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Being STRONG is more than just how much weight you can lift.
The Strong New York Podcast is dedicated to inspiring you to become your strongest self- in the gym, in business, in relationships and in life.
Join Kenny as he sits down with his strong as fuck buddies and shoots the shit on what it takes to be strong willed, strong minded and physically strong. Season one features everyone from entrepreneurs and local business owners to doctors and industry leaders in the fitness and wellness space.
With over a decade of experience, Kenny Santucci has made himself known as one of New York City’s top trainers and a thought leader in the health and wellness industry. After transforming his life at 15 years old through fitness, Kenny made it his mission to transform the lives of those around him.
Kenny has trained some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Jon Bon Jovi, Liev Schreiber, and Frank Ocean, and has been tapped as a fitness expert sharing his training approach with Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, Runner's World, SHAPE, Well+Good, among other publications.
Kenny is the creator of STRONG New York, NYC's only Health and Fitness Expo. Strong New York is an immersive day of workouts, wellness experiences, panel discussions, and inspiring conversations with the best in-class wellness professionals, industry leaders, and change makers who are sharing their expertise on today's hottest wellness trends and first-hand experiences on how to optimize your overall health and life.
You can find Kenny at The Strength Club, his private training and group strength training facility in the heart of Manhattan located on 28th and 5th Ave in New York City.
Hey guys. Welcome back to the Strong New York podcast. I'm your host Kenny Santucci, and as always, we are powered by Celsius and we got the new spritz vibe. This is absolutely delicious. It's like a snow cone that you'd buy off a a truck when you were a kid, or if you're old like me and you bought it off a kid.
But these are limited edition. They got the gold tops. So if you see him grab him. 'cause they probably won't be around for that much longer. Uh, but today is a man who sets my soul on fire. When I saw this guy speak for the first time, I was blown away. I had to run up to him after I was at, uh, Gabrielle Lyons event.
And I said, please, please, please come speak at strong New York this year. 'cause I need you. Without further ado, Mr. Rich Devinney. A New York Times bestseller yet? Yes, actually at least one of the categories. Yeah, baby. All right. New York Times bestseller. And he's gonna explain to us what it takes to be a Navy Seal, to be a New York Times bestseller, and what it takes to have attributes.
Now, when I was telling people about. The book and, uh, your talk. I was just trying to find the best way to explain to people what attributes are. Yeah, yeah. Um, so let's dive right into that. Okay. Well, it's a good place to start. I mean, attributes was my first book. Mm-hmm. And it was all about that topic, and it was really a good baseline because everything I talk about and, and you heard me talk about, which is mastering uncertainty.
A lot of it stems from this idea of what qualities we bring. So attributes to be as simple as possible. They're different from skills. A lot of times we think of. Them. We think of performance as, as kind of what we see. If the person can do the thing, they have the skill That's like driving, uh, shooting a gun.
Riding a bike, okay? Mm-hmm. Um, but those are, uh, those are. Skills have to be taught. You're not, they're not inherent to you. You have to, you have to learn them. You have to, you're not born with the ability to do that stuff. Um, attributes on the end are the qualities we bring to an environment. So things like patience, situation, awareness, adaptability, and when it's, when we talk about our performance, not only every day, but especially in uncertainty, challenge and stress.
We have to consider that attributes are driving our performance at a very elemental level. We are leaning on these qualities because in a, in a known, in or in an unknown environment, it's very difficult to apply a known skill. And so we have to understand that our attributes are what's driving our performance, our levels of these things.
So do you think those are inher like. Are they inherent? Are they nature? Are they nurture? What is it? Yeah, they're, they're a little bit of both. Uh, so in other words, an attributes, uh, you can see attributes in, in small children, okay? Mm-hmm. Um, so for example, uh, any of us who have kids or have even hung out with kids will agree with me when I say they are one and a half year olds who are patient and they, one and a half year olds are impatient.
Right? However, attributes can also be developed over time and experience. Mm-hmm. And so, so environmentally environments can, can help us develop certain attributes or, or increase or even decrease attributes. Um, we can, we can deliberately develop attributes. It just takes, uh, it takes a real effort because unlike a skill it has to be self-developed.
In other words, if you name any skill, you can be taught a skill. If you say, Hey, rich, I wanna. Learn how to shoot a pistol and hit a bullseye. I can take you to the range and do that within two hours. Okay? Yeah. If you said, rich, I wanna learn how to be more patient, I can't teach you how to do that. Right?
So an attribute must be self-developed and it, and it requires us to step into environments that actually test and tease and develop that attribute. So if you wanna develop patience, you go whatever it looks like for you, right? Uh, drive deliberately in traffic or, or stand in the longest line of the grocery store.
Yeah. I always say have kids. That'll, that'll do it. But um, but whatever that is it, it takes a self. Effort and self-development, would you say attributes are similar to like virtues? Well, you know, I, I would say virtues. Virtues are more, um, how do I put it? It's, they're, they're more kind of, um. Idealistic, I guess.
Yeah. Attributes are very elemental. I mean, our levels of adaptability, our levels of patience, they're just, they're just at the raw, the, the, the, the baseboard. I think we can develop virtues and we can, we can change virtues. We can kind of, um, um, decide which virtues we want to kind of prioritize. Uh, attributes are not like that.
We, and they're, they're, they're quite elemental. I've heard before in the past. I mean, this is obviously an older saying, but the patience is a virtue, right? Yeah. Like the ability to be patient is, you know. I think, like you said, it has to be developed over time. Yeah. You have to put yourself in these situations where you're dealing with a screaming kid on a plane.
Right. Or whatever. It's Right. Um, I'll, I'll just, I'll just say the way we talk about attributes takes that level of judgment out of it. In other words. You know, if, if, if you do do our assessment, which I'm gonna send you so you can do, right? Yeah, yeah. And you get your top five, you get your attribute rank ranking like one to 41.
So I think I did do it. Oh, really? I should have done, yeah. Anyway, yeah. Your top five, bottom five. So one to 41. And what I'll, what I'll tell people is your, unlike a personality test, your top five, bottom five do not equal strengths and weaknesses. In other words, your success as a human being is as much because of your bottom five, as your top five.
So if you're, if patience is in your bottom five. Your impatience has, has been a part and a reason why you've been successful for certain re, for, for, for in what you do. So, so we don't, we don't look at, so patience is a virtue in certain contexts, right? Mm-hmm. Impatience is also a virtue in certain contexts.
And so, so where we fall on the attribute spectrum, we really have to think of it as our unique footprint. Um, the, kind of the unique vehicle we are. Um, and how do we actually actualize that? And the other thing is every attribute high or low comes with advantages in blind spots. So in other words, if you're high decisive, decisiveness isn't your top five.
There's obviously advantages to that because you make decisions quickly. Mm-hmm. And you don't waste time. A blind spot is you might make decisions too quickly. Right? Yeah. And you, and especially if it's paired with high, decisive, low patients. You may be at risk of deciding things too rapidly, and this is where we start understanding that either we can dial these things up individually or we can team with people that allow us to mesh in a, in a really, in a really meaningful way.
