Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Welcome to Ace broadening talks for the superstars.
Welcome to another episode of Love and Business. My name is Mick Arnold. I'm the president of Arnold packaging and Arnold Automation.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: And my name is Britt Arnold. And I am the president of Tagler Construction and supply. And today we are going to discuss what I believe to be the biggest unlock to success in life and everything in general. And we keep coming back to this particular topic. We have talked about it at length before, but not enough. And I just. It's the common thread as I look back and reflect on a lot of the conversations we have. It's a common thread and I don't think we've spent enough time on it, as important as, as it is in our lives. And that being.
There's a couple of ways to look at it. But I love the phrase mundanity of excellence. And we have referenced that phrase, per the book I read, called Grit by Angela Duckworth, but really she was just quoting somebody else. And his name is Daniel Chambliss. I hope I said that. I think it's chambliss. That's how you pronounce it. Who was sociologist. And he studied, he did a study of Olympic swimmers, local Olympic swimmers, and he came up with this idea of mundaneity, of excellence. And he was trying to discover what made the best swimmers, like, what was behind them. And in this study he references, well, there were a couple of things, key points in this study that he came out, three, to be exact. One of them was that excellence requires qualitative differential, not quantitative. Two was that talent does not lead to excellence. And I think we. I don't necessarily believe in that. I think there should be one added word in that, which is talent does not necessarily lead to excellence. And then number three was. What was number three?
Number three. Oh, number three was excellence is mundane, the mundanity of excellence. So those are each points I'd like to dig into a little bit deeper. And then I have some side tangents on all of this, but let me get into this study a little bit so everyone can understand the context of Daniel Chambliss research and what he looked at. He looked at Olympic swimmers, like I said, and one of them being a woman named Mary Meager.
And she went on to become a very, very elite swimmer.
And in looking at her trajectory, she pointed to two things that made her better than the rest. And these two things were at. When she was younger, she committed to always getting to swim, practice on time, no matter what. And that made her appreciate the value of time, every second at practice mattered. And then two shed, she. What is the word?
I don't know. Swimming. Well, so when you make your, like, turn, I guess they're just called turns. Flip, flip turns. Flip turns. She said everyone was going to be perfect. I guess she touched the wall with two hands instead of one. And I guess it's common. I'm looking at Tommy as a swimmer. I guess it's common to, at times at practice, be sloppy on the turns. And she said she never was. She was going to make them perfect performance, perfect on everyone. And those are like, the two things that she did that she contributes to a lot of her success. When you look at them outside looking, two very easy, mundane things. But she showed up and she did them every single day. And rowdy Gaines, I believe Rowdy Gaines is now 65, so he's past his prime. But a lot of the research was done on him, and he is a amazing. I'm sure you've heard of him, an amazing swimmer.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: Yeah, he's from my era, so I definitely, definitely know rowdy.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: I think he's doing a lot of broadcasting now, too, and I think he was part of that Olympics broadcast. So just interesting. And that idea that qualitative differentiation versus quantitative and some of this stuff I don't agree with 100%. I'd like to get your take on it. So I do agree that qualitative differentiation is important, but I think it would be the quantity of quality.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: So let me just back up. Cause I had. I wanna make sure I wrote this note correctly. What the study said was that quantitative was more important.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: No, qualitative.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: Qualitative more important than quantitative.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: Yes. And I think. No, I don't think. I know. The point being you can do a ton of the wrong things or doing things, you know, let's go back to the swimming. You could put hours upon hours in of slow, sloppy swimming that doesn't really excel you in swirl as opposed to 3 hours a day of like, performance, swimming at fast, at speed, quality, all that.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: All right, so, yeah, so I just.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: I misunderstood her quality over quantity. But I would take that a step further and say the person who can put in a lot of quantity of quality hours, because when I think you get into that, maybe at the local level, when it is more like, okay, who's going to have the best 3 hours? But I think when you're getting to the elite, most everyone's putting in quality hours. So then you are looking at the quantity of the quality, right?
[00:05:39] Speaker A: Yeah. So just the idea, I think perfect practice makes perfect in that lane. Okay, got it. So I just, I misconstrued what that said.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: Also, to hit on this point a little bit more like as, and I am going to refer to the ultra marathon training I'm going through because I think some of this, it's so relevant to, like, this discussion when I think about what goes into it, like, right now and this whole time, it's just, for me, it is just volume and quantity. Like, how many hours can I run? And I'm really not worried about as much about form or my breathing because I don't know what I'm doing. So for me, it's just like getting the hours in. But when you're looking at elite athletes, they already very talented and very skilled. So then you're getting into the real differentiative, like, quality where now I think at the level I'm at, volume does matter. So I think that does vary depending on where you are in the spectrum.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: Yeah. On the evolution. Right. So that's if you're. So if you're catching up and maybe that volume is of benefit. And then as you start to. And I guess you realize pretty quickly if you're any good, right again, you're not doing this to go compete or make a living like any number of these people are, whether it's golf or not.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Yet.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.
God, no.
