#34 - The Nexus of Human Potential

Explore the profound insights from Rich Diviney, a Navy SEAL veteran, bestselling author and leadership expert, on how attributes and identity shape human performance under uncertainty. Discover how mindset, attributes, and identity influence resilience, team dynamics, and personal growth in a rapidly changing world. If you want to know who you are at your best and how to serve the people who matter most in your world, this episode is for you.


Key Topics:
🎖️Difference between attributes and skills
🦉How attributes drive performance under stress
🎖️The role of identity in behavior and physiology
🦉Team dynamics and adaptive leadership
🎖️Implications for personal development in uncertain times


Quotes:
“In a world shaped by AI, human value may lie less in what we do—and more in how we behave under uncertainty.”
“Skills are additive. Attributes are what show up when everything becomes uncertain.”
“The best thing you can do in uncertainty is decide which identity serves the moment best.”
“The words ‘I am’ are two of the most powerful words in the human language.”
“You can’t apply a known skill to an unknown environment.”
“Attributes are the elemental drivers behind all human performance.”
“AI may replace skills. It will not replace attributes or identity.”
“High-performing teams aren’t pyramids. They’re amoebas.”
“Flourishing isn’t avoiding uncertainty. It’s becoming the kind of person who can move through it.”
"Attributes and identity are the core of human value."


Chapters:
00:00 The Importance of Attributes in Uncertain Times
02:51 Insights from SEAL Training: Skills vs. Attributes
06:07 Mindset: The Key to Overcoming Challenges
09:05 Understanding Attributes vs. Skills
11:55 The Role of Attributes in Performance
15:03 Exploring Personal Attributes: A Case Study
17:51 Navigating Low Attributes: Understanding Blind Spots
21:04 The Balance of Attributes in Team Dynamics
23:53 Self-Reflection and Growth through Attributes
31:26 Understanding Extraversion and Introversion
32:58 The Dynamics of Task Switching
35:44 The Importance of Self-Awareness
36:52 Exploring Insouciance and Humility
38:40 The Power of Identity
45:31 Navigating Identity in Times of Change
49:02 Building High-Performing Teams

Check out Rich’s books on Amazon, and take The Attributes Assessment to learn more about your inherent superpowers and blindspots  - incredibly valuable intel to help you navigate in an exponentially changing world.

The Attributes Assessment 
The Attributes: 25 Hidden Drivers to Optimal Performance
Masters of Uncertainty (Book)
Rich Diviney's Official Website 
LinkedIn



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Connect with Gillian: 
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https://x.com/GillianStovelR 
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

The Flourish Feed Podcast, a series of curiosity-driven deep dives into the nature of flourishing through wealth. I'm your host, Gillian Stovell Rivers, M-A-C-F-P-C-E-A, Senior Wealth Advisor at CIA Sante Wealth Management.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

I will just say about AI. So our attributes and our identity are the massive value proposition, the MVP of human beings. And so if we start to lean in this direction, we can start to work with AI the way we're supposed to. I mean, the AI, I think, is a super powerful. I'm excited about all of it, but we have to we have to understand what we are there to bring to it. It is going to take away a lot of the skills stuff. That's fine. It's not going to take away attributes. It's not going to take away identity. There's so an MVP that the human can can give to the equation. That's what we have to focus on.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Skills help us perform when things are known, but attributes determine how we show up when nothing is certain. In a world increasingly shaped by AI, the future of human value may not lie in what we can do, but in how we behave under uncertainty. For this reason, I can think of no more appropriate time than now to start an ongoing conversation with my new friend Rich DeVinny. Rich DeVinny is a best-selling author, leadership and human performance expert, and retired Navy SEAL commander. In a career spanning more than 20 years, he completed more than 13 overseas deployments. As the officer in charge of training for an extremely specialized SEAL command, Rich was intimately involved in a highly specialized SEAL selection process, which pared down a group of already exceptional candidates to a small cadre of the most elite optimal performers. During this work, he gained the insight and passion for writing about these innate qualities that we all have inside, resulting in his first book, The Attributes. After retiring from the Navy in 2017, Rich translated his extensive SEAL experience with the SEALs into a groundbreaking approach known as the attributes performance method. This innovative system defines the landscape of hiring and team building for companies. Rich has dedicated himself to collaborating with various organizations and guiding them through effectively implementing this transformative method. Beyond the corporate sphere, Rich focuses on empowering individual performers and guiding personal development through his book, his assessments, and workbooks. Currently in the process of penning his second book, Masters of Uncertainty, Rich DeVinny is set to equip both individuals and teams with invaluable tools for thriving in an uncertain world. Drawing parallels with Navy Sea Resilience, the book aims to impart strategies on stress management that are as formidable as those employed by elite military forces. Rich DeVinny, welcome to the Flaris Feet Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Thank you, Julian. It's great to be here. So thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Yes, wonderful. So let's start with this. Your work comes out of one of the most extreme environments imaginable, SEAL teams. What did you see in these environments that made you realize that skills weren't enough to explain performance?

