The Playbook with Colin Jonov

AJ Shavell- Six Lessons That Build Real Mental Fitness

• Colin Jonov

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We map six sub-skills that make confidence, mental toughness, and leadership real: ownership, self-awareness, presence, character, intention, and growth. We share tools like meditation, journaling, and deliberate practice to build alignment, adaptability, and peace under pressure.

• why radical ownership comes first
• asking harder questions to build self-awareness
• presence through meditation and body scans
• journaling as a daily mental cleanout
• character as lived identity in private and public
• intention that links vision to daily actions
• growth as a dynamic, iterative process
• adaptability over rigid toughness
• preparation for chaos and resilient self-talk
• choosing tools that fit your season

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SPEAKER_00:

Everyone told me to work hard, be tough, be a leader. I heard it from coaches, from parents, from everyone who wanted me to succeed. And they weren't wrong. Hard work matters, mental toughness matters, leadership matters. But here's what I wish someone had told me. Those things aren't enough. There are other things I needed to learn. Six things that would have changed everything if I had taken them seriously earlier. Nobody emphasized them, or maybe I just wasn't listening. Either way, I learned them the hard way. And I'm writing this for the younger version of me and for anyone else who needs to hear it now instead of later.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's uh it's interesting to sit down and write that because maybe people emphasized it, or maybe it was the fact that I wasn't ready and I wasn't listening to it. And to me, like when I think about it, we always talk about kind of the macro goals in terms of be mentally tougher or be a leader or work hard in terms of that. But to me, it comes down to really how you're framing it in your mindset. And do you know the sub-goals of what it actually takes, the sub-skills of what it takes to really build those up? And so for me, I really think about the first thing, which is full and total ownership. Like, am I taking full responsibility for myself? And to me, it's everything that you are doing. So am I taking responsibility of my actions, my attitude, my mindset on a day-to-day basis? And I think we think about, okay, like I'm doing it here in this one aspect of my life, but are you thinking about it holistically as we start to think about ownership? And that was really kind of when I think about the first thing. There's a reason I put that first, because if you're not taking ownership of everything, everything else comes downhill. Like it really doesn't matter. It's kind of where you need to start as you kind of start walking up the mountain.

SPEAKER_00:

I believe it was Jocko Willock that wrote the book Extreme Ownership. Um, it was one of the books that have, you know, have a profound impact, you know, in the way that I live it, in the way I believe. But I really do believe that extreme radical ownership that you're alluding to. And I think about even the things that are would technically be considered like outside of our control. If I get hurt in a football game, why I chose to play football. If I was where I'm exactly supposed to be, right, and I think about it stopping at a stop sign and you, you know, God forbid, you get run into by like a drunk driver. I chose to get in the car at that time, right? And that's not to say that there's a right or wrong, but just taking that ownership in your life, just it gives you more agency and it gives you the ability to feel that you can create or that you can resurrect things in your life. And I I love that you put this first because I do think it's one of the founding pillars of just living a fulfilling life is taking extreme radical ownership in your life.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep. I completely agree with you. And it's interesting because the way you were framing it, to me, it comes down to like the focus. It comes down to focusing on what you can control in terms of all those examples you just mentioned. And that's why I think it perfectly transitions into number two, which is self-awareness. Because if you notice where you are, you can start to have the conversations. You can start to better conversations with yourself as you start to think about your self-awareness. So not just ignoring how you're feeling, but really being curious about why am I feeling this way? What am I thinking? And being able to have the self-awareness of kind of where your mind is taking you in those examples you were talking about, it all comes back to the focus and the self-awareness. So, like the first thing is am I going to take ownership of myself and where I'm headed? And then number two, can I even start to notice where I am to not just react, but being able to think about how I'm going to respond and really building up that muscle of self-awareness?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, with self-awareness, I do believe that in order to create self-awareness, and there will all be there will always be blind spots that we have in relation to ourself, but how good are you at asking yourself tough questions and how honest are you with answering them? And, you know, we think about, you know, well, what is self-awareness? How do I know where I'm accurately at in my life? Or how do I know where I'm accurately, you know, depicted in my profession or my sport or my field? And I think a lot of it comes down to what questions are you asking yourself? You know, what vision do you have for yourself? Are you taking the necessary actions aligned to get you to that vision and having that accountability system of asking questions to yourself and then having someone that you can trust or a handful of people that you can trust to ask tough questions and that they're willing to give you the necessary feedback to build that awareness and persona around yourself. Um love to hear your, you know, insight or feedback and how you have learned to create the self-awareness necessary for yourself.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I think it's twofold. So um, I'm gonna kind of merge this with the third one, which is presence, because for me, like being present is the most important thing in terms of building a self-awareness because you need to start recognizing it in the moment. For me, what changed everything was meditation. So starting every single morning, I mean, when I first started meditation, it was in a tough spot. So I was meditating every morning for an hour every single morning. Now it's more of about a 10 to 20 minutes and doing one later in the afternoon. So for me, it started with meditation, and that built the habit of just being present. It also built the habit of starting to be more self-aware of everything that starts to go around me. I think the next piece for me was meditation was kind of the for me, it's it's a non-negotiable every single day. So being able to get in and really just reboot my operating system is the way I think about it.

