Video Transcript: Balancing Ego and Soul

Hello again. In our last master class, we were exploring this notion of levels of success factors,

which is a kind of a vertical dimension. This pyramid of different factors, which as you can see,

is kind of represented by this triangle in the middle of the Success Factor Modeling logo. But

there is another dimension that is also important that we're going to be needing to cover. And

we'll be looking at that in this master class, which is more horizontal dimension.

So the focus of this masterclass is on this idea of the balance of Ego and Soul. Now, by "Ego," I

don't mean Freudian ego, and by "Soul," I don't mean religion, although there's obviously a

connection. But by Ego, we mean that each of us is a part of our reality, that we are a unique,

independently thinking, you know, separate individual. On the other side, we are part of another

part of our realities. We're part of things that are bigger than us. We're part of a family. We're

part of a community. We're part of a profession. We're part of a culture. We're part of, you know,

a race. We're part of a human race. We're part of a planet. And so we're constantly balancing

these two things.

You know, there's the things I need from me, the things that I need to get, and then there's the

things that I'm contributing. And this is kind of that essence of, you know, what we were just

talking about - “Next Generation Entrepreneur.” I want to live my Passion. That's about me as a

unique individual, but I'm also wanting to make a better world. That's about offering something

to others. And, again, hopefully, this seems like an obvious balance, but it's not always so easy

to maintain, and it's not always so easy to recognize. So that's a big part of what we're going to

be looking at here in this master class.

So, let's get started. I'm going to be going to our slides. So, again, as you see our, our notion of

“Zen Entrepreneur.” So on the one hand we have this idea of I want to be the best version of

myself. You know, this is that idea of the Buddha. And then there's also the Dharma. I want to

also, you know, fulfill my purpose, which has to do with something bigger than me. And then

there's obviously this notion of Sangha, which is, I'm part of a collective that is supporting me in

doing this, and that I'm also supporting.

So, we're going to be - I think this will be kind of going over how this works. One of the key

notions of Success Factor Modeling is this idea of a “Holon.” Now, “Holon” was a term that

was invented, you know, created by a man named Arthur Koestler in, I think, the 1960s, fifties or

sixties. And it's also been used a lot in the so-called “integrative psychology” of Ken Wilber

Integral Psychology. And the idea of “Holon,” you know, obviously there's a reference to

“whole,” like a something as a whole thing. But it's this idea that each person, or not even just

each person, you could say everything in the, the universe is a Holon. It's a whole in and of itself.

Anything we can think of, it has its own identity. It's a whole thing, but it is also part of a greater

whole. And in fact is made up of other wholes, of smaller wholes.

So, you know, we, again, we can take any object - We could take this bowl for example, and it's

a whole object there in and of itself, but it is made up of, you know, other pieces of molecules

and things that make the elements that form it. And it's also part of something bigger. You know,

you put it here on this holder, and then the holder's part of this desk, and the desk is part of this

room. And so this idea that, you know, we are - it's important to kind of maintain this realization.

And the other side of this is the notion of hologram - that in a a very, let's say, a very integrated

Holon, each part contains the whole in some way, and each part can recreate the whole. This is

the idea of a hologram. It's an image where the whole image is in every part of the image. So if

you tear it in half, you can still see the whole image, and if you tear that in half, you can still see

the whole image. Now, our own human body is like that as well, In every cell of the body is the

DNA of the whole body. And, you know, we know that cloning is about taking a single cell and

reproducing the whole from that single part. And we would say that any effective Holon on has

that quality.

So in a - let's say you have an organization, a business that's made of multiple people, right?

Multiple individuals. Each person is a unique separate individual, and yet each person is part of,

you know, their division of that organization, et cetera. And presumably in a really high

functioning organization, and just the same as a team, each person has, you know, - understands,

you could say, the DNA of the whole, you know, then this gets back to some of these levels that

we were talking about. You know, they understand the Values, they understand the Identity, they

understand the, you know, the greater Mission then, and then ultimately the Purpose, so that each

person is not just a, you know, separately operating thing. It would be chaos if that was the, you

know, the way it was.

