don’t train your mind on the basic mental skills, growth mindset at the moment of stress is thrown out the window. Survival kicks in and being a true deep learner is compromised. So that’s something that I would say is a third component here is invent so in sport, we call it front loading. We front load mental skill. was training prior to a competition. We don’t wait until the rapids of the competition to suggest somebody learn how to be confident, how to be calm, how to deeply focus, you know how to have a sense of optimism, that’s it’s too late. You have to focus on the task at hand. So what we do is we give up, we train ahead of time, all the mental skills, which ones I just named are so easy to develop confidence is so simple to train. And I’m not talking about arrogance or hubris, ism, or hubris, it just the basic mechanics, that confidence, train them. And that comes from self talk. So if you want to help your team, be more confident, help them become aware of their self talk. That’s where mindfulness sits in the conversation. And then once they’re aware of their self talk, give them the tools to directionally move toward powerful self talk, productive self talk, confident building self talk, as opposed to critical or excessive worry or judgmental. Those types of self narratives pull people down, trade safety, but smallness, and it you know, we’re a bit like lobsters, we pull other people down to us. And the way to kind of keep us in the, in the same situation rather than somebody else kind of moving above the fray, if you will.

Vince Menzione 26:21

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Dr. Michael Gervais 28:28

I’ll add to it like, right now the world is demanding a better way of living. And working in corporate settings. Were saying I’m no longer going to accept being the sacrificial lamb or let me not say that way. People are saying I’m no longer accepting the terms of business, I am not going to allow you to extract the best of me at the cost of my relationship with my family, and the cost of my personal health. So what is being demanded right now? Is that leaders are saying okay, okay. All right. The old model is not working. What’s the new model, the new model is an investment in the intersection between wellbeing and high performance. So it’s not just high performance, it’s not just productive productivity is going to go the way of the dodo. That is an old friend dropped out from the lexicon right now. It’s moving into that intersection between well being as a base like I know how to thrive in life, and then you layer on top of that high performing abilities. And if we don’t have those two things in place, we’re burning through people, the cost is incredibly high. So the new model for leadership are those that understand how to deploy best practices of psychology. While I’m not suggesting they become psychologist, I’m suggesting that they understand the ways to deploy practice building strategies inside With a nine to five, it’s as simple as 330 seconds to three minutes in the agenda on a regular basis, and to run a playbook there. And, you know, it’s not every agenda. But if you were to pull six minutes, once a week on one of your meetings, to invest in meditation, you’d have an outsized impact on people just settling in for six minutes, getting a moment of recovery, may be getting to some Insight and Truth about some stuff. But you’re doing it together, you’re saying, I see you, I recognize how hard you work, let’s invest in the recovery, to make sure that we can be great in the next 45 minutes. And then maybe we’ll do it again. You know, so there is enough time in our day to do this. Now, we’re just so scared to create change that we’re not doing it enough. But this is the opportunity, I’m telling you right now, it’s a time for Jesus, this is a really exciting time. For people that know that there’s a better way to organize the work life,

Vince Menzione 31:01

I’m thinking back to you taking us through meditation. So you as an outsider coming into the room, maybe I’ll just suggest it might even be easier. But me as the leader of the team, like how do I, how do I go to my team and say, we’re gonna go through this practice, like, we’re gonna we’re gonna spend six minutes on meditation mindfulness, how would you suggest I do that?

