Self-Talk, Mental Imagery, and Finding Joy | AMA Vol. 11 with Dr. Michael Gervais

When something matters to you, you'll do whatever it takes. Welcome back or welcome to another Ask Me Anything on Finding Mastery. I am your host, Dr. Michael Jervé, by trade and training a high performance psychologist and the whole purpose behind these conversations, behind these AMAs is to hear from you to explore the topics and questions that you've been wrestling with on your path to becoming. So the goal is to expand on the themes and lessons and best practices that we've discussed on the Finding Mastery podcast in order to make them even more applicable to your own life. We're back with our favorite co-host, O'Neill Céspedos, and today we're covering some really interesting and insightful territory. So we're talking about where Joy comes from, why it's imperative to practice self-care, the nuances between 80D and 80HD, how to be a good friend to yourself, the power of imagery and imagination, and of course, so much more. And before we dive in, I want to give a quick shout out to our title sponsor for today's AMA, Carol Bike. I love their product, and I'm so stoked on what they're doing. Let's stay tuned for more on that later in this episode. So with that, let's jump right into volume 11 of Finding Mastery's Ask Me Anything. Okay. My favorite day of the week. My favorite day of the week. Oh, that's good. You just say that. No, no, no, no. I'm looking you in the eyes. This is true. This is absolutely. All right, so let's get into it. We've got, I love the questions that come in. There is a response that is noted. And so I appreciate our community that has got some questions for us. And so let's see, we can wrestle down today. All right, amazing. And this question is from Dara. Wait, nice one. Maybe before we get in. I kind of rushed us a little bit. Okay. Okay, right into it. Okay. Like, how have you been? Thank you. Thank you for asking that. Yeah. I've been well. Yeah. I've been well. I think the last time we spoke, I had an issue with, you know, the duvet thing. You remember that? How's that going? I got some good news. Hmm. So from that last time, I am now the spokesperson for Denver's duvets. Denver duvets. Come on. No, no, Denver duvets. Yeah. I fly out to Denver, Colorado once a month, and I shoot and add about, you know, you would be perfect for this. Yeah. They knew it. Absolutely. So I want to thank you for that. So it's the peanut butter. Is that how we did that? Yeah. Well, I have the peanut butter in my hand. Yeah. Right. And then I have Denver duvets. And I'm like, you having trouble with your duvet? Well, I'm on my own. Yeah. Just got to wash commercial. Okay. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. That's good. Yeah. How have you been? Yeah. I think that I've got a really fun opportunity coming up. And I grew up surfing. It was my first sport that I fell in love with. And it's the thing I really enjoy the most. And I got an opportunity for the second time now to go out to what's called Kelly Slater's The Ranch. Yeah. And so I'm really excited to go out there. And it's given me a little bit of a pump in my, you know, get my fitness on to be able to, you know, my flexibility, my mobility back in place. And so it's been fun. It's a small little treat that I'm looking forward to. And it's coming together here in a couple months. Wow. Okay. Good luck with that. That's dope. Yeah. I've always wanted to surf. I've never, I've never had the nerve to do it. Yeah. We'll get you out there one day. Sure. Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. It is one of the sports that is really tricky to learn post puberty. Yeah. I don't know. Something happens like, you know, like we're like the way that it works. Yeah. The human works on a wave is tricky. But that'd be fun. We should go do that. We should hold. Why don't we host AMA whatever number on the water? I'm sure the technology is there. Let's do it. Yeah. Let's do it. Listen. You can go shirtless. I'll probably wear a wetsuit. I don't want to go shirtless because I'm more than my body. Oh my god. I see what you just did there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be fun though. We could just get a couple of longboards. And if you don't catch any waves, which would be fun. I would look forward to it. That'd be great. I'd probably embarrass myself. But I'm okay with it. Well, I thought we were past that. I thought, I thought in the last time we spoke, we talked about like not perfectionism. We talked about going forward and just kind of. Yeah. All right. So we still got some work to do. We got some work to do. Me too. We got some work in progress or work in process. I am a work in. To be honest with me, I don't like it. Process or progress. Progress. There you go. I'm a work in progress. And you chose that word because. It was the first word that. Yeah. Don't go with the first thing about the first thing progress. Progress. Yeah. I'm not. Yeah. You just have a way of getting the truth out of me. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I can't lie to you. This question is from Dara. Dr. Mike. First of all, thank you for all the great content over the years. Your podcast has been an invaluable source of quality information to me. And I constantly learned something new from your shows. Thank you for being you. The issue I'd love your advice on is the following. I'm in my early 40s. And on the outside, it could look like I have everything I need. House. Wife. Kids. Living in a great city. I can't wait to see your level manager in position. But I'm empty. I don't enjoy my work. I've never enjoyed it yet fell into it out of the university. And now just feel so stuck. I don't know what it is I want to do for a career. I'm socially isolated too. I moved to this city over a decade ago. And between having kids, focusing on other aspects of life, et cetera. I never built a social group here for myself. How do I find the things that bring me alive? How do I know what to work on? How do I go about making friends again? All my social interactions evolve around my family. I rarely talk to anyone outside of my house or something that is just work related. I want to stop dying a bit every day and start to feel alive again. Thanks in advance. You feel that too? I've felt aspects of it. Parts of it. Definitely. And I know a ton of people that are going through the same thing. That's heavy. Yeah. What I feel is depression. And what I hear is a wanting to get better. And so I recognize that that's kind of the starting place of it. And there's an emptiness in life when we're not clear what our purpose is and we don't feel connected. So I mean, I'm not exactly sure where to take this question because I think that most of us can feel some aspect of it. And I want to address Dara. I wish he or she was here. And the thing that I would suggest is that follow the intuition that you're on right now and say, because the key question is, what are the things that I can do? And so can you recall the exact wording that Dara said about how? Okay. How do I find the things that bring me alive? How do I know what to work on? How do I go about making friends again? Okay. Let's stop right there. How do I find the things that bring me alive? That type of idea. Okay. So nothing outside of you can do that. And so joy and happiness comes from the way that you experience and interpret experiences. And so it comes from within. So pleasure can happen from enjoying something externally. Like buying something, like laughing from a joke from somebody, like whatever. You know, flipping through social media, there's a pleasure stimulation. Good meal, whatever it might be. But joy and happiness comes from within. And so that's kind of the first thing to bifurcate to make sure that we're clear that the work is to work from the inside out. And not think that the solution is going to come from something outside. And I'm not sure that Dara is hinting towards that inside or not, but just to be clear and make that super obvious. The second thing is that the relationships, there's an ordering in relationships as well. And so the misnomer is that I just wish that somebody would see me. I just wish that somebody would love me. Or I just wish that somebody would help me out. And so the direction of that is problematic. So to flip that on its head is who can I help? Who