Yes. So that volume on the catch up, I think, is a benefit. And then as you start to pun intend it, get your stride with what you're doing, then you start to fine tune. And we talk about the idea that the differentiation at the top of the period becomes at the top of the pyramid becomes fractional. Like in golf, it is literally fractions of shots that separate players.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: And I'm sure people could shoot that theory down, but that's what I think in my experience, that's what makes sense to me.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I think. Yeah, I would totally agree. And where it would make sense. Obviously, if you're not careful, you can go and ingrain a bunch of bad habits. So you wouldn't want to slip or slide into that. If you're back to the golf analogy, if you were out there just making terrible swings and you were ingraining terrible swings or getting a grip. Tommy's very into golf these days. That's why I'm looking at him over there. Or ingraining a grip that is wrong. And now you, you create, because there's nothing more uncomfortable, for example, than the golf grip. It's one of the most uncomfortable things especially done correctly. But it starts to feel more natural. If you were to ingrain a bad grip, you could expect terrible long term outcomes.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: And when you have to go and fix it, my God, you play terrible for a long period of time.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. I mean, I could play devil's advocate and say you should be nailing the quality in the very beginning for that very reason.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: Sure. At the same time too, if you're talking about running, there is just the aspect of creating the aerobic capacity. Right. So that is something that you're doing right now that is more important than fine tuning the breathing. You're just creating the capacity to breathe that much right now.
[00:08:36] Speaker B: Right. The foundation to be able to. Yeah.
[00:08:38] Speaker A: So I mean, I think even acknowledgement of what really matters early, where you'd say, well, I truly don't need to do that yet. I'm not ingraining bad habits. I'm just building up the stamina. Because without the stamina, I don't even have the mental capacity to think about things that are that fine tuned or finite. I'm too damn tired.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: Right. So I think the acknowledgement of understanding what really matters early and what could get you onto a bad track like the grip in the, in the land of golf is probably important and something to call out or be super intentional about.
[00:09:10] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm gonna take one step back and just, just explain what the definition or what Daniel Chambliss's definition of excellence is. So his definition was excellence or how it's accomplished, I should say excellence is accomplished through the doing of actions ordinary in themselves, performed consistently and carefully, habitualized, compounded together.
And excellence is the consistent superiority of performance.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I think when I. The word mundane, I did want to jump back on that. And if you go back to. Because I think we struggle to actually learn the mer. Learn to speak. Yeah, right. Here I am learning to pronounce the word mundanity. Because that's not a word you ever say. Certainly. You say mundane, the base word or.
[00:09:59] Speaker B: The root word, which has a negative connotation.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: Sure it does. Absolutely. And it means boring. Let's just grab its closest brother, boring. And I think it's interesting to use that word just because it has a preparation feel to it. Right. I'm saying to you ahead of time, parts of this are going to suck and they're going to be boring and you're going to need to be aware for that. So when you start to say mundane or discuss the mundane of it, and then it's, it's very close. Brother is boring, then at least sets expectations around. Expect to do it over and over and over and over. And it's going to be the application of these small changes exhibited over a long period of time that is going to get you where you're trying to go or to get you to cross the threshold into what elite looks like.
[00:10:48] Speaker B: And I have a quote written down here is the magic is in the boring.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: So, and I was listening to a podcast, wherever, I think it was a pastor, actually, which I'm not a religious person, but I was listening to what this pastor was saying and he was really talking about business. He's built a very big business. But he got into the topic of parenting and he was saying that he strives to be consistently ordinary as a parent. And then he changed his wording a little bit. But the idea was that it's not about the extraordinary things you're doing from time to time as a parent. It's not the biggest to Disney world or the massive vacations or the big thing you buy your child. It's the everyday, like the quality time you spend with them, the books you're reading, the bath times, the laughs you're having. Like, those are what the kids are really going to remember and what they want.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Driving to the. Driving to practice, that's when you and your dad talk about a lot with.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: The girls, a lot of bonding time.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: That was one of my favorite times was the front seat of the car on the way to practice, because once you got to practice, you lose them. And I, and I coached them, but my kids didn't want to be coached by me, so I did lose them, even though we were next to each other on the field. So those are the, those are the. Yeah. Those moments which has that consistency. And, and you can look at it, you know, if you looked at over time and say, while those drives you drove to Bethesda, which was a massive, you know, three hour, three and a half, four hour trip, round trip, that would look boring. And if you looked at over time, but, you know, in those moments, I think you slept a lot of that trip, prepping.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: Well, until I could drive it myself.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: Right. But, yeah, I mean, you would look back at the number of hours that you put in, just in the car before you put the reps in on the field. Talk about that kind of commitment.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Yes. And I think about that as a new parent. I think about that a lot because it's in our human nature to want to do I'll put it in the parenting context to want to do these like amazing things with our kids. And I always have to bring myself back. Don't worry about that. Like worry about that really intimate time you're spending with them. It could be doing nothing. It could be laying on the floor just laughing, like doing my mini aerobics idea with her, whatever. Like, that is the special time. And I was listening to Doctor Andrew Huberman's podcast, and he was talking about another doctor that she formed some aggressive cancer and ultimately ended up passing quickly. But she had kids, and the kids were old enough to give her eulogy. And the one thing he said, they didn't say anything, really. The only thing they said was, we will never forget all of the, how did they put it? I have it written down. All of the non structured time our mom gave us. Like that's what mattered the most to them. And all they meant was just the time that she freely spent with them doing whatever you wanted. It wasn't the big things, it was like the non structured time. And that's all they said. And it really rocked him, really struck a chord.
