Mastery is an Infinite Game with performance psychologist Mike Gervais | A Bit of Optimism Podcast

1. 0:00 – 10:46

   Mastery vs high performance

   1. MGMike Gervais0:00

      Confidence is super interesting. Like, it only comes from one place and one place only.

   2. SSSimon Sinek0:04

      Go on.

   3. MGMike Gervais0:05

      What you say to yourself.

   4. SSSimon Sinek0:06

      But how on earth do I actually stop caring about what people think about me when, as social animals, I want to be included, I want to feel like I belong, I want to be trusted, I wanna be a member of the tribe, I wanna be welcomed and invited? Because not to be is to feel alone, to feel ostracized, to pe- feel brushed aside.

   5. MGMike Gervais0:27

      Know your purpose. So it's no longer about identity. It's about something far larger. So your identity fades away. It just allows your identity of, like, "I have to perform" to start to evaporate, and I'm performing because I wanna contribute to something that's really meaningful, and it's not Wall Street bottom line. [upbeat music]

   6. SSSimon Sinek0:49

      Mike, I'm so glad you came on the show. Uh, I'm such a fan and I, I so enjoyed coming on your p- podcast, Finding Mastery, and I thought, you know, for those who don't know Finding Mastery, A, you're missing out.

   7. MGMike Gervais1:04

      [laughs]

   8. SSSimon Sinek1:04

      But, B, how selfish am I to go and enjoy your company and not share you with everybody else?

   9. MGMike Gervais1:08

      Yeah, that's great.

   10. SSSimon Sinek1:09

       So, so thanks for, thanks for joining our little podcast. For those who don't know you, um, you're a psychologist by training.

   11. MGMike Gervais1:15

       Mm-hmm.

   12. SSSimon Sinek1:16

       And in particular, h- what I would... well, I guess, high performance, right?

   13. MGMike Gervais1:19

       Mm-hmm.

   14. SSSimon Sinek1:19

       That's your specialty.

   15. MGMike Gervais1:20

       Correct.

   16. SSSimon Sinek1:21

       Um, and you worked with the Seahawks and other football teams.

   17. MGMike Gervais1:25

       Mm-hmm.

   18. SSSimon Sinek1:25

       You come from sports.

   19. MGMike Gervais1:26

       Mm-hmm.

   20. SSSimon Sinek1:27

       Um, what I... Let's start, let's start for... You, you talk about mastery over performance, and I find this, this is an important nuance because e- every CEO... You talk to CEOs, and, like, you know, "So what kind of co- We're a high performance culture. We're a high performance..." Everything is performance, performance, even when it's not. W- why doesn't anybody talk about mastery?

   21. MGMike Gervais1:50

       Mm.

   22. SSSimon Sinek1:51

       Why are people so obsessed about performance? And even you, you come from sports, where performance is the thing that they talk about. Why does everybody talk about performance and nobody thinks about or talks about mastery?

   23. MGMike Gervais2:03

       There's kind of, like, this high performance treadmill in just about every industry that you can get your kids on. You, you know, like, there's a, some sort of track in the corporate world that you can get on that, you know, you do A, B, and C things and you give yourself a pretty good chance of being a high performer. Whether it's technical skill development, in sport it's physical, and for all of us it's mental. And there's, like, a, a little bit of a track for it, and the track for mastery is really loose. When I think about the difference between high performance and mastery, e- high performance is about executing on demand. But with mastery, there's a bit of a contour to it. There's something that just has an organic, authentic, artistic expression, on demand-

   24. SSSimon Sinek2:49

       Mm

   25. MGMike Gervais2:49

       ... certainly. But there's a different contour to the path of mastery. Um-

   26. SSSimon Sinek2:54

       What do you mean by contour?

   27. MGMike Gervais2:55

       The way that you see the world around you is there's a difference between people that are committed to mastery-

   28. SSSimon Sinek3:04

       Yeah

   29. MGMike Gervais3:04

       ... and those that are committed to high performance. So I don't have a better word. I've been studying this thing for 25 years.

   30. SSSimon Sinek3:10

       Yeah.
2. 10:46 – 18:19

   The advantage of being a B student

   1. SSSimon Sinek10:47

      I think my brain worked quickly, but, uh, there's some subjects I just didn't grasp and to this day I still struggle with.