My wife and I, we've been married 24 years. We've lived a war together. We have two, you know, young men now. She is impatient. Her patients is one of her bottom five. I'm patient. My patience is the top right. Yeah, that's worked beautifully for us in 24 years of marriage because when patience is required, I step up.
When impatience required, she steps up. Yeah. My patience has prevented her on occasion from making a decision too quickly. Her impatience has prevented me from taking too long on something, so you can mesh it that way. So developing a skill as you perform a skill and get better at a skill. You know that you only enhance that skill and that's a good thing, right?
You never want to, you always, um, one of the things that Jason Redmond had said, yeah. He's like, you'll always resort to your lowest level of training, right? Yeah, yeah. With, with a pistol, hand to hand, combat, whatever it is. So, but as you get better at that skill, it's always, uh, a plus for you. Now, with a virtue or with an attribute, it's, it could be go, it could go both ways.
Like for me. Anytime I'm out on the street, I'm always like, I gotta get to where I'm going. I don't understand why, but I'm like, I have to get to where I'm going as fast as I possibly can. Yeah. And I don't even think twice I pull up on this. I, I'm, I'm riding a bike, I'm on the sidewalk. I'm all, and I'm like, why am I rushing like this?
Right, right. It's almost like this voice in the back of my head. It's like, get there, get there, get there. Yeah. So I'm always like in a rush to get there. But I think it works in my favor sometimes and sometimes it doesn't. It doesn't. Yeah. So I like that, that you've kind of, well, and I'll just say, uh, what Jason says is absolutely true when it comes to skill.
What I'll say about attributes is our attributes stack, whatever that is, that is our most raw, yeah. So in other words, in uncertainty challenges for us, we are at our most raw. And that's what I always fascinated me about this, about the work and why I'm doing the work is because as a Navy seal, you get the gift of understanding yourself at your most raw, I mean, day one of SEAL training.
They put you at zero and they see what you have. And so you learn who you are at your most raw. You learn who your teammates are at their most raw, and that starts to inform your performance in uncertainty. Challenges, stress, what we're doing in regular everyday life. If you, if we look at your one through 41, um, we're constantly based on the environment.
Dialing up or dialing down attributes. Mm-hmm. Because we, but it takes conscious effort. Um, and we can do that in, in regular, everyday. It's harder in uncertainty, challenge stress. So, so if you are low patience, you might be walking into an environment saying, you know what, I gotta dial up my patience.
Right? Yeah. Same thing with dialing down. I, a buddy of mine and a team guy, humor was his number one attribute. And I asked him, I said, do you find yourself having to dial down your humor? He's like, oh, yeah, because the joke I wanna tell is completely inappropriate, right? Mm-hmm. So he is, yeah. Yeah. He's deliberately dialing it down.
So in everyday life, in regular life, we're dialing these up and dialing these down. This is why some people kind of think, oh, do my attributes change? Depending, are they different at work than they're at home? Mm-hmm. The answer is no, they're not. But we're dialing up, dialing down. But at our most draw, at our very basic, our attribute stack is how we prioritize our behavior.
Yeah, I, I totally agree with that. Like, in default mode, you're somewhere where you don't feel comfortable if you're, it's, you're always gonna default to those things that you feel the most comfortable with. That's right. For instance, I have to go to this party tonight. I'm like, I don't know anybody there.
I'm like, all right, I'll, the only thing I could rely on, I'm like, oh, I'm somewhat funny and I'll, I'll be conversational. Um, but. Helping people understand these attributes or their attributes will help them be better in society and better at work. One of the things that I, I've, I've always been a huge fan since I saw the movie Navy Seals when I was like six Charlie, Charlie Sheen, right?
Since I saw that movie, I've been obsessed with the idea, right? And, and now everyone is, every, yeah, that's. Everybody, we, we honor you guys and I think everyone absolutely should. It's like you guys are the operators at the highest level. How could everyone benefit? You know? Because everybody wants to learn more about what you guys do and they want to train like a seal.
And everybody talks about the bud shit. But I think it's these things that we need to understand more. Yeah. Like your attributes as to why, because you had told that story on stage about. You are noticing that a lot of these guys who have all the skills and you think have all the, the boxes checked on a piece of paper, but what happens when shit goes wrong?
Right? How do they deal with those problems? How can people benefit from what you guys are doing? Or what you've discovered about attributes? Yeah, it's a, it's, it's a great question. I think one of the, it's, it's what has driven me to do what I do because I will say, you know, by the way, it's funny, I, I, I went into the seals in 1996, right?
So back then no one knew what seals were. Yeah. Even when I met my wife, she was like, I said, she's like, what do you do? And I was like, I'm an A seal. She's like, what the hell is that? And it was bizarre for us to ride this wave of notoriety and popularity. But, um. But one of the things I, I, I want to emphasize to people, especially people who, who look at the seals and they kind of say they aspire, um, is first of all, the SEAL training buds, it's a 90% attrition rate.
Okay? 90%. So 10, so only 10% of the guys who try ever make it through, which tells us something, it tells us that it is a very unique niche. Uh, just because a guy goes to SEAL training doesn't make it through, does not mean he's a shit bag, right? Mm-hmm. I mean that, it just means he's not fit for that specific niche.
So that's one thing. Not, not, not everybody can be a Navy Seal, nor should they, because you know, we're all, we are all, again, different vehicles. However, I think one of the things that really, uh, interested me in, in what we were doing was to start thinking about how it is that we do what we do. Now, this came from what I call a healthy imposter syndrome.
Okay. And by that I mean, when I, I went to SEAL training in 96. We started with like 179 people. We graduated 38 people. That's crazy. Okay. And I remember. Uh, graduating and I remember looking around the guys who were still there. I was like, how the hell am I still here? Well, I was gonna say, now you got there.
Yeah. And you're looking at all these guys and immediately even I do this, every time I walk into a jiujitsu room, I'm like, who do I think the toughest guy here is? And you ultimately believe it's the tallest, biggest, you know? Yeah. Or the guy who's got the fucking most fucked up ears. You're like, oh shit.
These guys are gonna be the toughest guys I'm gonna have to deal with. How many of those guys were you sitting there with where you're like, I can't believe that dude didn't make it. Well, it's funny 'cause you, you, when you go through that, you, you, um, yeah, you, you're very surprised. Yeah. I mean, when you, you start buds and you look around, you're like, oh my God, look at that guy.
Look at that guy. Yeah. Some of these, we get division one athletes who come to Buzz and they quit the first day. But what it does for you as an individual when that happens is actually empowers you because you recognize a, this is not about the pushups stature. Yeah. It's not, I mean, again, I say athleticism has nothing to do with making it through seal teaming nothing.
Right. Or seal training. Um, I was a, I, I played sports. I was never an athlete. Okay? Um, because athleticism is simply the, it, it has to do with kind of being great in, in domains of sport. There's hand guy coordination, all that stuff. What you have to be is you have to be physically fit, obviously, to do the thing, right?
Mm-hmm. But, um, but outta overly so. Alright. And, uh, and you have to be tough. You know, you have to just understand what it means when you are at zero. Where can I take that? And so when you see people who you thought were the epitome of what you think would be seals and they quit, you're like, holy shit, actually I should be here because, you know, I know it's not about the, the athleticism.