SPEAKER_00:

The next piece of the sorry, go ahead, continue.

SPEAKER_01:

No, no, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00:

I was just gonna say what when it came to meditation, what realm did you start and how did you work your way back up and what type of meditation um do you do?

SPEAKER_01:

So I mixed it up depending on where I am in my life. Where I started was the book that changed it for me was Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Joe Dispenza. And so he's got a specific way of kind of getting up to the hour, in which it's a four-week um kind of growth journey for you. So the first week you're doing 10 minutes, then you're adding on another 10 to 15 minutes, then you're adding on another 10 to 15 minutes, and then you're adding on the last 10 to 15 minutes. And so it starts with just um he calls it induction, which is basically just saying, hey, we live all day in our beta waves. Like right now, you and I are talking analytically, like we're thinking about our minds going up a mile a minute. You then need to go down to your alpha and theta waves, and then you need to go down and you sleep in your delta waves. So really sitting in your alpha and theta is where you get creative. That's where you can really influence yourself a little bit more as you kind of move down your brain states in terms of your sleep. And that's why, um, to be honest, I meditate first thing in the morning. Some people do it at the end of the day, because that's the closest to where you're actually at your sleep. And so that's where there's different ways you can kind of get into that meditative state. Sometimes it's focusing on your breathing. For some people, like myself, it's really more of I need to focus on kind of like more of a body scan to get myself down to those lower states. So that's where I started with. And as you kind of go, you can kind of figure out other things that you like in terms of took me a while to figure out focusing on my breath is good to help me focus, but it doesn't help me get into a meditative state as much as kind of doing more of a body scan and really thinking about like my toes and kind of moving all the way up my ankles in terms of my legs and kind of moving all the way up. Um, there are other ones I know that Huberman loves the kind of NDSR in terms of commitment, the non-sleep deep rest kind. Some will have be more pointed in terms of what are you manifesting? What are you trying to build? And that's what Joe Dispenza in his book had me kind of moving as you move towards. So it's kind of like, what are we doing with the induction? Then how are we thinking about how you're really just thinking about your day and really being more self-aware? And then what is it you're actually trying to work on in terms of um, are you working on confidence? Are you working on mental toughness? Are you working on your leadership skills as you go through? To me, that got me started on my journey. And that kind of got me started on the self-awareness. The next step was the writing habit. And this goes to what you were mentioning for me. I did another program, which was called The Artist's Way. And she basically talks about how you need to write for 15 minutes every morning, three pages. Takes it's three pages, but I I wrote for 15 minutes every morning, which is basically to me like taking a dump for your brain. Like you wake up in the morning, you're taking a dump for your brain, in which you just put all your thoughts down on the page and it starts to go out and you start to see where's your mind going. You start to see what your self-voice is as you go through. And to me, you mentioned the questions you ask yourself. When I sit down and write for those three pages every single morning, I start to notice the questions I start asking myself a little bit better. It's much easier for me to challenge myself when I see it on a page and I say, oh, that's not true, versus like in your head, your mind's going to take you nine different ways to Sunday in terms of that. So for me, my first non-negotiable everyday is meditation. My next habit that I try to get to as much as I possibly can is more of the journaling and the writing that go along with it. This is what works for me, but like I work with people that they're like, AJ, I can't sit down and meditate or I can't do that. And I go, okay, well, you got to figure out what works for you in terms of getting in touch with yourself. Is it recording a video of yourself? Is it walking outside in terms of being in nature? But to me, the principles of being a human being are all the same in terms of how do I really change the voice in my head? How do I start to ask myself some of the tougher questions? Because ultimately when we're younger, we always assume we're gonna grow and we always assume someone's gonna hold us accountable. But not everyone has that when they grow up. And if you're fortunate enough, you have people that are looking out for you holding yourself accountable, but you need to build that muscle of self-accountability, which is really inherent in all of six things that we're gonna talk about today is how am I holding myself accountable to this standard I want to lift?