can I send love to? Who can I see? And if you orientate yourself in that direction, not only are you getting to experience what it feels like to have power in your life because you're setting the direction of your actions, but you're also getting liberally so you're getting the benefit of love. So love, when love comes towards you, it's an obvious benefit. And when you share love, it's the same thing. And so I would go directionally in those two things, is that what is the internal work? Well, the internal work is to know how to interpret experiences in a way that brings me joy and happiness, that connects me to a purpose in my life. And I know in our last conversation we had, we talked a lot about purpose. And for just a quick reminder, is that for Dara here is that find something that matters and is bigger than you. And so it's in service of something that is large and important. Okay, so this is where religion and spirituality can show up in meaningful ways for people, but it doesn't have to be. But it's been institutions that have done a nice job there for a lot of people. The majority of people find themselves fitting well in that structure. And then the second orientation is to give love, be in service to other people, and figure out how you can help them. I would start there. And if Dara says, I'm exhausted, I just can't. Then I would figure out, I would start with some best practices for care. So when I am ripped around by the rapids of life, and I feel like a wet dog trying to get to the shoreline, I know that I'm been in it just a little too long, and I haven't been taken care of, drying off, and appreciating kind of high ground, if you will. And so finding best practices for high ground. And that can come from lots of different things. It can come from meditation. It can come from massage. It can come from enjoying sunsets, which I know is one of your favorite things to do. It can come from a lot of different directions. And so invest in self-care. There's lots of literature on what some of those best practices are. And that can be something as small as five minutes upwards to. An hour, if you're being pretty aggressive a day. And so those are the places that start. And I'd say, I see you. And I understand that I feel the depression and depression is a real thing. One in three people are struggling with depression right now in the United States. And so take action, reach out, and put yourself in a position of power by taking giving love to other people, and finding a way to be in service of something bigger than you. Yeah. I love what you're saying, because my mom, when I used to get depressed or go through things, my mom used to always tell me, go help somebody else. Go, no lie, she'd give money to homeless people, take them to dinner, but just do something. And then through doing that, through being of service, you'll find your way. You'll eventually find your way, because you're not thinking about yourself. You're being self-less, right? And through that, you'll find the magic and you'll find your way. So I think I agree wholeheartedly with that. What I find interesting, though, is when reading the first part of what Dara said, mentioning the family, the wife, work, all these things that it seems like they're committing themselves to and putting before themselves, right? Before themselves, and putting themselves last. The first thing I thought about was, well, it seems like you should be a little selfish and go do what you love to do, whether it's go to the comic book store, read some comics, go surf, go to the movies by yourself, go to the... Just what do you like to do? What do you like to do for you? Because in my mind, being that selfish and bringing that joy into your life will then allow you to be a better service to your wife, to your kids, and your job. And it seems like Dara has just been a bit too self-selfless. I like where you're going. And I bet there's a reason why Dara has not practice putting the life vest on first. I bet there's a reason. There's some sort of psychology of why this is taking place. And so I like where you're going. So this is the fun part of psychology. There's so many different paths in direction you can go. So let's use best science and volunteering and being in service is a best practice. Medication, talk therapy, and there's a handful of mindfulness. We're seeing some exciting things about psychedelics as well. And so the reason, let me just pause on the psychedelics for a minute, is that what's happening with the psychedelics, it's not that the drug itself changes the person in a way. It's in so that the person can feel safe enough to be connected to the therapist. So it's psychedelics in service of connection and safety to be vulnerable enough with your therapist over X number of sessions. So that, so I just want to hit that note. But so there's really interesting research there. But to me, the most interesting part of that is the connection with another person. And so I like where you're going. And we can go, we could go to different directions, self-care or in service. Like that's awesome. And so it'd be a bit of a style that we would choose or have the person, in this case, Dara, tuned to one of them. Like, and then I think what would happen is depression in and of itself is easily defined by, I think the world sucks. I think you suck. I think it's always going to suck. And I think I suck. Right? And so it's this pervasive other self and future that it just doesn't work out. So it's the triad as a theory would suggest. So there be some pushback either direction we go because the framing of it is that things don't work out quite the right way. But I hear in the question, what can I do? And so self-care and or service would be the directions that the two of us would go. And then I just want to add one more thing. I'm thinking about my wife here is that her closest relationships, her most important and meaningful relationships, are her family. She is Latina and like there's a cultural piece to their family, which is like they're in it together. And I love every aspect of it. And so she doesn't have friends outside the family. But the relationships are intact and they're honest and they're pure and they laugh and they cry and they get pissed off with each other. And like that, you can have those meaningful relationships with family members. You don't have to have a social group other than now. That doesn't mean that you can't have one. But I just share that as a perspective that it sounds like for Dara, the family matters. And so you pour into them in a different way. So anyways, complicated, beautiful. I've got all the hope for Dara and wish the best for you. Yeah. Shout out to you, Dara. Go get it. Go get it. All right, O'Neil. I want to take a quick minute to talk about our title sponsor for this AMA. It's Carol. Have you heard of Carol? No, I'm not. I'm never a Carol. This is a treat. I wasn't exposed to Carol until relatively recently. It is. It is a stationary AI-powered exercise bike. This is like nothing I've ever experienced. And I've been in elite athletics and fitness for a long time that this is different now. You've heard of hit training before. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I corporate them. I work out. Okay. So this is based on re-hit. And have you heard of re-hit? Re-hit. No. Okay. So it's reduced exertion. High intensity interval training. So you've got that interval training. So you've got that interval training just like in hit training. To oversimplify it, hit training is like you get your heart rate up for an intense low, bring it down, back up, down, back up. So it's like 20 on, 10 off or 20 seconds on, 20 seconds off. How long is your hit training? 