Rewire Your Self-Image to Perform Under Pressure | Collin Henderson

Why is it that we feel so comfortable talking negatively about ourselves?

The brain is designed to survive not thrive. Our mental condition isn't shaped by good things. It's shaped by what I call trauma-drama-datae and momma shape. It takes an absolute savage warrior to get vulnerable. Oh, you isolate. That's actually weakness.

You're running from truth. That's some weak shit. I have to respect your right to be average. But do you want to be average? You let me know before we went live that you are the mindset coach for the US UCLA Women's Basketball team who just won the National Championship.

As someone who dedicated their career to the performance and the psychology behind it,

“which I think is very important, I'm interested in the differences in whether they're nuanced”

or vast between business performance, sports performance and even when I threw that out, you said military performance is a little different too. And I'm sure there's others. Let's just take those three. When you're approaching someone and they're in one bucket versus the other,

do you come at them from different angles? Is there completely different processes or are we coming from the same building blocks and then really it branches off as we get deeper into their particular field? Yeah and working in sport and business and leadership, you know, having spent several years with UCLA this last year really gave credit to the coach, Tasha Brown who really ran the

mind gym. I wasn't on campus like I was other years every month, but just seeing leaders take on whether it's sales leaders or HR directors, it's peak performance, it's performing under pressure, it's taking processes and delivering when it matters most and whether you're shooting a free throw or giving a sales talk with investors, whether you are competing with other

“groups or whether you run a team, you don't sell, but you have to connect in really share”

information. I think just basic training is what I call pre-hab. So mindset by definition is a condition set of beliefs that drive behavior and if you're leading people no matter what industry, whether it's military, business or sport, they're forming beliefs about themselves, about the industry, about the competition, about their

peers, about the marketplace and do you let that go to chance or do you want to create a culture and a way of working in a standard of, how do you deal with nerves, how do you deal with impostor thoughts, how do you deal with failure, how do you deal with uncertainty. So you can hope that they have the mental emotional skills to navigate those natural human emotions that arise in singing karaoke, asking someone on a date, you know, getting

rejection at work, whether it's a peer that you're trying to align with or a customer. So mindset training, we feel, I feel, is the missing puzzle piece, is the number one competitive advantage if you do it right, because Ryan, if you can imagine us having a group of C sweet

people or third line leaders that run an organization and we'd ask them, give me the traits

“of your top producers, top performers, what traits would they probably say?”

Resilience, drive, focus, give me some more Ryan, give me what would you think? Aggressive, intelligent, driven, passionate. Yeah, and then I would say, yeah, I agree with you, what are you doing to train those skills? So if you follow the work of Dr. Michael Drove, there are three things we can train, body

craft mine. I hope you're, you know, hydrating. I see you got your, your, your, your whoop band, didn't that rest recovery, is that a whoop band? Yeah, it's a new vibe. Yeah, it's new vibe. So a, how's your HRV, how's your, how's your super coverage course? I hope you're exercising, hydrating feeling properly, but 99% of what companies are doing now is just training craft, what's the product, what's the marketplace,

what's the competition, spreadsheets, um, P&Ls, they're spending zero to no time on regulating your nervous system, uh, breaking old negative thought patterns, um, this, the

power of identity and self image, you never have probably self image, you know, habits, behaviors,

discipline, focus, self awareness, empathy, creativity, you're not training any of those, and that's the building block of disrupting an industry and growing your product or your service, but you don't spend time on it. So I think we're, we're seeing now more than ever with tariffs with AI, you know, interest rates, you name it, whoever in office, there's only

collaborating and innovating and operating and encouraging vulnerability, but most people don't know

how to teach it or train it, and they're just doing what they've always done. So the teams

I've been up, had the approach to work with me, we see instant change, we see instant impact,

“because when the person is thriving, the performance follows, do you have to perform well”

to have a positive self image or can you develop a positive self image first before you start to perform? A really powerful book that I would suggest anybody who's into mental conditioning, performance psychology, is a psycho cybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz, and this was a plastic surgeon. I believe the book was published in the 1960s, like 1960, and he found in his research as a plastic surgeon as a doctor that you'd never outperform yourself image as the

picture that you see yourself. So even if he was doing plastic surgery on someone's face, if they didn't have a healthy self concept, they wouldn't be happy. There's nothing he can do to change

physically. But Ryan, just think about what I just said, you'd never outperform yourself image.

The most powerful force I've seen yourself. How many industries have you found in your work in your coaching? Can't be done. It's just it is what it is. The customers or the buyers or the history or the market, or we've never done it, we cannot penetrate or we haven't. It's kind of like saying, I'm I'm horrible at directions. I'm not a good cook. I'm not a morning person, while I'm a sweet tooth, like you literally are creating you've conditioned the belief about

yourself. And 90% of our behaviors are controlled by our subconscious mind. So these subconscious beliefs are literally guiding your your thoughts, your behaviors, your energy, your your risk taking, your, you know, all you're doing. So I would say, you know, I have five pillars of what I coach on in self image is one of them. So part of it is is what what what belief do we need to challenge? What labels around our self or product do we need to really revisit? A great question

to challenge yourself is, is that thought true said by who? Anybody who has innovated an industry, whether it's the right brothers who invented flying or submarines or Steve Jobs and the iPhone, like there's a disruptive belief that I love this thought from Plato, the first and raised victory is the conqueror's self. So I love that you'd zeroed in on that self image thing, because that really is a first thing that we need to really get curious about. Where did that

believe come from? Because your past is predictive if you have the same self talk, say, image saying behaviors, but your past is not predictive if we can elevate our beliefs in our habits. Why is it that we feel so comfortable talking negatively about ourselves? Like if this is true, which I 100% believe and I absolutely love this framing. I've never heard of put that way before. Why are we so comfortable saying the things you said I'm not a good cook? I'm not the best

communicator. I'm not a good, you know, I'm not good at cold calling. I'm not insert whatever the thing is that we literally tell we're telling people I'm not good at this thing, even if it's