SPEAKER_00:

There's one thing that's consistent with just about every single guest I've I've had on in every single episode. And everything that we do as people is working to construct the voices in our head, learning how to talk to yourself and not listen to yourself. You know, rehearsing and engineering that internal dialogue that's gonna help you decipher really the world that we're living in and your purpose in it and how you live with within whatever field or whatever sport or whatever it is that you're doing, is learning to construct that internal dialogue. And when you talk about, you know, seeing it on paper or when you talk about the meditation, regardless, everybody has to try and do different things until they learn what works for them. And then you can coordinate inside your mind, okay, this is what I know is real, this is what I know is a lie. And for me, it I used to meditate a lot until it got to a point where I didn't feel I needed to meditate. The voice in my head, I became supremely aware of what's a truth, what's a lie? When am I prepared? When am I not? When am I naturally fitted for something? When aren't I? What am I good at? What do I need to improve on? What am I a lead at? And I began to just really create this realm of self-awareness because I tried a bunch of different things. I found what worked for me, and then I implement it religiously, routinely, to the point where I know exactly, you know, to the best of my, you know, best of human capabilities within myself, I know when I'm being real and authentic. I know when I've done the best that I could. I know when I could have done something better, I know when I'm being present, which we'll get to here is as the third point. You've already hit it as well. It's trying what works for you. And when you find it, latch onto it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep. No, I 100% agree. I mean, to me, the way I frame that kind of what you just described is you're building the muscle, you know, you're building the muscle of learning yourself. You're building the muscle of self-awareness, you're building the muscle of ownership. Because I think it's Dr. Ken Revisa talked about it in heads up baseball. He kind of talks about his three-step process in terms of learning it, then being it, and then owning it. And he's got, he's very prescriptive about kind of the mental side of baseball. But to me, the process I think is just so simple because it's so true. It's like, okay, I'm gonna learn what worked for the best, and then I'm gonna do what worked for the best, but then I'm gonna iterate on it and own it myself. And I think that's what special people do is they really ask themselves questions and they're like, oh no, this works for me, this doesn't work for me, this works for me, this doesn't work for me. And to me, like we talk about like I talked about the habits of journaling and meditating. Meditating, I think I've meditated almost every day for the last five years. I might have missed like two or three days in between, but that I've done. It's a non-negotiable for me. I haven't written every single day. I built the muscle, and to me, it's something I go back to when I need it, but it's not there that I need to do it every single day because I think the voice in my head has gotten stronger. And that's really ultimately what you want in terms of how you can be so strong in terms of how you're framing it in your mindset.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think about it in terms of like physical exercises too. Like my favorite exercise in the world is a rear foot elevated split squat, but I don't do that every single day. I do it when it's necessary in my protocol and my routines. It's the same thing with anything else that you are trying to implement or looking to improve, again, quality of life, you know, your agency in your sport, your agency in your profession. Find the different tools and levers that you need to pull and pull them when necessary. And like you said, the things that are non-negotiable everyday items for you, have those every single day and own them.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep, absolutely. So you want to talk about uh number four character?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, talk to me about character.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So when it comes to character, I mean, you've heard it so many times. Be a good person, um, integrity, respect, honor. And I think it it comes in with the self-awareness and the presence. It's like, you can't do it in one area of your life. It needs to be in all things that you do. And so it's one of those things everyone's like, well, how you do one thing is how you do everything. And it's like, well, yes, that's true in some areas, but I think when it comes to character, it shines throughout everything you do. And I think to me, it's being a good person, it's the integrity, it's the honor, and it's the respect of kind of how you want to think about what you are consistently doing. And I think it goes back to what we're talking about in terms of are you actually challenging yourself? Are you challenging yourself to be a good person? Are you challenging yourself to do the right thing? Because you'll notice it and it kind of gets into your self-image, it gets into your self-esteem, it gets into your self-confidence of kind of everything you have. So to me, like the the next two kind of go hand in hand in terms of character and intention, because the character is kind of, I know you like this word identity of the identity of who I'm ultimately going to be. And then the attention is how am I gonna take that vision of who I want to be and actually act on it in terms of what are my goals and how am I actually intentionally being the person I want to be.