So, this, I think, is an important thing for us to remember in terms of creating an effective

organization, a venture of any type. Now, also, the implication here is that because you have

these different parts of a Holon, you need to, when you're creating your venture and you're

setting your goals, and you're taking your Actions, et cetera, those have to, you know, benefit in

some way, all of the Holon. If, you know, if part of it is benefiting, and another part is losing,

you know, win-lose, that's not going to be sustainable. So this is going to be a very important

principle in terms of creating healthy, sustainable ventures and organizations.

So now, one way to represent that - this is another one of Antonio Meza's drawings, which I

think is great illustration. This idea that we're part of a greater whole, and we are made up of

other wholes. So it goes both ways. And here you see sort of in the center, there is this woman,

and we see that she is made up of other wholes. She has a whole brain, a whole heart, a whole

belly. But those are made of tissues. The tissues are made of cells, the cells are made of

molecules, and molecules are made of atoms, and so on and so forth. But she's also part of a

family. She's part of a professional community. She's part of, you know, a planet. And

ultimately, we're of course part of a bigger universe. Now, the implication here is then, we are

influenced by,and we do influence in some ways, all of these other aspectsof the Holon - we are

not disconnected. Our actions make a difference.

And one of the key principles here, a very important principle for Success Factor Modeling, is

that if any part of this Holon that is neglected or left out, it's going to produce predictable

problems. So, just to give a a an example, I had a colleague from Great Britain, who, with a

number of other colleagues, started a business a number of years ago. And they put all of their

attention into, you know, this business, to making the business successful, to making it

profitable, to making it grow. And they were, in that sense, successful. They had this business

that was growing, it was producing money, et cetera. So you'd say, a success. However, within

the first two years of their operation, two of the founders had gotten cancer, two others had

gotten divorced. And this person, my colleague, had a nervous breakdown. So now, that was five

of the seven people that founded this organization. If that is success, it's not sustainable, right?

So obviously, if I leave out my family, my family's going to suffer, and that's going to then

produce problems. If I leave out my health and my body, that's going to suffer. You know, one of

our key challenges in our world today is if we don't consider our environment, the environment

suffers and produces predictable problems. And it comes back around, right? It doesn't stay

separate. It's going to affect that Holon.

So this is one of the keys, it's one of the big challenges of being a "Next Generation

Entrepreneur” and of creating, you know, something that is sustainable, right? That is going to be

a sustainable success. And that's why, you'll remember, we have our, you know, various

goals.We have our, we could say, you know, our own personal satisfaction. That's about me. I

also have this notion of my contribution and my profitability, my innovation, you know, this

notion of having also - maintaining wellbeing for myself and others. So, this is a constant

balance. It's kind of like juggling. You’ve got multiple balls in the air. And it's really important

then to be able to know that we need to keep that balance, you know, in every step, in every

decision. Because if we don't, as I said, it's going to show up as some kind of problem, some kind

of symptom, some kind of, you know, resistance or some kind of barrier.

So now, how does this fit then, with our notion of the different levels of success factors? So now

here, you see, as you say, there's a vertical aspect of this that we explored in the previous master

class. And then there is a horizontal aspect. So this idea of, on the one side, we have our Ego,

which is the things that we would need and want for ourself. Now, that self, by the way, could be

me as an individual, it could be the Ego of the team, meaning it is its own entity. It could also be,

you know, a particular division. It could be the organization, it could be a particular industry. So

this notion of these different levels, it can apply to any type of whole on any part of a bigger

Holon.

So, on this side, you know, there's an emphasis on the environment, okay, you know, there's

dangers, there's constraints. I need to react appropriately, you know, so in order to protect myself

and to do the right things, the strategies are primarily focused on, you know, logic and

intellectual intelligence. There's this notion of a need for some kind of permission, approval,

authorization. This is primarily focused on my Role and my Ambition. What is it that I want to

achieve?