“even marginally crucial part of our daily life success or our job success, why is it that we feel”

so comfortable being negative instead of the other side being like, I'm I'm great at that. I mean, both can be just as you just said, both can be true if you believe it to be true. So why do we always

tend to or why do we seem to always tend to be so willing to be negative first and have to prove

truth versus believing truth and being proven that we may not have that skill or that innate passion. Does that make sense? Yeah, there are people who have just read ministries are almost like like in a good way, like they're believing beyond what is done, but just let's look at brain science. So the brain is designed to survive not thrive. How we've evolved as a species, do you think the brain pays more attention to solutions or to problems or to threats? Obviously

threats. Because if you cave woman caveman days come around the corner and, oh, there's a bunch of berries that wasn't expecting that's great or the week before you were on that corner

“and a saber two eight eight your arm. You're you're more in tune to remember and be aware of that”

threat, you know, so the the research, the the National Science Foundation found that 80% of human thoughts are negative and 95% of human thoughts are reoccurring. And we say around 6,000 conscious

The National Science Foundation has published research that 80% of human thoughts are negative

“and 95% of thoughts are reoccurring. So subconsciously, I've read research up to 7,000”

thoughts just for basic map purposes. Let's just shrink that to 50,000. For out of five thoughts, negative that's 40,000 unconscious thoughts that are really driving our survival. So it's interesting now in modern times, the fear of physical danger of sabre tooths or lions or another tribe that's you're fighting for resources. We're not physically in danger, but we now have shifted that fight fight freeze, hide, fun, response to social threats. Words are violence. We're belonging or in my

intelligent or that also is like for our evolution very normal because if you don't fit into a tribe,

you're likely to have survival when you're isolated or is not very good. So we've shifted physical threats to social threats and this is acronym FOPO, fear of other people's opinions. And yeah, we just have this weird desire to be liked to seem intelligent. So a really question I ask any leader that I'm coaching is, is your desire to look intelligent and protect your image more

“important than growth, then service your desire to grow has to be stronger than your fear.”

But you're exactly right. We have the psychological wiring of this cable and k-man days of survival

but if you don't get that pitch, you're not going to die. But socially, we've, again,

tricked ourselves into just wanting to want it to be liked. And is the concern, so let's say, take a kind of kind of fictitious example here of that tribe, the person in the 150 person tribe, and they're the one who believes in themselves, they're super positive, they were just for whatever reason touched by God for a very five thoughts or positive instead of negative, right? Is that, is the reason that we've evolved to be more negative because that person stands out so much for the

tribe, they're putting themselves in danger of being removed from the tribe? Is that what it is or just being so different? Like, I guess, why, why, if that group and all these thoughts, if, say, those 150 people, the vast majority of them are thinking for out of every five negative thoughts, right? So they're like in that way, they're protected in that way, they're surviving in that way, but not necessarily thriving. Why do you think we weren't built on the flip side where all 150

people are four out of every five positive and everyone's just hard charging, driving forward, creating things, building, growing? Well, let's look at, like, your personality is like 50% DNA hardwired based off of your code, but your DNA and your genetics. Like 25 to 50% can be evolved, trained. But let's just go back to the definition of mindset, a conditioned set of beliefs that drive behavior. So when I'm coaching, you know, prolathletes or executives,

I have a series of questions around awareness for me to just get that based on just like at the gym, you have a baseline, you know, how flexible, what's your vertical speed, max lifting, I want to get a foundation of like where you are. My fourth question is, tell me about your relationship with your parents. Because our mental condition isn't shaped by good things, we've already covered that. It shaped by what I call trauma, drama, daddy, and mom-a-shit.

Trauma, drama, daddy, and mom-a. So that either optimism or creative thinking or growth mindset, or where you're receiving self-worth, you would not believe. You're talking about adults, correct? We're talking about grown-ups. There's been 18 to 30-plus years that that's been

“conditioned to attach worth to either what they're doing or results or outcomes. So that's why,”

bringing in a motivational speaker for 60 minutes is going to change nothing. It's going to change absolutely. Now, you just bring in a, you know, cover band or bring a magic magician. So like that's why if you really want cultural shifts in your performance around how you handle pressure, how you perform under pressure, how it's more collaborative, how we're penetrating old barriers, like you got to get in there and spend some time and coach through and create awareness on

what I call ants, automact, negative thoughts, some some conditioning on these limits that we put

can evolve and recondition what is possible. A great thing to challenge leaders is how many, how many collective years of experience do you think you'll have at the like C-suite or like the executive team? Oh, probably a thousand? Interesting. How many degrees do you all have? Oh, so you mean to tell me you're spending all of your time focusing on what can't be done and how shitty everything is and how bad it is versus using your collective brain to innovate, find new ways to

grow and serve and and make an impact in your industry. It's just a mindset shift of like, do you focus on what can be done or what can be done? Do things happen to your app before you. But yeah, that just requires just some kind of, you know what the re-foundation of change is, Ryan, is just having humility. Having the humility that, yep, I don't know at all. I can learn or I can re-look at something, I can do some research. One of my favorite books is the

“brain that changes yourself and the first step in law of learning is you have to want to learn.”

