EFR 486: Navy SEAL Reveals Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance - The Attributes with Rich Diviney

Rich: Hey, I'm Rich Diviney. Today I'm going to talk about my new book, the attributes, the 25 drivers of optimal performance and discover what actually drives your behavior, especially during times of challenge and certainly stress and get some tools and tips on how to do better in those environments. So hope you hope you enjoy.

Chase: Attributes, attributes, attributes, we all have them. These are different than characteristics or skill sets or technical capabilities and that may that may kind of go against the grain it certainly did for me, had me scratching my head a little bit when Rich Diviney Today's guest was breaking down what he believes to be these just innate things that we all possess, but just to varying degrees. Fresh off the tails of his new book released The Attributes 25 hidden drivers of optimal performance. Rich and I sat down to go over a few of his favorites and beyond. You don't have to be a military guy, you don't have to be a Navy SEAL person well, there are very few of us out there. I'm definitely not a navy seal but you don't have to be a member of the military or have served to really connect with what Rich is talking about. But we definitely cover a lot of that we cover what it's like to join the military. Why him and I both did. We discussed the transition and some of the difficulties that a lot of our service members have when we're going from being active duty military or even National Guard or just serving in general to transitioning back to civilian life. But beyond that, we talk about what it means to be an effective leader, and effective communicator, and ways to just drive your performance so that you can lead your life in the direction you want, and hopefully lead others along the way, or at least find the tribe in the process. I really, really enjoyed his mindset and his approach to this. And look, these aren't just some crazy, weird tactics or secrets that we need to crack the code on. No, these are very, very innate things that Rich breaks down that you have that I have, just to some, like I said, varying degree. And once we become aware of them, and where some are higher than others lower than others, then well, that's where the work begins. And then we can improve our life. These are things that we all should improve upon, could improve upon, and they're things that are also scientifically backed. So in this conversation, and in Rich's book, the attributes, which I will link down in the show notes, you're going to discover the neuroscience backed and real world tested performance indicators that will teach you how to build high performing teams and perform optimally at any time in any situation. Sit back, relax, enjoy today's interview. And once you're done, if you think this would be beneficial for just one person in your life, the greatest ask I could ever have is to just share today's message with one person, send this out to one person in your life that thing would add value to or would maybe be a good member on your team or just someone that you admire and respect and think that this message could benefit their life. And if you want to check out the book, like I said, click the link down in the show notes it'll take you straight there. And you can also check out the video interview Rich was here in LA, not that long ago and he sat down in my home and had a phenomenal one on one in person conversation. All the information is down there in the show notes for you guys. Welcome to the episode. This is Rich Diviney. Rich, what's up, man? Welcome to the show. 

Rich: Hey, thanks for having me.

Chase: Not every day I get to have a navy seal in the house. So welcome, Rich. We're Team whoop here as well. You can't see mine, I went with camo. I guess you can take the guy out of the army, but not the army green. Well, what a privilege to have you here. Thank you again, so much. I always enjoy sitting down with my veteran community and someone like yourself has done it for a long time, super high speed all the things. I guess the first question before we kind of get into the crux of your work and your new book why the military? I still have a big military following and I get this question all the time. Which branch should I choose? Is it right for me? How did you know it was right for you?

Rich: I didn't. It's funny unlike you I had we had no family in the military. So I have a twin brother. I grew up in Connecticut. I have an older sister twin brother and your younger brother. And, and my dad was a private pilot. So we used to go flying on the weekends and my twin brother and I just fell in love with aviation at a very young age. And so we quickly decided we should be jet pilots. And so it was either the Air Force or the Navy. But we kind of as we read every book we could and got all the pictures and all the posters on the wall we realized that that the Navy guys land on ships, I was like, Man, that's pretty cool. That's pretty hard. So let's do that. But yeah, my literally one of my favorite books as growing up as a kid was Chuck Eggers, autobiography, which is just an awesome book to go along with that. And so we were just aviation minded. We wanted to be Navy pilots, even before Top Gun came out. And, and then just were bent on that. And so we as we got to college, went to Purdue. I got into ROTC, and, and learned about well, prior to college, I learned about the Seals because the first Gulf War and then you know, 90, just after that a, an article had come out and it was about all the spec-ops units, military, you know, marine force recon Green Berets, Seals, Rangers. 

Chase: my dad was a Persian Gulf Vet.

Rich:  Yeah, so and those spec-ops were used a little bit, but not that much. In fact, I think it was the article saying how was it was there a very, very there weren't used too much, right. But the article was kind of highlighting how they were used and how they actually gained some, some notoriety from with military commanders during that, during that war, as short as it was. But anyway, the picture was peppered with photographs of guys in different environments, and, you know, guy in the snow, guy in the jungle, guy in the desert underwater and what I realized is most of most of the pictures were Seals, they were they were in all these environments. I was like, that's pretty cool and they were from the water, which I was also growing with in Connecticut, I was a water rat. I loved everything about the water, being in it under it, whatever.

Chase: It was all just coming together for you.

Rich: Yeah, well, it definitely was, it was it was spiking my interest, you know, and I and then he read about the training, how it's really, really hard and difficult and things like that. And, and I don't know if I was excited about that. I was kind of like, okay, but it was ultimately when I was at Purdue in ROTC getting ready to serve a select that I said to myself, I didn't, I did not want to be a pilot and look over at the Seals and wonder if I could do it and so and so I selected Seals, and fortunately got picked up and then made it to training. And then that was a 96 and then spent the next 20 plus years very kinetic timeframe, right serving Iraq, Afghanistan, all these other places and, and I don't know, I'm just grateful to have done it learned a lot about myself and a lot about behavior, performance learning, you know, grow, you have developed friendships that will last forever. And again, and then got out and I've been doing leadership and high performing teams and things like that, since then, but the military for me was a means to an end. I think for my brother. So my brother ended up being a marine and he flew Harriers, 

Chase: I'm sorry to hear that.

Rich: But he was a pilot, right? He was flying the jump jet, which is kind of amazing. So for both of us was a means to do something we really were interested in doing. And of course, as you go into that environment, you learn things that you didn't otherwise think you would. And I think most good, some bad, you know, but it's certainly a nice way of life in terms of giving a lot of experience and, and life experience that you otherwise might not have gotten. 

Chase: yeah, that's one of the things that I look back on my military career and a lot of things on paper or top of mine directly translate. This skill set in the military translate to this skill set and this civilian workforce or just back in the real world kind of thing but a lot of that doesn't. And I mean, I've been out now for 10 years, I was 03-09. And I mean, it's still now 10 years later, I just uncovered things hit me in the face of like, wow, actually, that transition was more difficult than I thought the translation from soldier to civilian military to civilian, was more difficult than I thought. And 10 years later, I'm still kind of trying to wrap my head around some things and all the time in my audience. It's like, hey, Chase, do you struggle with this? Or when you got out was it hard? How long have you been out now?