Now, again, this can be for any part of the Holon - me, my team, my division, my venture, my,

you know, my culture, you know, whatever. Now, the other side is sort of more the system

orientation. So what we're calling the Soul side, where here we're looking at a bigger Vision.

This is not so much about me, it's about the contribution I'm making, especially to customers, but

also to others in the marketplace, and ultimately even the world. And so this relates to this notion

of then looking for what's the Mission? So Mission is about, my Identity is about what I'm doing,

but it's about the contribution that I'm making to that Vision, that bigger Vision. Again, the “I”

here could be me as an individual, me as a team, me as a venture.

Similarly, then, it's about the Motivation, you know, what's that? That deeper Motivation where

there's often - again, you'll find that there's this sense of inspiration, enthusiasm, and then there's

energy. This is this idea of emotional intelligence. So you might remember that quote from Steve

Jobs where he said, you know, "Don't be trapped by the dogma.” It's easier for us on the Ego side

to be trapped by the dogma, you know, by the prescribed things, by what people are expecting, et

cetera. He said, "Follow your heart and your intuition. They somehow already know who you

want to be or where you want to go.” So this is sort of more this other side. And there it's about

being proactive, focusing on opportunities and options.

Now, again, it's not the - obviously, things that are on either side of this can also be switched.

The most important thing, though, is what's clear here is that what we need to do is to keep these

both in balance. And so often this is what creates, you know, challenges. I first put this together

because I really realized this. I was actually - it was from a consultation that I was doing with a

very successful and well-known winter sports company based in France. And this company was

started by a family. It was family-owned, and they were passionate about winter sports. And, by

the way, you see, there's the word Passion there. Passion's going to be key in terms of what we

do. There's terms like Passion, Role, Ambition, Vision, Mission. These things are going to be

key when we start thinking about how we build our ventures and how we make decisions. And

moving forward, you'll see that Passion is in an interesting location because it's kind of right at

that connection, that nexus, if you will, between my Identity and my Purpose. And so we'd say

this idea of my Passion is when I'm really fully in that place of alignment and balance here, I'm

going to have this great sense of both the satisfaction, but also of of Purpose. There's going to be

a lot of energy for what I do in that sense.

And so, again, so my example of this winter sports company that was created by this family, who

then brought in people who were passionate about winter sports. And they, you know, that was

what their whole life was built around. And they were known for making some of the best and

most innovative equipment. They were the ones that - often they started by designing things for

the top athletes in the world. And then their business model was, once they found that these

things could have this optimal performance, they would make sort of other, you know, lesser

intensely quality versions so that other people could get them. And it might take them several

years to develop something. But these things then would become the, you know, the reference

points in their industry.

Now, that was great. And there was this great balance of what we might call, you know, Ego and

Soul there, what they were, you know, as individuals, you know, what they were doing. They

were doing what they loved. They were, you know, improving the sport, improving things for

people. And, and kind of one of their - what they were known for is their, I guess you could say

their Values were that you should be able to put on this equipment and feel like it's immediately

extending your body, extending your capabilities, rather than something you have to fit it, figure

out and try to fit in and try to figure out how it works.

Now, the challenge came when the family founding family members got older, and again, they

were very successful. But, this big sports venture capital firm came and acquired them so that the

family kind of retired. And they were bought by this bigger company, who was putting in a lot of

money. And, it was very interesting because a couple things happened. Number one is there was

this idea that, well, you know, if you can make winter sports, like if you can make snow skis, you

can make water skis. If you can make snowboards, you can make surfboards. And so they had

this big idea that they were going to expand all of this thing. Now, the one thing that happened

there is that by suddenly expanding to all these other products, it sort of diluted their quality and

diluted their Identity. You know, they were no longer a premier winter sports company. They

were trying to be everything to everybody.

The second thing that happened is that, of course, this venture capital company, as is often done,

to protect their investment, they replaced most of the top management with their own people.