How do you get there, though? Like, and what I mean by that is 100% everything you've said so far, but let's say I'm stuck. I see these things. I listen to this podcast. I love what you're saying. I go to your website. I read, I love it. I've read a couple of your, but I'm, but I feel, I just, I feel anchored to where I am and it could be territorial fear, right? I've hit us, I've heard a place where maybe, you know, maybe also no golden handcuffs, you know what I mean?

I did a place where I'm making enough or comfortable enough. I mean, I'd be happy. Like,

it's never the person who's at rock bottom, who is afraid to move forward, right? That person

sitting at rock bottom going, you know, even the first step gets me off of where I am. It's that person's stuck, like, slightly above average where they're making enough, they have just enough

“credibility, just enough, you know, ego. Maybe they have a country club membership or their kid”

goes to a private school, but they wake up every day, they're either bored out of their mind or just straight miserable and they're, you know, using alcohol or drugs to, like, just dull themselves at the end of the day and they know they could have done more, so they're filled with regret, but at the same time, every move feels like it could, you know, every move feels like the opening up the potential where they could lose this comfortable life that they have where

their spouse has a nice car or and everyone seems to respect them and that person and just

builds this little world around themselves that looks great and in some ways is, but ultimately

is incredibly dissatisfied. How do we crack that person open? And I'm, I have no data to back this up, but the people that I talk to when I, the people that are coming to me when I'm talking to people and I'm out at a keynote or afterwards, that is the general stroke of the person who I find is in the toughest place, right, because they don't, they don't know where to go from there. When you're at the bottom, anything, anything is progress back towards the top, but that group

that I just described, it seems like there's a lot of pain, but it's internalized or scared to talk about it because they're, otherwise, their life looks okay, so how do we get that person moving in a direction where they start to feel more fulfilled satisfaction purpose meaning all these kind of things? Yeah, there's a bell curve for a reason, like that middle is big and the root of the goal and creating changes, orization is moving the middle, but I would just start with this

question, you're an adult. I have to respect your right to be average. That's just the truth. I have to respect your right to be average. I can't make you have that hunger or have that

“curiosity or have that commitment, but when you're talking, I wrote down three things I think”

could help that person who's kind of, all their needs are kind of met, they have shelter, they have consistent income coming in, they have a 401k, they have health care benefits, but they're kind of dormant inside. That I guess it was go back to that curiosity is not there.

They're not connected to purpose with their work. So the first step I would teach anybody in anything

in leadership, I wrote a book coming out June 28th, or up around the psychology of Olympics. It's really, what kind of look at brain science and human behavior, the science of behavior change? I think we miss Ryan sometimes, as we just throw, here's a five-step process. Here's my framework, here's my framework, and it's not personalized to the listeners, not tailored to them. So the first step I would say for anybody context before content, connect before you correct.

Like we talked pre-call, have you done the right diagnostic to uncover the layers of what they've built up over time, and how they're just masking real hurt or real joy or they're like you said numbing themselves with maybe grinding or numbing themselves with alcohol or

so-for awareness, and as Tony Robbins says, awaken the giant within, that there's greatness inside of you, but if I haven't done my due diligence of getting you connected to one of my, I guess, simple captain obvious things and sales in leadership, is do you know

“their goal? You know what's currently stopping them? Do they know what their goal is?”

If I asked you right now, Ryan, what do you want the most? What would you say? Me personally?

Yeah. Um, what do I want the most? I just signed my first book deal, and I want to make that book

is good a work product is I can possibly put together. Well podcast listeners, do you know the deal that your answer that fast and that clean and that that concise? I'm guessing those like bell curve people they don't have that answer. So it's like are you a gazelle or a lion? Gazelle's wake up and they're running away avoid it. Lions are running towards. So my guess is they're probably running away from doing the work or that the promotion would it taste to maybe

have to put together proposal and present it from their peers. They're probably in this avoidant mindset because they're not connected to a desire or a calling or a connected or a purpose

“that gets them motivated. So I think if I'm working with this bill curve person in the middle,”

I need to do some deep work in terms of like some really good questions. I love this thought from Voltaire. Don't judge a person by their answers. Judging by their questions, influence and behavior change has not come from speaking at someone. It's connecting and understanding, connect before correct, context before content. So I would spend some time getting in there and most people have not done coaching or therapy. Would you agree?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to give you an anecdote. When I first so two years ago

somewhere in that range, I mentioned on the show here that I go to therapy every other week and have since 2017, 2018 and I basically said she's counselor. See her every other week and I go whether I'm feeling great, bad in the middle doesn't matter how I'm feeling, I just go. Right? It's a life expense. It was a very good mentor mindset. Go find someone you can talk to, see him every other week for the rest of your life and just consider life expense and I have.

And when I said that, the number of people who reached out and were like,

“why would you say that? Do you really want people knowing that you do that?”