Dr. Michael Gervais 31:25

That’s cool. So one is the can only lead or give what you have. So if you’re, if you’re so new to the process, that you don’t know what to say, it’s probably a little too new. But and bring somebody in to help you with that air cover. If you’re so new to it, that you’re just, you just love it. And you see the potential in it. And by the way, the research is outrageous. And it’s been around for 2600 years, like there’s something here. And so. So if you would say something like this, you’d say, Alright, everyone, we’re gonna do something a little bit different today. Here’s what I want you to do, is I want you to keep your unmute yourself. Okay, so we’re there’s going to be noise in the background, no problems, unmute yourself, you can turn your camera off if you want. But I’m asking you to create a space where we can do something very basic, we’re gonna meditate. And I’m gonna give you the instructions. And it’s something as simple as this. For the next six minutes, I’m just going to put a timer on, I’m going to do it on my phone. And all I want you to do for the next six minutes, is just focus on really big inhales somewhere like four or five seconds in. And then really nice, enjoyable exhales something like 810 12 seconds out somewhere there. So the cadence is like foreign aid out, or five seconds in 10 seconds out. And you say all I want you to do for next six minutes is just to focus on one breath at a time. That’s it. And when your mind starts to wander, when it starts to solve all the things we need to get done today, when you start focusing on how your left Bakshi, Kirk’s, or like all the things that you get didn’t get done this morning that you want to that no problems, just wink at it, say hello, and goodbye to it, and come back to your next exhale. And we’re gonna do that for six minutes. That would be that would be a really nice, simple way to start. And then, you know, I’m also help help happy bins to send your community like an audio file that they can just play one that I’ve used that multinationals and large corporations for I’m just happy to send that to folks. And you know, we can figure that out. They can just send an email over to us and we’ll get that to him.

Vince Menzione 33:37

That’d be great. Maybe we can embed it in the show notes for this episode, Mike. Yeah, so very cool. We talked about the mindfulness aspects, what other aspects in this first rule, this first rule, mastery do you go through in the book awareness is

Dr. Michael Gervais 33:51

step number one. Mindfulness is a way to increase awareness, but talking about another way to increase awareness. Step two is to go from a performance based identity to a purpose based identity. Okay, that really matters is to understand what your unique purposes in life now and to start to shed and drop this, I am who I am based on how well I do something to the reason I’m working so hard. The reason that I’m investing in high performance is because I want to send my kids to college is because I want to have a stable roof over my head is because, you know, I want to feel a sense of excitement and how I design is because I want to build 100 homes in across the board or whatever it might be. Right? Okay. So you get clear on your purpose. Now, your intentionality is not to look good, but to serve well. And when you start to square that, when you walk on stage, one of the most dangerous things to modern humans is not willing to beasts. You know, it is unfortunately in the corporate setting. Its eyeballs. It’s the way people look at issue and it’s your fear that they’re critiquing and judging you. That’s why public speaking is so terrifying. It’s football. It’s fear of people’s opinions. That’s so terrifying. What are they going to do? The only thing they can do is laugh and kick you out. Okay? If you’re on a purpose, and you’re really on it, and you think of any world, great Vince, any of them, Mandela, Jesus can fuchsia mother, Teresa, you, you you list the great, their purpose was clear. And if if they walk into a room, and they couldn’t quite inspire the room in the right way, that’s not no problem. It’s not an indictment on them. It’s like, I gotta go to a different room. And so, so be about your purpose. And if you say, Okay, how do we do that, because it seems overwhelming, which it is, take your time, there’s three ways to do it. First, listen to yourself, like create that space and cry time, quiet time to either write your purpose down, or to meditate about it, and have conversations with people of wisdom that really know you, that want the best for you. And calibrate that with them. Because you share your purpose with some people, they don’t want you to grow. They want you to be just the person you are relative to them. Because they like, they like how they feel next to you. This could be family, unfortunately, certainly friends, to know the right people, you’re going to share your purpose with the origins just to make sure when you push off the dock, it’s not contorted by 44% or 40%. Right. And it’s an even simpler way to think about purpose events is to say, Okay, it’s too big for me to think about life purpose, right? Now, I got too much going on. Alright, then say, What is my purpose for today? What is my purpose for this week? What’s my purpose for this month starts. So start to practice thinking about purpose, purpose, as opposed to just performance.

Vince Menzione 36:59

I love what you have to say here around purpose and being true to your purpose true, because some people try to make it look like their purpose is always philanthropic, right, I’m trying to save world hunger, whatever that might be, where I might, in fact, be I want to buy a bigger home, or I want to provide for my children’s college education, right, but be true to your purpose.