That plays so perfectly into what we're talking about right here.
[00:13:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it also goes a lot, especially back to that parenting and just in general too, right. It plays into that expectation setting part, you know? And I think that's also part and parcel to how you build kids and whomever you're responsible for teaching and, or coaching along the way. Like we teach and coach people here, and how you also create an environment of them. Being grateful. If every single thing is fabulous, how do you ever know what extraordinary looks like? You know, I mean, it's those things that, where you, you do have the ability to identify things that are not like the other. And therefore, if they are fantastic or fabulous, then you appreciate them that much more and you're, you're grateful for them. But back to, you know, those kids commentary around, just really appreciating the day in and day out is what a, what a great, what a great idea.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: Cause we don't focus on that. No. We only focus whether it's social media or the stories you tell your friends. Especially if you only get to be with people a short period of time, you focused on the most recent and the most fabulous things long before you get into anything that's deep or less fabulous. Right? I mean, the vulnerability, you don't show up, you're like, let me tell you about the shitty day I had. It would take a while when my buddy, Grant called after our last episode. He, you know, he said, I listened to your last episode. Sounds like you're going through it over there. And we talked for a while, and it was. It was. It was early because he showed up that way. It looks like you're getting your ass kicked. Tell me about it. And I went right into the ass kicking. I wasn't like, let me tell you about the Disney world trip we took last week. Yeah, we got right into it because that's how close we are. But generally go to those fabulous and most recent things first, and it takes a while to get to the other stuff.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: Well, I.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: Only happens through time, is my point and exposure.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: And I think Grant and I would both agree that this is the most you've ever said fabulous in a short period of time.
[00:15:50] Speaker A: That is true. That is true and fantastic. But I'm speaking. I'm not saying fabulous. I'm saying I'm using fabulous and or fantastic to describe an extraordinary event. Yes, I'm reaching deep into my glossary today.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: But you know what?
This is human nature. It's human nature to one experience really high highs and want to experience the big things. And I want to constantly. And it's hard. Like, I want to constantly bring myself down and remind myself as a parent, like, you don't have to do all that. Like, don't get caught up in that noise. Like, enjoy these everyday moments. And I really have tried to do that.
[00:16:30] Speaker A: Well, what a hard, probably the hardest planet in the history of time to be able to do that, considering things like social media and whole, not just programs or television shows, for example, whole networks that revolve around. Can I say fabulous one more time? That revolve around this ridiculous excess. Let's go. That word, right? This ridiculous excess, whether it's Bravo, and I don't watch Bravo, but I am aware of the housewives of, or I'm aware of sweet 16. Do you know how I know about these? Because our daughters tell us about them. Like, these are the excessive, fantastic things that they're consuming that have happened, that.
[00:17:10] Speaker B: Happen one time a year, you know, once a year. A fabulous or fantasy. What is the sweet 16? You know?
[00:17:16] Speaker A: Right. For them.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: For them.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: But 365 days a year, this show watches someone outdo the last person on the show, and somehow that becomes this bullshit norm. And that's just insanity. Totally insanity and really unhealthy. It's the opposite of what we're talking about, right? Yes, it's the opposite of mundane.
[00:17:35] Speaker B: And then a couple of other quotes. I've heard from a guy named Jeff Cunningham, who's a running coach. He said it's better to be consistently good over occasionally great. And then I've also heard someone else say this. In the business world, it's better to be consistently good over occasionally. Brilliant.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I was thinking about this, and we touched on this another.
I love to then expand my brain in that we talk about sports a lot, something we're very comfortable with. And I think most of the time can quickly take an idea and put it back into sports, as we already have a couple times today, or I have, just because so much of this from a process perspective, we talked about swimming, which is an incredibly demanding physical sport.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: I think it's also. Sorry to cut you off. Just to add to that, as Daniel Chambliss was saying, swimming is also a really great sport to study because it's individual and it's so black and white. And so anytime you do research, it's really.
It's like you can get to the results and change variables very easily. And, like, measuring, tracking of swimming is the perfect sport.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: Yes. Timed sports are beautiful for that.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: Right.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: And individual. And then golf is as well, because you're counting strokes and you're doing it individually, and then you can break down the different segments of the game. Fairways hit, greens hit. So that's why that type of thing always resonates with me, but one that has crept into my mind a lot recently. And talking in our last episode that we dropped about the manufacturing process, we haven't used the word process yet, but everything we're talking about is in and around that word process is cooking. Chefs and what they do. You know, if you look at a chef, there really isn't a way. And what you might be tempted to do is cut corners in these moments or short circuit the path to excellence. And you can't. You know, you might have physical attributes that maybe get you there a little faster. LeBron James and his ability to play basketball, there's clearly a genetic or a physical component that would keep me from ever participating in his level. I am not dunking.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: They were saying Michael Phelps, he's six four, but his wingspan is proportionate to someone who's six eight.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: Right.
[00:19:58] Speaker B: So that's genetics.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: Absolutely. And so being a chef, then, because there is not the physical component, necessarily, and you don't get to cut corners. If you cook it too fast, you fail. If you miss a step in the recipe, which is, we actually call that recipes in manufacturing, you fail.