SPEAKER_00:

And what I love about all six of these is they really all bleed into one another. And when I talk about life lessons or things that we learn, usually they bleed into one another and carry over. And I do believe that that is, you know, you know, systemically how it's supposed to be. And I don't think it's a coincidence in life that most lessons bleed into one another. And when we talk about the character, right, and we reflect on, you know, you you said uh the identity, and there's different elements and dynamics of what your identity is. And when I talk about what is your internal identity and the values and characteristics that you want to embody and resemble, it's it's character. And character to me is something that is truly earned when it's the hardest to earn, right? Anybody can be resilient when everything is going their way. But what about when everything is stacked against you? All right. Anybody can be kind with somebody but they that they like. But what happens when it's time to be kind to the person that you can't stand most? Right. And then when nobody's looking, like you said, when nobody is around to know whether or not you make a decision aligned with who you want to be, what decision are you gonna make? Are you in alignment with yourself? Behind closed doors, right? What is the decision I'm gonna make that's either gonna be completely aligned with the person I say I am or want to be, or am I gonna make the decision that's completely against the person I say I am? And that's honestly what what I've found to be the most unique and challenging thing about starting a podcast and working with identity in the space that I am, working with different teams is I am constantly talking about identity and who we are as people. And I'm constantly talking about things that I implement in my own life. Well, guess what? When it comes down to it in my own personal life, am I who I say I am? And that has been one of the greatest behavior changes in my life is knowing, hey, you know, I own this in front of a camera, I own this with other people. Am I owning it when my door is closed? Am I owning it when I'm with my wife and kids? Am I the same person I portray to be? And that has been one of the greatest accountability holders, and honestly, internal, you know, I want to be as real and authentic as possible, knowing that I make mistakes and I certainly fail. And, you know, learning when it's okay to give yourself grace and when it's not. But the the character to me is one of, if not the most important pieces to not just success, but general fulfillment in your own personal life is knowing that your character is aligned with who you are.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think it makes me think of two words. It makes me think of freedom and peace, you know, because ultimately, like when you know who you are, and and you just mentioned the word authenticity, like when you know who you are, like there's no gap between who you are and who gets presented. And that gives you the freedom and peace to to act how you were. And it goes back to like, why are we talking about all this? Because at the end of the day, it's like, well, am I willing to do the work? Am I willing to be tough? Am I willing to have the confidence to do what I need? And that becomes easier when you have a clear identity of who you are and what matters.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, think about it in terms of like, you know, you can use the word epiphany, right? Or enlightenment. When it's like one day you wake up and everything is just aligned in the sense of I don't have to think about how to respond. I don't have to think about how to act. I just do things because it's part of who I am. I don't have to think about going to the gym. I don't have to think about opening the door for someone. I don't have to think about parking further away, you know, because I'm able and leave a closer parking spot for those who may need it. Whatever it is, when there's just total alignment, it creates this enlightenment in your life where it eradicates a lot of the voices in our head and the fogginess in the way that we live our lives. And it's just perfect clarity and continuity with how you're living in the intention that you're living with.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. And and it goes through, I mean, you just brought up the next word we were going to talk about, intention. Because I think when you have a clear vision of who you are, then you're living with intention. You're lit like, why am I doing this? And you're starting to ask yourself, well, what's the purpose behind those? And you're really setting goals, you're setting a vision, like you're you're working towards something intentionally. And I think for me, when I I sat down and wrote this, I really just and and it goes to the the last word growth. When you're younger, you just assume you're gonna grow, you know, because it's always happened that way. You just kind of walk through and and to be honest, like you're walking through life as a zombie. A lot of people are at at younger ages. And it's like, well, what do you actually want and what are you working towards? And that's where having a clear identity helps with how am I going to grow and how am I thinking about growth and making growth a habit? And what's the intention behind what I'm ultimately doing in terms of setting a vision, setting goals? The goal of the goals isn't to always hit the goal. The goal of the goals is who am I becoming as I start to think about who am I becoming along the way and the growth in terms of the iterative process. So to me, like if you think about how those six are broken out, it's like the front, three and the back three in terms of how you're thinking about kind of how they pair up together.