And then I don't know the group. There was a pocket of people that were like, thank you,

you know, I go to and I'm glad to hear you know, whatever. But there was like this large group of

people that felt that the idea of being open about talking to someone and talking through your questions, your problems, the, you know, helping sort and organize all the gobbler cook that can build up in the crevices of your brain that somehow that was a negative or that that's something that people shouldn't know about you. I was astounded. I was astounded at, and not necessarily negative, but just like, are you afraid that someone's not going to want to do business with you because

you, and I'm like, if someone doesn't want to do business with me because I go see a counselor every other week, like, that's probably not a good client to begin with. But to that point, I think a lot of people look at this idea of therapy or counseling and it's like, I don't need that. I may have all these problems and I may be upset and I may not understand my mind and I may be in a negative place, but that's for all the, that's for crazy people and it's like,

I really want to tear down that barrier, like long-term, I want to tear down that barrier. Yeah, I just use different ways to use a parable, like, do you change your oil in your car? No, I used to, but do you take it in? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, every seven, five to seven you probably change it. Do you go to the dentist, like, to a twice of your? Yeah, every six months, yeah. Well, you don't need to be sick to get better. I would flip the script on its preventative,

it's proactive, it's, you know, your adult relationship, your adult wiring is really a window into your childhood or past relationships, past hurts. So I just think, man, that's legit, that you're proactive, you're, it's just, you're flipping the re-frame, you're, you're reframing. It, it takes an absolute savage warrior to get vulnerable and ask for help. Oh, you isolate, that's actually weakness. You're running from truth, that's some, that's some weak shit.

Oh, you're getting help. You're, you're trying to prove yourself, man, you're courageous. That's what great leadership is. We said earlier in the podcast, the foundation of greatness and growth is humility. What you don't use, you lose as in working that muscle of vulnerability, what you avoid, you attract what you resist, you persist. So the best coaches and executives,

Dr. Wendy was the cornerstone of that whole company of like the psychology of growth and

“navigating pressure. And yeah, so I just think one of my goals, so my, my company, his name”

is Mastermind said, our mission is to transform lives and normalize mindset training. Normalize personal development, growth, self-awareness, doing what's called doing the work. Some people don't want to do the work. I have to respect your right to be average, but every major league baseball team has a mental skills coach. Every special operations has mental performance coaches on their team. Every Olympic organization has some type of performance

psychologists on staff. Oh, but you're too good for it. Oh, okay, you're new, you know it all. Okay, like I will go tell you to tell anybody that says that that's a waste of time. But yeah, now I have two more. But we, but, but we just covered one. I got two more. We just covered is is getting to the source, connect before correct, context for content, personalize the growth to that individually. You've heard the whiff and what's in it for me. I also love this

thought from Mary Poppins well begun as half done. It has to start at the start and getting this what called targeted coaching, make it specific to the individual. That's the step one. But you're, you're kind of cooking also there. Yeah, no, I was just going to double in and say everyone thinks Michael Jordan was born with dismantality, but it wasn't until Phil Jackson. I just wanted to look up the guy's name. I knew the story brought in this guy George Mumford. Who is a mine

secretary? They started winning your championships. So it's like it took, you know, obviously Jordan was a hard worker and obviously he was driven. But it wasn't until they brought in this mine set coach who then he also introduced the Kobe after the Jordan era. But Phil Jackson brings this guy in and he's the one that taught the bulls and then the Lakers Championship teams, the winning mine, like they didn't have the winning mindset. Here's Michael Jordan, everyone thinks he's just

tapped by God as this thing. And it's like, no, this dude had, he had Tim Grover as a, as a strength and conditioning coach. He's got George Mumford as a, as a mindset coach. He's got Phil Jackson who's all about mindset. I mean, literally his name's the Zen master. Like, so to think that, you know, here's, here's Michael Jordan, who you could, who you could completely misdiagnose is having just been touched, mean, touched by God in some ways, obviously. But he's still surrounded by,

there's just three of the people that he's surrounded by to get him where he'd go. Yet those

“embosses who maybe, you know, are operating our day, we don't need that. Like, that's what I've”

never understood. I agree. But you're getting for an edge. I'm fast, but working with high achievers who

want to get 2% better. The middle and below, like they're not, they're not going to do what it takes. So it's a waste. For that willing to be disciplined enough to seek your own peak performance and not waste days and not waste a lifetime, like I'm just not the right fit for you. So I have to respect your right to be average. Michael Jordan said George Mumford changed his life. He stayed his life. And listeners, you can look up the mindful athlete or unlocked those are his, his two books.

Yeah, but Kobe was super vocal about how he meditates mindfulness, present moment focus, that the moment mentality, that's by design. So we teach in the mind gym as we're living and thinking by design not by default. It's taking time to get super clear on vision, values, behaviors, organizing our thought patterns, not randomly, but like by choosing those and practicing them.

But the second thing I would, you know, challenge anybody, okay, we're talking about bell curve,

locking motivation, feeling stuck. Like, you know, in that phase, maybe your career like 40s, 50s, you know, you've kind of grinded and you got that consistent paycheck, but you're maybe hungry for, for more life. Is that where who does that we're talking about? Right? Okay. One of my favorite quotes is from author James Clear, habit expert. One of my most recommended books is atomic habits and he says, "We don't rise to our goals. We fall to the

level of our systems." So step one would be that that connection for correction,

“context, like uncover self-awareness as the first step of change. Step two is, do you have systems?”

Have you designed an environment or habits, behaviors, values that you do, you know, every day, every week, every month? I would get really clear, not only on the thinking patterns, but the behavior patterns and also creating the environment where it's easy to access and activate that habit and just really get clear on behaviors and commitments, but also designing steps to

activate the habit consistently. And the third one is, you shouldn't go alone. I mean, peer pressure

or there's no one should worry or win alone. How human capital around you to hold that standard

“and to help you stay committed to it? Having an accountability partner was one of the unlocks,”

and I know you're not as familiar with my story, but in 2020 I launched National Digital Commercial Insurance Agency on the Contrarian Mindset that you could add as much value online and do a digital relationship as you could face to face, which is the way 98% of the policies are sold in the industry. And I was told that I was crazy and that people wouldn't retain and that you only have garbage business. In 2021, we were the fastest small commercial agency in the entire

country on less than a $50,000 year budget. So we basically proved the entire industry wrong.

