B (3:19)

Well, I think overall we're talking to high performers. We're talking to people who really have a vision for their lives. And I think historically we're all taught that, you know, you just head down, ass up, work harder, give more, 110%. You know, those old hockey phrases and you know those types of things that many of us were raised with. And then of course, I enter the world of NHL hockey and the Olympic level figure skating and I realized that that is actually not the case. You're breaking some of these laws. You're actually working against yourself. So let's talk about them in order.

A (3:54)

Okay, so we'll talk about them in order. But something that you just said and you know, back to the farmer, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't about him working harder. It was the environment. It was actually the soil that he was planting and, you know, he hadn't created the right environment for his crops to grow. So, you know, and then as you're talking about athletes and high performing entrepreneurs, something that, you know, we want to shine a light on, I think, is that when you consider what you've done over the years and working with many NHL players and teams and then within the Olympic and world class journey of figure skaters that you work with, the environment that they're in. So as much as you're hanging out with and you're supporting those athletes or those entrepreneurs, we have to consider the environment that that puts you in and that they find themselves in. And so that's a kind of a. I don't want to go any deeper with it right now. Let's just start with the first one and then I think that kind of context will give everybody some thoughts, some, some food for thought later on. Okay, number one, individuality. What the heck does that even mean? We're all individuals?

B (4:59)

Well, yeah, absolutely. But what happens is that we as coaches sometimes are using a cut and paste philosophy or this program, or I even have people calling me now and saying, can I join your program? Unfortunately, I can't say yes because I don't have a program. Every person I work with is different. They have different goals, different dreams, different backgrounds, different values. So if we're just trying to cut and paste and we're ignoring the individualness or the, their psychological uniqueness, we're really letting them down. So number one, and so important is to treat everyone and yourself as an individual and get to know thyself.

A (5:40)

Well, I would expand on that a little bit. I mean, we can look at it through the eyes of coaches, but I'm also looking at it through the eyes of a business owner, a CEO or whatever. And the individuality in that case, I think too is that we as business owners, CEOs can fall into a bit of a copy and paste strategy rut where we ignore not just the individuality of the team, but our own individuality and our own psychological uniqueness and then being able to preserve the psychological, even uniqueness and, and patterns of those that we support on the team. So as an old friend of ours once said, you know, as much as he's a CEO, I think he at the time had like 13 or 14 vice presidents. I mean, he was a big, it was a big organization that he owned. But my point is, is that he often said he's, he isn't a boss, he's a coach, and he's constantly working with his team from that perspective. Now, I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I'm just suggesting that, you know, when we hear from somebody, his job was to create the environment for his people to thrive. Well, okay, there you go. It's like creating the environment for your crops to prosper means that you have to fertilize the soil. You have to be aware that, you know, if the soil's leashed, you got to do something about that because it's not going to grow in that soil. Okay, so I ranted on, but.

B (7:05)

Exactly. But if you're growing corn and then you go to check it out and, you know, next thing you know, you've got carrots coming up, chances are you weren't in the environment for the proper crop to grow.

A (7:17)

The difference between a corn seed and a carrot seed is quite different. So you're going to want to make sure that you know the difference between the two.

B (7:24)

Well, athletes are different, entrepreneurs, CEOs are different. When I'm working with a group of CEOs, for example, I'm looking at their history, their success rate, the, the values that they bring to the company, how they support and build environments for their staff to flourish in. And are they looking at each person as an individual or are they trying to just use a cookie cutter model?

A (7:46)

Okay, so number one was individuality. We still got seven more to go. Overload, constant grind. Right. So that constant grind and the overload that we take, I think every single person that is career oriented or business owner goes through this. But we can't ignore it. So what's your thoughts?

B (8:06)

Well, the constant grind obviously will break you down over time. I mean systems get overloaded, operating systems get overloaded where the point where, you know, things can blow up if you got too many plugs in at the same time. So what's happening is we don't step back for a minute and create a strategy. So when we think about strategic stress, like stress is a good thing, it's not always a bad thing. But when it turns into overload and you get that constant grind and you're just going to go over and over 7, 24 7. And if I just work harder and I just grind harder, it doesn't work that way. We need to have kind of like pistons in a car. Seven areas of life we have. If we're working on our physicality and we're in the gym, then work on the physicality and manage that. Create a yearly training plan or some sort of progression that works for the physicalness. Then there's the mental training, then there's the emotional resilience training, the, you know, the connection to the social, connection to the environment. Any one of those. And like I always say is that your strengths overdone become your weaknesses.