SPEAKER_00:

And, you know, going with intention and growth, you know, character and how they, you know, those back three all align as well. The growth piece that I think is important to highlight is we are really bad predictors of how we're gonna grow in the next five years. Most of us, if you ask us, hey, have you changed in the last five years? We would say, oh, dramatically. But then when we project and say, am I gonna change in the future? Most of us would say, no. No, we're not gonna change. But on the reality is we're gonna be changing. We are dynamic creatures. We're not static. We're constantly changing, evolving, consuming different information that shapes us. And the question just is, do you want to be intentional in how you grow? Do you want to have a vision of where you want to go? Do you have the processes that are gonna enable you to get there? And guess what? Even if you do have the processes or you do have a vision, it's still gonna change. But at least you're working in this dynamic, I call it dynamic and fluidity. You're gonna be dynamic and approaching the growth that you want to achieve as opposed to fluidity, right? Because like I said, we're not static. So we are gonna grow and change. It's just do we want our environment to dictate how we change, or do we want to have the agency to choose, hey, this is where I want to go. This is the beliefs that I currently have, and I'm going to work with intention to get whatever my future vision is. And then over the course of that five years or 10 years or that one year, whatever your time frame outlook is, then you are abiding by your process and you create these other topics like the self-awareness, the intention, right? You are going to, as a byproduct, continue to fall deeper in, I don't want to say in love, but deeper in, you know, coherency with yourself and where you're going, in that when there's this cultural or internal cultural or internal dynamic shift of, hey, the more I learn about myself or the more I learn, I actually want to go this direction in this direction. And it's agency purposeful instead of by accident.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep, absolutely. And it feeds back up to those bigger themes we talked about. Like everyone talks about confidence and mental toughness, like what you just described, like mental toughness, people think it's it's being rigid, you know, it's yes or no, where really it's it's mental flexibility. It's how can I be adaptable to my situation.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's the word adaptable. I was waiting for you to say it the adaptability.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. Like, how am I adaptable so that no matter what happens or what comes in front of me, I can figure out a way in terms of being able to go through and find a solution ultimately that that works for me and being able to frame it in my mindset. And to me, it also brings in the other word that we talked about in terms of kind of the high-level thing. Everyone says, I want to be more confident, I want to be more confident. Well, being confident also knows that I'm not going to be able to have answers to every single situation. But my ability to figure things out and be adaptable is what's going to make me confident as I kind of move through new challenges. Ultimately, it's being able to have the ability to know I'm capable as I go into these situations.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's it's the plan for chaos. You know, and I think that there's that's why I talk about preparation. Like preparation is so important to put yourself in the best state of probability of success. But there are certain things that you can't prepare for. But having a plan for adversity in the sense of, okay, if something happens outside of my control, what's going to be my communication with myself? What's going to be my internal dialogue? Okay. If we're talking about in the sports realm, right? If it's like, okay, if I give up a touchdown, if I get hurt, if someone beside me gets hurt, okay, how am I going to handle that? What's going to be my voice to myself, to my teammates? If my teammates are struggling, how am I going to pick them up? If my coach is struggling, what am I going to say to them? And just thinking about the different things that I can be adaptable, right? And then as you again go back to answering these questions for yourself, what is your process? Then you can inherently build that ability to just figure things out on the fly. And you can trust in yourself, hey, because I've done it a million times, I know that no matter what is thrown at me, I'm going to figure it out. Doesn't mean it's not going to suck. Doesn't mean it's not going to hurt. Doesn't mean it's not going to put me in a different state. But knowing that I've I have the conviction and the competency to figure things out, I know I'm going to be okay. And it allows you that freedom and peace to go out and do what you need to do because there's not going to be too many things that life throws at you that's going to knock you off your tracks. And guess what? When it does, you're going to find your way back to the tracks because you've proven you can do it over and over again.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. Exactly. At some point, there you start to also see the shift. Like you mentioned the word epiphany, but you also start to see the shift in your mindset where it's like you become resigned to the outcome because you know all the work you've done. You also have this feeling like, not like entitlement, I've earned it, but like that I've earned it from no matter what happens. So at that point, it's like, no matter what happens, like you can let go of the outcome because it's like, did I give everything I possibly can? And that's where that preparation kind of meets kind of where people start to hit goals and start to hit success in a way.