My point, my point in saying all that is that the reason how I got there was I had an accountability partner that I met with every other Wednesday from 8 to 9. Now, his business took off at the same time too. So what we did, and this is how accountability partners work, guys, if you don't have one, is we didn't do the same thing. We were similar but different. And what we did was hold each other accountable, if nothing else, to the promises that we made for the previous two weeks. And when you

know that someone you respect is going to ask you, did you make good on these three things, which we, which you told me you were going to execute and then vice versa, right? There is a pressure to get it done. And what I found, and this is where I'd love for you to build on this or play with, is that it forced me to create systems and workflows and places where I may have otherwise procrastinated

“because I didn't want to have to show up and tell Gordon that I didn't do that thing, right?”

I didn't want that to happen. Like there was nothing worse than having a look at someone who I respected, who was also a friend, and you know, do the computer screen and say, yeah, that thing I told you how I was going to do, I just didn't get to it. Right? There's that feeling, that tension of letting him down almost forced me to create systems and then the systems became a habit. And then all of a sudden, you know, we went from three tasks every two weeks, having five tasks every two

weeks because we were building systems in these things and now all of a sudden, the business is cooking. And it's like, I can't thank him enough, and we still, we meet less often today, but we still meet. But like, that time period, if I didn't have him as a accountability partner, I don't think my business grows as fast as it does. And I certainly step on a lot more landmines than I did. And I probably let some things that were necessarily priorities, I maybe don't even

consider them priorities, or I don't get them done. So this idea of an accountability partner, whether it's a peer, a colleague, or maybe I'm going to stop there. I so firmly believe in accountability partners in a broad stroke of the term. How do you, how do you recommend people, find them, work with them, like, how do you engage in what is the most optimal way of having someone

“to hold you accountable to get these things done? I think one of the most under-it-utilized”

performance, let's just even call it a hack, is having a mentor as an adult. We think, again, let's go back to that 40, 50-year-old. I don't need a therapist. I don't need a coach. I don't need a colleague to hold me accountable. You know, so I look at, when you work out with someone else or a group, do you tend to work out harder or do you tend to not work out as hard? Do you tend to work out? I would say, I would say, if you're running, or you're in Zumba, or you fill in the blank,

this is from the German psychologist, Dr. Colley Colley, he calls it the collar effect. We tend to exert more effort when we're in a group, and Northwestern University has research published.

When you're in, within 25 feet of a high-performer, your performance increases by 15 percent.

When you're in 25 feet of a low-performer, your performance decreases by 30 percent. We are social creatures, so again, I said it here pressure goes both ways. When you design an environment where you're around high-performers, you're more likely to be a high-performer, and you're talking through your goals and your systems and holding accountable. I have a few people I work out with, and I wouldn't be at the gym at 5 am unless I'm meeting all of her who's

going to work out with me if I am. If he's not there, I have an out, and I'm not going to work out. So, it's just creating systems of accountability, of consistency, and human capital is such a

powerful resource that we're not optimizing collectively. So, I would say, in your desire to create

change and consistency, don't go alone. This is a proven, I just rattled off some research that supports

new and when you went alone, you probably didn't stick with it, when you had someone do it with you, you probably stick with it. Nobody should worry or win alone. Think of the gravity of this

idea of proximity, right? Within 25 feet of a high-performer, your performance increases 15 percent,

if you're within 25 feet of a low-performer, it decreases 30 percent. I said those stats correctly,

“right? That is something, one, I think, tangibly, that's insane, right? The idea that I just”

being in the same space as someone who is killing themselves, pushing themselves to the top, executing at a high level, just being around them, right? Because my understanding that research is that you don't even have to know the person. It's being in proximity of them. It's seeing them do the thing at a high level. You literally don't even have to know, they don't have to know you, you don't have to know them. It's being in the space, watching them perform at that level,

is what drives you up and the same thing with the negative performance. You don't have to know the person. It's not even just a five-people you hang out with, which is obviously an important and very valid, but very much a top-level cliche. It's literally the environment you put yourself in. If you're in an environment in which low-performance is tolerated, you are going to be dragged down and an environment of high-performance. You don't even have to know those people. So what I take from

that is it, it removes the excuse of, well, Colin, I don't know anybody like that. I don't have anybody who could be an accountability partner. Just find the environment, start there,

“just find a high-performance environment. Even if they don't do with you, you have to report”

what's maybe your spouse or a business colleague or someone that you respect. It kind of goes back, let's just look at our brain wiring. Kids don't do what you say they do what you do. The brain model and mirrors what they observed. That's just how we're designed as social creatures, modeling mirroring. So if you're around someone who kind of laid or doesn't get maximum effort or makes excuses because we're social creatures, you're more likely to model mirror that,

but if someone raises a standard and it's cool to do the right thing, you normalize effort and creativity and failing forward, you normalize being vulnerable and trying new things and just stretching these zones of comfort. I think, if you look at a bull's eye, maybe here's a question for reflection. It's a philosophy question. Does the arrow find the target or does the target attract the arrow? Which one do you think? I don't know why I want to say the arrow

finds the target, but my gut tells me it's the second one. You're exactly right. When you are

chasing what's the next fix or I need to achieve something or that validation for someone like you're just shooting arrows without that just solid foundation of if you're the target like attracts like. Initials because you become really that target centers around we talked about today. The bull's eye is your identity. It starts with how you talk to yourself. When you say yourself as 10 times a hour, your upper form is self image. You use words to structure, you know,

word, picture, and emotion, repeated forms of belief. The more you repeat that, the belief becomes stronger. So it starts like that. But the second thing is your values and behaviors,