Mm-hmm. Um, it's, we always say, I mean, you, you know, you can, you can train and go and get ready to go to SEAL training. You can be able to do a thousand pushups. You know what's gonna happen. Is they're gonna make you do a thousand pushups and then ask you to keep doing more. Yeah. I mean, whatever your, whatever your level is, they will get you to the level and push you off the edge.
Um, or if you have a domain inside of which you're really good, if you're a great runner. But not as good of a swimmer. They're gonna throw you in the water more often than they make you run and vice versa. And they discover all this through making you do better. They discover all of it, but, and the, and the, the training is set up.
I mean, you know, cold is the biggest, um, is the biggest equalizer because, because cold sucks for everybody and you don't, and you can't rehearse cold. You really can't. I mean, I have an ice bath in my garage and, and people are like, oh, does, do you, I mean, do are, is the ice bath thesis? Like, no. Every time I, I get in the iceberg, get, get in the ice bath.
I dread it. I dread it. Um, you don't rehearse it. Um, and so, so they, they take these equalizers, they take everybody down to zero and say, okay, what do you got? Um, and so going through that, you know, you, I realized, I looked around. It's like, how the heck am I still here? And what I recognized as I started to, you know, have become friends with all these guys, they became my friends.
I recognized they were saying the same thing. Like what it is. I mean, how am I still here? I mean it's, and so it really tweaked me on, okay, what is it about us that allows us to do what we do well, a, aside from attributes, like is it, do you think it's the ability to endure? Like, I think that's what fascinates me the most.
It's like every guy thinks they could do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And everybody's like, oh man, if I ever had to do it, I could do. And I'm like, I don't, I, I'd like to think I can, but I don't think I can. Yeah. Especially not at this age, but like it's your ability to take on shit and keep going. Yeah. Yeah.
And but endurance, we have to understand, this is why I wanna make sure we're taking the seals off the pedestal. Okay. Endurance comes in many different forms. Mm-hmm. And, and there are, yes, there are navy, there are gritty, tough navy seals, of course, but there are, there are kids battling cancer right now who have a hundred times more grit and toughness than any Navy seal on the planet.
And so and so, we all in. As human beings go through tough things and, and our ability to endure and push through it, it has to be contextual to those things, you know? And so, and so, yeah, I might as a seal, yeah, you put me, you're not gonna out tough me in terms of, in terms of environment, sure. But there might be other areas where you completely crush me or it's hard for me to endure through things.
Mm-hmm. So we all have our, our, our weaknesses or, or the niches inside which we don't perform. But the way I kind of describe this is. And I, and the attributes is a great way to kind of baseline everything. But I say every human being is like a vehicle. We're like automobile. We're all like automobiles. We all the same component parts, right?
Yeah, yeah. Engine blocks, steering wheels, tires, all that stuff. However, some people are Jeeps, some people are Ferrari. Some people are are SUVs. Some people are ambulances. Some people are school buses, right? There's no judgment because the Jeep can do things the Ferrari can't do and the Ferrari can do things the Jeep can't do.
Uh, however, it really behooves us to figure out what kind of vehicle we are, because the friction in our lives might be because we've been a Jeep trying to run on a Ferrari track this whole time, or vice versa. Yeah, so it's, I think, the secret to high performance for humans. Across the board is to figure out what kind of vehicle you are and maximize your ability to perform as that vehicle.
That's a great way to put it. Yeah. Now who, if you had to sum up what vehicle that would be, right. Is it because there has to be some level of intelligence there, right? Yeah. You have to be able to decipher what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. And make quick decisions. Um, so there is some level of intelligence. Like for instance, when I used to do improv, there were certain people in there that.
Looked comical, right? Yeah. I think there's always that level. Like you see most comedians and you're like, you kind of look funny before you even opens your mouth. Yeah. But there was an uh, there was a level of wit Yeah. That I've noticed that most people in class had. And it was a wit that comes with intelligence, understanding, you know, what's going on in everyday life.
Uh. Great vocabulary. Yeah. Like there are certain skills that I thought people had. Yeah. And they really like kind of led it laid into those and that's what made them better. And as they worked at the skill, they got better. But there was natural skills that they had. What would you say are the natural skills that you noticed a lot of these G guys have?
Yeah. Is it intelligence? Is it grit? Yeah. Natural attributes I would say. But uh, but I would say that, um. Uh, first of all, for every team or organization, we find that having done work with tons of organizations across the the Globe, really, um, every team organizations have its own unique set of attributes that.
Are required for success in that team. Mm-hmm. So the attributes required to be an Navy SEAL team are look different than the attributes required to be an accounting team or a teaching team. Yeah. Yeah. So that's number one. Number two is that no one human being is going to embody all of those. And so inside of every team or niche, there's probably one, two, or three and just that, only that, that pretty much every person has to have.
Okay. After that. You start combining attributes and so, so you mesh the attributes to make the great team. That's what great teaming is about. Yeah. So without gaffing off your question, I'll say when it comes to seals, I would say if I were to, if I were to be put on the spot, on the probably top one or two attributes that every seal has, first is probably compartmentalization.
Comparation has to do with our ability to block out everything and focus in on what we need to do. It's kind of the, the Moving Horizons concept I talk about in master insert. Our ability to do that is from comparation. I would say probably adaptability. Uh, that's the ability for when the environment changes around you outside of your control.
You can, you can roll with it and go with the flow. Um, I would say, uh, I would say courage to an extent, but not, not like people, people think courage. They automatically think like, you know, skydiving and, and going into gunfights. Courage is quite literally your ability to step into your fear and discomfort, whatever that is for you.
Uh, and I know that every seal I know. Has made a habit of doing that. You know, seal is the extreme level. 'cause you know, I don't like heights, but I still jumped out of airplanes. But yeah, but just, you know, being able to say, that's not something I really wanna do, or that's not some, something I'm scared to do.
I'm gonna try it anyway, stepping into that. And I think that accessing that courage switch in our brain, I think, I think probably those are the top three. We could probably debate on a few more, but honestly, if I have the. The exact combo, then Buds probably would've called me and said, uh, and said, Hey, you know, how can we screen these guys or have you take your assessments?
So, yeah. So it's really the environment Buds itself is the screening because it's an, it is an attribute screening process. So you, I know you do a lot of work, you do a ton of talks, you get hired by different companies to come and talk to, as everybody now wants to be an entrepreneur. Yeah. And. I think there's a desire, like if you asked me what an entrepreneur was 20 years ago, I'd be like, I don't even know what the fuck that means, but like everybody wants to do it now, and I think everybody now feels that they should be working for themselves.
What do you think makes a success? A successful entrepreneur? Yeah. How, what attributes do you think people need to become successful? Yeah, it's a great one. First of all, I'll say not everybody should be an entrepreneur. Some people are not wired to be entrepreneurs. Um, entrepreneurs have a sense of, there's a, there's a, um.
There's a, a sense of adventure, there's a sense of adaptability, there's a sense of courage in there. Um, I think, uh, I think the entrepreneur attributes are probably com comparation probably they're actually quite similar probably to some of the SEAL ones in terms of your ability to adapt, to step into things.