A (9:09)

Yeah, overload is an interesting one. I recently saw a TEDx talk where it was really cool. This, this juggler, he who he, he did this talk while juggling. And his whole point was, you know, in our 20s, we're all alone and he's flipping this whatever he was juggling at the time, I don't know what it was, let' bowling pin. And he's juggling this bowling pin. He says we're single, you know, and we're. And he's just flipping this bowling pin. Then we meet a girl. So he also made it funny, right? So then he kicks up the second bowling pin and then he's juggling two bowling pins, right? And then, you know, we decide we're in love and we get married and she has a job, I have a job, we buy a home. Then he kicks up another and the next thing you know he's got three of these bowling pins that he's juggling. And then they have a baby and then there's four bowling pins, you know, that he's flipping in the air. And then she asks me to da da da. And then he drops all the bowling pins. The point is, is that at some point we overload through the constant grind. So if we don't understand that we live. And this is. You know something, Stephanie, is that what you said is when we think about the seven areas of life, I think we have to start positioning that as it's actually a closed circuit.

B (10:17)

Yeah, totally.

A (10:18)

None of it works without the other. And as soon as one of those seven areas of life starts to break down, it impacts all areas of life. So as much as people say, well, I need balance and this and balance and that, I think, and we understand that, we also realize there is no balance. The thing to take away in this overload conversation is overload can come from. To your point, something overdone in another area of life. So if business is your thing, the other areas of life, if not looked after, break down. So overload in one area breaks down the other areas. What's your. I don't know, what's your thoughts? I was just kind of a 100%.

B (11:00)

I mean, we always say when I'm working in the seven areas of life, which ones are up right now? Could it be. Could it be financial? Could it be vocational? And at the same time, if that's have the agreements that you need in place with your staff, with your team, with your. With your spouse, with your partner, with your kids so that they know where your focus is so they don't feel. Feel ignored or they don't feel like you're working 247 and that they're not a priority. So I think when we are understanding that seven areas of life, conversation, whichever one's up right now, do we have the emotional resilience and the ability to communicate to the people around us?

A (11:33)

Yeah. And just because somebody may be listening to this podcast for the first time, seven areas of life. Mental, emotional, physical, relational, financial, familial. Did I miss one?

B (11:48)

Social and spiritual.

A (11:49)

Yeah. Did I put those? Okay, I thought those. Okay, I think we covered them all in there anyways. Okay, this is a cool one. Restoration. The key thing there is rest. So I've got a few things I would say about this, but you're leading the way.

B (12:06)

Well, when I'm talking to parents of young athletes, and especially in ice hockey, for example, they will say, okay, I gotta go to spring school, I gotta go to summer hockey school, and then I gotta go to fall trial and I got the season and it becomes a 12 months of the year thing. And one of the things that I bring up to parents all the time is growth happens in periods of rest. That's what growth happens. So if you're wanting your child to grow and to you Know, to step into their full body potential and their full skill potential, there has to be a downshift, there has to be periods of rest. So that's why you even hear ring Wayne Gretzky say over the years is that he never did summer hockey schools. You know, his parents put him in soccer and ball, he was a great football, a baseball player. He took time away from the sport that he was in, for example. Same thing happens in business. If you don't force yourself sometimes to take, you know, a four day weekend or to build in the rest and recovery, we just don't get stronger. We, you know, you have to rest and in between sets at the gym, for example, you know, you do a, you know, you do a set, a bunch of reps, but if you don't put rest in between, your muscles don't grow.

A (13:13)

Well. Yeah, and I think this is an important part of all of that metaphor, right, which is in the gym and I learned this one many years ago, you know, working out every day and working the same muscles every day, you actually aren't growing muscle lifting the weights. It's actually the, the, the gains are made in the rest cycle after you lift the weights. And so there's a part of it where, and I'm so guilty of this over the years, as you know, and that is generally enjoy what I'm doing enough that it doesn't really feel like work. So I'm just into it. But the realization, and then at some point I get frustrated because I'm not getting the results I want. And the realization is that I'm, it's not that I'm working too hard or anything else, but I haven't literally I've breaking a law. And the law says that if you want growth, you have to take a break. And often those breaks for me turn out to be more creativity, more ideas, rejuvenation of enthusiasm. So that is, you know, the law that's being broken there is so fundamental. It's like before I learned about lifting weights and that growth came in the rest period. I lift weights like crazy. I wasn't getting great results by any stretch of the imagination. And the realization back then was because I was breaking the law of growth, which is you need restoration.