SPEAKER_00:

I get so fascinated thinking about just the premise of adaptability, right? And if you think about it from like an evolutionary sense, right? If you put me and you in a cage with a tiger, we're gonna lose. Okay. But yet tigers and lions, those things, they faced extinction. Humans really don't. We're not the strongest, we're not the fastest, but we're adaptable and we can figure out solutions. Then you can get obviously point out the flaws and not thinking, well, Colin, we have cognitive thought, we have thumbs, we can create weapons to hunt animals. Yes, I get that. Right. And that just goes back to the adaptability, right? We have the ability to figure things out, we have the ability to change, innovate, redirect when necessary. And the animals that do that the best are the ones that last the longest. And it's something that is under discussed. We talk about mental toughness, right? Like you were just saying, hey, how adaptable can you be? How can you change? How can you innovate, right? How can you figure it out on the fly? Right. What can you do that's not going to keep you held down? And that is so powerful. And we don't make we we do a really bad job of elaborating on what things mean. There's a lot of just surface level, you know, discussions out there. It's, you know, mile wide and inch deep. Well, you know, I'd rather, and that's like in reference to fear, too, it's mile wide and inch deep. Well, my understanding of certain topics, I would rather be, you know, an inch wide, a mile deep. Because then when you fully are in tune and understand something, it just further builds your conviction and understanding of the world around you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep. It's it's the depth of becoming an expert as you start to think about things in a much deeper sense. And by doing that, you can figure things out a little bit deeper and really start to see connections that other people don't normally see as you start to kind of dive into some of these topics or learn about yourself.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's one of the special things about, you know, I would say people like you. I don't like generalizing, right? But with like the engineering backgrounds and how you can connect different dots and make things work, you know, coherently organized in a special way. And then developing that abstract skill to being able to tie things in and connect them to different elements of the world, I think is a really unique and powerful skill. And it it's, I think it doesn't surprise me that you see a lot of people with engineering backgrounds who are super elaborate and successful because of their just innate and somewhat developed ability to see patterns, connect dots, and make things work and orchestrate, you know, fluently.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's uh it's interesting because like to me, it comes back to the questions you ask, questions you ask yourself. I think people do a better job of asking questions of other people than they do of themselves. And then taking time to actually sit and reflect on like what worked, what didn't work, and why didn't it work? And no one wants to sit and reflect. It's not fun, um, especially after losses, mistakes, challenges. It's like that's not fun, but that's really where the growth starts to happen. It wasn't my first boss, one of my first bosses. He used to come in as when we were doing technology consulting and we were we were pitching a new client. And I must have done this presentation for him like five times, just rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. And every single time it presentation got a little bit better. And after like the fourth or fifth time, he comes in to me, AJ. And the guy was a little bit of a dick, to be honest. But like I loved what he said to me right now. He goes, AJ, I want you to predict my needs before I need that. And so he says that. That to me, and he never really knew what he needed, to be honest. But it made me think, I go, now every time before I go