25 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. So they've taken those benefits and reduced them down to somewhere between five and nine minutes. Five and nine minutes. Yeah. More importantly, it's 220 second bouts of high intensity over that five minutes. And that's it. Just 220 second bouts. That's it. So that it sounds so easy. And I was really skeptical when I first came across the science. And then I gave her a go. It's real now. The way that this works is you're doing a walking pace for about a minute. A red light comes on. And when that red light comes on, this is countdown three, two, one, to get you ready. And during that countdown, you start spinning as fast as you can go. But you're not like blowing out of the gears. Like you're, you're spinning and it's giving you some tension. And then as soon as the countdown starts for one to get to the 20 seconds, it's found the right tension for you to work at your capacity. I get to about 10 seconds in. It's, I want to stop. Okay, it's that type of difficultness by the 15th second in. I'm making a real decision whether I'm going to push in those last five seconds. And then when you're done, there's this, you know what that on feel feels like, right? Like, of course. And then they gave you some some guided breathing to back it down. And then it's another 20 seconds on. I hope I gave it justice. Like, does that create an image for you? Yeah, it does. I just have a question. So obviously with different individuals, it responds differently according to the AI. Yeah, so your speed and resistance would be different than mine. Gotcha. There's no knobs or dials or anything. The machine is doing it for you. It's rad. And so you know what I love about it is that there's some research around it that it's equivalent. These two 20 second bouts. It's equivalent to a 45 minute jog or run in just five to seven minutes. Okay. I got to try this for myself because we were talking about five to nine minutes. And I'm doing like 10 rounds of 30 seconds, Brent. And you tell me two 20 second rounds is good enough. I got to say it's, I am, I've got an eye when it comes to the research around these things because there's all these false claims and hopes and whatever. And so I dug into my best abilities. And I experienced it in a way that's like, there's two things that happen for me. By the end of this two 20 second bouts over the five minutes, I'm shaking. I haven't broke a sweat yet, though. And I know that I've got some real deep cardio in place. And so I love it. I love what they've done. And they've got some research around it. And you know, it's an eight week study from the American Council of Exercise. And what they found is that in improved VO2 max by 12% reduces blood pressure by 5%. Lower risk for type 2 diabetes by 62% and overall improvement in metabolism. And we had their CEO on Oric, definitely, and on the pod. And we kind of beat up the research and went after exactly what it is. He's great. He's all in. I love founders that are fundamentally committed to their mission. This is a company that I love as a title sponsor. They're using science. They're all in. They understand the practicality for health. I don't have 45 minutes. Like I wish I did. Yeah. I got five. And if I can't square up five minutes for cardio health. So I'm around longer for my son. So I'm a better husband for my wife. Like I got to really examine how I'm doing my life. So I love what they've done. Okay. If I can get that work out in five minutes, sign me up. Let's go. Okay. Are you sure? Yeah. Are you sure? Of course. Yeah. Come on now. We're going to get you one to try out now. And I want to highly encourage everyone listening to go check it out. Carol is hooking up our community with a great offer. If you're interested in checking it out, just head over to CarolBike.com and enter the code finding master to check out for $100 off. So you spell it. Carol. C-A-R-O-L-Bike.com. And that discount will apply in addition to any other discounts or sales that are running on their website. They want to make sure that you're getting the best deal with us. And I know they've got some good ones coming up for the holidays. So pay attention there. That's CarolBike.com. And enter the code finding master at checkout. And you can find the link below in the episode description as well. All right. I don't know. Let's get into the AMA. What's the next question? This question is from Melissa. Hey, Mike. Love your show. And I'm especially fond of episodes with O'Neal and Spellis. Thank you. Thank you. Did you just... No, no, no. I'm sorry. Melissa wrote this. Melissa wrote this. Come on. I love that. Shout out to you, Melissa. Yeah. I'm not sure. This is a question per se. But I was recently diagnosed with ADHD as a 29 year old female. And I'm struggling. I take medication, which has helped significantly. But I still feel lost. And like it keeps getting in the way of the goals I set or things I want to try. I resigned from my job as a high school counselor after the school year. And I was feeling incredibly burnt out and undervalued. I see a therapist who also has ADHD. And she has been incredible. I was just wondering if you have any advice from any other female athletes or females in general that have ADHD and how they stay motivated and keep their harmful self-talk to a minimum, especially when faced with obstacles. I'm not sure if you'll end up reading this, but we are. But I just want to say thank you for the work that you do and put out into this world. Very cool. And I love that we're doing this together. And so it's so fun that, you know, she called us both out as part of the same experience. So first of all, ADHD and ADD are really interesting topics. There's been a questioning about the overdiagnosis over maybe the last 15 or 20 years. When somebody is diagnosed and it's an actual fit, it's a game changer. Because there are best practices to work with ADD and ADHD. And so that being said, I'd like to reframe what it is. Most people think it's distractability alone. And that's not necessarily true. The way that I best understand ADD and ADHD and H stands for hyperactivity. So attention deficit and sometimes with hyperactivity. Is that we have this funnel in our in our brain. And this funnel basically is responsible for attuning to information. And if you think about the funnel being wide open and sometimes closing to narrow in. Like if a gorilla ran in here right now, or somebody ran in with a gun, we ought to have that funnel narrowed down and pick up vital cues for survival. And so, and then it maybe needs to go wide again to figure out a solution. So it's going back and forth on a regular basis for most people. People that have ADD or ADHD, the funnel stays wide open. Let's apply this to maybe learning or conversations in business or school even. For 29 year old, we'll talk about business is that let's say a supervisor says, Hey, make sure that thing is done on Friday. At the same time, the doors opening, somebody is crinkling up a piece of paper and throwing the trash can. And your phone is dinging. All of those have equal values. They all have equal power in the attentional circuitry, whereas that's for somebody that has ADD. Whereas I would so I would tune to because I don't have ADD. I would tune to the supervisor saying make sure that thing is done. And then kind of gate out all the other noise. But when folks struggle to have that funnel work properly, all of the information has equal value. And so it's like how do I discern and how do I properly organize my internal life to say, right, that's the one to attend to. And so this is why it looks like people don't care because they don't turn the thing in. But they didn't actually properly organize the importance of it. Or it was like confused where the squeaking of the chair or the crumpling of the paper took over. And so that's one way to think about it, right? And then so another way to think about ADD and ADHD is that the numbers are pretty remarkable. And so, so let me just pull up some numbers here. Okay, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC, is that 9.4% of children in the United States between the ages of 2 and 17 have been diagnosed with ADHD at some point. Okay, so that's a pretty big number for thinking about a statistical analysis here. And then the other is that this includes 13.6% of boys and 5.4% of girls in that age group. So it, it's 10 excuse towards males. And so, so Melissa is in a minority if, you know, if we look at the, the childhood numbers. And then for adults, it changes a little bit. And the idea is that for, in adults, it's often under diagnosed. And maybe for children as well, but I got a point I want to make about that. Is that 2.5 and upwards to 5% of adults have ADD or ADHD. And many adults do not seek treatment because they're not sure what to do with it. Medication can work. And so this is a time where it's important to attune to the value of some of these medications. And the, the point I want to make though is that one of the