B (14:35)

So yeah, rest and recovery, that's hard for high performers, whether it's CEOs or Olympic athletes, because they're told, you know, more is more. And the truth is more isn't more and less is more. And when you can manage your rest periods, your recovery, the reset happens. So Much quicker and your mind is more clear. And that's the other thing. You know, we go back to when we were in St Lucia and we both hit the wall of business wise and, you know, three or four days in of sleep, and then all of a sudden, in a couple of days, you'd come up with the podcast idea of the everyday. And I don't know if you, if you.

A (15:10)

It's a big one. We have to force ourselves to do it. We don't think we need it. We justify not needing it. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. Yeah, you're good. But if you want to make progress, if you really want to keep going, which is, by the way, progress is the next one, you need recovery to get progression. And this is the key, you know, so progression is a great word. It's all part of the eight laws that we break. Go ahead.

B (15:34)

Well, think about it. Small, consistent steps. You know, when you think about growth, you think about learning. It's in the small incremental steps in the direction that you say you want to go. But most people go, they want to do a sprint, not a marathon. They want to go hard bursts and get her done and just go and make huge, big, hairy, audacious whatevers, you know, and then burn out. Progression. And the same thing with learning is that with progression, you're doing drill building, for example, or skill building, one on top of the other in order. There is a scientific, logical order when it comes to strength training, when it comes to learning a new skill. Even in business, things happen in order. And sometimes you can't break the law and put things out of order.

A (16:18)

You just can't. And there's something else about progression, you know, that's interesting that we think about. Like, for 20, 26, we. We're in the process right now of going through making some pretty big decisions, and we haven't made those decisions yet, but we're working backwards from an outcome. And just as we break that into the small steps, we're saying, holy cow, this is, you know, no less than a year to go through this process at best. And now that I'm even going through these steps myself with you, I'm looking at it going. And that's not even allowing for the restoration that we'll need within that year. So this project that we're looking at, yeah, can we get it done in a year? Do we really want to go balls to the wall and get it done in a year? When you think about what it takes to make this kind of progress, small incremental steps, restoration along the way could be 18 months. So it's all just a thought process. But I just, that just came up for me that in progression it really is small bite size steps that we can take, adapt if we need to redecide, make different decisions, you know.

B (17:24)

Yeah. Because the minute you make a decision, you're cutting away. That's what decide means, right. It means to cut away. So then you'll get a result, make a decision, get a result, decide, move on. If you got the result you wanted, great. If you didn't, step back and re choose. And I think that's the thing about progression is that's a little bit like the cha cha. One step forward, two steps back, you.

A (17:42)

And your cha cha. Okay, now this is a weird word because it can be interpreted a couple of different ways. Reversibility. Now, are we going backwards? What does that mean?

B (17:54)

No, it just means that. But what happens when we are training for something and I think about with athletes and I'm sorry about always bringing it back to athletes, but I'm just heading to Milano for the Olympic Games. And the thing is that when we take some time off, we have to take responsibility for the fact that our skills do decay faster than we expect. So you take some time off. In periods of rest, there can be activation, there can be things that you're continually doing in business, for example, you take some time off then, but if you just pull yourself right out, you don't realize that life has moved on. You know, the business has grown and things are happening. So skills and information decay a lot faster than we expect. You know, they always say that use it or lose it. Which is so, so true.

A (18:40)

Yeah, you know, I would use that metaphor that, you know, you've got a knife or you've got an ax, keep it sharp and it will cut wood for a long time. If you just keep beating the crap out of it, you don't sharpen it, the next thing you know it's degraded, which in this context, reversed reversibility is degraded and you'll never get the edge back that you once had. And so it is that. And I guess at some point you look at the skills that may evolve over time and you just don't use them anymore. You don't need them, so you've outgrown them. There is that side of it. But also, if you've got some skills, you got to really consider, do I need to keep them up to speed? Because they do degrade, they go away. And the next thing you know, you go, ah, I don't got it anymore. Okay, transfer. These words are just like, boom. Transfer. What the hell does that mean?