“but the third one is your environment. So if you really want to create change, you have to look at”

how am I talking to myself. How do I see myself? How am I using words as tools? Bruce Lee says, you know, words, cast spells. That's why they call it spelling. Words are your one. You know, words create, wars, you know, words are tools. So like how you describe yourself in your industry and what you're growing, reframing, stinking, thinking, into, you know, what's possible and framing it in a productive way. And then look at success, these clues. What are the behaviors

of elite people in your field? You can have mentors who write books who do TED talks. You can have

mentors that I have, I have a thousand mentors I've never met. But it'd be really powerful if you find

people, I love that you said proximity because proximity is power who you're around. But then you create that environment that is conducive to execute your identity and your values and behaviors. And people and systems around accountability and, you know, making it normal and being consistent with it, but that requires Ryan some effort in having a game plan, designing a brand-legged man for the the the story repairable of five, six hours to chop down a tree. I'd spend four

what do I want? Is there a timeline? What are the behaviors that I commit to do? But what's the environment of what time of day am I going to do it? Uh, what week, who can I support myself to help me help help me do it? You know, it sounds like Captain obvious, but we don't do it. No, well,

yes, it does that. This type of stuff always sounds obvious. Um, that does not, to me, only the,

I think those who call out these types of ideas as obvious in a negative way are the people you want to keep the farthest from you. Um, they tend to be scarcity mindset, tend to be more narcissistic, more secular, and I think all those things lead to,

“um, an inward orientation that doesn't allow you to grow. Uh, you know, you have to have a level of”

openness and belief. And that belief doesn't have to be, you know, Christianity or something, people tend to go right to religion. I just mean you have to, you have to be willing to be, there's, I'm going to butcher this, this idea, and it's not mine, but, um, this idea of wonder. I was, there's, there's a, uh, there was a movie about it, and there's a, there's a, there's a couple books, but this idea of of wonder of being open to the idea that you can get more fit, that you can

be a better spouse, that you can be a better leader, that you can sell more, that you can be a better parent, that you can, you know, um, remove the, the vice anchor from your, from your daily life that's keeping you from these things. Like, like, if you're not, if you can't, if you're not open to the idea, then, then, then all of the things we're talking about are just these platitude cliches that consultants or speakers say to get paid, you know what I mean? When in truth,

everything that you said so far, whether I view it as obvious or not, is 100% rooted in this

psychology that the greatest performers in history have always wielded, and I'm interested when

you come across somebody who, let me ask you this question, is it worth the effort of trying to convince someone who comes at you from a, this is just a platitude, this is just a obvious observation, this is, you know, that more scarcity mindset, can you, can you turn, or change that person's mindset to abundance, or is there at a certain point, the brain and thought process of mindset has become, um, so static that it's, it's, it's not worth it, it's not worth the effort, like

dragging them along. Like, how much effort should you put into dragging somebody along, right? Say, say, you're, you're looking at a family member who's not in a great place, and you want to try to help them, can you, do they need to, do they need to, do they need to want to do it, or can

“you open them up? That's the best way to frame that question. Well, and sometimes, the unfortunate”

reality is they're not going to change unless they've hit rock bottom, and you can see that their trajectory is kind of leading them towards that, and it's just choosing the right time, but

again, being in a proximity, being present, being with them. Um, but I usually, again, I always

start by asking some questions as to create awareness. You know, questions are your best tool to create change, not rallying off facts and figures, you know, in the future in a benefit. So I would, in some form or fashion like, are you, are you happy? And then give them a scale to evaluate, like, are you, are you thriving, are you flourishing? Like, on a scale from zero to a hundred, if you look at this potential scale, like, are you maximizing, learn about some of your

God-given potential and your education? Like, let's just give a, give a number, either a happiness, or fulfillment, or potential, like, were you at? Well, just see if that you can create some introspection in some just honest conversation. And, um, well, okay, you're in 80, that's pretty

“good. Like, what would to close the gap? Like, what do you think? Like, what do you think about?”

There's this new research and brain science called the default mode network. Where do you go in times of idleness? When you're not performing a task, like a podcast, or writing an email, or, you know, I don't know, doing something where your brain is going towards something, that's your brain, very rare where we're enlightened, and we have no thought. So what, what is your mind tend to wander? Like, what do you, what do you want? What do you,

what are you ached for? What kind of pisses you off? Well, what, what if we thought about ways to address that, to solve it, to do more of that? And it's really interesting, I love the work

when was the last time the activity was the reward? Not the outcome. Like, what you were doing

“you're so in the moment and so present, like, how can we design a life where you're doing more of that?”

So it just asking just some questions on, like, how's your energy? Are you, are you juiced? What's last time you were like so ecstatic because you experienced something that was so fulfilling? You know what? I would say Ryan the number one stop of all this is? Fear. There's some form of fear of self-protection or fear of failure if you're well the people think or I think a lot of these, these average people, they're afraid to fail.