And then you take this original recipe, for example, that everybody loves, and you continue to tweak it and make it better over time until it becomes a. A James Beard, a winning event or something that is that extraordinary in the land of food. And chefs fascinate me in the way they show up where there truly isn't a physical component. You can't outrun it, out aerobic it, or whatever. You can put more time in, that's for sure. Swimming is interesting in that, too. And I only say that because there, um, some of the joints and whatever that, you know, you could be, could be more susceptible to injury and things. I think swimming is just a little bit different, Tommy, if I'm wrong, you can tell me, but a little bit different in that regard. I mean, knee shock and some things that might have you resting more or peeling off. Phelps was on an Orioles telecast the other day, and I want to say his warm up was something like 5000 meters. Does that sound right, Tommy? Or 20,000 meters. Yeah. I mean, it was some crazy number of meters that he swam just to warm up. I mean, it was more than I had swam in my entire life. There was his warm up every, you know, before a meet.
[00:21:25] Speaker B: So they, they talk about a lot, but that very thing, in being like, one of these mundane things, it was the warm up, because it is shortcutted so often. But a lot of these elite athletes, they had that consistent warm up for years.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: Yeah. There could not be anything more boring or less fulfilling. Right.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: Here's what part of the study was claiming or finding or suggesting was that while two things actually, while the outside world, a lot of people would say waking up at four or 05:00 a.m. doing a swimming session and doing it again, another one in the afternoon, another one in the evening, putting on whatever looks horrible, a lot of these athletes enjoyed it and actually loved that. The outside, externally, it looked horrible.
And then a lot of people that find these things boring, the mundane tasks, I'll call them, a lot of the most elite athletes found them peaceful and meditative.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And hitting golf balls, is that.
[00:22:32] Speaker B: Because that's the only thing that's sustainable, right?
[00:22:34] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. And hitting golf balls is that. I mean, there is certainly a physical component. If you look at the athletes that now play that now play golf versus, you know, Ray Floyd, pick one. Right. That where there was this. This bullshit idea when I was coming up in a golf, that lifting weights or being physical or being a better athlete was a bad thing. It would throw off your touch, it would throw off your feel. Totally bullshit and has been completely debunked by Tiger woods and any others. But that is a sport again, that somewhere between being a chef and a swimmer, you do have the ability to go at it for incredibly long periods of time. And, you know, Greg Norman, to this day's back is completely jacked because of how many balls he hit. And there is joint stress. But certainly not like other sports where the pounding on your knees when you run or whatever other pieces golf has that look to it. You can go at it for very, very long periods of time, and when you get tired, then you just go putt, you know, and you can do that for hours and hours on end and back to that mundane. The quality of those repetitions must be very, very strong. They have to be very high quality repetitions.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: Yes. And as we're talking, as we'll keep on the theme of sport, but I think this could really pertain to just life and different things you're doing in life. You know, you could look at everything. So as I'm looking at the running, what I'm doing for running, you could look at the. The little things that you do every day as it relates to not just your training, your recovery, your sleep, your nutrition, your gear, just a little. Let's figure out what my optimal nutrition is and nail that every day. I'm not doing that. Let's nail the sleep. I'm not doing that. There's so many things I'm not doing. But if you're in that elite world, you are. You're like, okay, I'm getting 10 hours of sleep and that's every single day. Like, just those things you are just nailing every single day.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: Well, back to that recipe idea that those are all parts of that massive recipe that ultimately go into hopefully a world class finished product, food in that moment, but the same exact thing, right? You're looking at the recipe and you'd want to make sure that all of the ingredients were of the absolute highest level of quality, to make sure that your finished product was at the absolute highest. Because if one of them fails, then your finished product doesn't have a choice but to be less than world class.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Now, how do you feel about this whole concept? I mean, I think there are two sides of the spectrum. I think you could look at it as that's an amazing thing because I don't see myself as someone who is really, really gifted or skilled or talented, but I now know that if I am consistently good and show up every day, I can be elite. So if you look on, at that side, and that's very optimistic. On the other side of the spectrum, you could say, well, that sounds like it takes a lot of time and a lot of boring effort, and I want to get there quickly and see incredible results.
And so that's like the pessimistic side of it. It's like, man, that sounds super, as we keep saying, boring. How do you perceive it?
[00:25:41] Speaker A: I think there's one word that's got to exist is the differentiator between those and it's enjoyment.
[00:25:47] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:25:47] Speaker A: It's gotta have enjoyment passion. Yeah, enjoyment passion.
Your motivation for running and training and performing in an ultra marathon has a very high level of enjoyment. And you could also, right next to that would be pushing yourself or whatever it.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: Enjoyment of that discomfort.