Dr. Michael Gervais 37:19

Yeah, and for leaders to understand the power of that and create space and time and challenges for people to know their purpose, and then create the space for them to share their purpose, their life purpose with each other, is a radical commitment to being great teammates for each other. Team teams don’t just happen, they happen because teammates want to be great for each other. And so, like, creating that space, for me to know, my teammates, purpose is really cool. And also, I think, for leaders, as we’re just speaking right into leaders right now, is, it is well worth it to go look at DC and Ryan to to psychologists and their self determination theory, and thinking about how you can understand their insights on motivation to help people work from the inside out. And the great levers that you can manipulate for the benefit of others, is to help them become competent in something that matters to them. And then when they demonstrate brilliance is are glimpses of competence, like celebrate the wildness out of it. So So competence is one of them, we want to get better at stuff, okay. And then second is belonging and relationships. So investing in the relationships outside of the transactional nature of of, of work. So relate, and I’m not saying that we need to know everything about somebody, I’m saying that, to know that there’s a person inside of each one of your direct reports, know that person and get them to know each other just a little bit better. And then the third is fostering a sense of autonomy, that they are making decisions on who and how and when and why. And when you do that one, you also have to lift them up to the level of accountability. So if they want autonomy, you’ve got to also say, Okay, now, you know, there’s a little bit of responsibility that comes with autonomy, like, what do you think you want to share some of this accountability? And most people say, yeah, like, bet on me. And so like, autonomy, relationships, and then development of competence. That’s how we help people to work from the inside out as well.

Vince Menzione 39:33

I keep coming back to purpose, because you measured it, you know, didn’t have you could start off with what is my purpose today? What is my purpose this week? Maybe what is the purpose for my team from an organizational purpose? Or how does my purpose influenced the larger purpose of the organization? And I think what I listened when I listened to what you had to say here, it’s also getting people aligned to your purpose maybe and maybe I’m bored with your purpose because that becomes a collective purpose that we try to drive together, whether it be through an organization or a collective, whatever we’re looking to strive to do.

Dr. Michael Gervais 40:10

And I think that that is one of the great insights from what I consider one of the great CEOs of our time, Satya Nadella from Microsoft is who you’ve seen up close the, the impact of his work is to help people first for the company to know their purpose, okay, and then, to make this bold statement that he makes is that I want you to figure out how your purpose and Microsoft’s purpose can be aligned in so much that Microsoft’s purpose is in service of your purpose. I mean, it’s amazing as a, as a platform, generative, human based approach to say, we know our purpose, we know what we’re doing. We’re trying to help every person organization on the planet achieve more period. Okay, so that’s what we’re collectively trying to do. What is your purpose? And can Microsoft’s purpose be in service of what your unique purposes that is radical, I’m inspired by it. And like, that’s what I want to do it finding mastery, you know, and we’re, we’re at this point of consulting services business, for organizations. That’s what I want us to do for each one of our people inside of Microsoft, I’m sorry, inside of our company has to be in service of Microsoft, true and other multinationals or corporations, but also like for each of us to be totally tuned to our unique purpose, and have finding mastery be in service of it. I mean, it’s read like it was Satya

Vince Menzione 41:39

and applies to me as well, right? When I got out of, you know, I want to build the business to x and said, My mission is to help other organizations achieve their greatest results, and to be of service to them. And I’m dedicating the rest of my career, I’m at a certain point in my career, where I can see the end game, and I am fully committed to that as an objective, it’s radically changed the way I approach my business as well, Mike, that is awesome. So one of the learnings can we take from the book? Well, obviously, we’re going to provide links so people can order it, I have mine on order, I can’t wait to get it. I pre read some of it as well. But what other great learnings and teachings can we take from the book today to apply immediately to our lives?

Dr. Michael Gervais 42:24

Oh, I think the big one is to have a conversation with people in your home or your workforce about, you know, what is it like for you, when you think about your teammates, you know, and when, when they’re when they are potentially thinking about how you’re doing, like, what is that like and just opened up the conversation, say, Hey, I learned this thing called football today fear people’s opinions. And I don’t know this, this kind of passionate author, you know, this applied scientist says that it’s one of the great constrictors of human potential. What do you guys think? I think it shows up in my life. Just bring it up. Yeah, you know, and the conversation alone really does matter. And I don’t want to overcomplicate it, mindfulness, moving from a performance based identity to purpose based. And then knowing that your brain, your powerful brain is just trying to keep you alive. And when you outsource your sense of being okay to other people, it’s a pretty dangerous position to be in. So, yeah. And then, you know, there’s also really good interest in research in the book that we found from Professor Gilovich at Cornell that most people are not paying attention to us. Your grandma said that to us a long time ago, right, is that people are not really paying attention to you as much as you think they are. According to his research, she was right. And so people are not paying attention at the way matter of fact, only 25% It’s a fun bit of research about it, only 25% of people really attuning to us at any given point in time.