You're, you're not comfortable doing maybe some cutting in there. Um, I think, uh, in terms of the. You know, in terms of the, uh, some of the, some of the mental acuity attributes, discernment is an attribute. We talk about discernment is this idea or this, this ability to pay real attention to detail. It's an attention to detail kind of thing.
I can notice small details and I do that very naturally. Whereas if you're low on discernment, you're someone who typically brushes over details, but you're way bigger on strategic picture. So in other words, details don't necessarily concern you as much. You just kind of go. Uh, I think entrepreneurs probably have a high, uh, lower discernments because you, they don't get bogged down by the details of what might need to happen here or how we're gonna, they just move.
Right? Yeah, yeah. Disadvantage obviously is, or a blind spot is you'll not notice small details. So my wife and I we're both, uh, low discernment. So that means when con, but our, our COO Jenny is high discernment, right? So when contracts come to us, we immediately hand it to Jenny because she's gonna notice things that we don't notice.
Uh, so I think entrepreneurs probably are more in fall in the category of high, of lower discernment, which means they have better strategic, but they're going to have to pair themselves on occasion with people who actually notice details. 'cause if you don't, if you miss some details that might be, might be, um, might be, uh, detrimental.
However, I think, um. True entrepreneurs. True. Like true blue. Like no kidding. They are the shit entrepreneurs. They are serial entrepreneurs. This is why they, they build businesses and after two or three years they leave because they're not built for taking that to the long, long haul. Right. Yeah. It's a whole, whole different set of attributes.
And so I think, I think the question people have to ask themselves is, are they really entrepreneurs or do they really want to be entrepreneurs or do they wanna start something? Actualize either in themselves or, or a team. Some, some attributes that allow that to get that thing going. And then as it gets going, after year three, year five, when you have to start thinking long term, a more of a paced marathon type thing.
How do we adjust ourselves? Because the same entrepreneurial spirit is not gonna work. You know, it's why if, if you stay in that fast moving thing that the organization's gonna gonna fall. Yeah. It's gonna, it's gonna, uh, spiral downward and, and, um, uh, and fail. So, so it's really about understanding who you are, where you, I don't know if I have entrepreneurial attri attributes and I think, I think I have some, but my wife and I we're building this business and we know we're a startup, basically, but we're, we're trying to actualize people who help us.
With that piece so that we can then take it long, long term on what that looks like. So it's really about understanding what that combo looks like and then, and then implementing that combo wherever in the business you are. Yeah, I, you know, just building a team on my own. When I first started out, I'm like, I just want to do everything myself.
I'll handle everything. But like you said, I, I don't have that attention to detail. Yeah. So I need people around me who are very detail oriented. He's great when it comes to, like, he'll sit and cut video and I'm like, I fuck. I couldn't do that if you paid me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then she's so on top of everything, she'll read every contract and do everything.
She's like my first line of defense with everything. So for me, it's. I, I have that mentality where I'm like, I, I need to drive the big picture. Now. I was watching the movie, UM, warfare. Have you seen that yet? I haven't, no. No. Okay. So it's a new movie about Navy Seals. A lot of guys were saying that it was like the most true Oh, okay.
Version of what you guys have seen and dealt with. But what I noticed was that during all the shit that they're dealing with, they almost have these like blinders on there. Like there's a hundred things going on, but they're focused on that one thing, just like you said. Is there a level of turning off emotion?
Yeah. Uh, so yeah. You don't turn it off. You turn it down. Yeah. You never wanna see emotion turned off because that's sociopath. Yeah. You know, and, and you have to be very careful about that. And, and unfortunately our profession, uh, can attract that, that mentality. Yeah. But, uh, but certainly turning down, but I think more than turning down.
It's, it's this idea that that seals are wired and we, well, I guess we we're predisposed for this when we go to SEAL training and because it's what helps us get through sea seal training. And then of course we hyper develop this, but we're wired to kind of go through this moving horizons process, which I talked to you about when we first met and I talked on that and as my second book.
And Moving Horizons really has to do with this idea that, that in uncertainty, challenge and stress. Uncertainty. The uncertainty that we actually don't like is the uncertainty that that causes fear. Okay. Because, and, and, and you know, in my work with Andrew Huberman, who's, who's been a great friend for the last five years, and he, he, he has, he helped me develop some of this stuff.
Um, but we kind of talked about this idea that that. That fear is a combination of two factors. It's uncertainty plus anxiety. Okay? Mm-hmm. Um, yeah, I, I was listening to this. Yeah. And if you have, if you have one or the other, you don't necessarily have fear, so you can be uncertain but not anxious. And that could be, or excuse me, let me do, let, lemme say an anxious, but not uncertain.
Okay. That could be the, someone has a presentation to give at work next week. They know the presentation. They know that people are giving to you there. There's no uncertainty there. They just have some anxiety about it. Mm-hmm. No fear you can be uncertain without being anxious. Oh, that's every kid on Christmas Eve.
Okay. We know that, what that feels like. There's no fear there. When you combine the two, that's when you generate fear and fear. Obviously, your, your auto, auto autonomic arousal goes up, your amygdala gets tickled. Your, as you get to the, the heightened levels where you approach autonomic overload or amygdala hijack your frontal lobe is actually taking a back seat, conscious decision making brain taking a backseat to your limbic brain.
This is where in those extreme cases, you are literally acting without thinking. Okay. Um, comes in real handy for, you know, jumping outta the way of a moving train or running from the bear. Mm-hmm. But not so handy in most other situations, certainly in navy seal environments. So what, what we have to do to mitigate fear is to buy down one or both of those factors, uncertainty and anxiety.
If, uh, if not both, the way we buy down an anxiety is through a lot of the. Tools that are out there right now. Respiratory tools are fantastic for this. Um, our autonomic arousal is, is, is, is, is, um, high. We can breathe in a way that brings our autonomic arousal down. That's literally bringing our frontal lobe back online.
Mm-hmm. So we can actually start making decisions. Okay. So like breathing downregulating, breathing down, reg regulating, uh, there's visual tools, you know, uh, open gaze, you know, which is called the nose. A soft gaze where if you're just looking straight ahead, you're not focused on one thing, you're. Kind of open.
Okay. That's a, that's, that's, that brings down autonomic rous. This is exactly why looking at Horizons calms us or sitting on a beach calms us. Okay. Whereas focused in, you know, when we're, when threat is in front of us, we're focused in on the threat. Yeah. So if we open gaze, that's another one. Um, so there's tools, there's a lot of tools out there.
I talk about some in the, in the, in the second book. Um, the other thing we, is that out yet? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It came out in January, so it's out there. Yeah. Um. The, the second thing that we have, we, the second thing that we can consider is reframing anxiety. And one of the ways we can reframe anxiety is just understand that anxiety is quite literally fiction, alright?
Because anxiety is always ahead of us. So like what we develop in our, it's always what we think is gonna happen. Okay? And the future is always fiction. The past is always history, right? So, so one of the things you'll never see Navy Seals do is worry about shit they can't control. Okay? Now, it doesn't preclude proper planning, obviously, uh, we'll plan for a contingency, maybe two or three contingencies.