Rich: Four years? Yes.

Chase: Okay. So as someone who has transitioned out four years fresh back to a civilian, yeah, just serving 20 years? What has been your hardest transition moment? Do you think or have you gotten to that yet?

Rich: Well, I think there's many. But here's what I think is the hardest for most military. And it's this idea that we are in the military, you're in an environment where a lot of stuff is taken care of for you, right? You don't have to worry about a lot of things, whether it be dental, medical, even uniforms, sometimes where you live all that stuff, you know, you don't have to worry about that. You also are always surrounded by people who are like or I would say like as it's a very diverse, but at least going through the same thing you are. I believe, and it's a theory, but I think I've talked to enough of us to say it's a pretty, pretty well proven one, that the hardest part of trenches about transitions were going from being part of a group to being alone. And especially if you're someone who's trying to who's going into like an entrepreneur, field, or even if you're going into business that's just not related. It's you're going you're jumping out of this kind of warm blanket of people who you can lean on and it's regardless of whether or not you get along or have a bunch of friends, you just leaving a lot of a group of people who just you it's an environment, you know, it's a certain environment, there's people with you and so doing something on your own takes courage and a lot of a lot of, you know, veterans have that. I mean, so we just have to tap into that and understand that the reason why there's I think one of the reasons why there's a lot of trepidation for most of us, is because we are suddenly alone. It feels that way. It's not true. I mean, you can well, it's true to one extent, but we have to remember that we all have to lean on our families, our friends and things like that. But yes, you're going to have to march out into pastures by yourself. And when you look around you there's going to be they're not gonna be a lot of people who are like you that you can lean on. So you can look at that, as I certainly looked at as kind of an adventure but I've, I've there have been moments and there still are moments where I say to myself, man, this is hard. It's hard. Because I you know, I feel like I'm on my own, you know, and, and I have to I have to persevere.

Chase: Yeah, it's a, it's wild. Like I said, I've been out for 10 years, out for 4 I mean, I'm still uncovering things that like, oh, well, I'm kind of struggling. Yeah, it's wild. So it sounds like you're your transitions doing really well. And I always wonder if the longer you serve. I mean, I guess actually, what I like to say is my transition out was not my choice, right? Yeah, it you know, it was just the cards I was dealt due to injuries and someone like, who I know goes through 20 years actually, and it’s funny timing if I had stuck in my original plan was to do the 20 and retire I quite literally like this month of the summer would beginning my retirement, I would be beginning my transition out, right. And so I always wonder, you know, is it because the military does prepare you for boot camp and training a specialty in selection school whatever your path is, that transition in is, is a lot. And if you actually commit and you have that proper transition out, I always wonder, you know, was I kind of shortchanged? Or if you know, if people who actually go out on their terms, if that transition is actually in place, if they're no better off or can just have a different experience?

Rich: I certainly think this the psychology of that matters and I would I would offer that those folks who spent 20 plus years in the service have often done pretty much everything they wanted to do. So I know as a seal, especially as a seal officer I certainly did. I mean, by the time I was retired I was five commander, you know, almost at oh six and I you know, the next jobs although interesting, we're not necessarily seal ish right there. Or in charge or, or even staff or, you know, and so, and so I knew I had done everything that I wanted to do and, and I could get out with that satisfaction. In terms of in terms of, are you more prepared, that's going to be up to the person right, some people you know, if we were to if you and I were to ask someone who started a career after college, right, say working for I don't know, Amazon, and they started at the at the delivery room, and moved all the way up over the course of 20 years to an executive position a C suite position. And then you tell that person at 20 years, hey, do you want to do want to leave Amazon and just go try something completely new, you know, most people are gonna be like, what I mean, you're, you're, you're literally jumping off the top of one mountain into the valleys so you can start climbing the next one. Now, for me, that's, that's exciting. You know, I like that idea for you know, but that's not the case for everybody. And so and so that's why a lot of people getting out will try to find jobs that are still related, military civilian jobs are related. If you can't do that, we just have to recognize this is where the little bit of the loneliness and trepidation comes in, where we're moving from something that we really, it was, it was complete certainty and predictability and we had mastered, and we're, we're diving into something brand new. Not very common, when you think about how people think about their own career progress, really. So there's there so it depends on the individual, how you look at that type of endeavor.

Chase: Yeah. Military or civilian anytime we go through a transition, I have found kind of solace, or, you know, softens the blow and going back to my familiarity going back to my core values, attributes, and I know, that's a lot of what you know, your new work is about. And so, before we kind of get into to the crux of that, could you maybe shine a light on one or two of your newfound attributes or what you're here to talk about in terms of transition? What maybe one or two key attributes would best serve somebody transitioning military to civilian, the 20 year career from one job to retirement just, you know, transition as a whole is a lot? What would somebody fall back on?

Rich: Yeah, I would say there's, there's certainly a few of them. If I were to pick two that we're I think the most important one would be courage. Which is, which is the ability to step into what we fear and move forward. And that's what it takes, if you're going to go from something like that to be by yourself or doing whatever. The next would be open mindedness, because we again, in the military. There's, there's stringent kind of conditions and rules around almost everything. Right? And so you're not people say, well, you're told how to think and you're not really told how to think. But the boundaries, rules, constraints kind of guide you into the way you think and so and so when you get out, I think it's very important to maintain a sense of open mindedness, which is an it's different than curiosity in the sense. I look at curiosity as a, as a, as an active, proactive it's a process and it's you kind of it's a proactive thing, right? You're, you're moving into a curiosity is I want to go look, because I'm curious, right? Open Mind is it doesn't have to be that way. Open mindedness can be completely passive, it's just a matter of opening up your aperture to make sure that you are, are effectively understanding and appreciating that what you're saying. So a great example that I like to use, is I say that I have coming out of the military to get used to the concept of time, in the civilian, right. Because in the concept of time, in the there's I'll go through three of them. There's the military concept of time, there's the Seal concept of time, and then there's this civilian concept of time, right? The military concept of time is if you're not 15 minutes early, you are late.

Chase: to be on to be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late, to be late is well nice knowing you.

Rich: So that's the military, the civilian concept of time is anywhere around start time and 15 minutes, you're fine, right? The seal concept of time is plus or minus 30 seconds, right and this is how we planned with our helicopters or helicopters, you say, we will be there at this time plus or minus 30 seconds. Because if you're too early, that's bad and if you're too late, that's bad. Right? You're right on time. And so I and of course, I joke, because I did a tour in Hawaii and they call it Island time, which is one of the Hawaiian said Island time is like, anytime this week, right? So to be for me, as someone who's used to seal time, you know, I had to be very open minded to the idea that that civilian time was different than the way people looked at time is different. Now, you can take that in a couple ways. One can look at that, and it can stress them out, which it did me in some cases, if I saw people just not responding the way I wanted them to respond. Or when I really made a proactive look at it, I said, or I can actually take this chance to relax a little bit, which is actually pretty good. Flip it on its head a little bit and say, Hey, I actually can sit back and not worry about something for a little bit, you know, now it's not it's not in my nature so I'm always going to kind of over plan a little bit and kind of be there. But, but I can I can, I can relax a little bit. But this is this is an idea of open mindedness and anybody, any of us who are coming out into this new world, where in many cases we've been coddled, you know, people like military coddled? Well, in some cases you are right. Open mindedness and courage, I think are the two most important.