   2. MGMike Gervais10:53

      Mm.

   3. SSSimon Sinek10:53

      Right?

   4. MGMike Gervais10:53

      Mm-hmm.

   5. SSSimon Sinek10:54

      You know, my friends were the smart ones.

   6. MGMike Gervais10:56

      Mm.

   7. SSSimon Sinek10:57

      Like, my friends were the one who was the straight A student in math, or the straight A student in English, or the straight A student in history, and they all had a subject. Or a couple of my friends were jocks who were, like, the star football player. I jogged around the track occasionally, you know?

   8. MGMike Gervais11:15

      So what was going on?

   9. SSSimon Sinek11:16

      So, uh, so for me, the challenge was I was always the dumb one or the not athletic one around my friends. I mean, I was athletic, but I was never an athlete.

   10. MGMike Gervais11:31

       Yeah.

   11. SSSimon Sinek11:32

       Right?

   12. MGMike Gervais11:32

       There might be something really healthy going on there-

   13. SSSimon Sinek11:34

       Hopefully

   14. MGMike Gervais11:34

       ... that you didn't over-identify. Your identity was wra- not wrapped up in what you were doing.

   15. SSSimon Sinek11:39

       And, and so, and so the, the, the, the stress that I had was, what's my subject? Everybody has a subject. Like, that one's good at math, that one's good at English, that one's a great writer, that one's great at physics, that one... You know.

   16. MGMike Gervais11:51

       Yeah.

   17. SSSimon Sinek11:51

       And I had no subject. And so I had to go on a journey to be like, "I'm fine at everything, but I'm great at nothing." And I, the lesson that I started to learn was I h- I looked outside of the subjects that were written on my school schedule and thought, "What is the stuff that I'm good at that my friend, that I'm, I mean, that I'm better than my friends at?" And I was better at asking questions.

   18. MGMike Gervais12:17

       Mm.

   19. SSSimon Sinek12:18

       I was better at- ... talking

   20. MGMike Gervais12:20

       Mm.

   21. SSSimon Sinek12:20

       'Cause I had to be, 'cause it was a survival instinct for ADHD, 'cause I couldn't study, so I had to get good at asking good questions and listening to the answers. And I didn't know what to do with that, but it gave me confidence to know that I had a thing. It just wasn't written down on my high school schedule or my college schedule.

   22. MGMike Gervais12:38

       I've got a story for you. I've got a story for you. To, uh, to relate to what you just shared is that, um, in high school and college, I didn't have a thing either. And so I'm, I'm a psychologist. In high school, I got an F in psychology.

   23. SSSimon Sinek12:57

       [laughs]

   24. MGMike Gervais12:59

       So I keep my high school report card in mind as a reminder. You know, it's great when you can find your thing at a young age. I was, I was a bit of a wreck.

   25. SSSimon Sinek13:10

       Yeah.

   26. MGMike Gervais13:10

       So, um, love my parents. Dad was a functioning alcoholic. Mom was codependent. And I knew that I wasn't, I didn't have a thing either.

   27. SSSimon Sinek13:20

       Mm-hmm.

   28. MGMike Gervais13:21

       I was athletic, but I was not the athlete.

   29. SSSimon Sinek13:23

       Mm-hmm.

   30. MGMike Gervais13:24

       I was clever and smart, but I was definitely not the student.
3. 18:19 – 28:07

   Confidence is self-talk

   1. SSSimon Sinek18:19

      At some point in life, we all struggle with it.

   2. MGMike Gervais18:21

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SSSimon Sinek18:21

      Nobody is immune.

   4. MGMike Gervais18:23

      No, it's state specific-

   5. SSSimon Sinek18:24

      State specific

   6. MGMike Gervais18:24

      ... meaning that it's-

   7. SSSimon Sinek18:25

      Yeah

   8. MGMike Gervais18:25

      ... it's, it's like m- moment to moment, there's a-

   9. SSSimon Sinek18:28

      I can have high confidence one moment and nothing the next-

   10. MGMike Gervais18:30

       That's right

   11. SSSimon Sinek18:31

       ... depending on what I'm doing or who I'm talking to.

   12. MGMike Gervais18:33

       Depending on what you're saying to yourself about that challenge.

   13. SSSimon Sinek18:35

       And what I'm saying to myself, yeah.

   14. MGMike Gervais18:36

       Yeah.