But other than that, we'll go into the environment and say, okay, listen, when it hits, we'll figure it out then, but I'm not going to spend because you waste an enormous amount of energy. In a state of worry and you're, what you're literally worrying about is fiction. And so, so we don't, so we reframe anxiety, buy that down.
Reframing or, or buying down uncertainty involves this neurological process. We call, I call Moving Horizons, where we basically pick something to focus on. And focus on that. The reason why this works is because when, when our brains are trying to figure out any environment there, it's among myriad things they are, it's focused primarily on three things.
Duration, pathway, outcome. So duration, how long this is gonna last, pathway, what's my route and out or through, and then outcome, what's the end state. If we are an absence of one or more of those, we feel uncertainty in our system. Okay. Um. Example, uh, strep throat. We'll take illness strep throat, a known illness, and there's an antibiotic you can take for strep throat if we get strep throat, if your rod get strep throat.
We are in absence of only duration because we know the, we know the pathway antibiotic, we know the outcome. We're gonna get better. We just don't know how long it's gonna take. For some people, it takes one day from some people it takes three days, maybe have do seven days. Okay. Uncertainty levels mild.
The flu. Okay. Flu known illness. Most people in today's environment don't, don't die from the flu. So in the, in the case of getting the flu, we are, we have a known outcome, right? We're gonna get better. But there's no known cure for the flu. There's nothing you can take, right? There's a lot of ideas out there, but there's nothing you can take.
So we are in absence of pathway and we're in absence of duration. And our anxiety or our, our uncertainty levels is, uh, is heightened right? Then just imagine a disease shows up on the planet. We've never seen it before. Uh, it's spreading across the planet. There's no known vaccine. Uh, some people are dying.
Some people are not dying. We don't know how long this is gonna last, right? Enter 2020, right? We are all in absence of duration, pathway outcome. Our uncertainty level was at a high all time high. All moving horizons is, is in an, in any environment of uncertainty, you pick something to focus on and in essence, create your own duration pathway.
Outcome DPO, okay, real quick example of this. In SEAL training, you spend, you know, hundreds of hours running around with these big, heavy, heavy boats. Even in hell, especially in hell week. I remember it was hell week and it was three in the morning. We're running with these damn boats. We've been running for hours.
We're all miserable. We're next to a Sandburn. I say to, I said to myself, you know what? I'm just gonna focus on getting to the end of this Sandburn. This episode is powered by Celsius. Now, whether you're in the gym or you're on the run, or hey, you're just doing a podcast, grab yourself a can of Celsius and live fit, not knowing it.
What I did was I created my own duration pathway, outcome duration from now until end of Sandburn Pathway, from here to end of Sandburn outcome, end of Sandburn. In doing so, I immediately took charge of my own dopamine system and gave myself enough dopamine to actually conduct the goal, and then I gave myself a dopamine reward when I hit that goal, which allowed me to come back out.
And pick a new horizon, right? Mm-hmm. This process is the secret to making it through any type of challenge and stress and um, and we have to understand that it's also subjective to the human, okay? In other words, it's subjective to human and the intensity of the environment. So freezing in the surf zone, in in surf torture buds, sometimes my horizon was I'm just count five waves.
All right. Sometimes more horizon was I'm gonna wait till the next meal. You know, whatever that is, you're modulating based on your own subjective experience. But this is the secret and we, we actually practice this all the time. We do it all the time. Yeah. Do you know Josh Bridges? The name is very familiar.
Yeah. So he was a former A B Seal who was a big CrossFit athlete. Okay. Anyway, he had talked about years ago, and this had helped me with a lot of. Not only the way I train, but also in life. And I think it's a good skill, and I think he did this probably not even knowing, understanding this, but he was talking about chipper workouts, like these long, like, you know, hour long workouts and it's like 20 of this, 50 of that.
He's like, when you look at the board, you get overwhelmed by looking at all of it. He's like, why don't we just take this one exercise? And let's just wrap that out. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and you get that dopamine hit when you hit the second one. Yes. Yeah. And I think that's so important. I've naturally done that.
I, I grew up doing a lot of endurance racing. Mm-hmm. Um, and one of the things that, especially when you're doing a marathon or something, I'm like, all right, I'm just gonna make it to mile 17. Yeah. Yeah. Mile 18. Mile 19. How do something like that, right. No one taught me that. Right. I was just like, Ugh, this sucks.
If I focus on the whole thing, it's just gonna too much overwhelm me too much and it's gives me anxiety. Is this a good way for people to manage those? It is. A hundred percent. And think the good news, and this is why the athletics and the gym is a great place to practice. This, even though the, the gym doesn't provide gym is not uncertain.
So you're not practicing it in uncertainty. Mm-hmm. But you are practicing it in adversity. What's happening there, and the reason why a lot of us have done this before is what we're naturally doing is managing our own dopamine system. Now, dopamine is a, so many people talk about dopamine and it used to be known as just a reward chemical.
You know, you get rewarded for something that you accomplish, but dopamine is so much more than that. And, and in, in basic terms, it's primarily a motivation chemical. It actually, it's what gets us out of bed and moving in the morning, they did this experiment with rats where they had a, a rat in a. And a cage next to a, a device where the rat would just hit this lever and a and a tasty pellet would come out.
Right? So the, the rat naturally just stood next to the lever and just kept hitting it and getting pellet after pellet, right? Um, but then, and then they took the rat and they moved the rat about a rat's length away. And of course, the rat ran over and started hitting again. But then they removed the dopamine from the rat.
They were able to do that chemically, and then to put the rat a rat's length away from that lever rat didn't ever move. The rat would sit there and starve. Right. There was nothing in its system to get it moving. And so, so what's happening to us as humans when we're setting a a horizon is we're setting a level of dopamine that gets us moving.
If we set a horizon that's too big, we will run out of dopamine before we get there. We will quit. All quitting is, is you've run out dopamine. Okay? And so we naturally sometimes find ourselves setting horizons because we're managing our own dopamine system. The good news is you can actually do this and you can adjust.
By the way, if you set a horizon that's too, too, too close, you won't feel anything, there will be no reward. You're like, I didn't feel that'll also be demotivating. Okay? Mm-hmm. So, but we can actually manage that in the moment. And all of us who work out have done this before, right? We go down for the bench and we're gonna do 12 reps.
We do six. And suddenly we're like, okay, just six more. Yeah. What we've immediately done is we've, we've created a new horizon because we realize somehow subconsciously that if I count to 12, I'm not gonna make it, but I just, I can do another six. Right? Yeah. So we have immediately adjusted that horizon to give us a little bit more dopamine to get us through.
And this is what happens. And this is, so the, you know, the, the CrossFit example is perfect because that's a Navy SEAL way to look at it. It's like if you look at the whole elephant. You know, it's, it's a neurological equivalent of eating the elephant one by a time. That's what it's, yeah. Yeah. So one of the things I think a lot of people struggle with, and we see a lot of middle aged people here, you know, couples, both men and women, and I feel like when people lose purpose Yeah.