Chase: It's funny as you were describing those concepts of time I have to kind of like laugh in my head. To my point earlier things that I'm realizing now 10 years later, I'm struggling still it's that I kind of have a I'm wondering if anybody listening, you know, as a civilian can relate coming from the military is we kind of pass those expectations on to our peers, our co workers, our significant others and in my head why wouldn't you be early to be on time? Why wouldn't I do these things? And it's really having to detach from that and recognize that's my training those are my parameters around it. It doesn't make it right or wrong with anybody else. But I would get so frustrated still. It's a big thing that I'm working on.

Rich: Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. And my wife and I joked about and when I first met my wife, which was five years into my career, she was someone who really wasn't concerned with being on time it didn't really bother her. And again, I was like, okay, that's fine. I mean, I love her, you know, it's okay. It was only what I actually and this is to her real credit. When she once said to me, hey, why are you so concerned about whether I'm late and I said to her, I said, listen, the way I see it, and again, my wife is one of the most empathetic people on the planet. She really cares about other people, I mean, deeply cares. And I said, the way I see it is that when I'm late, I'm wasting someone else's time. I'm actually doing them a disservice. I'm disrespecting them, and I'm making them wait for me. And I feel like that's, that's both disrespecting them and that's a little bit arrogant on my part. I mean, why should they do that? And as soon as I gave her that distinction, she was never late again. Because she, she was able to absorb that into her own in her own empathy and kind of say, Okay, I get it right. And so and so there's different ways you can look at that. I think reframing and being open minded is the key and most for success in most cases but certainly as we come out of military.

Chase: it's funny you joke with your wife I joke with mine all the time. So I run on military time. My wife's Persian she runs on Persian time. That's its own other thing. And when you say like Island time, I think Island time and Persian time might almost be the same, right? But I digress. But you know, these attributes that you talked about, I mean, I asked you a question, Hey, can you give us two things to fall back on to aid with a transition, and you immediately have these things to fall back on. And I know you have a list of others. And this is something kind of ingrained in us in the military. We've got acronyms for days for everything. We've got core values, at least in army. It was leadership, loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, personal courage. It's actually pretty impressive. Yeah. Wow. See, it's just drilled in, right. So I had this to fall back on a lot of other military people do. And in certain organizations good leadership I think will also foster that community of, maybe you get a clever acronym, but you just do you get mission statement, you get attributes, you get things that the team, the individual can fall back on, to remind them of your mission, right? To remind them of why you're here, to remind them of whatever you need, you know, to take a step forward where do these come from for you? What was it kind of what you saw lacking in your transition? Was it what you picked up from the Navy Seals or just things you learned in the civilian world? Where do these attributes come from?

Rich: Yeah, so it's a little bit more elemental than I think, even values I in the book, I point to values as helping point to your attributes, but I think values are born more of a description into in terms of what you believe and kind of, and I think values encompass a little bit more. I have been fascinated for quite a while with the elemental human. And what does that for me? For me, that means okay, well, who is who shows up? You know, as us when, especially when chips are down, we always say, Oh, it's when it's in challenge, stress and uncertainty that the real person shows up, when you squeeze the orange juice comes out, or when you crush the coal, what's that diamond look like? Elemental human behavior for me begins at the attributes. And it's because these attributes are innate, you know, they're, they're, they're qualities that that we're born with. And we're born with levels of, certainly environments, and, and where we, as we learn and grow, they can be developed, but they inform our behavior, especially during times of challenge, stress, and uncertainty. And so and so I began to take a look at them, I was running a training and a selection, selection, assessment and training course for one of our specialized Seal commands and what we were doing when we were getting very experienced guys to come through this and getting about a 50% attrition, which is fine. You can get attrition anyway,

Chase: which is actually really good for the Seals; 80 90% 

Rich: Well, that's a basic but now you're talking about very experienced guys coming to this and out of that group 50%, not making it down. And so what we were unable to do in a satisfactory way was to articulate why that was. And what I found was we were, we were falling back on explaining it via skills, we're using skills as excuses like he couldn't shoot very well couldn't do cold score combat, couldn't you know couldn't skydive, whatever it is and it didn't make sense to us because these are really experienced guys. They've done a lot of shooting. They've done a lot of skydiving. And certainly that didn’t make sense to them. Because they're like, well, what are you talking about? Well, I'm not bad at this. I've been doing it my whole skills shouldn't even be in the question while skill. Well, they were they were they were. And that's the problem. And so that's when I began to say, well, we need to look, we need to look more innately at what we're looking for. And so I kind of backed up and I said, Okay, let's look at basic Seal training, which basic Seal training, which is, you know, buds, basic underwater demolition, Seal training, this is where you have about a 90% attrition rate. And it's a six it's a six month long course on the toughest train in the world. Hell Week is the kind of the famous crucible fifth week of SEAL training where you go from Sunday afternoon till Friday afternoon and get to our sleep and they're just big crush you the whole time. And that's where you get the most quitters. But I said to myself, listen, I it over the course of 20 years in the teams, I did hundreds of combat missions overseas. And I did 1000s of training evolutions, right? Well, let me let me back up; in Seal training you are, you spent hundreds of hours running around with big heavy boats on your head and you spent hundreds of hours pting with 300 pound telephone poles and freezing in the surf zone. And then I said okay, I've done hundreds of missions. I've done 1000s of training evolutions, never on one did I carry a boat on my head, or a telephone pole on my shoulder, right? So why were they doing that? They weren't doing that because they were training us in the skills to be navy Seals, they were doing that to tease out qualities to see if we could do the job, if we had the qualities to do the job not necessarily got the skills to do the job. And this is the difference, right? So skills are not inherent to our nature, the differences is this the skills are not inherent to our nature. We're not born with the ability to shoot a gun or ride a bike or throw a ball we are taught those things are we trained to do those things, they also inform our behavior in known and specific environments. So here's how and when to shoot a gun. Here's how I'm going to throw a ball or ride a bike. Because they're tangible and they're visible we can see how well anybody does any one of those things. We can measure and assess it, we can we can say, here's this is how well, how bad but the thing about skills, though is, while they tell us how we're going to perform in these certain environments, they tell us very little, if nothing on how we're going to perform on the environment becomes uncertain and unknown because you cannot apply a known skill to an unknown environment. So in unknown and unknown environments, we begin to lean on attributes, attributes are more innate qualities, like every all of us are born with levels of patient situation awareness, adaptability, resilience, okay. Certainly they develop over time. But they, you know, you can see those what we can see levels of that and small kids, right, any parents will tell you, okay, I've seen the one year old, or the two year old, who's very patient, and the two year old, who's very impatient I mean, it's just it's innate. They inform our behavior, right, rather than dictated or directed. My son's level, or any one of us went to any one of our levels of perseverance and resilience informed the way we showed up when we were learning how to ride a bike and we were falling off a dozen times doing so because they're hidden, because they're kind of in the background. They're very hard to assess measure and test, you see them most visibly and viscerally during times of challenge uncertainty. Which is why Seal training was such a perfect laboratory, because Seal training is all about throwing guys in this environment, see what we got. But ultimately, what happens is if we understand our attributes, then we start understanding our behavior. Now, here's the here's the good news is this we're all born with all the attributes. The difference in each one of us are the levels to which we have each so if we take adaptability, for example, I might be a level eight on adaptability. What does that mean? If 10 is high and one is low? That means that when the environment changes around me outside my control, it's fairly easy for me to go with the flow and roll with it. All right. Someone else might be level three, which means when the environment changes outside their control, it's difficult for them, you know, this