   15. SSSimon Sinek18:36

       That's such a good one.

   16. MGMike Gervais18:37

       It's the way you're framing the conversation, and if you, if you think, if you entertain what are they thinking about me, then we're on a slide for confidence. W- uh, like, a downward slide. If you start, like, what is Simon thinking about what I'm saying right now, is getting in the way of that calculus, which is, is like, no, this is a... I love this conversation. It's really challenging to find the right words to describe things that are hard to talk about, and this is what I really enjoy doing. That's how confidence will be built for me.

   17. SSSimon Sinek19:08

       You're bringing up something that... Look, what did, what did Teddy Roosevelt say? You know, "Comparison is the thief of joy."

   18. MGMike Gervais19:15

       That's right. Yeah.

   19. SSSimon Sinek19:16

       You know? And you're bringing up something which I think is so easily understood and so difficult to do.

   20. MGMike Gervais19:22

       Mm-hmm.

   21. SSSimon Sinek19:23

       It is f- well and good to say, "Don't care what other people think about you." We all know that.

   22. MGMike Gervais19:29

       Grandma told me that.

   23. SSSimon Sinek19:30

       Right. Grandma told me that.

   24. MGMike Gervais19:31

       She did, yeah.

   25. SSSimon Sinek19:31

       Uh, but how on earth do I actually stop caring about p- what people think about me when, as social animals, I want to be included, I want to feel like I belong, I want to be trusted, I wanna be a member of the tribe. I wanna be welcomed and invited, because not to be is to feel alone, to feel ostracized, to pe- feel brushed aside. We know what happens. A social animal left to their own devices is destructive to others or destructive to themselves.

   26. MGMike Gervais20:00

       Mm-hmm.

   27. SSSimon Sinek20:01

       And that's a whole different topic, you know?

   28. MGMike Gervais20:03

       Oh, I think it's right... I think you-

   29. SSSimon Sinek20:04

       People who hurt themselves and hurt others, you know?

   30. MGMike Gervais20:06

       Yeah, and the, we thrash when we're not connected, and the thrashing makes sense because our brains are wired for safety.
4. 28:07 – 38:40

   The competitive edge of purpose

   1. SSSimon Sinek28:07

      athlete-

   2. MGMike Gervais28:07

      Mm

   3. SSSimon Sinek28:07

      ... find their purpose?

   4. MGMike Gervais28:10

      Yeah. Well, you know-

   5. SSSimon Sinek28:11

      Because they were raised to perform.

   6. MGMike Gervais28:14

      Yeah, that's exactly right. And while they're in the league that they're in, whether it's the Olympics or the NFL or N- NBA, whatever it might be, the purpose is quite clear.

   7. SSSimon Sinek28:23

      Win.

   8. MGMike Gervais28:23

      You know? So the purpose is given to them, you know?

   9. SSSimon Sinek28:26

      Win championships.

   10. MGMike Gervais28:27

       Yeah. And that wears out at some point.

   11. SSSimon Sinek28:30

       That's not really a purpose though, is it?

   12. MGMike Gervais28:32

       No, that's more of an outcome, a goal.

   13. SSSimon Sinek28:33

       Yeah.

   14. MGMike Gervais28:33

       But it's like a binding thing for us together.

   15. SSSimon Sinek28:36

       Okay.

   16. MGMike Gervais28:36

       You know? But it falls-

   17. SSSimon Sinek28:37

       It, it, it has the appearance of purpose and it works for a, a period.

   18. MGMike Gervais28:41

       That's right.

   19. SSSimon Sinek28:41

       Okay.

   20. MGMike Gervais28:41

       And it, it, again, it's finite-

   21. SSSimon Sinek28:43

       Sure

   22. MGMike Gervais28:43

       ... you know, in all, all the ways that you would articulate that. And so, um, what it does though, it serves a, a bit of a placeholder for them to know what it's like to be part of something bigger, where they can't solve it on their own. Even individual athletes, whether it's a golfer or singles tennis player, they're part of a team too.

   23. SSSimon Sinek29:00

       Yeah, yeah.

   24. MGMike Gervais29:01

       And so, um, so I think the question was more tactical, like how do I help people?

   25. SSSimon Sinek29:06

       Yeah, like, yeah, like, like what... It's, 'cause I think, look, everybody's looking, like the rise of spirituality. Everybody's looking for their sense of purpose.