reasons this is such a high number across the United States, we don't do anything. And I mean anything to proactively teach attention, deep focus, concentration, shifting of attention. We don't teach the primary skill. And we expect kids in the system of education to sit down, be quiet and listen well. But we don't teach them how to focus or deeply focus for an extended period of time, how to take a break from focus and return right back to whatever the task is at hand. We don't teach that. And so, of course, we're going to have upwards to 10% of the population struggling with this thing because we haven't taught it. And that doesn't mean that some people organically are not born with a predisposition, a likelihood, if you will, of struggling with attention. Yes, check the box. Some sort of genetic wiring and coding. However, it is incredibly sloppy for us to not prior to any type of expectation for a children is to give them the substrate of deep focus as a skill. So I should say that as a footnote because you can train attention. Whether you have ADD or not, you can train it to get better at that skill. And I think that's really important. So medication and training would be the two ways that I would go through this conversation. So in Melissa's case, right, is she saying Dr. Mike that because of her ADHD that it causes her to question herself and have some negative harmful self talk to herself? And is she at, I mean, is she saying attributing it to that? Yeah, I think so. I'm, yeah, thank you for bringing that back around, is that. So there's a real stress and tension when you're not mapping the importance of particular information or you're distracted by something else and you quickly move to some to another task and you haven't quite saved the document you're working on. And then it goes away like there's a stress level when that funnel that I was talking about doesn't work in a optimized way. And so the experience for many people that have a diagnosis or have this type of symptoms is like, what is wrong with me? How come everyone else gets their stuff done on time? Why is it that I'm always half a step behind? What? I feel disheveled. And like, did they notice? Are they critiquing me? And so there is a, there's an awareness that it's not quite working the way that they would hope. And the tension between I see myself and I want to be a certain way, but I have a limitation in how I'm delivering against it is typically reserved for what's called the learning disability. So there's a high potential, but there's something choking off that potential. And we call that a learning disability. We can also in sport, we think about high potential and there's something that's not allow me to reach that potential as a skill gap. So one of the skill gaps like I talked about would be training deep focus. Another skill gap might be medication and a third skill gap would be definitely working with the way that you speak to yourself. And so if nothing else from the last handful of years has, has been more apparent is the relationship you have with yourself is really important. And so in simple little framing is like, are you a good friend to yourself? And how do you know that? How do you treat yourself? How do you speak to yourself? How do you take care of yourself when it's hard? How do you take care of yourself when you make a mistake? Do you have your back or you're critiquing and judging? Like those cold, timid souls, you know, judging the strong person in the arena. Like, so I would say that I love this, I love this because it is so true for anyone that has a gap between the person they want to be and then the way they show up on a regular basis. Skills, medication, meditation might be one of the skills to develop as well as being aware of the self-talk that you have with yourself. And Melissa, I want to speak right to you right now is give yourself grace. Like, give yourself a bit of a pass, you know, be kind to yourself in the way that you speak to yourself. And we're all just trying to figure it out and that's both of us. So if I could kind of whisper that on a regular basis interior, it would be, you know, I love that word grace. There's a poise and a presence and literally it means with God. And so give yourself that connection with God that we're all just trying to figure it out. There's no perfect and you know, keeping kind to yourself as you're working on getting better. Wow. You saying telling Melissa to give yourself grace just brought me back to what you said earlier when you were like giving the example. I think your boss telling you what to do. Potato chip back being opened. I don't know if you said that. Yes, something like that. Three different things. I would say. It's good. Maybe I just want to teach you from Melissa. I don't know. But I love that you said that all three have equal value. That was amazing to me because my brother was diagnosed with ADD. And at 12 years old watching him being diagnosed and them giving him, you know, medication and him being told that he just does know how to sit down and listen. It was an aggressive approach. No one said to him, hey, all these things that you're giving your attention to all have equal value. And I think the wording alone was magical. Oh, that's what I wanted like that. It was like boy, you don't know how to sit down and pay attention to stuff. So we're going to give you the medication for this and just sit still. We'll talk about kids that have a big motor. Yeah, we call them highly spirited. Yeah. So like that, that high spirit is special. Can be very special. And so, but it can also be disruptive in two ways to the structure of the learning environment. And maybe more importantly, there is a very sensitive window where you need to make sure you're getting the right information in. So, so if a math teacher is explaining math and you're not focused well enough to learn the information that you need, you math is a scaffolding process. So if you miss kind of blocks B and C and D, it is almost impossible to get to, you know, FG, you know, like you can't keep going because of the scaffolding nature. So there is a very sensitive window that you want to give your kids the best chance to learn the information. And so there is a reason to medicate and I'm not, I'm not a huge, I'm not aggressive with medication just in general. But there is some, it's worth attending to like in discerning if that's a good choice. I'll just add one more note and then we'll move on is that the label, the diagnosis label ADD or ADHD is actually wrong. It's not a deficit of attention. It's too much. You're attending to too much all the time. It's an exhaustion or surplus of information to our earlier part to your point earlier. So it's not a deficit. It's a surplus of attention. And that's exhausting. Amazing, amazing. All right, so next question is from Alejandra. Thank you for this amazing opportunity to participate in your podcast more actively. I'd be grateful if you could answer my question. Why does society often tolerate and enable narcissistic behavior? I've experienced it firsthand when my father was hurt me. And I decided to break my relationship with him. And by doing so, I got back to my mother siblings and extended family. Despite others' wishes, I'm sorry, despite others witnessing his actions, my whole family supports him due to his wealth and power. My father excels at bullying, playing the victim and facing no consequences for his mean, spirited actions. It makes me wonder why society fails to address and denounce abuse, unfairness, and disrespect, even when it's clear that someone prioritizes their own ego over other well, others well being. We must reflect upon these issues and consider how we can collectively promote healthier relationships, foster empathy and challenge the acceptance of abusive and unfair conduct. Let's frame it first is that there's a difference between, as a psychologist, when I hear that, there's a difference between NPD, narcissistic personality disorder and narcissistic qualities or traits. And so NPD, true narcissistic personality is relatively rare. And it's about 1%. I'm going to check the data and I'll put it in the show notes, but it's about 1% of the US population, which is, that's, you know, 1 in 100 is not a huge number. However, when, when we, and I want to give you some specific criteria, I'm looking that up right