Now, these people from the venture capital company, they were not passionate about winter

sports, right? They didn't care about winter sports. They cared about money, and they cared

about the investment. And so, suddenly, in a very short period of time, the whole culture of this

company began to change. It was no longer about Passion, you know, it was about profit. And if

something wasn't making profit in two or three quarters, it was cut. So their level of innovation

rate went down. Again, their products were diluted. Their reputation began to become

challenged.

And so, kind of what I was doing as the consultant was basically, I helped them recover their

Soul. That - you’ve got to get your Soul back. And that meant, you know, bringing focus back to

this notion of winter sports, not just everything. No, anything. That kind of - the metaphor was

the mountain. It was interesting, actually, that this pyramid was kind of there. It was like, that

was the metaphor. We actually literally went to - did a retreat on Mont Blanc and kind of

reorganized to get that back, and, you know, to bring in people that also would support that. And

it was great, because actually they did recover their Soul, and they did make changes and this,

but it really brought home to me the importance of this balance at all levels of the Holon, right?

So not only on, on a personal level, but at all these different levels.

So that, just to give you an example of why that's important and how it can be challenging, and

it's easy when we're very focused and involved to lose track of this bigger picture. And in fact,

that's going to be the practice that I want to do here, because how do we, you know, it's tricky to

keep all of this in mind. And one thing is that you can't really do it through cognitive logical

measures.That's why Steve Jobs says, you've got to also engage your heart and your intuition. It's

part of you. You need your whole being to be able to understand and represent other wholes,

right? You can't just have my head. I can't just have part of me. It's got to be all of me. That's the

way I'm going to be able to connect to something bigger than myself and know what's important.

So, one of the things we're going to practice is a process that my wife and I developed many

years ago called “Coach State.” And Coach State is basically, when we are ourselves, we are

becoming whole.We are an integrated Holon, we might say. And so this term “Coach,” the

letters “COACH," are an acronym for a set of qualities that I think are our key foundation to

optimal Mindset. You might remember in a previous master class, we were talking about these

seven strategies for success, creating success. And it started with optimal Mindset. So, in order to

be able to do everything else, hold it all, be able to do it well and in a balanced, sustainable way,

we need to begin with this foundational Mindset, which we call Coach State.

And the letters stand for "Centered," centered in ourself. And in particular, it's going to be key, in

particular, in the actual center of our body. Because a lot of times people go, I'm centered here.

And they point to their head. Well, that's not your center of your body. It's only a top part, right?

There are some people who even point to their heart. That's actually not the center of the body.

Center of the whole body, and the being, is the belly center just below the navel. And, in fact,

this is where many physical performers, high, high level physical performers always, you know,

talk about that. This idea of being centered in the belly, whether it's athletics, whether it's musical

performance or singing, you need to have this sense of being centered first in myself.

And that kind of becomes the center of this bigger Holon, and that's where the "O" comes in. I

Open from there to begin to include more and more and more of the Holon that I'm part of. And

that brings this level, this "A" which is about being Aware, Attentive, Alert. And now here, this

Attentiveness relates to not only attentive to these bigger Holons I'm part of around me, my

external part, but also aware of all of the Holons inside of me. And then that's where Connection

comes in. So, the idea of Connecting my head to my heart, to my belly, to my whole body,

connecting to the earth, to the sky, to the environment, the sense of Connection is about really

being, not just theoretically, Aware, but really the sense of I am, a sense of being part of that, and

being part of me.

And then the idea of Holding. We sometimes also say it's Hospitality. I'm able to Hold, welcome

all of the different parts of the Holon, even those parts that I'm not particularly cognitively

focused on or intellectually focused on in a moment. This is going to allow me to have this kind

of sense where I'm engaging in a sense - what Steve Jobs meant by my heart and my intuition,

which is all these intelligences that are outside of or beyond my verbal, mental cognitive

intelligence. I think one of the biggest challenges that faces not only organizations, but, you

know, humanity, is that we are too focused on what we're cognitively logically aware of. And

there is so much more -we have to be more, much more organically aware and use this kind of

value of a sort of an unconscious.