They're afraid of how they look. So it's just kind of, I would start with some deep questions, make it personal to them. And you know, in my research on the science of a behavior change,

what do you think the most powerful question is to create change? Well, once you've done that kind

of deeper work of what's your goal, what do you want, or what are some challenges that are stopping you when one of my favorite ownership questions is, what are you doing for that? Oh, it's just talk about what you're, oh, you're not, oh, you're doing that, but how's that? But that's not getting you the result. So, like, let's just collaborate on a few ideas to help close the gap, well, you're 80%, well, no wasted days, no wasted days, no wasted lifetime,

it's like, do you want to be average? Again, I have to respect your right to be average. But do you want to be average? Oh, you think you're elite? Tell me the behaviors. Actually,

“that's not elite, that's pretty average. So, if you want to, you know, be a better partner,”

be more fit, have more energy, make more money. So, I'm going to happen by playing video games on the couch, or working for hours a week, not really diving into something that you're passionate about, are you utilizing your strengths and your skills? I love how we're just having a conversation because it sounds like you're curious about working with that person who's, you know, they're kind of like in this zombie mode, where they're kind of alive and awake, but they're not really thriving,

they're not committed, so it's a greatness. No, no, I think it's, and yes, and some of this is recently, I've just, I've had people, some people reaching out about coaching, et cetera, and they've all kind of been in the same place, and it's all been men, just, that's the statistics, not a judgment, although I do think this is particular, this type of problem is a particular problem for men, not, not that women don't have their own problems or equally valuable

problems or disruptive problems, but which is this idea of they performed at a level above average for a period of time that got them to a place in which they could say, "Oh, I got the center stair colonial," and I got a pool of the jacuzzi in the back, and my wife drives a nice car, and we got a country club membership, and the kids are doing great, college is going to be paid for, but every day I wake up, and I want to drill a nail into my forehead because I do the same

shit over and over again, it's either too easy or it's boring or I hate what I do or I have no passion for what I do, but I make enough money and have enough power, influence, whatever, that respect, that I don't want to lose that. So how do I transition to something that I wake up every day feeling energized by, because they're all low energy, all of them to a tea that the corresponding factors, they are all low energy to all of them, right? They may look high performing, they may even

be comfortable in some regards, and not necessarily unhappy just I'm 43 years old and like this is it, like this is the rest, like this is what I do, I just chase kids around and take them to sports things and show up at work from 8 to 4 every day for the rest of my life until it's time to retire

“and move to Florida like that's it, that's what I do, and like they feel stuck in this place where”

you know, the idea of taking even a perceived step backwards is so painful because what are my neighbors going to think? What if I can't get my wife the upgraded car? What if I have to put the conjugal membership on hold? What if you know insert all these what is and

the very first thing that I level set with them and this is really where my next question comes from

and I want to see how you position this and just your general feeling, the very first thing that I will say to them before I agree to work with anybody is that we have to make a pact

happening on the field, not what you hope happens, not what you think might happen but what is actually

happening, right? I had one guy who really wasn't actually that in that bad of a place. He had just been watching too much nonsense on television and social media, right when we really like to look stock of his life, I said bro, you don't even seem like it seems like you're actually doing great, like you're just told me your priority is being at every one of your kid sporting events. That's happening. You said your priority is you want to be able to go on adult vacations twice a year

with your spouse. You're doing that, right? Like you said you have a pretty decent relationship with your wife, you know, 20 years in you guys still get along. You're still for like what's the

problem? The problem was he's looking at dudes with Lamborghinis on Instagram 40 years old thinking

that he, why doesn't he have that? And I go, do you really want a Lamborghini? Like is that really like in your life goals? Like again, coming back to reality, is that really, like if you,

“like is that what you want to be striving for is have a Lamborghini? Well, do you want a Lamborghini?”

You live in the Northeast, this dude lived in like New Hampshire. I was like, where would you drive a Lamborghini in New Hampshire? Bro, there's polls everywhere. You can go like 15 miles an hour. It's nose, you know, eight out of 12 months. When do you going to drive a Lamborghini? Right? So like, it's, we have to level set into reality. And maybe my framing of that and I'm,

I'm broad stroking here. There's, there's a lot of that you said, I'm not going to work the

unless we're actually going to be in this world of reality. Yeah. You know, but I'll be keep cooking with that. It's going to keep. No, I was just wondering, like, is that a great place to start? How do you frame that? Like, how do you, I mean, maybe use a better. How do you keep them tethered to what's actually happening? Because I, and I, but one more contextual aside, and then I will, I will stop talking and you could take this question from here. But like, I look at even

all the nonsense online around politics and these different things. You, you have, most of the disagreement comes because one group or the other is operating from some philosophical fantasy land that doesn't actually have any real world tactile results or feedback, right? And the other group is, and now I'm not saying, right, does left doesn't, I think it's across the board and all over the place. But my point is, you get these conversations where the two people aren't even, they're not

talking about the same world. And, and I believe that so much, so many people get caught in this recursive loop of average, I guess, you know, just using the language that you use there, because they're operating in a fantasy land. They're not operating in what actually happening on the field. Well, going back to that, there's like tribal brain design, you know,

“thousand years ago, the average tribe was 50 to what, 150. And so, socially, that's what you”

see. So it's, you're not comparing, now we're comparing to millions. And Eleanor Roosevelt said comparison is the thief of joy. So we're brain's not designed to handle all these fake images of people's highlights. But I cling to my, my favorite Bible verse, which is Romans 122, which is don't conform to the patterns of this world, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. If you're not renewing your mind with growth, curiosity, vulnerability, gratitude, service,

impact, your desire to serve has to be strong and your fear of looking like the smartest person room. That avatar you described, their ego is so high. I have to be the smartest, all about image. I'm afraid to fail. I'm afraid to try it. I'm afraid to step out. What will my peers say at the country club? What my friends say if I'm starting something new? But let's just look at

“being in flow. They're not in a flow state. So the research shows to access flow, you have to be”