   26. MGMike Gervais29:14

       Mm-hmm.

   27. SSSimon Sinek29:14

       You know, I mean, I mean, I wrote a book about it, you know? Uh, uh, w- what do you do? How do you take people on the journey to actually help them answer the question?

   28. MGMike Gervais29:25

       First is help them sit with the pain that they feel. I think one of the greatest gifts we can give people is to hold steady while they are exploring the hardest parts of themselves. And so without judgment, without critique.

   29. SSSimon Sinek29:39

       So a container.

   30. MGMike Gervais29:40

       Yeah.
5. 38:40 – 46:58

   Mike's lessons from elite sport (the importance of recovery)

   1. MGMike Gervais38:40

      is, like from elite sport, I wanna show you how we recover. What happens behind the velvet rope of elite sport is that we spend way more time talking about daily recovery than we talk about working hard.

   2. SSSimon Sinek38:53

      Hmm.

   3. MGMike Gervais38:54

      The environment is stimulating. It's, it's great in so many ways. It's on. The pressure is on in elite sport. The required vulnerability and risk-taking in practice every day is unbelievable, way more than game day. In practice, you've got, um, your peers that are almost as good as you or, in some respects, as good as you, waiting for you to make a mistake in front of the coaches so that they can get a shot.

   4. SSSimon Sinek39:21

      And particularly bad in football.

   5. MGMike Gervais39:22

      The, it, oh, exactly. And to be great, you have to, you have to take a risk. So you've got to get to that messy edge where you don't know if you're gonna be successful or not because that's required. That vulnerability is required to take the step to stay progressively on a growth arc. It's really hard. So day in, stress is on. Pressure is on. Day in, we need to recover in an intelligent way. And I just think that, you know, if we could do a little bit better on how we think about our future, so that's anxiety or purpose based, um-

   6. SSSimon Sinek39:54

      So when you say future, meaning not goal-oriented, but rather what's this all for?

   7. MGMike Gervais39:58

      Yeah. So-

   8. SSSimon Sinek39:58

      What's, what's the, "I'm, I wanna win a game," why? "I wanna game so that I become a champ." Why do you wanna be a champ? And you keep going and going and going until you reach a thing-

   9. MGMike Gervais40:04

      And that'll help you get to purpose

   10. SSSimon Sinek40:05

       ... that's not a, that's, that's bigger.

   11. MGMike Gervais40:07

       That's bigger.

   12. SSSimon Sinek40:07

       Yeah.

   13. MGMike Gervais40:08

       Yeah. And you can also like, I've got another way to do that as well. That is absolutely a great exercise to do. But if we did some of that work and then, um, we learned how to speak to ourselves, to back ourselves and to coach ourselves, and we're just a little bit better at how we, we work with our own self, self-talk, if you will.

   14. SSSimon Sinek40:26

       Yeah

   15. MGMike Gervais40:26

       Um, we figured out a really thoughtful re- daily recovery program. Because the stress is real. We need equal units of recovery every day. And we could start to migrate from that first pillar of purpose. We could start to just dissolve our performance-based identity and, and be more aligned with purpose. So there's a twofold on that first one. Yes, know your purpose, and what that does is it, it, it, it just allows your, your identity of like, "I have to perform," to start to evaporate. I have to perform to matter. It starts to evaporate. And I'm performing because I want to contribute to something that's really meaningful, and it's not Wall Street bottom line.

   16. SSSimon Sinek41:02

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   17. MGMike Gervais41:03

       Yeah. It's maybe to-

   18. SSSimon Sinek41:05

       W-

   19. MGMike Gervais41:05

       ... fill in the blanks

   20. SSSimon Sinek41:05

       ... what are things that you've learned over the course of your life and career that you have adopted yourself to aid in your own recovery? If recovery is more important, as important, if not more important than, than, than-

   21. MGMike Gervais41:18

       Yeah. I can give you a, a ton of tactics, and I'm happy to do that right now. Um, the first is, is like if you think about the energy system that we have. I wanna be, and this is gonna, this'll make sense for Gen Xers and above, but maybe not below. I wanna be a really efficient carburetor. So I go to sleep at night, and I fill up all these fuel reserves, and a carburetor is this thing that sits on top of the engine, and it decides based on how much you accelerate or put your foot on the pedal how much fuel goes into the engine. And if I am really nervous and anxious and quick to frustration or intolerance, and I'm kinda edgy and snappy, the carburetor's wide open, and energy is just coursing through the system, needlessly so, because I haven't, I haven't modulated the way that I'm seeing the world around me. So the first order of business is that I wanna be able to figure out how to see things as opportunities rather than threats.