They start to lose the, the, the will to, to move on. Yeah. And. For me, in my work, I'm not just a trainer. I wanna really help people develop and continue to live a happy life. Even for myself, I do it because I kind of struggle with the same shit and you're like, what am I doing? What's my purpose? And I don't even know.
Sometimes if people do have a purpose, like what? What's the meaning of life? It's such a big question, but. For me, I enjoy watching other people succeed. I enjoy working out with people. I, there's like little things that I keep in my life that I'm not willing to sacrifice to do that. However, people have this idea that they're like, all right, if I sacrifice my life, I want to have kids.
I want to build a family. And then they find themselves 10, 20, 30 years down the road and they're fucking miserable. Yeah. Yeah. And those are the type of people that I wanna help. 'cause I, I was just with somebody who's 40 years old. They're getting divorced, you know, they're like, I don't even know what the hell I want outta life anymore.
Right, right. How do we help that demographic of people with both these philosophies, right? The, the moving horizons? Yeah. Like what could they set their goals on? How do they do that? Right. How do you even start doing that? And then they're, they attributes, what are they, what are they naturally? Good at.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a great one. As a middle aged person myself, I'm 52, so I, I I, I'm in a, in a, a new phase of life and having been a Navy seal, I think I retired when I was what, 43? 44. Um, and now your kids are older too, right? Kids are older, yeah. 20 and 18. So they're So you guys are empty nesters? Yeah, almost.
Almost. But uh, and my wife and I were really, so we're adamant about this fact that, you know, as soon as you stop growing, you start dying. Yes. So you have to keep going. I agree. Um, and so one of the things I love about what you do, and those of you in your space who do it the correct way, which you do. Uh, is working out is so much more about, it's so much, so much more than just the fitness.
Mm-hmm. Because you're, you're, you're showing yourself and you're teaching yourself lessons in the gym about, about moving horizons, about pushing beyond discomfort, things like that. So, so I think this is a great environment. I'm, I'm, I'm, that's one of the things that reasons why I think, connected with you, because you do that work, you do the work of helping inspire people to be better.
What I will say though is, is we often get trapped into, um. Uh, this idea, and it has to do with, with the elephant being too big, we may have this purpose, but purpose is often kind of big and in some cases ethereal. It's aspirational almost. Mm-hmm. So the idea behind mastering uncertainty and, and continuing to grow is, how can I make that purpose or from that purpose derive some concrete objectives?
Okay. A concrete objective is a goal that you can set, that you can then DPO against, you can start moving horizons against. Okay. When I was, uh, you know, I was in high school, you know, late eighties. Um, I was, I first, uh, early nineties, I first learned about Navy Seals. I had, before that, I wanted to be in the military.
I wanted to be a pilot. That was one of the things I wanted to be. But I also wanted to be unique. I wanted to stand out. I wanted to be, do something different, be a warrior of some kind. I read about the seals. I was like, oh, wow. Who are these guys? You know? And so my purpose became an objective, become a Navy seal, and from that objective, from that big objective, I could then.
DPO my way through that. 'cause now I have to break that into smaller things. And I think one of the, the traps people get into is, especially in middle age, is they feel like, oh, I'm at an age where I can't do it. That's bullshit. Okay. It really, I mean, it really is. Mm-hmm. Um, and anything you've done in your previous life, and I tell this to everybody who's retiring or getting outta the military, transitioning all of the attributes that allowed you to be successful in your military career, you can use those same attributes in whatever other endeavor you just.
You just cross context, but, but breaking into smaller objectives, you know, coming outta the military, I'd have, I had a huge powerful identity of, I am a Navy seal. That's a big one. Once you retire, you're no longer a Navy seal. We're not like, the Seals aren't like the Marines, by the way. Marines are really good.
They're like, once a Marine, always a Marine. That's not how it is in the seals. Mm-hmm. You know, our, our saying is you earn your Trident every day. As soon as you put down that Trident, you are no longer a seal. Now we are former seals, we're very proud of that, but, but the guys who are current seals, they're the guys doing the thing.
So you can imagine most of us have a big dearth in identity. Okay. Um, what I was able to do is, first of all, I had another powerful identity, even more powerful husband, father. I lean on that, but then I say, you know what? I'm gonna create a new identity, you know, author, entrepreneur. Mm-hmm. You know, try that out and, and pick a new mountain to climb.
Now the mountain is, you know, author, write a book, you know, which I did that had to be broken up. Entrepreneur, we're still building the business, but we're, my wife and I feel like at our age we're climbing a new mountain and we've already decided that once we get to the top of this mountain, this next mountain, whatever that is, we will look for the next mountain to climb, however old we are.
Um, and I think, I think we have to, if we want to enjoy life and feel fulfilled, we have to start picking new mountains. Turn purpose. It is important to figure out one's, one's purpose, but it's also hard and Yeah. And you just don't know. It's just, it's just tough to do. But think about what it is that inspires you.
Think about what is that drives you. It often, by the way, has to do with helping people in whatever. I mean, helping people is, is a common one. Is is is probably 99.9%. Everybody's purpose. 'cause it feels so good to do it, you know? Mm-hmm. Helping people, helping animals, just helping make this world a better place.
Yeah. What's inside of that can you pick to allow you to do that? Um, and then also it's gonna fulfill you in a way, right? And, and that'll be, yeah. And then you'll feel fulfilled. I mean, everything about leadership for, for any of us is, it's not because you are in charge of stuff, it's because the people who come back to you later on said, I loved working with you.
Thank you so much. That's the fulfilling part, so, so take the purpose, figure out some objectives you can anchor on, and then start D Ping creating horizons inside of that and start moving small steps. Do you see, I mean, because you work with a lot of personnel who were former Navy Seals and now they're kind of looking for what they're gonna do next.
Yeah. Do you see a lot of the same situations that those guys deal with in pro athletes as well? Like, they're just like, they, they built their whole lives up to this point. Yes. Yeah. Right. You're sitting on top of the mountain and now you gotta be like, all right. Time for you to walk off. Yeah. Yeah. Pro athletes is a, is a, is a enormous, uh, environment where you have this.
This trouble transitioning, how do I transition from this thing? That was everything. My entire identity. Yeah. Um, now again, the pro athletes that do it the most successfully are the guys and gals who actually have. Other identities. And in the, in the, in the second book, I talk about the fact that we, as human beings, we, we actually collect identities as we go through life.
Mm-hmm. Um, some of them very powerful, some of 'em, you know, not as powerful, so, so through life. So Navy Seal, powerful identity, husband and father. Right. Also, you know, went to Purdue, Purdue fan, you know, Purdue fan, uh, Metallica fan. These, every single one of these identities comes with it. Some conditions and rules that define being in that identity.
Mm-hmm. Uh, as a Purdue fan, I'm supposed to hate Notre Dame. That's just what we do. That's what we do, right? Yeah. Um. But when you lose one of the primary ones, okay. It's a, it is, it can feel like an, an enormous absence there. Mm-hmm. Um, I, same thing happened to me. It was an absence, but I had one of my most powerful, even more powerful than my Navy Seal, was my husband father identity.