now to make sure I get the exact diagnostic and statistical manual criteria for diagnosis. But there, as you move into the ranks of certain populations like sport or, you know, unicorn type entrepreneurship or multinational businesses and senior leaders and whatever, like, you, we might see it just a little bit more than the general population because there is a rewarding that takes place with these types of characteristics. And they're prosocial in some environments and deeply destructive in others, but to be a narcissistic, to be diagnosed as an NPD, narcissistic personality disorder, their life is a bit of a mess. And the initial insult that they've experienced in their life is so traumatic and there's such a fragility inside that they compensate in a way with enormous grandiosity that in a huge presence that is suffocating to anybody else around them. And that's the destructive nature, but it's so difficult for them to live that that they've compensated in a way of being huge. And so here's, let me just kind of read some of the characteristics. So we know that it's a pervasive pattern, which is really important of grandiosity, as we mentioned. And you need five of the following nine characteristics to meet the criteria. A grandiose sense of self importance, Jack, a preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love. Isn't that interesting? And a preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty and ideal love, that sounds closely to what we ask people to think about when they think about their best. Vision big. Shoot for the stars. Remember that part of our conversation from earlier and from our last conversation. And you know, so this fantasy of unlimited success is the problem. It's unlimited. A belief that he or she is special and unique and can only be understood by or should be associated with other special high status people or institutions. So if you don't have status, you can't possibly be around me. And so that's where it becomes a badgering or a belittling of somebody who doesn't present with power or status. They will make you feel as if you don't matter because the deepest part of the narcissistic personality trait is that they it's hard for them to tell the difference between you and themselves. So you are an extension of them. So like right now you're wearing a black shirt with a singer on it. And if I don't like that singer or I don't like black t-shirts, I would make you feel so bad about yourself that you would want to change it or you get pissed off and never want to be around. But if you wanted to be around, you would contort to that vitriol or that that aggressiveness that I have to you and you would change it. That sounds like what Alejandra maybe has, has, has, has, has experienced. So let me just give a few more just to be clear. I need for excessive admiration, a sense of entitlement and interpersonally explosive behavior, a lack of empathy, envy of others or a belief that others are envious of him or her, a demonstration of arrogant or haughty behaviors or attitudes. And so like you can see yourself in all of these, right? I can see me in some of these, but it's the pervasiveness of a handful of them that makes the criteria and just be clear it's five of the following criteria. So that's just me taking a quick detour to talk about the difference between NPD and just narcissistic traits. And how do you deal with those types of people? You got to have clear boundaries and they will not like it. So clear boundaries is how you take care of yourself. So you got to square up with an NPD and be like, I like this shirt. Sorry, you don't like it. It's not your shirt. If that's not okay with you, I don't know, maybe we have a problem with it. You know, and you just it's eye contact and you square up and they will not like it. They will not want to be around you anymore. So it that type of clear boundaries and self respect will change the relationship and the house of cards might fall apart. So it is hard to break away from an NPD or somebody that has, let's call it four of those traits, not, you know, not the full, the full Monty, if you will. So once you're in embedded with a narcissist, it's really hard to break out because it's kind of built around them. The whole life is built around them. And that is the way through. Would you say and correct me if I'm wrong here. Would you say that a person with this disorder has a need and a longing to dominate and to control the environment and to, for lack of a better word, win in every way. Okay. Okay. Now, is it, obviously it's the person's fault because I guess we're adults. We have to take accountability for our actions and whatnot. But is it completely that person's fault? The person that suffers from that disorder that's doing it. Or is it their fault and society's fault for creating this world where competition and being competitive is a huge thing. Like, it's, it's, it's almost like people get upset when kids are now getting participation awards. They're like, what are you giving them a participation award? They're like, in life, you compete. The minute you, you're born, you got to compete. You know, you're always competing. We get hit over the head with competing so much that I would imagine that it can get twisted, right? And, and, and, and, and use for the wrong thing. Like, okay, if I'm competing, I'm competing and everything. That means family, that means friends, that means you're wearing a denim shirt. I don't wear denim shirts. So, you know, if I don't wear denim shirts, you should wear denim shirts either and so forth and so on. Is it partly society's fault? Yeah. We, there is a value for that strong human that risks at all, you know, and so that type of tonality to narcissism does get rewarded. But true NPD is different, especially if you take NPD and parrot with sociopathology and macabellanism. So, macabellanism, sociopathology and narcissism is considered the dark triad. Those are very scary individuals. A narcissist alone will just bully their way through. You do not matter. Matter of fact, if you don't reach their standards of excellence, you will feel terrible your entire life. And so, there's just a, they just suck the life out of every room that they're in because their needs to be met, need to be met first. And so, we do flame it, you know, but at the same time, like, we choose who we get in relationships with, we choose who we hire. We don't always choose who we work for, but at the, at the deepest level, of course, we choose who we work for as well. So, next question is from Braun. Dear Dr. Mike. And no, Neil. Yeah. Should I be you, Braun? Should I be you? That's so fun. These AMAs have been awesome. My girlfriend and I share ideas about them back and forth, and it's very fulfilling to me. And I am a 26 year old mental health counselor who got into the field due to my interest in sports performance psych. I've since realized it can be tough to make the transition, excuse me, over to doing something more sport related things that I thought. I'm trying to work potentially with a local high school, but they're sort of left me hanging. I noticed when it comes to pushing myself more in my work to do what I really want, I can afraid. Afraid of burnout, afraid of finances. And maybe most of all, afraid that I'll find out my dream of doing sports psych work is behind a wall of time. A wall of time, thousands of dollars of additional school and pushing myself to live a life I don't want. The fear keeps me from taking more action towards any of it. Thoughts or input on any part of this would be a true honor. What do you think the heart of that question is? Is that like how how to move forward in sports psych? I think Braun saying that he wants to move forward in sports psych, but there's so many fears that are in front of it. Price-wise, that it might not be the thing that he wants to do. It sounds like he's just saying that I want to pursue this, but I'm afraid that there's five or six things in front of it that I shouldn't do it. That's what I thought I was hearing too. So the first thing is like, I really love that he and his partner hear something that we're talking about or hear a question that comes in. And I'm hoping what people do is they try to answer it before we answer it, or they answer it afterwards in their own way and they wrestle it down with themselves or their friends or partner. That