Now, what often happens, and this is the tricky thing, you know, when we get - when we meet

challenges, when we're under pressure, when we're trying to achieve something, we tend to shift

more to this sort of other state we call a CRASH state. Now here, we're kind of showing two big

polarities, and there's, you know, there's the COACH on one side, CRASH on the other. But it's

not really this binary as we'll see. There's a lot of possible variations in between. But just to get a

sense of this other side, it's what we would call CRASH state.

Another acronym for instead of Centered inside and Open, I'm Contracted and Reacting. Instead

of Alert and Aware, I'm kind of caught in Analysis paralysis. Instead of Connection, it's

Separation. You know, I'm just, you know, my head is Separated from the heart, I'm Separated

from everybody else. And that creates a kind of, you could say, a kind of a Hostility, Hurt, Hate.

I mean, these are different "H" words. And so now again, this what, when we're really stuck,and

you could say a lot of, I think a lot of the biggest, you know, Harms that have been done to other

people and to our world are coming from this kind of CRASH state.

And I want to point out something that's really important. This, when we say it's a state, it's not

good or evil, it's not right or wrong. It's a natural thing. In fact, usually what the state does is it's -

we're going into what we would call survival strategies. So I'm contracted into my own separate,

you know, part of this Holon, I'm no longer connected. And so I'm only thinking about myself,

and I have a very limited perspective. And it's natural. I mean, it's sort of built in. We're sort of

wired this way because, you know, it's part of protecting this part of the Holon, right? That's the

sort of Ego aspect.

Now, again, it's not bad, and it's not wrong, but it will create problems. That's the challenge. And

so, one of the things that we say is that it's important as a skill for a “Next Generation

Entrepreneur” to be able to recognize these various levels and variations of kind of CRASH

states and come back to COACH state. Now, in fact, just to give you an example, for many years

I was running what’s called a Mastermind Group in Silicon Valley. And in a future master class,

we're going to go much more into depth of what a Mastermind is, but suffice it to say it's a group

of very high level people who all wanted to take their businesses and their ventures to the next

level. I'll share more about who was in that group, but it was some very substantial

entrepreneurs, people like co-founder of Siri, people like the co-founder of Google X, and also

other people, well-known authors, et cetera, people working in the - from the health industry.

And so the whole idea was, we want to try to, you know, they were all in this sort of Mindset of

“Next Generation Entrepreneur.”

We want to go further. We want to make a bigger contribution, but also grow. And one of the

very first things that we did is we talked about this notion of COACH versus CRASH. And we

started every meeting that we would have - the first question was, what's been your average

COACH state since the last meeting? Now, one of the things we did, and it's going to be

something I'm going to - it is going to be one of our exercises today. Our basic exercise in this

master class is that we say, "Okay, let's put this on a scale of zero to 10." So that if I'm 10 in

COACH state, 10 out of 10, it means I'm completely Centered. I'm really Open, I'm totally Alert

and Aware. I'm Connected as I can to all the parts of these Holons. I'm able to Hold everything

from this place of curiosity, creativity, you know, Hospitality, as we were saying, and

resourcefulness.

Now, zero would be, I'm on the other side, right? I'm completely Contracted, I'm Reactive, I'm

caught in Analysis paralysis, disconnected, Hostile. So the interesting thing is, what would be 1,

2, 3, 4, 5? So 5 is okay, I'm kind of, it's not imbalanced, but I'm sort of not - I'm only partially in

this COACH state. And, you know, again, maybe I'm Aware, but I'm not Centered or, you know,

there could be many, many variations. And part of it is not something to try to be, you know,

precisely analytical. It's actually not an analytical evaluation. It's a more intuitive evaluation that

you begin to get from practice.

And I would have to say that this was one of the things that this group of people said was most

valuable to them. It was kind of this foundational thing to be able to recognize that, and then to

be able to know what to do about it. And that's something we will be, again, working with as we

continue in the master classes.