[00:26:08] Speaker A: Yeah, but pushing yourself or demonstrating for yourself that you can do it, there's an enjoyment to that. Someone else might look at it and go, oh, my God, you're pushing yourself to run 32 miles. That sounds awful. There's nothing about that that would ever be attractive to me. Thus, it cannot be enjoyable, and I'm not even going to try it. So I think the difference between that optimistic approach and the pessimistic approach would be, do you love it? You know, I mean, there's lots of people that. That are paid very well to do things, and the money is the driver. Right. It's exclusively the financial benefit. And the second they can get there and leave it, they would leave it. They're like, yeah, I did this to make $100 million and I hate it, but I love $100 million, and I'm willing to do it until I get there. I'm just making stuff up. But I think the enjoyment piece, and you had used the words people in that space. I do know that from a golf perspective, that when I finally matured, I was not. I was no good at it. When I was younger, I did not have the maturity level to get to put in the time and the repetitions that it would take to be elite. And it ultimately passed me by. I missed it. I did get better at it and got in physical shape and learn how to put in those repetitions and played some really good amateur golf along the way. And in that process, I remember what I found to love it. I did have a diet routine, and it wasn't crazy stringent, it was actually stupid in spots, but I had dialed it down. I'd created this routine on, on days when I was playing from the time I got out of bed, which actually I backed into until the time I walked off the practice tee after my round because I always hit balls after. So, you know, once you get into that space and there's enjoyment, and then if you sprinkle the fertilizer called success on top of it, then it becomes, then it actually has an addicting look to it. And I think that's when you can get to that place.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: And there are three things that they talk about being a very important part of this process, and I wrote them down. It's attitude, technique, and discipline. Those being three of the biggest things. And I think that attitude piece is that positive. I mean, you've got to be positive. You've got to be enjoying it. You've got to be like, not every day, but for this to be sustainable at all, that's got to be a huge part of it.
[00:28:32] Speaker A: Yeah. If it's a grind, especially as you get older and you have so many choices, you know how you only have so much disposable time and you have so many choices to make around what you do with it, anything would be a grind or not be enjoyable. That's going to fail very, very quickly unless there becomes something mandatory about it. Like, let's say you've gotten yourself into a terrible health situation and the only way to do it is through diet and, and exercise. And you might hate it, but your alternative might be dying. And therefore, that might be enough of a motivator or an inspiration to go do it. But that's still not going to have anything that looks or feels like enjoyment or addiction. It's going to be mandatory. And who wants to do anything that's mandatory? That sucks.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Do you think age is a differentiator in this? And what I mean by that is, is somebody that's younger, that's listening to this, would be turned off or turned on by this idea, as opposed to someone older or vice versa.
[00:29:31] Speaker A: So you paid me a nice compliment in my grasp of psychology.
In our last podcast, I would say if there's a piece to that, it could be around the idea of how the brain develops. And I'm just gonna skip to the last part. We talked about executive functions. When you start to have organizational skills, until that point, there isn't even necessarily the best grasp of time and the idea of time and the ability to naturally measure time until that part of your brain forms. So I would say from that perspective, as you get those executive functions, and I will tell you, if I look back at when I was 1819, 2023 24, I think I might have even been late to that executive functionality formation. How about that one? Executive functionality formation.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: Oh, you seem smart.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: I do, I do, I do. I know. Exactly right. Don't believe life. As I look backwards at that. Or in retrospect, I'm not surprised that I wasn't able to perform at that level. At that point in my life. That functionality was absolutely not there. And I was not able to commit to something that had anything that looked like longevity. And I'm not surprised retrospectively, that I wasn't capable of performing at that level.
[00:30:46] Speaker B: But I don't think there's exceptions, but I don't think most young people are capable of that. And I think a lot of that is also appreciation of time. You just don't appreciate it as much. Since I've had a child, even I appreciate time so much more and value it. So I think that's part of it too. Just literally days on the planet and love.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: And so also too. So that's when I think you have to infuse the love part. Like you on the green wall in your parents backyard hitting soccer. Yeah, you didn't have that executive functionality, but there was a shit ton of love and you just loved it. And then I think at that point too, because we're humans, you do sprinkle that fertilizer called success on it. Now, you went to the game the next time and you scored six goals, not five or whatever those personal, I want to use the word goals again, but literally goals. That's what you were doing. You sprinkled that success on top of that. Love and work.
Addictive. And maybe as you're younger, I don't.
Just talking about myself as it relates to golf, I really, really, really liked it. When I was 1415, 1617, did I love it? Probably the way Scottie Scheffler loved it. Just looking at the amount of time or Justin Thomas or some, some newer players that were just, you know, fantastic at it, they're, you know, they're world class, number one, best in the world. Like Scotty Scheffler right now. I don't think I had that additive called love at the level that they did to allow me to bridge into the mental maturity and that formation that we're talking about. I'm not sure it was there at that level to keep me dedicated as I needed to be to bridge that gap into the professional space.
[00:32:30] Speaker B: And if you're in your twenties and listening to this. Cause I certainly would have been in this group. I mean, it just.
You don't want to hear that. It's like these. It's the time of these boring things that you have to. That's not what you want. I certainly didn't want to hear that. I mean, that would have sounded awful to me. Talking, throwing the words out, like, mundane, boring, consistently good, ordinary. I mean, what a turn off. But if you're young, I think mind shift, perspective change would be. While I'm young and I have so much time and I could start this process now, where am I going to be? How quickly am I going to get ahead of everybody else?
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Did you ever.
I would imagine that while you were on the wall in the backyard, time just went away, right?