B (19:33)

Well, you think about it. The word win. So we've broken it down over the years to what's important now. What's important now. So what's important now is this podcast. You know, it's in the afternoon, and we've got things going. We've got friends coming for dinner. But what's important now is this podcast. We're recording it. I put some makeup on, and just in case there's people that want to check us out on YouTube. But what happens is that wins do compound. You know, they go across domains. So if you're winning in one area of your life, chances are you can pull those skills and what you've learned so that there's kind of a. Like a pyramid effect or a compounding effect when things are going well. But interesting thing about that, losses also compound, and they transfer into other things. They can. You know, if you're constantly putting yourself in a situation and you're not experiencing the wins or the small incremental wins, those losses can really affect your confidence. They can affect your commitment to going forward. They can really suck the life out of you. So that's what transfer means. Like, you can transfer the skills from the winning components, but also be aware that when there's losses or hits that you're taking, like some people that we've got are going, working with, I've taken some big hits in the last five years that can also trickle into other areas of life. So that's what transfer means.

A (20:50)

Got it. And as you were kind of digging into that a little bit and explaining it, what showed up for me is that the. What you said was winds, compound, they transfer. And then also that landed for me as go back to the word of progression. So we also transfer the lessons that we learned, but also in our own development of whether it be confidence or leadership skills, we go through the ranks. It is a little bit of, you know, that Peter's principle is that you've got to hit all the rungs on the ladder in order to progress up the ladder in an effective and a safe way. And sometimes we can get away with picking up a couple of steps, but those will come back to us and possibly haunt us later. So I get, you know that I like that word transfer. I just needed to give it a little bit more depth than we had. Okay, here's another one. You're messing me up here. Okay, adaptation, go ahead.

B (21:45)

You know, I'm working with an athlete right now and his nickname is Mr. Adaptability because he was the anti that he did not want to adapt anything. He wanted everything to be exactly the same all the time. And what happens is when we get into routine and we get into the TikTok of what's happening, sometimes our body and our mind stop responding. So we think we're working hard, we think we're repeating things in the proper way, but it just becomes repetitive, tick tock. And then it gets stale and then our body stops responding. We lose quote, unquote motivation or inspiration. So Mr. Adaptability became so much fun to work with because then the new context and the new intention for when we were working together and, you know, shit was happening at a competition or things were going on, he goes, well, I just got to adapt to that. And what was happening is that he was letting go more and more and more of control of how he felt things had to be. So, Mr. Adaptability, welcome to the play.

A (22:46)

So is adaptation what I'm hearing or what showed up for me in that is that adaptation also is an attitude. Like it's a. It's a. It's a way of showing up, a way of being. It's intentional. Are we adapting or we. There. There was a note that the body and mind stop responding to stale inputs. You know, so what does that mean? Tick tock. I'm just trying to think of what that might mean in the context of this. Any works.

B (23:14)

This has been working. It works. So we'll keep doing it over and over and over again. I'll keep doing that and I'll keep doing that. It's. Adaptation is one of the laws that, that we can't break.

A (23:23)

Oh, we get stuck there. Okay, got it. So. Okay, got it. So we get stuck there because it is. It's just stale inputs. We're going. It's like this way. We've always done it. That's what you're talking about there. So the idea of adaptation is to shift and be able to adapt to the changes as opposed to be stuck in the stale inputs.

B (23:44)

Exactly.

A (23:45)

Beautiful. Okay, that one's good. Okay. Specificity.

B (23:51)

This one I love. And this is one we cannot step over on any level in anything that we're doing. Sport, business, life, relationships. Because when we have a diffused effort, it creates, I don't know, mediocrity or average outcomes. Really. When you have the opportunity to understand specificity, what happens is that you put all your energy into all these other Things thinking that you're doing more, and then that you get into that whole more is more conversation again. And you always say, I remember somebody told you a long time ago, is a man who chases two rabbits catches men.

A (24:28)

That's a. Whatever proverb. A Chinese proverb.

B (24:31)

Is it? Oh, yeah. Okay. I just remember you saying that recently.

A (24:34)

Because the truth is, no, this is the number eight. This is the one that eats my lunch.

B (24:38)

I know. Because you're get so distracted all the time.

A (24:41)

Well, it's not distracted. And I share this with the team often. I'm in a lot of swim lanes and I'm so, you know, for me. And I love it all. I love doing what I'm doing. But it's. Sometimes I go, I'm not being effective or efficient because I've got too many things going on. So when the team's asking me to do something else, saying, apf, we need this, I go, oh, shit, I got to switch gears. I got to get in another lane. And it's not easy to just shift gears and shift mental space. And so then it slows me down. And oh, my gosh, I'm so guilty of this one. So think about it. Got rain, got pro skate. Those are like two operating businesses. Support you around quantum speed. Then we've got our own coaching program. And then we've got the Everyday Millionaire podcast, Mindset Matters podcast, rain channel on YouTube. Oh, I know, by the way. And I'm speaking and traveling. So my point is, this is not a complaint. I love it all, but there are times where I'm going, holy cow, I'm not. What if I just focused on one thing and I'm. But I don't. I can't do it. I can't do it.