I love that aspect of this. And that's how growth happens. You got to make it real and make it your own. Now, the second part of the question is what to do about sports psych? I don't know. I had a Pete Nashak, a dear friend of mine. He's a commander for SEAL's team five. He's retired. And he said something that has stuck with me in a meaningful way. And he says, when something matters to you, you'll do whatever it takes. And so the questioning of it brings up for me, like, does it really matter? And if you love working with people, athletes or people that are dedicated to a craft and you love that, you just start and you keep going. And I don't know. I don't know another way to answer that other than, yes, there's money involved. There's time involved. But the race to know where that phrase is really a cool thought. Like, what are we racing towards like the race to know? And that's the condition that many kids are finding themselves in. And so I didn't have a goal. I didn't have a vision of what my life would be when I started. But I did know that I fell in love with the science because I could see myself in those struggles. And I wanted to practice the same skills that people that were as hungry to understand something as I was, whether that was basketball for them or for me, it was psychology. So just keep chipping, keep chipping away. And so, I don't know, it feels like a little bit of encouragement, but also like, I'm not sure what the blockers are really. Yeah. Yeah. How would you, how would you answer that question? I would just say, go pursue your dream. Why would you, that's like saying, I should wake up. If I wake up, I might stop my tone of bed. And if I, I stopped my tone of bed, it might break. And if it breaks, I mean, you're just putting a whole bunch of mites and ifs and, you know, before you start the process. Start the process and go and do it, which I agree with you. It does lead me. It makes me question like, do you really want to do it? Because you just gave 10 reasons why you think you might not want to do it. When I get emails about like, how to start in the profession or how to get going, right? Most of the emails are asking the wrong question. And they're not asking what I would consider to be the right question. Most are asking like, for tactics or strategy. And, and they're asking like, how do you work, what is the best path to be able to work with the best? And I never wanted to work with the best. I wanted to work with people that were nearly or obsessed with something like they were fundamentally committed to getting better. And I, I uniquely, I don't know if this is true for other sport or performance psychologists, but I struggle with the patience of long therapy. And like, I want to work with people that want to roll up their sleeves and go. And so I found a unique population of people that want to go. They want to go deep. They want to be honest. They want to apply the insights that happen in the conversation, you know, at practice the next day or that afternoon. And then they want to, you know, have a feedback loop about how it's going. And I love that part of it. So that's again, like, there's lots of excuses. So, you know, this makes me think about, you know, the last episodes think about purpose again. And, you know, and then we talked about, you know, expressing yourself truly and being touched with your emotions and whatnot. And it makes me think about this question, bronze, asking because saying it sounds so simple. Like, okay, what's your purpose, bronze? You wouldn't be, you know, in sports, like, just go do it, bro. Why would you question all these things? But, but again, we put all these roadblocks in our way. Like, he's put in this question. He's put four before he's even started, right? It takes me back to the last episode. I mean, how, how do you get in touch with your feelings and express yourself truly just so you can go do the thing that you want to do and not listen to the outside sources and not listen to the inside sources that say, hey, this might not be what I want to do. This might cost a lot of money. This might, you know what I mean? How does one simply just go do and it stumble along the way and find out if that's what they want to do or not want to do? My wife took a real run at acting and she reached a place where she's like, I'm not sure if this is the right path anymore. And a super agent at the time said, do you really like to act? And she's like, yeah, I love it. Like, I love the art and the craft of it. And he said, how come you're not pursuing like local theater stuff? And she's like, yeah, that's a cool question, right? And so like it was fun to wrestle that down with her and like, you know, explore like, how do you answer that question? And I answer that at that time, I answered the question for me as well, you know, which is like, no, it's a difference when you want to do it at the highest level versus like wherever you could do it. And so painting on the curb, you know, or the sidewalk as opposed to like only painting in four galleries. I don't know what that metaphor might be. But so it's a cool question and I respect, I respect that process to answer that question as well. Can I say one more thing about this? Of course. I used to work for a really famous singer songwriter, very famous. And I was having lunch with him one day. And I was across road, right, wasn't getting much work. And I was like, you know, I said, hey, how did you know this was the right thing for you? What made you stick with it? And he explained it to me in a couple different ways. He was like, I didn't start making money until my late 30s. He was like, but I'm going to make it real simple for you. It was either I was going to do this or I was going to die. But in front of the bridge, front the boats, yeah, yeah, the boats. He was like, there was no, there was nothing else. I was going to do this or I was going to die. You get it? There is no B plan. He was like, you do it. You commit to it. I don't care if it takes a thousand billion years. I mean, we're back to eating his burger. And it was very simple to me. I was like, okay, this is what separates the people that is going to do it for the people who don't do it. But that's just so cut and dry at the same time, too, right? I always had like the way that I did it was I didn't, I didn't like that. It felt like I was going to find myself in positions of desperation as opposed to positions of inspiration. So what I did was I like, it's a bit of a native image in my mind, a Native American image, which is lots of horses. And so I'm riding one horse and I've got three or four other horses that are riding with me, but they're empty that there's no riders on them. And I'm working to keep all of them moving in the same direction. Now, one of them, I'm pretty sure is going to be a thoroughbred. Or a Mustang that's going to really go losing the analogy here a little bit. But so I'm keeping my pulse on the three, four, five different horses, the three or four, five different things that I'm doing. But they're all kind of moving in that same direction of working from the inside out psychology based. And so that's how it worked for me. So I don't understand burn the bridges because that for me, for me, I knew that that would create a sense of desperation. I'm not, I'm not good in that. I'm not good enough coming from a sense of desperation. And the last thing for to answer this question is that I made, maybe I can pass on this fundamental mistake I made is I was giving it away a lot early. And so a local high school coach would be like, hey, can you come in and talk to our kids? And mind you, this 25 years ago, and I was like, yes, like this is great. And sports psychology was relatively new. And I felt like, you know, this coach has taken a shot on the science and on me. And like the pair I show up and there's all the kids and they're kind of looking and they're kind of like, that's good. You know, like, that's good. And then I was needing to eat. I was needing to build a client base. None of those kids had the money or the wherewithal or the leverage with their family members to say, I think that we should go, you know, book sessions with Mike. It didn't work that way. And so I quickly learned that if I'm going to do more of these and it took me too long because I was giving it away, you know, many times