Chase: so it is not like one can do and one can’t it's to what degree is it easier? What's the spin up? 

Rich: yes, how easy or hard. We can say I mean, you know, adaptability, resilience, all this stuff. So we all have, so you can imagine all the attributes as a line of dimmer switches on a wall. Alright, and each dimmer switches set to a different level for each one of us. And our lines are all different. That's how we show up. I'm kind of this guy who believes that we you know, first of all, we're all human. We all know that we all remember that right? But we're kind of like cars. Some of us are jeeps and some of us are Ferrari's. Some of us are SUVs. There's no judgment in that because the Jeep can do things the Ferrari can't do and the Ferrari can do things the Jeep can't do. What it would behoove us to do is to look under our hoods and figure out what we are okay, because we may, in fact, be a Jeep trying to run our Ferrari track, or a Ferrari trying to run on a Jeep track. Now again, because, you know, because we can choose, right, we have the right to choose, we might be a Jeep that decides to run or Ferrari track, okay, but it's best to know that you're a Jeep, so you can start understanding your performance or understanding what you need to work on. So you can better run on a Ferrari track as a. Or you say, well, actually, I'm a Jeep, and this is why I haven't liked what I'm doing, because I'm a Jeep who's supposed to be running on a Jeep track, but I'm trying to run a Ferrari track. So it's really up to you. But really, that core knowledge is one of the first key to success. And I think that core knowledge begins with understanding your attributes. 

Chase: What about someone who is in the leadership position is in the superior role, the manager, the, you know, one step above kind of thing, when we're looking at the clearly this person on my team, this employee, this whoever is presenting these types of attributes at the high low dimmer switch from a leadership position? How do you turn up the dimmer? For people in this situation? 

Rich: Well, so let me get I'm gonna, I'm gonna answer that question, then we have to get back to what leadership actually is. If you so the cool thing about attributes is that you can develop the attributes you're lower on, okay. The problem is, you can't do it the same way as you can a skill. So no, I, so I can't tell you, hey, I'm going to so while they give you it. But let me give you a better example. If, for example, you said and I wouldn't have to tell you this, but say one of our non military friends said, Hey, I want to learn how to shoot a gun and hit a target. Okay, hit a bull's eye. You and I know, we could take into the range and within about two hours, we can teach them how to do that. Okay, that's a skill. If that same person says I want to learn patience, we can't we can't teach them how to do that. Right. So the quick back of the envelope test on us on whether or not it's a skill or an attribute, because they get conflated all the time, is to ask yourself, can it be taught? Or can I teach it? If the answer is yes, it's probably a skill. If the answer is no, it's probably an attribute. So to develop an attribute takes three things. It takes self motivation, self direction, and then it takes one's deliberate step into discomfort to test and tease that attribute. So if someone wants to develop their patience, for example, they need to be motivated to do it. They need to direct themselves do it and they need to start finding environments inside of which to put themselves so that they may test their basis. So they pick the longest line at the grocery store or whatever or, or drive on the 405 at a rush hour or come to LA anytime. So you have to pick those environments so, so no person in charge can make anybody else develop an attitude has to be self directed, right? But now let's get to leadership. Okay, cuz I talk about leadership attributes I talk about team ability, and this is where we get in trouble because we, again, conflates, being a leader with being in charge, okay? They're not the same thing we conflate being a leader with being in charge, and they're not the same thing. One's a noun, and one is a verb, okay? Leadership is a behavior. Oh, and by the way, we don't get to self designate. Okay, we can say I'm in charge, right? And the military can say you're in charge. In fact, we say there are symbols everywhere to let people know that you're in charge truly, right. But you can't say I'm a leader. It's like saying you're, you're good looking or funny. Okay, other people decide if you're a leader; other people decide whether or not they choose to follow you. We all know this intuitively, because we all know, or have experienced people who are in charge, who we don't consider leaders at all right? And if sometimes in that very same organization, we look at the person who is the farthest from being in charge, and we go to them every time, right? So leadership is about behavior and how you behave towards another human being allows them to make a decision as to not as to whether or not they choose you, as someone who they consider a leader. The attributes that I talked about in the book, The five leadership attributes, which are accountability, empathy, decisiveness, authenticity, and one more. One more are all they're all attributes that that lead to behaviors that then people have historically seen, and thought about as, yeah, this person's a leader. Same thing goes with team ability, okay, there's the team ability attributes, our behavior, we don't get to call ourselves a great teammate, we behave in a way that allows our teammates to consider us a good teammate, right? If you are a position, if you are in a position, if you're someone who is in a position who that where you are in charge, okay, and you want to think about attributes, first think about the attributes of leadership so that you can then be designated leader by those who are in your span of care. And then you know, holistically you can start asking yourself, okay, as a team, what attributes are, do we need on this team? And then how do we best sell up those or, or, or hire for them or whatever?

Chase: Which attributes should we lean on if we want to be considered that? If we want others to be looking at us thinking of us as a leader? As a good teammate? Which attributes can we kind of work on? 

Rich: so the leadership ones are empathy. Okay, so first is empathy, all right, to feel how others feel what and not just know how someone feels? Feel how someone else feels, right? We don't we all know, if someone takes the time to try to empathize with us, we automatically begin to feel cared about, okay, what do we care about for whatever, you know, leadership and leadership, one of the first elements of leadership is trust. And when you begin to show someone you care about them that starts to kind of imbue a trust in there. So, so showing you care about someone is a first step. So that's why empathy is, is one on ones. Authenticity, right? We you know, Authenticity, being authentic, being who we are being our real selves, whether we're at work, whether you're at home, whether we're out in town, whatever that shows, it's very easy to see for people. Whether or not you're the same person will shine through pretty quick, right? Whether you're the same person with them, as you are with, say, someone who's senior to you, you know. So authenticity shows someone whether or not they can trust you and feel that consistency. Decisiveness. That's the one I forgot decisiveness. We all know that someone who's able to make efficient and rapid decisions with a responsible amount of information, not too fast, but also not too slow, that imbues trust right. Accountability, you know, there are no leader I mean, no one really, just in our honest truth. Do we consider a leader who's always saying it's someone else's fault? It's not me, it's them. It's not me. It's them and blaming, okay. Ultimately, we don't really think of that personally, that we sometimes it, it, you know, we just know that it's just an intuitive thing. If someone's blaming and pushing away, they're not taking accountability, taking responsibility. 