[00:33:16] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Or juggling.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: You went out when you went out, and it was probably darkness that brought you in most days, or dinner or someone made you stop.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: I have such vivid memories of that, too. Like, I remember in my backyard. Very vivid memories of getting a juggling record. Like, I don't always try to get to, you know, it would start at four and 500 until I was getting in the thousands, but I remember, like, getting the record running and telling my parents, like, so vividly. It's crazy.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. No, no, it's. It's all part and parcel. And then shift over to the other part of our sign here. You know, the business side of it. All of this is so applicable. And as we're working through, manufacturing is a great spot, but you have processes in every single thing you do. I do not care what part of your life it's in. Some of them are just much more evident than others. They're way more evident, and I'm not sure why they're more evident, because I would suggest there's nothing that you don't break down. Ultimately, if you took the time into a process. Getting dressed in the morning is a process. And if you backtracked into it, I bet you have a relatively similar cadence. When your pants go on, when your socks go on, do you put your socks on before your pants, or do you want to roll the legs up and put the socks on? I mean, theirs are just little, small things. Everything has a process. It might be a two step or a 22 step process, but you fall into this as a mammal. There are things about this that just become tried and true, and I think they become familiar. And then if you're like me and you're constantly looking to refine every single process all the time, which can have its own challenges and downfalls, then I am always looking to cut seconds out of every single thing, personal or professional, always looking to be more efficient to create more disposable time, which I then can go control and do what I want with.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: One of the things you said was backtracking into your planning. And I think that part, this part of that prep, preparation becomes so important in being able to adhere to the routine and schedules and commitment to all of these things. And I think if you care enough and you want to be the best, like that prep, whether it's the night before or the day before, is instrumental in being able to execute in this way.
[00:35:41] Speaker A: Yeah, look, it's everything. You hear the best general say that the war was won long before the first shot was fired. That's all part of that preparation. You also hear them say that when armies aren't at war, they train. Like, those are just two great military references that are so relevant in everything that we're talking about. For me, the preparation part is also about eliminating surprises or creating time for surprises and still being able to win whatever win means and backing into it. My father, it was just what you did, and if you had five tasks to do, and for us, it was making sales calls, literally. So it was, I have to be here at this time and that time, so I need an hour. And he had this tendency to round up. So if everything went perfect, you were where you were supposed to be, way ahead of time. But if something got messed up between here and there, you still got it done, or you still got the victory because you had allocated potential time in there for something to go wrong, like in the automation side of our business, there's something called shit happens. And so after we put these projects or proposals together, there's always a small percentage it's added to those costs, and it is in the shit happens bucket, because some of these things we are attempting to, the first time, like, we have, we have not landed this dismount. We think we know what it looks like, but we're going to go ahead and pad this with some extra whatever that, you know, financial time, whatever. It all comes back to the same thing. But if we are attempting to land a dismount for the first time, you would add extra things into your preparation so you would still get the victory, whatever that means. The order, the goal, the whatever the cake, whatever all those things are to try to accommodate for unforeseen circumstances that might attempt to take you off track. So, yeah, I mean, gosh, the preparation is just. It's all about it. The other thing, too, depending on what you're working on, is have a lot of conversations with our applications, engineers, and there's the communication side of it, too, is such a big part of this, because you can do all the most amazing work in the world, and if you don't, then articulate whatever you're doing to somebody else, a teammate, a team member, a family member, a child, whoever you're working with or collaborating with, all of that work still doesn't mean anything. Like, if you can't communicate it or share it in an effective way, it's just as worthless as if you didn't do the work. So that communication part we haven't touched on yet, but that is right there, too, as part of the mundanity.
[00:38:15] Speaker B: Well, that would imply in certain situations.
[00:38:18] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:38:19] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:38:19] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. Not.
[00:38:20] Speaker B: Not perfect, but, like, in an organization, that's certainly going to matter.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe not. You know, if you're playing an individual sport.
[00:38:27] Speaker B: Right.
[00:38:28] Speaker A: Maybe not so much, but. But it could, you know, if you're trying to get better and you are relying on people to help you, communicating what you're feeling in the moment might be a situation where you're helping a coach to understand so they can then flip that around and tell you what you need to be successful to get to the next level.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I think we have. So we've hit on the quality, qualitative differentiation, and part of that is being able to identify what the right things are because you could do the wrong things over and over again and not get anywhere fast. So that's part of that. The second point being, talent does not necessarily. Necessarily. Does not necessarily lead to excellence. So what I liked about the study was that talent was not the same as genetics. So, like, he was never saying that genetics didn't have a part of this. They do. And I think those two, talent and genetics, and how you're born, can get intertwined a lot. I do think separating them makes sense. So there are so many things, like, outside of talent is not necessarily to excellence, but there are so many things that can. Can impact your chances of getting to be excellent. And they named a couple of things, genetics being one of them. But let's go back to swimming. Like, where do you live? Like, if you're living in sunny California and you can be outside and swimming all the time, what, your money, your access?
[00:39:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Resources.
[00:39:59] Speaker B: Resources. There's a lot of different things that can play into your ability to achieve excellence. So I don't think that can be dismissed in this conversation.
[00:40:11] Speaker A: Exposure.
[00:40:12] Speaker B: Exposure would be another one. Parent support, transportation.
[00:40:16] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:40:16] Speaker B: You know, all of those things matter.