before I actually learned this lesson, invite the parents. Yeah. That simple because they're like, see something for my kid. And afterwards I talk on my shirt, like, hey, you know, do you have any availability? And I'm like, I have availability. Like it's wide open. So, so invite parents. Give it away. Invite parents. And they'll be a handful of people. And then I hear my wife in my ear right now saying, you just do good work and the whole thing kind of builds from there. Yeah. I work best like that too. I honestly, I got to burn the boats. I got to know nothing left. I got to fight these demons. I got to go. Because if you give me an option, I think more than more than likely, I'll be like, okay, I'll do this instead. It's not good to know yourself. It's amazing. It's amazing. Oh, God. Listen, all you out there, Braun, find yourself. It's true. Yeah. All right. So the next question is from Alan. Amazing podcast. Every single podcast carries a nugget that I embrace and bring into my life. Question as a high performing individual resilience is something that sports has always taught me over a lifetime of high level involvement. As somebody that prides himself with optimism and gratitude, there is an underlying negative soundtrack that has developed since the onset of COVID that has impacted my sleep performance and relationships. I can shake it when I think about pushing the thoughts out of my head, but somehow these thoughts always creep back in. And if they're not handled, they tend to take center stage. I love to push these thoughts out for good. We don't have a good strategy to do it. Cool. So we're talking about negative self talk. We're talking about the inner dialogue that is unproductive, maybe even critical and judgmental and like kind of pulls us down. I think that's what we're talking. Do you hear the same thing in that? Yeah. Okay. So cool. All right. The first, my intent apart, when I heard the word, I have pride. And now that I think this is going to be a controversial statement, but it's one of the words that I think is actually quite dangerous. And so when you say when an adult says to a son or daughter, I'm so proud of you. It's not about them. It's about your experience of them. And so flip it on its head, which is like to the son or daughter, like, I'm so happy for you. I love watching you figure it out. This must be really exciting for you. How is it where that looks really scary? And you and you looks like you work through it. Like, how did you do that? So it's those types of questions are more about the person, the child. So pride as a deadly sin. Pride as about me. Pride as about a bit of an exterior presenting and not a deep feeling about appreciation or whatever. So I hear that word and I go, I wonder, I wonder how that is. I wonder how Alan is experiencing pride of being optimistic. It's an interesting framing those two words. I'm proud that I'm optimistic as opposed to something different. So that's the first one I would just explore like, what does that mean for you? And I would have that question with him. The second thing is we all have talk tracks that at one point helped us and now no longer serve us. So if that talk track is quote unquote negative or unproductive or critical judgmental or destructive in some kind of way, is once you recognize it, it's not working. That is in and of itself an important part of the puzzle to solve like, I caught it. I got it. I'm aware. Nice job. And so you can once you're aware and you can appreciate how hard it is to be aware, which it sounds like he is, appreciate how hard it is to be aware. Now you've got an entree into doing something with it. So if you're not aware, kind of stuck in the mud, if you will, once you become aware, you have at least two choices. One is ago, why do I keep saying this to myself? Why am I so hard on myself? So now it's like, I'm pulling myself back down into a spiral. Or once I'm aware, I say, nice job. I'm so glad I caught it. Let me choose something a bit more productive. Now that productive is if you're familiar with or like the productive type of thinking is at the surface of your memory or your available recall, it's easier to say or find those types of languages or those types of words to choose. So that's why we talk about it in sports like you know how you want to speak to yourself and practice that. How do you practice it? Write it down and then think about those types of thoughts when you cross a threshold before their stress on board. And then that sounds almost like academic or silly or like practicing the way you speak to yourself, but all your doing is becoming more familiar with the ways that you would like to speak to yourself. And so let me just recap, celebrate when you catch that you're speaking to yourself in a way that's not serving you and see if you can flip the script, see if you can work with it. And one way to work with it is find a new narrative, a new way of speaking to yourself. Another option in the positive or productive direction is ago, okay, that's cool. Let me just drive all of my attention to the task. So I'm not going to prop myself up or do any kind of self narrative self talk stuff, but I'm going to give myself completely to the task at hand. Because we can only attend to one thing at a time, whatever that one thing is, it occupies the intentional abilities that we have. So if you're pouring all of your attention into the task that you're trying to solve or do, that's awesome. That's awesome. That's essentially where we want to go. If you need a little bit of a pump me up or a self talk narrative that can help me get to full absorption of the task, that's cool too. But productive, productive, destructive, critical, all those types of thinking just kind of tightness up, they pull us away from really going forward. And I'm stoked that he's he's recognizing it and it just it's practice. It's practice. And it's also like those thoughts work for me at some point. They're part of me. I adopted them. I learned them from somebody else. I figured them out on my own. That's okay. They're just not working for me anymore. So yeah, I love that you said that because before I shared the same issue with Alan had I talked negative to myself. And what I did was I wrote down every great thing that I wanted to do and who I wanted to become. I put it in my notes section in my phone. And every morning when I wake up, every morning when I wake up, I would look at it so much to the point now that I can recite it off the top of my head. And I said every morning when I get up, but I was to say it mindlessly because I thought let me just say it and it'll happen because you know, you speak things into existence. And at one point, I realized that I can't only just say this, but I have to visually see it. I have to see it happening. You know, and I would go through the list like I'm part of my list. I would say I want to Frank Lloyd right home overlooking silver like reservoir. So then I would ride past the reservoir and look at Frank Lloyd right homes. Right. I want to loft in New York City. I'm looking at lofts in New York City and I'm staring at them. I'm visualizing lofts in New York City and me sitting in the loft. And I started to understand that, yo, I need to, I need to, I need to really see these things and slowly and surely not the loft, Frank Lloyd right home yet. But other things on the list started happening so much. So I didn't realize that I was asking for them anymore. They just started happening. And one day I was driving in my car and I looked at the list and I was like, oh, my God, I asked, I asked for this car on my list. Boop crossed that off. You know, oh, my God, I asked for this on my list. Boop crossed that off. And I found those things just happening because I, I made it a part of who I am. That really works. At first, I thought it was crazy, but that really works, right? Is that a question? No, no, no, I'm just saying I don't even want to ask it right. I just said right. Yeah, right. So yeah, I, I hear that and I go, if it's working cool, I don't know the science that I could point to to say how that works. That I would, I would stretch to say that when you're more familiar with something, it, there's a, there is a, it's less scary. It's like part of the way that you think about things where like there's some stuff in there and I, maybe the science is legit. And I'm