B (25:48)

I'd be so bored.

A (25:49)

I'd be so bored.

B (25:50)

Anyways, well, I don't want to step over this one, too, because when we think about moving forward in the direction of our goals, one step at a time, and using all these rules, individuality, overload, restoration, rest and recovery, progression, reversibility, transferring, you know, knowledge, transferring skills, the ability to be Mr. Or Ms. Adaptability, and then drilling it all down to the one thing. Do you remember Billy Crystal?

A (26:17)

No. Yeah, yeah.

B (26:18)

One thing. I forget.

A (26:19)

Well, yeah, there was a book. There's a book. Who. Who wrote the one thing? We're not doing it any justice. We'll put it in the notes.

B (26:25)

I'll put it in the show notes. But anyway, it was the same thing is that when you really get down to that one thing, and what your purpose is and what you're truly aligned and what fires you up and what lights you up, what gets you out of bed in the morning, generally it's not 47 things, it will be the one thing. So that diffused effort that we put into those 47 things, and in your case, you know, hun, to be fair, is that you went from being a CEO of a big corporation, but through the pandemic, what happened is things moved around and then we ended up being CEOs of several different companies. So I think because we've really followed these rules pretty well over the last, you know, 30 some years, is that we're now prepared to use these and put and plant these rules and skills into whatever you're working on and whatever business lane that you're in.

A (27:14)

The one thing, by the way, was a book written by Gary Keller. I actually, I read it a long time ago, but that's who it was. Gary Keller.

B (27:22)

That's right. Yeah.

A (27:23)

I'm gonna have to reread that book. Maybe it'll help me get my shit together and get refocused. Okay.

B (27:28)

These are sort of loosely based on one of my favorite authors, Todd Herman. He also wrote the Alter Ego Effect. And I use that a lot with athletes. And these components and these skills start to become very natural when you bake it into who you're being as a human being, who you're being in your day to day life. And I think what happens is we get very scattered or we get distracted, or we get pulled into the divisiveness, or we're watching the mainstream media and thinking that this over here is real. But when you drill it all down and when you get to that place where you go, oh, I'm just going to put one foot in front of the other right now in the direction of my goals, things do get quiet, it gets a little bit more soft. But at the same time, the paradox of that is that for me, I feel I become much more powerful in the direction that I'm going.

A (28:16)

Okay, so as we wind down, let's recap our eight things. And those are individuality. So are we ignoring or are we honoring our individuality, our biological and physical uniqueness as an example, or are we just, just tick tocking right overload, talking about the constant grind that breaks us down and thinking in terms of the seven areas of life restoration, giving ourselves the opportunity to grow, to actually heal and get stronger. You know, back to the weight lifting analogy. Progression. Small, incremental, consistent steps rather than big heroic bursts. One step at a time, one decision at a time. Incremental reversibility. Reminding ourselves that skills will decay. We gotta use it or lose it. And transfer the word transfer about our wins because they compound across all areas of life, as do our losses. So pay attention. And then we hit on adaptation, the body and mind, and they stop responding to stale inputs. So we have to keep adapting and being aware of that specificity. Diffused. Oh, I don't like this statement. Diffused. Effort creates average outcomes. Okay, quit it.

B (29:48)

Ouch, that hurts.

A (29:50)

Ouch, that hurts. Because that's the one. That one is, I think, my Achilles heel, I think, anyways. But I still get pretty good results generally.

B (29:56)

Oh, well, you just sounded a little mediocre there, cowboy.

A (30:00)

Well, I know, but. Yeah, I don't know what to say about that one. I'm observing myself with the many things that I've got going on, so, you know, that's it.

B (30:09)

Well, let's say let's challenge ourselves.

A (30:11)

We'll all be vulnerable on our show.

B (30:13)

I know. But let's challenge ourselves. Let's see if we can whittle some of those distractions down to one or two things.

A (30:18)

To be specific, I'll point out my weaknesses. Okay. Anything else? Parting words?

B (30:25)

No. That was fun.

A (30:28)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening. If you found value in the podcast, please take the time to rate and review and share with others. Share with your friends as it is my goal to always improve and to provide the highest value for you, the listener. If you have any comments, comments, suggestions, or questions you'd like answered, please email me@ceoaincanada.com that's ceorincanada.com I look forward to hearing from you. And until next time, Patrick.

B (31:01)

Oh.