Vince Menzione 43:58

Such great teachings Mike, and you know, hit Refresh is on the bookshelf right behind here. You mentioned sadiya, page five met references your time with the executive leadership team at Microsoft. And the change. I mean, the change has been used the term radical it it was it was a radical change. 10x the organization. You know, you’ve worked with Olympians you’ve worked with Super Bowl champions, Russell Wilson and the team and the Seahawks. What are the things would you prescribe to them right now, around the this first rule of mastery,

Dr. Michael Gervais 44:33

they’re on it. I would say this is how I mostly point towards the future with the extraordinary that I work with, is that everything you need is already inside you is that our relationship is meant to explore the way that you’ve solved things successfully in the past and bring those forward. And so everything you need is already inside you. How do you want to go about this experiment or this challenge? See this opportunity that we have ahead? And so it’s like it’s the how not the what? How do you want to go about it? The what’s are easy, I want to win a gold medal, I want to get to the games, I want to have a billion dollars in my bank account or 100,000 in my bank account, like Okay, so what is simple? I mean, that that is not hard to do. It is how do you want to be you on the path towards that? And if the what is not transactional? The what is more connected to your, your purpose, the big thing that you want to experience across life? And then you say, how am I going to get after it? So now, when I’m working with the best in the world, I’m like, okay, whether it’s like Olympic Games or Super Bowl Championship, how do you want to show up in the tunnel? How do you want to show up? The first time you’re on the mound, or the first time that you’re, you have the ball in your hand or the first time you walk on stage? How they go, okay, yeah, I want to be and they describe it, want to be calm, confident, I want to be focused, I want to be smooth and chill, or I want to be like a, like a hyena. Like, I want to be just like a pack animal that is like, okay, whatever your thing is no problems. Now, once we have that target, we work backwards and say what are the mental skills that are gonna allow that to be true? And it’s, it really is not all that complicated. But it is so exceptionally rare that it ends up being a radical differentiator, when mixing stories when Satya were in day one was Satya his work, and we’re about two hours in. And we started to talk about clarifying first principles, clarifying one’s philosophy of life. And he looks to his 15 direct reports. Looks left look right. And he says, we’ve got something bold that we’re trying to do here, we’re gonna need each other. I want to know you, I want to know exactly what your best looks like, I want to know how to support it, I want you to know what gets me, you know, tripped up, we need to know each other to be great for each other. And at that moment, I was like, This is great leadership. This is not just strategy execution, dammit, why didn’t it get done? What’s wrong with our team? What’s wrong with this, that that that blaming and whatever, it was a rich understanding that the relationships and the way we work is going to be at the center of this whole thing. And so it’s been awesome to watch what the teams have built. They’re

Vince Menzione 47:34

such great learnings. Mike, thank you for so much for sharing that. I have one more question. And I know we are on a short timeline here. But the world is in turmoil, right, geopolitically economically? How can your work? How can’t How does your work? Or how can your work help all of us during this time? I

Dr. Michael Gervais 47:58

mean, I will tell you, what I, what I feel. And I will tell you what I use my imagination towards what I feel is the anxiety that people are working from the deep fear of the future not working out, okay. And we are hurt and let down when people are not seeing us and responding with our best interests at heart. It’s not the political, it’s not the philosophical differences in ideas. It’s the idea that, that that we’re just so tormented by being let down or being dismissed, that we go into deeply troubled behaviors. And so it’s sad. And it’s fueled by anxiety, and rigid thinking that there’s only one real right way to go through life. And so we start to narrow down the potential avenues for for thinking. So I think that what I use my imagination for, is to imagine that there’s the worlds that I’m in the environments or the teams are the places that I go to that one in five people are flourishing. And you say That’s it, one in five. Yeah. If we had 20% of every room that we’re in where people are just animated and lit up and generative and compassionate and empathetic and strong and principle based and expansive and adaptable, easily adjust, you know in their life rather than being rigid and pessimistic and anxious and written and intolerant and frustrated, like those are those are orthogonal. And if we could decrease the amount of time people spent in those agitated states