Chase: that is when we will throw Jocko’s work at them, you know, Extreme Ownership.

Rich: Yes, that's right. Yeah, it's true. I mean, yeah and Jocko has some great stuff about leadership and that's included right? Extreme Ownership because if you don't have that, and you're not building trust, and now I'm blanking on the last one, but just the

Chase: for the consideration of others, what are the attributes that we really want to work on most for others to really put us in that light? You know

Rich: And I think if I if there was one most important one, if I were to if I were to rank them I tend not to do this right. But people are probably latch onto and then latch on to it. And again, we're all different in terms of what we consider importance, okay? And how we as human beings would, I can't tell someone else how they're going to look at someone like a leader. But I would say authenticity is one of the most important ones because again, if we are showing up the same way, for everybody, and again, it doesn't. What's funny about this is it doesn't have to mean you are nice, right? I had a CEO, you know, you know, most of your audience are military, they know what change command is but it's a ceremony, right? Every two years, you get a brand new CEO. And you go through the ceremony, and we had this and I was a young officer, and we had this new CEO coming in. And so at the, at the, at the reception afterwards, I went up to introduce myself. And this guy immediately gives me like a cold handshake. And he's like, he starts asking me like grilling me about some gear that we hadn't like dive gear we hadn't been using for a while. And I was giving him some wrote responses that had been told to me by some seniors because I wasn't really I was kind of new to the commands. And, and he was not buying. And he was just like, why, you know, just asking tough questions that were, you know, probably good questions. But I was like, man, this is this. So it was about two minute exchange that was very uncomfortable and I remember walking away saying, then there's gonna be a rough two years with this guy. Right. And it was, it was only after a couple weeks that I realized he was that way with everybody. I mean, whether it was me whether it was enlisted person, whether there was a senior person, whether it was at chow, PT, in his office, he was always the same way, right? And I remember saying, well, all I need to do is adjust, you know, I could trust his behavior. He was like that all the time. And so I just adjusted, he turned out to be phenomenal leader, because he always asked really hard questions that we should consider. And I thought he was a great leader, you know, and so a few years later, I was assigned to a task force overseas, and I showed up, and it was already running. So I was just showing up to be in a position in the ops department. And I was greeted by this guy, he was the he was the guy who's gonna be working for OSHA. And he greeted me the same way cold handshake. And he said, he said, hey, I'm glad you're here. I got work that was due yesterday, right? And I felt comfortable. I was like, Okay, I know this. Right. So it doesn't have to mean you're nice all the time. It just has to mean you're, you're consistent and I would say you can't be kind of an a-hole. Right. So you have to show that you care. And you have to show this guy. You could tell he cared. And you could tell that he knew what he was talking about. He was and you could tell the questions. He was asking us even though it was kind of a, an ordinary manner were good questions. I mean, they really were they were pushing us to do things that we probably should have been doing anyway. So I think i think i think authenticity is probably one of the most important ones.

Chase: So what happens when shit hits the fan? You know, rounds are coming down, or the pressure at your job is rising to the top or home situation is just the boiling point. Let me go to my Rolodex of attributes which one do I do I like access? How do you? How do you advise people to get to a point to where these attributes become innate become second nature? What's the work? And then how do you go from the work to the applications now that it just happens?

Rich: so the attributes are second nature no matter what so the first thing I advise is start to understand how you show up, okay? Because, because when the shit hits the fan, that's when your attributes going to show up. And it behooves you to know, if you're someone who's patient or impatient if you're someone who's resilient or non resilient if you're someone who's adaptable, or not very adaptable, right? Because then you start to understand A how you show up and B if there's some gaps, you may then say, gosh, I need to be more adaptable. So you decide to then start working on your adaptability and developing that attribute. However, when stuff happens, like when we when we start experiencing fear, stress and anxiety, we, you know, we start to tickle our amygdala right. And so we have to kind of think about this in terms of what fear actually is. First of all, let's think about stress. Stress and anxiety are actually designed to be good as is fear. All these things are designed into our system to cue us, right? They're cues to take us to either make us act or to make us stop and think okay, so. So, stress, for example, if you are hungry, you're gonna start feeling anxious and agitated distress, right, that's it, let's get to get up and get food, right. If you're lonely and depressed, that you know, you're feeling that to get up and find companionship, if you're fearful, that's your, that's your body cueing you hey, there's risk here. Think about this, right? So you don't want to so I always like you know, one of my leaders used to say hey, beware the fearless leader because you'll likely get you killed. Okay, I do stay away from people who are quote fearless, okay? Because what they're doing is they're not able to assess risk like responsibly right so what is fear? Fear is really a combination of two things. It's the combination of anxiety plus uncertainty okay when you when you if you have each of those separately, you don't necessarily have fear right? You can be anxious but not uncertain. This is your nervous for the presentation that's coming up next week. You know the material you know where it's gonna be, you probably you might have done it before you just little anxious you know, there's not uncertainty around you’re just anxious. Not much. You know, there might not be fear though. You can be uncertain but not anxious. Okay, well, that's every kid on Christmas Eve, okay, so there's no fear. If you combine the two, you start to induce fear the amygdala starts to get tickled when the amygdala starts to get tickled in a high zone, right, we start approaching amygdala hijack, where we start acting without thinking our frontal lobe conscious mind starts coming offline and we start acting without thinking. That action, even as the especially as we get into that kind of hijack, but that action usually is two or two things fight or flight, right, we've heard this, we've heard freeze, but freezes really neurologically an oscillation between the two, either you're, you're kind of deciding. So quick thing, and this is kind of the argument for courage as an attribute cars is your ability to step into fear when we decide to actually move into our fear, if we're gonna set the fight, which is I'm stepping into my fear. And there's a there's a specific switch in your brain that gets clicked. And when that switch gets clicked, we get a dopamine reward, which means we're rewarded for stepping into our fear, okay, again, by human evolution standards is designed for us to be explorers, discovers to go find things to get to go step outside our comfort zones, right. So it's not necessarily a bad thing to keep on stepping into our fear, we can decide to do that. However, to make any decision, you have to kind of have your frontal lobe, at least online to an extent or else your analytical hijack, okay? The way we begin to, especially if things are getting really bad, to start to, to buy down fear is to buy is to buy down either of those two elements or both, okay? So you can buy down on anxiety, for example, anxieties is really largely internal, okay, that's our physiological how physiology is responding to fear, okay, usually, heart rate, pupil dilation, things like that. We can do that we can buy that down by breathing techniques we can there's visual techniques we can do, you know, you know, there's a, there's a bunch of a host of different things you can you can look into that help you help you calm yourself to tap into your parasympathetic, you're shifting from sympathetic, parasympathetic, okay, so that's, that's buying down anxieties, larger internal, and internal experiments, right? Or process. Once you're, once you do that, to an extent where you can actually you have the conscious mind online, then you need to start thinking about buying down uncertainty. Okay. Uncertainty is external to us. So there's not much we can do other than to start asking ourselves some very deliberate questions. The first question we can ask ourselves is, what about this environment do I understand? Okay, we'll start to get those answers. As we get those answers, we say, Okay, what can I control out of that stuff? I do understand what can I control we pick something and we focus on it, and we move towards it. And that's in that, in essence, enacting that courage circuit, right? So we're getting a dopamine reward when we move to it. Whatever we pick has to have meaning to us and whatever that whatever that horizon is, okay, this is the classic way guys get through either boot camp, or certainly like Seal training. You would you would basically compartmentalize in a way that allowed you just to think about what you needed to think about in the moment and move to that and that would that would change. Sometimes you'd be like, Oh, I'm just gonna make it to the next meal. Or I'm freezing the surf zone. Well, I remember, I remember freezing in the surf zone and say to myself, well, I'm freezing right now but soon, I'm gonna be doing so many pushups, I'll be I'll be boiling hot, right? So I'll just wait till I'm doing pushups, you know, or vice versa, you know. So it's, it's moving, that it's kind of setting that, that horizon and moving towards it and getting that dopamine it. This is how we step through slowly, uncertainty, challenges stress. We just continually reset and re-ask that question and just move step by step through these environments. 