But for today, and for this master class, I just want to do - let's start with a basic practice of

COACH today. So perhaps you can join me in standing. And, you know, we've done some

previous exercises around connecting to what we're grateful for, what we are generous with. We

were kind of looking last time what sort of levels of success factors brought success and the time

before that, what's our dream? And kind of making sure that that dream, in a sense is - opens a

focus to a larger Holon. So now here, this is going to be - the practice we're going to do in this

master class is one that's going to be a foundation for most of our other practices - that I, if I'm

going to do something, do it well, I've got to do it from the best version of myself that I can be in

any particular moment.

Now, one of the things that we say is that in order to reach an effective level of performance,

like, for example, for an athlete to perform, you don't necessarily have to be 10 out of 10. You

might be able to do pretty well, you know, 8 out of 10, 9 out of 10. We usually say that, you

know, minimally you, in order to make decisions, because you can't always wait or, you know,

put things off until you're 10, out of 10. And it, it might not even be possible. So the key is I

want to be - I need to be enough. I need to be Centered enough, I need to be Open enough, I need

to be Alert enough, I need to be Connected enough. I need to be able to Hold enough in order to

perform, and at least take whatever next steps that I need to.

So I'm going to start by inviting us to - I'm going to just to guide you through a very simple

practice. It's one of the things, and I've done this all over the world with all kinds of people, they

find it really helpful. It's kind of a way of quickly bringing yourself as fully as possible into this

COACH state, into this, let's call it an optimal Mindset foundation. And, you know, it starts

with Centering. And I like to call this COACH state Tai Chi. It's not really Tai Chi, but it's kind

of movements that you make mindfully. And each movement has a symbolic meaning. And it

starts with this kind of movement of Centering.

And we said now, especially Centering to the belly center. So this notion, I want to Center, and

as I even make that movement, you might even notice my voice tone gets a little bit deeper. My

breath comes down. One of the things that we say in Success Factor Modeling that comes from

Neurolinguistic Programming, NLP, is that energy follows attention. If I bring my attention here,

my energy begins to settle there.

The second movement is about Opening. So from that Center, I Open. If I just Open and I'm not

Centered, I can easily become, you know, caught up in something else - to be distracted, to be,

you know, disturbed. So I want to Center first, and then I'm Opening and I'm Opening to new

possibilities. I'm Opening to learn, I'm Opening to explore, I'm Opening to give, I'm Opening to

receive. So it's this kind of Opening, as we said, from this part of my, this deep part of my own

Holon to bigger and bigger Holons.

And as I make that Opening and I Open to this, the next part is to be Alert and Aware. So like

my attention, and we said, energy follows attention. My awareness expands and expands to these

bigger Holons, like to the room around me, to the space around that room, the bigger places that

I'm part of, but also my inner Holons, my inner experience. So I'm Aware of the outer world. I'm

Aware of the inner world at the same time. So this - I'm all of all these different aspects of the

Holon, of me and the Holons that I'm made up of, and the Holon that I'm part of.

And then the next gesture is about Connection, starting by Connecting the head and all the

intelligences, the intellectual, cognitive, verbal intelligence in the head to the heart, the emotional

intelligence, the passion, the compassion comes from there to the intuition. You know, this

notion of the "gut feeling," the belly, and then, you know, onto the whole body, you know? So I

might get us to get this Holon all Connected, and then I Connect to the earth, I Connect to this

room around me. So I'm now Connecting out to this bigger Holon, so Centering, Opening, Alert

and Aware, and then Connecting.

And finally this idea of Holding. So I can Hold this whole thing, not necessarily in some kind of

intellectual focus, but in a much broader awareness. I would sometimes say a softer focus. And

again, as you practice this, you begin to become aware that it's from here, that we can actually be

generative, be creative. We can respond easily and well. If we start to contract, we begin to go

back into survival strategies, which again, are not wrong. They're not inherently a problem, but

they're not generative. They're, I'm going to be, you know, the fight or flight survival strategies

are, I'm going to attack, I'm going to fight, I'm going to run away, I'm going to flee, I'm going to

freeze, I'm going to paralyze, or I'm going to fold, right? I'm going to get sort of - just give in.