   22. SSSimon Sinek42:16

       Give me an example.

   23. MGMike Gervais42:18

       Let's say, um, let's say you've got an opportunity to pitch an idea to a board or a VC firm or somebody, and this is the last. Th- this feels like the last one. You deny, deny, deny, deny. You know, you're kinda on your, the end of your, your budget.

   24. SSSimon Sinek42:34

       Or you're an actor or whatever.

   25. MGMike Gervais42:36

       Yeah.

   26. SSSimon Sinek42:36

       It doesn't matter. Yeah.

   27. MGMike Gervais42:37

       And how do you walk in staying hopeful and seeing it as an opportunity as opposed to like, "If this doesn't go well, I don't know how I'm gonna eat."

   28. SSSimon Sinek42:45

       Yeah.

   29. MGMike Gervais42:46

       "I don't know what I'm gonna do." There's a discipline required. There's a mental discipline to speak to yourself about yourself, about the opportunity that you're working towards, that is just required. And so opportunity versus threat is kind of a big deal-

   30. SSSimon Sinek43:03

       I-
6. 46:58 – 51:35

   How to reframe mindsets

   1. SSSimon Sinek46:59

      I learned something pretty early in my career, I, thank goodness I learned it, that I think is what you're talking about, and I learned to reframe a tense moment.

   2. MGMike Gervais47:07

      To, from to?

   3. SSSimon Sinek47:08

      From to.

   4. MGMike Gervais47:09

      Yeah.

   5. SSSimon Sinek47:09

      So for example, um, I, just as my career was sort of getting to go, like I find myself sharing stages with people who are way better than me. Like they're famous, they're powerhouses.

   6. MGMike Gervais47:24

      Yeah.

   7. SSSimon Sinek47:25

      And I'm like, "What the hell am I doing here?"

   8. MGMike Gervais47:27

      Mm-hmm.

   9. SSSimon Sinek47:27

      Right?

   10. MGMike Gervais47:27

       Mm-hmm.

   11. SSSimon Sinek47:28

       And now my fear that my performance is gonna be substandard-

   12. MGMike Gervais47:32

       Yeah

   13. SSSimon Sinek47:32

       ... it won't live up to the, the reason they invited me.

   14. MGMike Gervais47:34

       Yeah.

   15. SSSimon Sinek47:34

       All of that self-talk.

   16. MGMike Gervais47:36

       The imposter syndrome stuff, yeah.

   17. SSSimon Sinek47:36

       All of that stuff, just like I'm the weakest one here.

   18. MGMike Gervais47:40

       Mm-hmm.

   19. SSSimon Sinek47:40

       You know? And I learned to reframe it, like this is the most exciting thing in the world that they let me share the stage with these amazing people. And what ended up happening was I let go of the competitive nature. Like I didn't have to be better than them. I didn't even have to be as good as them. I just got to share the stage with them regardless of how I did, and how cool is it for me?

   20. MGMike Gervais47:59

       That's it. Yes.

   21. SSSimon Sinek48:00

       And I started to have, n- my nerves became excitement.

   22. MGMike Gervais48:04

       Yeah. That's it. So the way you frame anything is materially important. Public speaking is one of the hardest things for people.

   23. SSSimon Sinek48:10

       Mm-hmm.

   24. MGMike Gervais48:10

       And it's because there's no physical risk. It's all identity risk.

   25. SSSimon Sinek48:15

       Mm-hmm.

   26. MGMike Gervais48:15

       It's all ego risk. Eyeballs are the danger-

   27. SSSimon Sinek48:18

       Mm-hmm

   28. MGMike Gervais48:18

       ... in, in these moments. Is that if you are clear about the purpose-

   29. SSSimon Sinek48:22

       Mm-hmm

   30. MGMike Gervais48:22

       ... not about the performance, the whole thing changes. And you can walk on stage and like help to get people enrolled or en- engaged or interested or-

Episode duration: 51:36