into something, whether it's a presentation, whether it's me talking to a team, whether it's one-on-one coaching, I go in and I think, well, what questions are they going to ask me? How can I combat those ahead of time? All because he kept making me do this presentation every single time. And before after that, I could go in one time and usually we were done, finished kapo. But it made me think about it and reflect ahead of time like, what is what are they going to ask me before I actually send this, before I actually complete it? And it was me learning the habit. It's not like I learned it myself inherently, but it made me think ahead of time in terms of, let's go back to what you were mentioning. What are the obstacles that are going to run in my way? Because if I think about it from my perspective, I was framing it up. What obstacles is he going to give me that are going to stop me from making this say, this is complete, and I can move on to other things and other presentations and work. But it also made me think about from the customer perspective, from the person I'm talking to, from you, Colin, like, what are they going to ask me? What are they thinking about? What's their perspective on these different things? And it really made me get outside of myself as I start to think about framing it up and growth and reflection.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, it's it's funny. For whatever reason, that story just kind of makes me think of a sports example, a little bit different, somewhat parallel, in terms of like the predicting of like, hey, you need to figure out what I need before I know I need it. And when I was played in the AC's championship game against Clemson, you know, kind of going back to that adaptability piece, they had a really good, they had one of the best teams ever, but their special teams unit was underratedly very good. And their punt team would show periodically different looks. And so we studied all their looks that they had given throughout the year. Well, guess what? Their first punt formation was a look we had never seen. And my role at the time, in you know, some details are a little bit more foggy, right? I don't remember all the rules because I was six, seven years ago now, seven years ago. But I knew the fundamentals. I was like, okay, I was like, how many guys need to be on the line of scrimmage? Who's an eligible receiver? Who's covered up? Right. And then through that just dissection of knowing the fundamentals and the rules of the game, I was then able to call out, hey, we're good here. You can leave this person. I got this guy, you're good here. Maintain Russian blocking lanes. And it just it's an interesting parallel between engineering, between life, between sport, and how kind of everything navigates, moves together, and coordinates when you do things appropriately. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, you had the checklist, you had the template, like you just figured out where do we need to adapt.

SPEAKER_00:

Spot on, brother. Well, hey, I appreciate you. Anything else that you want to add on any of these topics that we've not yet discussed?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I think we I think we covered it. I mean, just to summarize for everyone out there, like we talk about those big skills, those high-level meta skills in terms of confidence, mental toughness, leadership. And it's like, to me, it's like, what are the habits you're doing consistently underneath and thinking about the sub-skills, and those are gonna help develop the main skills.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I appreciate you, brother. I'm I love uh I'm looking forward to doing more of these quick hitters too. I think they're gonna be incredibly valuable for the audience. Appreciate you, man. Can't wait to get this one out. Listeners again, thank you for tuning in. Tune in next week. Download the pod, subscribe to our YouTube channel, get used to seeing AJ five stars only, baby. Thanks, brother. Thanks, Colin.

SPEAKER_01:

Appreciate it.