just not familiar with it. And this is what I love about our community. I'm hoping somebody can point to what you just said and point to the science. I do know the science around imagery and visualization is really important. And where I go with it is not for goal attainment where I go with it is for self talk. And so when you see something and you can embody and feel it, now, now you just added a layer to it that's really cool. So let's do the Frank Lloyd Wright home. I don't think because you see it and you've looked it up that now you're going to figure out how to earn whatever or be in that like I don't, I don't know, I don't know how that works. And I'm open to it. That's not how I use imagery and or self talk. I use self talk as a narrator for being closer to the person I want to be in alignment with the values that matter to me. Because I need to speak to myself in alignment with the values that support me to go for it, whatever that it is. And that's kind of like the the the holy grail for the way that it works for me, right values back in myself and going forward. And so that I want to be great at myself talk for that reason. And also like if I speak to myself in a certain way, then I know I can also line that up to like joy and happiness in the straining and striving as opposed to like a quiet suffering. So imagery though, let me just go back to imagery imagery in sports psychology is a very powerful tool. And it's one that's under practice and maybe not well understood. But when we see ourselves doing something in the future, when we see ourselves doing something well, there is research that would suggest that not only does that help lay neurological paths and tracks to be expert at something. If you're seeing yourself being an expert, meaning like when you take a jump shot, tuck your elbows, snap your wrist, you know, see the ball go in right and do that over and over and over again in your mind. You're not spending physical energy. You're also doing it quote unquote ideally. And so your elbow is not drifting out. It's staying grooved in a pattern. And Geno Smith, he's the starting quarterback for the Saddle Seahawks talks a lot about that about mental imagery in our episode of being able to see it beforehand. Felix Baumgartner, who I helped on the Red Bull Stratus program, he jumped from 130,000 feet. The brightest minds in aerospace weren't sure if his arms and legs were going to rip off as he passed the sonic boom and making light of something very serious. That he spent so much time seeing himself be on that platform at 130,000 feet and taking his first leap into, you know, from the stratosphere down into into earth, because he had to get it right. And Lou Gakens, who jumped from a project I worked on where he jumped from 30,000 feet. That's what like we're jetliners, travel at. Into a 16 story net that he and his friends built without a parachute. And so the amount of time that we spent on seeing excellence and not leaving it up the chance was like of course we're going to do it. So you can do that in any facet of your life about how to be a great lover, how to be a great partner, how to be a great figure it out, whatever matters to you. So when you use this radical power of imagination and you harness it for something that is that matters to you in a meaningful way in the future, we start to lay neurological pathways so our body becomes more familiar with it. So we're likely to do that action well in the future. And the second thing we found is that it also supports myelonization. So myelonization is, it's like the fat that surrounds the bundle of nerves. And it's a little bit like the rubber coating or tubing on an electrical wire. So your nervous system is like an electrical wire. And the more fat and tubing you have around that, the faster that impulse travels through the nerve. So if imagine if you had a wire in your home and it had like a bunch of holes in the rubber, the rubber protective sheet that that electrical impulse would spray out and it wouldn't, it's not going to shock you, but it's not efficient. And so imagery has been associated with increasing the myelonization process around the bundle of nerves that are associated with excellent movement. Think about that. That is incredible. So when you see it, you're laying neurological pathway and you're also increasing the bundling and the fat tissue around the nerve called myelonization. This is also why, as I'm on a little tirade here, this is also why making sure your diet supports the substrate of myelonization, which is omega's mega oils, fish oils, if you make a three in particular, that that is one of the main makings of myelonization. So if you're doing physical work to have the pathway be ideal, the neurological pathway and the muscle, there's no muscle memory. It's just neurological pathway. Muscles don't have memory, nerves do. But you do all this physical training and you don't have the right nutrition to lay that pathway. It's like, it's like screaming into the wind. It's a good exercise, but it's not going to carry in the right way. Did that metaphor work in any way? Because I was going to say like spitting in the wind, but I want to be like, okay. And then, but so if you do physical work with precision and you do mental work with precision and you've got the right nutrition to support the myelonization, you got a winner. It's just amazing how all those things are tied together. Yeah, it's cool, isn't it? The past didn't seem like it was like that, but yeah, it's extremely cool. Okay, so like what I said before about laying out the imagery to get the Frank Lloyd right home or whatnot. You're just saying that it's more well served when I take it off getting that for lack of a better word, the materialistic thing and put it on being a better person. And then those things are just avenues or. Okay, yeah, good point because I too like to muse with my wife or myself about ideas and images that are stimulating and like I become more familiar with it. I do like that. And I think that that has value to me. I don't know the science if you see it, it'll happen. Yeah. And I don't think that that's how that's not what I'm suggesting. What I'm suggesting is cool, you've got some inspiration, you're more familiar with it. It doesn't seem foreign, you've got clarity around what it could look like and you're seeing yourself in that home or whatever. Okay, that's cool. That's all good. What I'm saying is spend more time on like, okay, for me to do that, when I go to an audition and if I was in your profession, I would spend more time using my mind to see myself be fluid and present and expansive and grounded. And you know, whatever the dimensionality, so I would spend my time there because that has a material impact. I would imagine if you landed, I don't know, a 10% more auditions or 2% more auditions or 50% more auditions that you would have different choices that you could make over time to buy a house. Yeah. Obviously, it's important. Like, it would be great. It was an inspired frank loop, right? So I just take it down to the behaviors that you want to groove as opposed to familiarity with a dream later, but no pathway forward. That's a great thing. Thank you for the clarity. No, that's a great example because yeah, I do see myself booking a job and make a lot of money. Come on. I appreciate that. We have folks here in the community that, you know, I hope they heard that. Let's go. Well, Dr. Mike, man, you know, listen, thank you for having me again. This is amazing. I feel the same. Yeah. And so I appreciate you. I appreciate our community. These are not easy questions. And so I love our honesty and I love theirs as well. I love it as well. I look forward to this again. Thank you. Thank you. All right. That's a wrap for another AMA on Finding Mastery. I want to thank you for tuning in. And one more thank you to our title sponsor for this episode. It would not be possible without them. Carol Bike. And I, again, I really love their product and what they're doing. And I think it could make a big difference in your life as well. So if you're interested in learning more, just head to CarolBike.com. And be sure to enter the code Finding Mastery at checkout for a discount on your order. I hope you'll check them out. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify. 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