So now what we want to do, then, is, you know, as we practice that we become Aware, then,

okay, what level might I say as I start to really be tuned into what I've most been in my highest

levels of performance, what is that like? And how can I compare that to the state that I'm in now?

And, you know, again, I usually like to say to people, don't think it, because then I'm actually

disconnecting from this Holon. I've got to just sort of get this sense of an intuition. And it's,

again, it's an intuitive evaluation. It's not right or wrong.

What it's going to do is it's going to begin to give you more and more of a sense of, you know,

how close am I? How much am I in an optimal Mindset? So, and I'd say right now, just in this

particular moment, probably 8, 8 and a half - how do I know that? It's just, I'm just letting that

number come to me. I've had lots of practice with this, so I'm not trying to think it or trying to,

you know, figure out, but you'll be able to tell. I know that other times, if I start to get into a

ceiling pressure, I start to sense this kind of contractions in my shoulder, in my face. And again,

it's not like you're going to go from 8 to zero. Sometimes it's, you know, 8 and it's just, it's 7.

And at 7 it's going to be kind of iffy sometimes. At 5, it's a big challenge. At 2, it's, I'm kind of

feeling like nothing's going to work.

And one of the interesting things that's important that we'd like to say is that kind of in a CRASH

state, nothing works. We don't have any ideas. We, you know, we kind of think everything's

going wrong. And so we don't really have, you know, much resourcefulness. So again, this

COACH state is one of the things that allows us to keep this balance. Again, this whole idea here

is balance of Ego and Soul. I can be here and I also have that sense of all the parts of me present,

and that I'm part of these bigger things.

And then the other value of this connection to these bigger Holons - and this is where things like

intuition come from. You know, in my work on Strategies of Genius, the geniuses will all say, it

did not - the genius ideas did not come from me figuring something out from my brain. My own

individual brain is - they say, "This came to me.” Oftentimes in these moments of inspiration,

it's a greater intelligence so that when we are connected to whatever, to nature, to our, you know,

our legacies, you know, our ancestors, our, you know, our whole, you know, this greater

intelligence of - we call a field, this bigger field of which we're part of, ideas will come that we -

that surprise us, that we did not necessarily have to think through, analyze, and figure out.

So again, I think some keys to being an effective “Next Generation Entrepreneur” is learning to

use that intuition. We'll, we're going to be - again, this is just the beginning. We'll be coming

back to this more and more, and then adding other pieces of how we utilize this. But I think all of

us know that if we want to perform well, it starts with, you know, the state of our equipment, if

you will. And so every good athlete knows, you know, I've got to get into that state. I'm a runner

myself. I run every day, to this time, 80 minutes every day, 365 days a year no matter where I

am. And I'm always watching, you know, during the Olympics, watching the runners. And it's

always interesting to me, you know, especially these people who are the, you know, the fastest

man on earth, fastest woman on earth, and at the end of the race, they're talking to the gold medal

winner and saying, you know, "What were you thinking? How were you? What were you

doing?” And invariably they say something, like, "I was just trying to relax, you know, stay

present, stay focused.” You think - you're saying, "Wait a minute, you're trying to run faster than

any human being in the world, and you're relaxing?"

And again, the answer is yes, because I don't want to waste energy in these kind of contracted

states. And you'll see, if you watch these runners, these elite runners, they're not struggling.

There's this kind of sense of yes, there's focus, but again, you'll see, and I think if you begin to

check this out in your own life and with other people, you're going to start to recognize right

away the value and the importance of this.

So, in our coming master classes, we'll be going deeper with this. We'll be looking at some ways

of which we are able to more quickly come back to this. So, but this is the beginning. Remember,

we said our number one strategy is optimal Mindset. This is the foundation of optimal Mindset.

Now in our next master class, we're going to be doing some more - it's going to be one of our

major things, which is be presenting what's called the Circle of Success, which is one of these

models that is, again, now the foundation of building a venture. So we start with ourself, now

how do we start to build this venture? That's what we'll go into next time.

I look forward to seeing you then.