4% above your skill level. So flow is challenged on one axis, skill, on the other. So if it's if it's low challenge high skill, it's called boredom. High challenge low skills, called anxiety. So it sounds like they're not exposing themselves to maybe new challenging environments in their board. But there is that kind of sweet spot of comfort zone, stretch zone, panic zone. Those are three, you know, growth zones we can live in. So comfort zone is just as scary as being

in the panic zone because they're not alive, they're not connected. They're not, yeah. So it's like, you don't have to make money to be in your purpose. You can, I would coach this person and do a

pisses you off or what do you bring you away? What, what, where do you need to serve? What's

strengths make you come alive? Like, where can you evolve and grow and do something? But I always

look at, and if our foundation mindset is around gratitude and service, like, we're going to be good. Start with gratitude and I can quote tons of research on what gratitude does to the brain in the body and also service what service does to the brain in the body. And it sounds like they're kind of self serving themselves, you know? So and they're framing of their world around them is, you know, it sounds like they've got a lot of stuff, but you even just said it, man, you have a great

“marriage. I mean, you got access to resources. You're present with your kids. So what's the problem?”

Is they're not renewing their mind. These are daily and moment to moment systems of energy flows

where focus goes. This is what psychologists call expectancy theory. What you focus on,

expand, what you focus on, you will find. So what are you designing to focus on with your thoughts, your words, people, your serving, your actions, but just again, designing with some curiosity and get coming up with a game plan. Man, it's cool to try something new and fail. Failure's progress in disguise. No one lands on top of the mountain, but that growth journey is what's going to make you come alive. When's the last time you failed? When's the last time you like, wow,

I did something hard. I like you that you touched on. You can have the job that maybe isn't passion driven, et cetera that provides the resources so that you can do the thing that provides your passion, which could be coaching your daughter's softball team or, you know, running marathons or giving food out at the local shelter. Whatever the thing is that provides passion and purpose and meaning and these things in your life, like it doesn't have to come from your job. Your job

can be the tool that facilitates the thing that provides passion, meaning, purpose in your life.

“I find I think we've been miss sold, the bill of goods that your job is like who you are.”

And it can be, doesn't mean it can't be, right? You can find your passion and purpose in your job and make money and that's wonderful, but it doesn't have to be. And there's nothing wrong with thinking of your job as something you can do and do well. And it's extra resources from that then facilitates your ability to do that in another capacity. And I just, I think that there's a lot of people who going all the way back to the beginning of this conversation have, have not

even begun to dig into the depth in which you have described here in this conversation. And and again, it's why I love doing this podcast is just being able to expose people like this mindset that you have. And so tell us a little bit about the odds method. Why we should go out and pick up this book. Yeah, I'll tell you about that. But let me just go back to there's a 168 hours in a week. If you're working eight hours, five days and sleeping eight hours a day, seven days,

you roughly have 68 hours left in the entire week. 68 hours. So you have a more time than you think to unlock a passion or curiosity or a service engine to impact the world around you. So I would just challenge what are you doing with that with that 68? Okay, but yeah, thanks for asking the os method is a framework of influence, I guess, for sales leadership. Think about, you know,

“do you lead people? Do you live with people? Do you sell a product? Are you an entrepreneur?”

Are you a speaker? Do you have a job? Like, it's not sales, but it's, you know, it is sales, but everyone's selling where we're going to dinner tonight. Kids, you got to do your laundry, you know, like, or it's everything is influence, but it's using the characters from the wizard of vahs to like create structure and metaphor framework that people who lack influence skills, it's usually because they're stuck in Kansas. During the black and white boring,

same old, same old features benefits, so that tornado represents change, but os represents this new world vibrant color and Dorothy, once you put on the Ruby Red Slippers is having that empathetic thinking about the other people's experience, taking them on a journey in the three characters, the scarecrow wand or brain. So any time looking at behavior change, there has to be a level of curiosity and learning, but also mindset and belief.

The second character Dorothy encountered was the tinman who wanted a heart.

And all the research I found in influence, story telling is your number one tool, period,

and allowing the listener to be the main character. And then the why I want to encourage

so tools run, fear, failure, executive presence, but the yellow brick road is just like we talk about, your habits, behaviors, that systems. And what's interesting is the wizard had no

“real power. How many times we put our buyers or investors in this pedestal of their humans?”

And the wizard told these characters you had it inside you all long. So it's just giving

people in this book just some tools to develop. Brain, mindset, learning capabilities, influence storytelling, connection emotional, hooks, courageous vulnerability, fear,

“overcoming, handling objections, that executive presence where public speaking is another”

one, fear that people have. And then just systems that you can follow, trust the process,

process over, over welcome. Books come out in June. Besides the book, where do we get a deeper into your world, my friend? Yeah, you can go, I've said other books and two journals on Amazon,

“so search, Colin Henderson, Colin Henderson on, I hang out more on LinkedIn and Instagram.”

I do have a podcast called Master Myset, Tools Winner Game, so those are a few spots. I love it. I know that I know my audience is going to go deeper in. They love this stuff, dude. I'm so glad to met you. This is fantastic. I have a very good feeling you will eventually come out with another book or another resource. And when you do, I hope you'll come back on a show and talk through it with us because you and I couldn't be in deeper agreement. And it's why I love doing the show.

It's just mindset is everything. It is everything. It is the core to how we operate our lives. And we need people like you were out there doing this research and disseminating it out to everyone else. And I just appreciate the hell out of you, man. I wish you nothing but the best. And I know this audience is going to push hard to get that book and learn this stuff. So thank you.