Chase: I love that. Is it enough for us to go about this on our own, and to have to have a sense of awareness, a high enough sense of awareness to do everything you just said, but then also to take a step back and assess a fair assessment? Is it enough for us to do that? Or how can we maybe incorporate outside opinion that actually is gonna be a fair assessment?

Rich: Yeah, well, I think opinion I don't know about outside opinion but co misery is very effective, right? When you do this with others, this is why we this is actually why we actually create such bonds with people when we're when we move through challenging stress together, because we're because we're actually supporting each other in this process. And then we're moving together as a team. So this is why you go through Seal training, and you show bonded with people here. Now, there are elements of Seal training, that's all on you, right? You can't look to the other guy. And I mean, that's, that's by design, it gets so difficult that it becomes only you and you're the only one who can help you can do it. But other but many, many other times and I think boot camp is a good example of this to where the team helps you through, right, me and you and you're able to, you're able to find things to step through because you have the team support that and the other big elements which is humor, okay, and so humor is an attribute, a team of attribute. I threw it in there as a team ability attribute because I've never encountered any high performing team or high performing human that for that matter that isn't able to laugh, you know, especially when things get tough.

Chase: You have to I mean, I'm sure you know embrace the suck right? So many times it would just be so miserable. And then you know, me or some other jackass, you know, in the team has just, you know, says something that just no one wants to laugh or feel anything right now, because you're just hating your life so much, right? But it's like, no, you just need to embrace the suck. You got to laugh about it.

Rich: neurology backs us up. Right. So when you're in I was in Hell Week, for example. This happens all the time. You're freezing. You're doing surf torture, because you're freezing in the surf zone. And the instructor drives a van up onto the beach and says and gets out with a megaphone and says, hey, I got hot chocolate blankets and doughnuts for anybody who quits right now. Right? It's a survivor thing, right? And get his head you got a lot of people quitting, by the way. And I remember him doing that to us. And, and the guy to my right immediately yells. He's like, hey, do you have any do you have any chocolate glazed doughnuts? Because if you don't have any chocolate glazed, I'm not quitting. Right. And he laughs and I laugh right? And I knew in that moment is like, Okay, I'm gonna make it. This is fine. Right? I looked to my left though, that the guy to my left didn't wasn't laughing at all. He was lost in his pain. I don't even think he heard the joke, right? He was too. He was too lost in his pain. And I remember thinking this guy's making well, sure enough, within about a minute he quit. And this is why Okay, when we laugh, it releases three very powerful chemicals into our system two neurotransmitters and one hormone, okay? They're neurotransmitter dopamine, which we've already talked about dopamine is this very powerful chemical that tells us this is good. Keep going keep doing this, okay? It's why it's the root of all addiction, right? Addictions stimulate that dopamine response, right? You get a hit of dopamine, you get endorphins. Okay. Endorphins are the humans, the human beings human systems form of opiates. Okay, it masks pain, right? We all know the runner's high, you know, we get we're endurance creatures and the body needed ways to kind of make us start feeling okay for euphoric, so we keep on going right and masks are pain. So you get a hit of dopamine, you get a hit of endorphins, those are neurotransmitters. Then you get a hit of oxytocin, which is a hormone known as the love hormone. Okay? Oxytocin, you get it when you when you're in touch when human touch hugs even witnessing or, or conducting acts of human kindness of kindness to another human being or even witnessing those actually starts to mirror neurons and starts to induce oxytocin. So when you laugh, you get all three of this right into your system. So this is me in the surf zone. Okay, what happened? My buddy makes a joke, right? I get a hit of dopamine. He's like, Alright, this is good. Keep going. Right? Get some endorphins in there. That's it doesn't feel that bad. And I got actually oxytocin, we're in this together, right. That's why humor is a hack, okay. Humor is a really important and powerful way to help you keep going. A lot of cancer patients will say, when they're in treatment, they just focused on like watching funny movies every day, just laughing as much as possible. It's because it floods us with a very, very powerful and, and, and positive chemicals. And so that's why it's huge. And that's why you've never that's why we probably you know, you're even though you spent four years in the Army, or six I spent 20 some of our best memories are probably just laughing with our with our buddies, right? Even though the conditions might have been miserable.

Chase: Yeah. I was gonna say laughing in horrible conditions. Laughing, chillin in the barracks, it's so true. 20 years as a navy seal in the military, gone through a lot. So as much as you can share, I'm curious. What you've been saying has been so valuable so far. But can we get very like personal? Can you take us to a moment when you had to immediately just turn on all the switches, you had to fall back on these attributes? You had to just really, you know, figure out yourself, so to speak? And, and it was, was it in that moment that you realized, it doesn't matter? My skills, it doesn't matter? You know a lot of these things I've been taught to a certain degree, it matters what I have innately in me and how I can have it come forth?