Okay, so the thing when I'm looking back through when I was younger and as I said, I don't think I could have appreciated any of this. I even think back to a conversation I had with a girlfriend and, and she loved to date these guys where she would have these really, she'd have these really low lows, but super high highs. And like, it was just this relationship. And I remember the conversation and I remember telling her, like, you need to meet the guy that you're always. And for those who can't see me now, I'm just making a straight line across. Like, it's just, there's not those crazy ups and downs. It's maybe a little higher than the average, but like, you stay there, it's steady. And she ultimately ended up marrying that guy that she found that was like, steady, but when you're younger, you think, well, that's boring. But now I'm like, no, that's consistent. That is sustainability. And not saying you don't have those small highs and lows within that you do, but I just appreciate it so much more now. And every day that I get one day older, this becomes so much more relevant in my life.
[00:41:30] Speaker A: Was your friend able to, did you.
[00:41:32] Speaker B: Have to, you know, who she is?
[00:41:33] Speaker A: Well, I know. Was your friend, were you able to put, did you have to point out to her that she generally was attracted to or sought out these high highs or the chaos or did she realize.
[00:41:44] Speaker B: That she was really smart? And I think she realized, but sometimes, too, you just, until somebody actually, you know it deep down, but until somebody says it, you can't really admit it to yourself.
[00:41:58] Speaker A: Yeah, your internal alarm bells are going off, but it's so damn exciting. You just, you just, you know, you mute them until it becomes a huge problem. And hopefully it's not too late by then.
[00:42:08] Speaker B: But yeah, yeah. And the best part of this whole thing, as we're talking about the mundane and the boring and the day to day, ultimately, what we're all see, if we're all seeking that big goal or that big thrill at the end of, and that is what this gets you to in the end. The excellence, the highest level, wouldn't it.
[00:42:28] Speaker A: Be more about a sustainable trajectory? Not flat, but it would have, the line would be up and to the right. It wouldn't be straight up, but it would be up and to the right. And you would just love. It wouldn't be perfectly straight, nothing is, but it would be up and to the right ultimately. And you would really enjoy all the smaller ups and downs along the way, you know, not the rash whipsaw stuff that's in there. But you wouldn't really enjoy the ups and downs. Even the downs, too. The downs are so critical to getting back to the ups and resetting your course or learning and failing and getting better. And, you know, all those little downs on that trajectory would be equally as important, and they would actually make you appreciate the ups even more than you would otherwise.
[00:43:27] Speaker B: In my running training block, I relate to this so much because I had to be realistic and be like, I don't know, five months after having my child if I'll be able to cross the finish line at 32 miles. And to mention, that's through trailhead. So if you've run trail and road, they are so different. Trail running, the toll it takes on your body and how much more taxing it is than road running is not even funny. Like, my road running has got so much better from trail running.
[00:43:54] Speaker A: Treadmill running, road running.
[00:43:56] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
[00:43:56] Speaker A: Trail running, right?
[00:43:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
I used to think treadmill running was hard, and then I went to road, I was like, holy shit, I can't even run 3 miles. Then you go to trail and just. But.
[00:44:06] Speaker A: And the injury aspect, too. I mean, you come back banged up.
[00:44:08] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Until I got my new trail running shoes.
But.
So I had to realize, like this, I'm not sure if I'll be able to achieve that end goal, but in the process, there have been so many little milestones that had I not been training for the big goal, I would have never achieved or never even gone after. You know, like I said, I would love to run a decently, and this is so relative. Like a decently fast 10 miles through the city, and now I can do that fairly easily. When I started, I was running a very slow 3 miles, and that was killer. So I'm like, that's a great milestone that I've hit. And so I think as part of going back to your point, appreciating those, just every little win as you go, and then saying the downs, too. In training, they say that 40% of your days, you're gonna feel like absolute shit. 40% you're gonna feel okay, and 20% maybe you're gonna like, ah, I had it. That felt amazing. Like, what an incredible workout. I've had two of those in this entire training block. And I, those days that from start to finish, I felt great. And I was on top of the world. And the next day, I pretty much shit. The bed was like, I suck.
[00:45:23] Speaker A: What about that, though? So the status, the statistic you just gave. Washing is 80% of the time you're gonna feel like shit or okay.
[00:45:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:30] Speaker A: And 20% of the time you're gonna feel fantastic. And that's worth it.
[00:45:33] Speaker B: And that's what somebody said. But I. You know, those statistics, they're not perfect.
[00:45:38] Speaker A: But it's not perfect, but it's there.
[00:45:39] Speaker B: It's close.
[00:45:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:41] Speaker B: And you appreciate those. I mean, when those great days hit and you're on cloud nine, you can only appreciate that because you feel like that very rarely.
[00:45:51] Speaker A: Well, if you look at the way a golf handicap is formulated, it would look exactly the same.
You would have, you know, if you look, it's based on your last 20 rounds. And who knows? I haven't played so long. They might have changed this, but used to be it was based on your last 20 rounds. And in there, you know, in there, there were great rounds and there were shitty rounds. And that's what golfers would subject themselves to, is constantly being in search of. The saying was, you know, you played like shit all day. You made birdie on 18, you're like, well, that'll bring me back. You know, and that's the same exact mentality. Golf looks exactly that way. And most of you just have bad days. I mean, we just. We just love watching the US Open and watching elite players just come out flat. Well, they just, you know, they played three, five setters coming in. Well, they were, you know, and those were all highs, and they just couldn't. Couldn't make the bell yet again, physically or mentally.