And so as soon as I lost that one, I had that one to lean on. Mm-hmm. Um, it allowed me to sit and say, okay, what's my new identity? And so, so I think the, even the athletes I've seen who've. Been very healthy in their transition. They've had something else. Drew Brees is a, is a friend of mine. He is a wonderful guy.
Um, and even, even when he was playing football, when we would get together, we'd talk some football. 'cause that's fine, but we talk about our families. I mean, he is, for him it was always husband and father and then football player, right? Mm-hmm. And so when he stopped being a football player, you can see he is, he's just, he's just as happy.
He's just as fulfilled. There's certainly an absence there, right? Because there always is. But he had something to lean on. So, so I think any of us who are in a, a. An ex a moment where we were experiencing transition. It's really important for us to, to take some time and identify our identities and say, okay, what are the, I ams and link up to the really powerful ones if the one you're leaving is put on the shelf, sure.
But what's the new one? I'm, I'm gonna create what's going, what's my new mountain? You know? Yeah. I mean, you've had, in my opinion, uh, a very high level of success to, to be able to call yourself a Navy seal. Mm-hmm. You've had this accomplishment, and I think it helps people move on in life when they had this level of success.
You were a celebrity, you are, you know, and it's a hard transition because now you're not that thing anymore. Yeah. But for people who've never had that, for people who've. You know, became an accountant or, you know, worked at a bank or something like that. Like I see it in my own family. Right. My brother's a cop and he feels like he's never had this sense of accomplishment.
Yeah. Right. He's like, he's never taken pride in the job. I, I don't think he's ever liked it really for those people, which I'm sure there's a lot of people out there like that, that have never had that sense of accomplishment. Do you think that that's a necessary aspect of life? That to have some level of accomplishment to have done something?
Yeah. Where you could be like, oh, I did this one thing. You know, because I can't imagine how fulfilling it would be to be a parent. Um, but it's hard, right? Yeah. You know, and there are people I know, great people who. Kind of feel like they fucked up having kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? Um, but, and it's very, it's, it's hard to manage.
Like no one, I don't think there's really any book out there that can be like, here's how to be a great parent. Yeah. Right. It's just too far. No, no, there's not. Yeah. Yeah. It's always, it's always a shot in the dark. Yeah. Yeah. So you never know. It's like too much, too little, whatever. It's right. Yeah. But how do.
Do you think people need some level of accomplishment in their professional life to make them successful in that family part of their life? I would say no, not in their professional life. Um, they, they need some level of accomplishment, but here's the good news is accomplishment comes from within. Mm-hmm.
Um, and a lot of times people think they haven't accomplished something because they're, they're, they're looking at stuff that's way too high. They're, they're looking at aspirations. You there. It's like, you know, you can't sit there as a a 45-year-old man and say, God, I wish I could have been a Navy Seal.
That's not a healthy way to live. Right. It's what's more healthy is say, who am I now and what have I accomplished? Mm-hmm. However, small. Okay. I mean, your brother a cop. I had, I talked to a bunch of firefighters last night and I, you know, first responders, cops and firefighters and EMTs. They just, they are so astounding to me in what they do for us.
As civilians, you know? Yeah. I wouldn't want that job. And I, it's a very hard, and cops, by the way, is the hardest outta the three, the worst. Uh, even the firefighters like, yeah, the cops like, you know, we're always the heroes. The cops, you know, they, they, they have to be the bad guy sometimes to be, to do the right thing.
What, what, what I want to tell the cops, for example, and firefighters, I told the firefighters last night, an EMTs like what they do. I want them to understand how much, um, uh. Comfort. It brings guys like us when we go overseas and leave our families at home to know that there are people like them taking care of our families when we're gone.
Our families can call firefighters cops and they will be there to help. I mean, they, they have to understand how much they are serving us, even out there serving the nation. So, but these are things that we have to change our distinctions. We have to take the time into as individuals and ask ourselves, okay, what is it that I contribute?
What I, I accomplished? However small. My, my saying in life has kind of been, um, I'm always, I'm always grateful, but never satisfied. Um, because I think gratitude is one of these things that if we are, if we focus on what we're grateful for, we start getting a sense of all the things in our life that are good, and that helps with that accomplishment thing.
But then I have a sense of dissatisfaction. I just want do more. I wanna grow, I want to be bitter, do better, be bigger, expand my knowledge. So, but I can't, if I'm, if I'm ungrateful and dissatisfied. It is not gonna feel good. And by the way, that'll affect my ability to climb the next mountain. But if I'm grateful and dissatisfied, now I know, hey, everything about my life, what is it?
That's awesome. And now where do I go from here? You know, it's just a way better baseline. Um, we can't go through life expecting, um, that accomplishment equals acknowledgement. It just doesn't, you know? Mm-hmm. Uh, by others, I should say, you know, acknowledging ourselves is really the key, you know? You, you have a very strong sense of family, right?
Oh yeah. You're clearly very close with your wife. Your kids are probably gonna move outta the house now. Yep. What's next for you? Yeah. First of all, ball like a baby as, as any, as any dad does? No. Uh, what's next for us? Well, so I want to, I wanna still support my sons, uh, and my entire family as much as possible.
One of my, my wife and our goals is always to be. The entity that brings family together. Mm-hmm. Which we have done in Virginia Beach. We have tons of family. We, we have get togethers all the time. So, so what can I do in, and what can my wife and I do in our lives that allow us to continue to. Create those environments mm-hmm.
And get them even more extravagant. As we, as we, as we achieve more and more financial success, whatever our goals are, can we get those more extravagantly? So, um, so I think for us it's, it's doing that. I think, I think I've always really been interested in helping as many people as possible. And, and then so in asking, so you, this is a great example of how people can kind of think about what they've done and how they translated.
I, I said, okay, what can I take from my Navy Seal life? And translate in a way that it can help other people, you know, and without. And to do that, I have to take the Navy seals off the pedestal. I have to humanize all this stuff. Mm-hmm. So how can I actually do that? Which is what I've been doing with the books and business and so and so, I think our goal is to help as many people as possible.
Um, in doing so, create financial, uh, security for ourselves and our families so that we can enjoy each other. Um, and honestly, you know, at the end of the day, you know, the only thing I want on my tombstone is husband and father. That's all I want, you know, actually, maybe good husband and father. Some, some, some qualifiers, but, but keep it simple.
Keep it simple. You know, going back to that idea of how strongly you feel about family and your kids and stuff, how, why do you think as a, as a nation. Probably as a civilization. Yeah. We've moved so far away from this because the people I know who are happy about it and proud of it. Yeah. It seems like that's the only way.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then you have this whole other side that feels like you're doing the work of the devil. Well, I think yeah. Raising a family. Yeah. I think, I think, um, and this is just the theory, probably just, it's probably one of many reasons, unfortunately, I think social media has not. Has not done us, uh, any, any favors in this, in this context.
And it's because social media has provided platforms, uh, inside of which, or upon which other people compare themselves to what they're seeing. Uh, and, you know, movies and TV and film, they always did that. But we always, everybody always had a sense that, that, that's just, that's just a movie. Right. But, but you know, the, the social media often, you know, it just.