Rich: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think I think ultimately, that's what SEAL training does to every guy who makes it through because they put you in such misery and you see people dropping like flies and so when you get through that you realize, Okay, wait a second. And so I think I think one of the first times I right, I realized, alright, I'm going to be okay, is when I, you know, because you have these, you have these, like sometimes Olympic athletes coming to seal training, and they'd be the first to quit, you know, and, and so one of the things I loved about Seal training is it's one of the purest environments I've ever experienced, and probably one of the purest environment that exists out there because as soon as you get to the beaches of Coronado, right, it doesn't matter. Nothing. Nothing about where you came from, or who you are matters, right? Doesn't matter if you're the top athlete, the valedictorian, the person from the farm, whatever it doesn't matter what color what race, what creed, anything all that matters is, hey, we're gonna throw you this environment do you have what it takes? And, and I remember when I saw some of these guys floundering, who were otherwise, studs, okay. And I realized as soon as I recognized that it wasn't about how many pushups I could do, or how fast I could run, it was just about me gutting it out. I was like, alright, I'm good. I got this. And that's when I didn't know at the time because I didn't I this attribute stuff, I didn't really think through deeply enough until I thought about it while I was running training. And that was, what, 14 years into my career. And then I really thought deeply writing the book two years ago, right, but, but then I didn't know what was going on. I just knew that, you know, I had I had what it took, and it was really in the deconstruction process afterwards that I started saying, Okay, this, this is what I was applying in those moments, I was applying this compartmentalization attribute this resilience, this, this adaptability, the, the task, you name it, the task or the drive the narcissism, whatever the attribute is, I was applying this, this and this, and that's what got me through. And again, though, it was in the context of Seals, right. So one of the reasons so we don't judge attributes in terms of how we show up if we were to, wherever we fall on that on that dimmer switch a vine, right? There's no judgment there. It would be like judging our hair color. Okay. There's, it's useless. It's just how we show up. Where we can start to put or prioritize attributes is when we start looking at them in the context of teams, right. So in other words, the list of attributes required to be a good navy seal, is going to look different than the list of attributes required to be a good nurse or a teacher or a or a dentist or whatever, you name it. Okay? That's when we start putting that together. And then we have to say, okay, given the list I have given my, my, with the ones I'm high on the ones I'm low on, where do I, you know, where do I fit, I happened to find a place where I fit where my attributes, my attribute list showed up pretty well, right? The guys who didn't make it obviously, didn't and hopefully later on, they found places but that's really. The, the project should be for someone the book, the book is not a book about Seals is not a book about super performance. It's really the book is about the reader when someone reads this book, they will learn about themselves. Now there are some fun, cool seal stories and some, you know, fun, I try to pepper it with a bunch of different scenarios not certainly not all military. But the idea is when you read it, you will learn about yourself, you'll start to you'll say, okay, wait a second now I know, okay, I'm lower on this. That's why I behave the way I do got it. Right. And that that epiphany is actually quite empowering. Even if you find out you're low on something. Because I know for me if I find out a little bit long sometimes, okay, that's why that's why this is so painful.

Chase: Amazing. I mean, so many people miss that point, and not to cut you off. But I think it's a really important point is when we realize, we go through the work or we get feedback from whoever, you know, it can come across as I have less than I've been shortchanged, or I'm not good at this and it and it kind of opens up a wound for a lot of people. But certain people, I think more innately have that wide aperture, like you said, and can accept that and see it as Oh, this is the weak link in the chain. I know what to fix now or it's a good it's at least a good starting point. How, what you just said, How can someone maybe who doesn't have that wide aperture doesn't have that open mindedness, like you're talking about earlier, begin to take that as the feedback they need to not hate to sound the fix was broken, but just to increase that dimmer, so to speak?

Rich: Yeah, I mean, it's really it's really, I'm really a believer in, in this idea that we all have something to offer. We all come to this, this life with certain competencies and certain deficiencies, and we can't control that right. We are who we are. And I will I will concede that some people have more. They start with more. Not so much deficiencies, but certainly more room to grow. I always say this, if you look at the so I don't really think it's attribute wise, I think it's just environmental. So say this, you know, if we look at Mount Everest, okay, there are some people who are born 10 feet from the from the peak just based on gotcha, there are other people are born at Base camp other people are not even born in Tibet, right? They have a long way to go. It's a tough road for them. Right? And that's, that's just life, okay. But I am someone who also believes that if we can do the work on self discovery, and figure out our own engines, we all have the same physiology, right? And so we can actually start to ask ourselves the questions on how we can perform better if we understand our engine better, right. So, so if you're a G, for example, and you don't know it, okay, I mean, there's 1000s or 10s of 1000s of tricks, tips and hacks to perform better. And you're out there, you know, many, many of them are great, you know, some of them are bullshit, but a lot of them are good. The problem is not every not every single tool works for every single person, okay? It's not meant to. So and so if you don't know, you're a Jeep, for example, and you try to put a nitrous oxide pack on your engine, you're, you're gonna blow the engine, right. So, so understanding your own engine understanding where you show up in some of these attributes will even allow you to pick the right tools to help build your engine better. Right? So this is the power of self discovery, this is the power of self awareness. So I would definitely offer people don't, don't look at as, as an exercise to find your deficiencies. Look at it as an exercise to find your makeup. Right. Because once you find your makeup, then you, you know, you start to know and be illuminated those things you can actually add to your engine, that will actually work. Because there's a lot of tips and tools that won't, you know, but that but then you say, okay, this is why that didn't work. Okay, this tool is going to work for me.

Chase: This has been amazing kind of getting towards the end, I want to pick your brain a little bit more before we officially wrap up. You were just talking about there are millions one different things 10s of 1000s 10s of millions of things we could do to you know, buy biohack human optimization, data, quantitative self qualitative feedback, all these things, supplements, what would have been some of your key things, key hacks, if you will, that contribute to all the work that we've been talking about? Is it just this one thing in my sleep or this supplement, or, you know, maybe a couple things that just really, really help with the open mindedness with the physiological and the psychological adaptation process for these?

Rich: Yeah, I think the hacks have changed as I've gotten older. I mean, certainly things that worked. I mean, again, I think most of my most of my adult life as a seal, I was just, I was just powering through it, I wasn't really looking for a lot of hacks other than just try to eat healthy and, you know, if I could. Sleep is certainly one of the most important things, you know, get enough sleep, you know, I you know, as fellow whoopers, you know, we, you know, something to monitor, you know, are we recovering appropriately so, our physiology is ready to attack the day? I would say this, and it's gonna be a little bit, it is not, it's not an attempt to did Todd, your question, but it's a little bit off the answer. And that is my, my most important hack for my entire life, for me, has been self introspection; is the ability to stop and take a look inside, live in my head for a while, think about ideas, think about myself, think about how I show up, and really try to dissect a little bit more about myself so I understand my engine better, but also take real pleasure in just turning over ideas and concepts and perspectives. And just thinking about them just spending some time inside my own head, which I know for some people is, is frightening but again, I've been there. But listen, I think I think society right now the way we're set up, especially technologically encouraged us encouraged us constantly not to do this, right. I mean, you're sitting in the airport. And I mean, it's a just as the grocery store, if you if there's more than two people in the line in front of you, you're most likely to pick up your phone and start looking at your phone. I mean, we just see it all the time. We have so many opportunities to escape right now in our lives. You can watch Netflix, wherever we are. 