[00:46:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And let's bring that back to the business world. I mean, you have probably, I don't know, 40%, but maybe that are just like kind of shitty blah days. 40%, you just go about your day like any other, and then 20, where you have a really interesting, intriguing day or a big deal happens.
[00:46:58] Speaker A: Yeah, it's probably there. Yeah.
[00:47:00] Speaker B: It transfers.
[00:47:01] Speaker A: Totally agree. I think that's very non statistic, but I think you could. You could. You could make a great case for that. And if I think about my days. Oh, come on, man. Don't do it. I'm already. I'm already smuggling.
Don't make me say big words.
[00:47:19] Speaker B: So, yes, all that, all that, all. Wrapping this up in a pretty little bow, I think finding the beauty, like the everyday consistency is really important if you want to get to the next tier. And I believe that a lot of people listening to this are probably high performers, high achievers. I think that's the audience that's probably most interested in this content. It's what we focus on a lot, and it's what we're always after.
So I think, you know, being able to find that, that beauty and realize, like, it's not boring and it's not about those big things or the person posting on social media. Like, don't worry about that. That's noise. Like, stick to the everyday things that are going to yield the biggest difference, and in the end, you are going to achieve what everyone's ultimately after, which is excellence.
[00:48:16] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'm going to give the counterpoint to that because I, when I get myself in trouble, it's when I get away from everything that you just said. It's when I'm under stress or I feel like I need to perform better. And instead of just continuing on the things that got me here, I might attempt to do something fast or short circuit the process or that mundanity, and that just gets me into trouble. Right. That's the exact wrong response in those moments. It's staying very steadfast in the process. And certainly you have to speed up at times. There are windows that open and close. You don't get to just trot along and get what you want. You have to be sensitive to the pace at the same time. But if I'm going to be guilty or get myself in trouble, it would be departing from what got me here in my whole body of work, my whole life, in 30 years in this exact job, my whole body of work, and departing from that into something that would have a very short term effect. And that's when I get myself into trouble.
Everything you said is exactly right, and we've lived it. But, boy, it can be tough at times to stay because it's, you know, because of, it's mundane. Right. You might, you might take your eye off of that because it's been around so long and attempt to land to, you know, you don't, you don't need a new trick or to land a.
[00:49:35] Speaker B: Different dismantle as long as you're on the right trajectory.
[00:49:37] Speaker A: That's right. That's right. Yeah. And generally you are. You know, you generally you are. And it's unlikely that you got to where you are with a very poor track record to that point and to just stay there and slow down, you know, slow the bullets down like in the matrix. Right. And there is room between the boats. All my favorite saying in one sentence, and that is, that's the challenge, certainly, for me individually, is to move it about, move, abandon that. Like, use the word abandoned. The challenge for me is abandoning all of those things in a stressful moment.
[00:50:14] Speaker B: And I use that word abandoned in our episode, which will be two episodes ago when we were talking about navigating our life, transformations that were all happening at once. And as we were getting hit, as we called it, in our business, our natural inclination is to abandon everything we know. And that could be healthy habits. It could be our routine, our structure, and just go head down and take care of this big, massive thing and just forget everything we've done up until this point.
[00:50:40] Speaker A: Yeah, true.
[00:50:40] Speaker B: And that's never. I mean, if anything, in the, in the end, it just ends up being more stressful and more taxing.
[00:50:46] Speaker A: Yeah, totally agree. Well, this was great. These are always so therapeutic for me. And shout out to my buddy Grant Davis, who's my best friend, who checked in on me.
[00:50:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes. Well, cheers. Cheers to that. Oh, wait.
[00:50:59] Speaker A: Oh, hell, Clay. Thanks, guys. Always good to see you. Well, thank you as always for tuning in to another episode of love and business. Quick follow up and thank you so much for hitting that subscribe button. We are up to 30% of our viewers are actually subscribers. Quick milestone two. This is our 45th episode on the way to 50, which is one we talked about a long time ago, getting 50 in circulation. So we're getting close and are so grateful that you've been here for the whole thing. So thank you again.
[00:51:32] Speaker B: And that it plays very nicely into this episode topic because it's just about being consistent and showing up and doing this every week. For how long now?
Year and a half.
[00:51:43] Speaker A: Year and a half. June 10 of last year is when we started, so we didn't even touch on that. We are exhibiting the mundane of excellence by shooting these all the time.
[00:51:52] Speaker B: And we're able to do it because we enjoy it so much and we appreciate all of you that are listening and sharing in this journey with us.
Please do us a favor and subscribe. That means 70% of you are not subscribed. Also, there's a little notification button on our home YouTube page. Click it. It will let you know when we have new content that comes out. So you never have to guess. So if you relate to what we're talking about, if you're excited for new topics, new guests that we have, please subscribe. Please click that notification button and we really appreciate all of you. Thank you so much.
[00:52:26] Speaker A: Thank you. See you soon.
Welcome to H Robbie Rodney talks for the Superstars tonight. Tonight, incredible, credible.