You know, people will present themselves on social media in a certain way, and it's just that snapshot, either picture or small, short video. Mm-hmm. And it's not a hundred percent of them, it's maybe a half percent of them, but people will absorb that and be like, oh, that, that is what success looks like or what, what it should look like.
And now we're comparing, I think we, we should never, ever get into the comparison game, uh, now, unless you only, I guess the only, the only constructs maybe in athletics or something like that. We might wanna do it, but, but maybe in very specific things. But, but we are all different. We're different vehicles.
We're different people we're, we have different, uh, strengths. We have different weaknesses. And so I think, um, I think if you are, if you're focused on a life where you are constantly judging your own life, uh, against what you're seeing out there. And, and in many cases not satisfied because you're not like that person, uh, or you're, you're not experiencing what that person's experiencing.
That is a recipe for, for disaster. We have to be very, um, honest with ourselves about who we are, what we wanna do, what are those little things that we can be grateful for and do every day. You know, I always say, you are the company you keep. Yeah. Right. You want to be around people who inspire you. You know, when I first heard you talk, I was like, I.
I need to meet this guy. I need to talk to him. I just want to even have a conversation with him. So I'm so glad we got to do this. What are some things that people could do right away? Yeah, that could kind of, because when I, we were talking, I was, when you were talking, I was like, man, this guy lights me up.
I want to do more. Yeah. So people could obviously read the books. They could, uh, take the attribute test online. But what are some other things that they could do in their own towns or neighborhoods, wherever they are, to improve their outlook on life? Yeah. 'cause I feel like a lot of us have lost hope in the future.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is. Yeah. So what could we do to almost like fake happiness? Well, yeah. So first of all, you know, um, even fake happiness is actually not a bad thing. But you don't have to fake happiness. I think. I think one of the, one of the first things people can do is, and I try to do this every morning, start a gratitude exercise.
Every morning, just take two minutes, maybe five minutes, but you know, whatever you need. And just write down things that you're grateful for and be honest with yourself. It could be as simple as, I'm grateful I get to sit here and drink my cup of coffee, right? Mm-hmm. But change your state. Start your, start your day in a better state and just practice that, you know, make that habitual, I think, and in context with you.
Do movement, get moving? I mean, if we're not moving, we're dying and, and exercise in any capacity. Is good. Uh, and if you feel like, oh no, I'm, I'm super outta shape, or I can't do this. Okay, just walk. Take a small walk. Yeah. Take a few steps, uh, move, move the horizons appropriately so you can get moving.
Because, because movement is not only the key to health and longevity, but it's also the key to getting everything else done, right? It's these small accomplishments. You, you get more energy when you, when you do that stuff. So, so these are little things we can do every day. Little accomplishments we can make.
Uh, to just begin to move the needle, but, but change changing state, I think gratitude helps us do that. So gratitude would be my number one, and then movement would be number two. Awesome. Yeah. Um, so real quick, I just wanna spitball a couple questions. Yep. And I'll let you get outta here. 'cause know you gotta catch a flight.
Um, hardest thing you've ever done. Like actually physical workout. You, well, physical, har physical hardest thing is, is seal train. Yeah. You know, without a doubt. But like what part? I mean, there's probably, I mean, probably hell week I would say. Yeah. Uh, because that's the whole week, you know? Um, was it carrying the boats?
Was it the drowning? Like what I mean, again, it's everything because what you're doing is, again, you're shifting horizons. Like what, what I remember being, being fruit, freezing the surf zone and saying, you know what, soon I'll just be. Really hot doing pushups. And I remember being, having that boat and it's like, okay, I'm, I'm miserable, but soon I'll be cooling off in the surf zone.
Yeah. So you just, so yeah, you, you, you compartmentalize, you, you shift horizons through that. But yeah, I think physically, uh, absolutely. Um, that's, that was the hardest thing. Yeah. Best piece of advice you've ever gotten? Uh, best piece of advice. Boy, that's a really good one. And there's probably so many, um, uh.
I think, uh, it was, it was something that I read when I was in high school, and I don't know if I kind of, I might have modified it, but it has to do with asking the right questions, asking better questions, and it said, it goes like the, the quality of our lives is directly proportional to the quality of questions we ask ourselves on a consistent basis.
If you ask yourself better questions, you get better answers, you go different directions. So instead of things like, why am I so bad at this? What's wrong with me? How can I improve who's out there that can help me? Your brain will give you answers. Yeah. Solve the problem. Solve the problem. Yeah. Um, you know, you've inspired me so much.
Like I, as soon as you, after you got off stage, I was like, I downloaded the book. I'm taking the attribute test. I called Christie, I was like, this guy's fucking amazing. I go, we gotta get him at strong. And then, um, somebody who inspired you, somebody who you've seen talk or you heard talk Yeah. Or you got to meet.
Yeah. Who like really like set your soul on fire. Um. You know, I was not really meant to, uh, gotten to meet, but I, when I was a kid, my two favorite books were Yeager Chuck Yeager's autobiography. Okay. And then the Right stuff, the, you know, about the, about the Apollo program. Yeah. The astronauts. And I think, I think reading that.
It probably shaped my, shaped my development in a, in a really cool way. Um, because I just, this idea of stepping out to your outside, your comfort zone to discover, to explore, to do things that other people haven't done, I think those are, those really inspired me quite a bit. Um, my parents have always been people who never directed us on a path.
They always let us, you know, keep us, let us stay open and encouraged us to pathways. Um, I get inspired by I, I, the guys around me every day when I was in the teams. I get inspired by. Um, you know, I, I, I'm, I, I try, I actually, I'm lucky. I try, I find inspiration in many, many places. My kids inspire me when I see how they, how they behave, how they're growing up in, in many ways.
So, so I think, um, those are some quick answers and I think the, what I'd say to people is look for inspiration everywhere. Mm-hmm. As you can find it. And final thing, if everybody out there was one of your two sons, what's the best piece of advice? What's the one thing that you want them to know and learn to be the best man they possibly can.
It's, um, uh. All of our potential, every single part of our potential lies outside of our comfort zone. Uh, that's where it's, we can't, we cannot explore it unless we are willing to step outside the comfort zone. So, so practice that as much as possible and don't, don't be held back and use these techniques and tools to do it.
Awesome. Yeah. Rich, where could everybody find you? Uh, so yeah, uh, books are on Amazon. Of course, I'm on Instagram, rich, uh, Dini. I think there might be a tag there, but, uh, rich Dini and then LinkedIn, I'm there too. So yeah, check us out. The, uh, the attributes.com is the website. So, and now companies can hire you to come in, speak to their, speak to them, do keynotes.
We also do workshops and we, we put them through workshops where they do the assessment. We, we explore the assessment with them as teams. We help them with hiring. Selection, all that stuff. So yeah, check us out. I wanna really, I just want to thank you so much for doing this, for doing Strong New York this year.
I was telling everybody, I was like, if you get to see anybody at Strong this year, you have to go see Rich. So thank you so much again. Well, thanks again. It's great to know you. So thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you guys for watching. Thank you. Like share, subscribe with a friend. Um, let us know what you think in the comments and we'll see you guys on the next episode.