Chase: I heard this term years ago. I love it called weapons of mass distraction.

Rich: Yes, it is. That's right and what it's doing is taking you out of your own head now, escapism on occasion is perfectly okay. And I encourage you and I do it right. But I think most of us are often guilty of too much of too much escapism, we don't allow ourselves some quiet, we don't allow ourselves some thought, some thinking, you know, growing up, I grew up in the 80s and we used to drive to our vacations, we had four kids and I my dad wasn't gonna buy a plane ticket. So we just got in the car and drove. And we didn't have, you know, CD players or Walkmans, or monitors in the headrest. Right. And so I used to for hours upon hours, just look out the window. And think and visualize and Daydream, you know, and even to this day, I can sit on an airplane and just sit next to the window and do the same thing. And it's an enormously powerful, I think gift for me because like, it's time, I can just think you know, and I guess be with myself, it sounds a little bit new agey. But I think that's a that's a definite hack that people don't realize they have access to immediately.

Chase: I mean, anybody who's been tuning into the show for any period of time, or follows me online, I'm all for I've got all my little tips and tricks and hacks and wellness, this and that. But truly one of the most powerful things I've ever done is just that is become comfortable with and seek out and in fact, make time for self stillness. One of my favorite living authors Ryan Holiday, his book stillness as the key is just so profound, I think, not only in the lessons and attributes even, but I love how he kind of gives us examples. It's, it can seem like you said, you know, a new age concept, but it's, it is, I think, the most timeless concept and I love how he gives I'll make sure to put this down the show notes for everybody. Just examples of, you know, call it meditation, call it me time, just any time. It's just you and your thoughts. I mean, just different world renowned leaders, generals, presidents artists, the one thing that they kind of like always would fall back on, especially when shit hit the fan. But they also made time for it regularly was stillness; how do I just seek out and get comfortable with and find the answers and more importantly, the questions that are already here inside me that had the heart? 

Rich: Yeah and I think I think just to just to make sure people aren't who, who might look at meditation, like, ooh, I don't want to do that. I find like, one of the ways I quote meditate is I go for running, I run so I run in the woods, and I don't tie myself I don't have any headphones, I just, I just run I enjoy nature. My brain is just I'm just thinking, you know, it's time to think there are neurological, there's studies and proof that says that if you are active, if you're if you can keep your body moving to a degree that you don't need to think about it, right. Don't be rock climbing complex things, and you know, be in la la land, but, but to the degree that you don't have to think about it movement actually sparks Yeah, type of thought as well. So walking is great running, you know, whatever it is getting outside. I mean, some people really enjoy sitting still and meditating and that's fine if that works. For me, if I if I can combine some sort of mood driving for me, is it's extraordinarily powerful because you know, the long distance drives where I just think, you know, because I'm, you don't have to I'm paying attention, but it's not like intense, and I can just be in my head a little bit perfect time to, for me, at least, to think so some sort of activity actually induces some of those chemicals that help with that process.

Chase: And there's science to it as well, I'm probably gonna butcher this reference, but I was reading something or it was a recent interview, where it's, and that's why they say you know, the power of walking, for physical activity and exercise, they recommend, you know, bare minimum 20 minutes and then for like actual exercise, I believe, 40 minutes but it's something around that 15-20 minute mark, where it's the gravitational force, basically, the gravitational energetic reverb, like the rebalance of when you walk for that amount of time of actually the shockwave, if you will, of what it does, and kind of goes back up to your brain, it only at that point will then begin to kind of trigger this, you know, biochemical response. Again, I'm probably butchering this, but I know I didn't make up most of that. I mean, there's a science of this, I mean, and so whether it's just because you made time for stillness, and that's how you get what you need out of it, or the biochemical responses or science response. I mean, it all it all kind of blends in

Rich: Yeah, totally. I believe it. I know, when I'm running it, you know, there's a there's a point at which I'm warming up, but then my brain just starts really clicking, but the key is just put away, take some time to put away distractions as much as you know, the phones or the beeps, the buzzes the bings if you can get out in nature even better, right? Because then you're connected and it feels that way you're getting fresh air and if you can move i think that's really quite powerful 

Chase: well said. Rich I've really enjoyed this man thank you so much for your time and your work and your service as well. So the last question I ask everybody I shared with you the origin story earlier and military guy hopefully can appreciate it more goes way back to our time before even technically a country of ever forward, ever forward, live a life ever forward the live a life part we kind of had it on but yeah, what does that mean to you? How does that fall on you? How would you say that you live a life ever forward.

Rich: For me that means constantly moving out towards my edges you know, so I'm really fascinated with human potential and potential by definition is always in front of us it's what could be not what is and I think that to move we all have kind of a ring of comfort around us and to explore our potential it requires a stepping outside that ring of comfort and looking at that what the next edge is and going to that edge. You could call it horizon too, we're going to move to that next horizon and it takes courage and it takes a little bit of discomfort but as soon as you get to that next as soon as you get there you know you've reached a new edge you've discovered something new but guess what shows up the next edge right and so I think ever forward for me is consistently seeking edges you know moving out to an edge and then finding it and take the next step and I think that's growth. I truly believe that that's how we live as long as possible. But any person who's lived a long life long happy life even as even as an old person they will say just always be curious. Always be discovering, always be moving forward. Always be doing something just don't stop you know, and don't give up. And I think that's what that means for me.

Chase: Yeah, totally. There's never a right or wrong answer. So I appreciate that interpretation. I'll of course have all of your information down in the show notes for everybody but if they want to connect with you right now or get the book like where can they go to learn more about we got going on?

Rich: Yeah, best places, theattributes.com the website, you can learn more about the book, you can get the book you can take we have a free assessment on there too. You can take an assessment on your grid attributes, your mental acuity attributes and your drive attributes and get a score and as to where you where you sit on those now, caveat is that the data was collected by getting a bunch of data around the world so about 1000 plus people. So when you get that score, it's a comparison. First of all, you should, you should take the assessment and really think about it as you take it, it's supposed to be introspective. So I would recommend you don't have to recommend reading the book and then taking the assessment, you don't have to do in that order, though. When you take it though, think about the answers and then when you get that score, just know that it's a comparison to 1000 other people and say to say to yourself, okay, what does that mean? Does that mean something for me? Is that fairly accurate? Or if it doesn't feel accurate say okay, well, let me index ad against some previous challenge and see if it makes sense. You know, it may or may not that comparison may not but yeah, they can take the assessment there. Have some workbooks on there. People can have tools on how to develop attributes. And yeah, also on Instagram and, and LinkedIn and all the usual but you can find all that stuff from the website. So theattributes.com

Chase: beautiful. Well, again, it was my pleasure, man, thank you so much. I'll end it with go army beat Navy.