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Well, you know, it's I think it's the number one thing you recognize and see is when you go to training, uh, SEAL training. So SEAL training is known as BUDS, basic underwater demolition slash SEAL training. It's uh it's six months long, it's held in San Diego, San Diego, California. There's about an 85 to 90 percent attrition rate at that training. So only about 10 to 15 percent of the guys who start make it through. Uh so it's extremely difficult, extremely selective. And you know, you when I when I showed up there, it was it was very quickly apparent that the physical capabilities of the candidates had very little to do with whether or not they'd make it through. In other words, you get Division I athletes coming in and quitting within the first couple days, and then you'd have guys who never even saw the ocean from the Midwest who who made it through. And so uh so it became and it's even take me. I was never an athlete. I mean, I was I tried to stay in shape, I played sports, but I was never an athlete. And so um, and so being able to make it through that made me start to really think about wait a second, what is it about us, this this little cadre of guys who made it through that is different than everybody else who tried? Or and and that's like and when I say different, I mean I mean, I mean unique and and um but not better, you know. You know, there you know, again, you know, elite means better, special means different. We are special warfare, we're different than everybody, you know. And so, and so what were those things? And and then going through my steel career, you know, of course, going to combat many, many times, you recognize that you know you are constantly in environments where it is uncertain and you don't know what's going on. You have to figure out what's going on, you have to figure out as you go. So skills become something that just is our additive. You you can't apply a skill to an unknown environment. You have to figure out the environment first. And so uh so that's really what I began to kind of consider wait a second, there's something more here, and it began to really get get keyed in on what that was.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

That is really interesting because it sounds like, um, we're gonna get further into this, but on first blush, it sounds like a type of mental stamina that is almost sparked by uncertainty and instead of thrown off by it. So I mean, when you look at the people maybe who let's look at the ones who didn't make it, the 15 to 20 percent that don't make it out of the SEAL training that you're talking about. What things did you see? What demonstrations of activity did you see that that started to become a pattern for you as to why it was they didn't have that capacity for uncertainty? Was it physical, was it psychological, physiological?

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Yeah, I think it was and it was actually, yeah, I would say it was it was 85 to 90 percent that didn't make it through. But that group, you know, first of all, sorry I had that backwards.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

85 to 90 didn't make it through.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

So but that group, and it first of all, it's difficult to see in the moment. I think a lot of this comes from, you know, looking back and kind of analyzing and studying. And I know the community's done a lot of work on trying to figure this out. Now, now I don't think any of us have solved the the equation. However, what we do know is that it is 99% mindset and 1% physical capability. Now, again, you have to be in shape enough to do the thing, yes. But but uh at 22, at 18 or 22 years old, that's you know, you're you're you're in pretty good shape. You're like Wolverine when it comes to resilience, at least physically. So it's so much mindset. And I think you know, the the when you go through that training, the primary goal for the instructor is to get you to zero. So if you're a great runner, then they're gonna make you swim a lot. If you're a great swimmer, they're gonna make you run a lot. If you can do a great, a lot of push-ups, they'll make you do sit-ups, you know. And for all of us, they just make you cold, wet, and and hungry and tired, and that's gonna get anybody. And so, so what the training's designed to do is get you down to that rawness that allows you to tap into what's up in your mind, in your brain, versus and then and then from there execute through your body. But um, and so ultimately, I think uh, and we can get into kind of some of the specifics as to the attributes I think some some guys have more of or predominance of that allows to you to get through. But I think anybody who goes there with a kind of this, I wouldn't say blasé, but kind of this this uh this mindset, oh, this would be really cool to do, you know, kind of thing. Oh, it's well, I see how the movies be kind of cool, kind of neat. They're they're in for they're in for a shock because there's nothing cool, there's nothing neat, there's nothing sexy about what you're doing when you're in SEAL training. It's all miserable. And so you really have to want it inside and have to dig inside, and it goes way beyond that initial, oh, this is cool. And even when you are a SEAL, there's nothing. We always joke with our teammates, there's nothing cool about what you what you do. I always, you know, there was, I'd get I get asked by a lot of young men who want to be SEALs about being a SEAL. I remember giving a talk to some young sailors, and I said, you all have to realize that you know, when you're on a mission, when you're jumping out of airplanes or in the in the pitch black water or whatever, doing the mission, there's never any cool music playing. Okay, it always stinks, right? They they they it'll you know, the seals will suck the fun out of everything. If you're if you're skydiving, it's 20,000 feet, pitch black dark with tons of gear. And if you're scuba diving, it's cold water, it's dark, it's it's wet, it's it's scary. I mean, it's it's never cool, right? So, what is cool is when you're done with it and you look back and say, oh, look what I did, but there's nothing cool about the actual doing the mission. It's always hard. So you just you you you learn that day one of SEAL training, and then for the six months of of continued training, and then of course in your career as well.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

All of those explanations are so remarkable because and and really what you're talking about couldn't be better timed, I think, as far as what we're gonna get to later in the in the chat. But this is a moment of of growing peak uncertainty for a lot of people in everyday life. And what you talked about when you said 99% of this comes down to mindset, it resonates with me because I was at an event last week at MIT and Peter Diamandis, who's a very well-known tech entrepreneur, he was there and he said the one thing that people need for the next two to 10 years is to have that incredibly refined mindset. No matter who you are, where you live on the planet, there's so much change coming at us so quickly that it's like jumping into ice cold black water for a lot of people. So, what I want to ask about is the difference between attributes instead of skills and what is the difference and why it matters so much. But then I want to move towards the trainability of skills versus attributes. So tell us a little bit about that, particularly as it relates to the concept of just blanket uncertainty.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Yes. Well, the uh the the difference in attributes and skills is something I discovered when I was when I was in the SEAL teams. One of my so in in 2005, I applied for and got selected for and made it through the training for SEAL Team 6. And SEAL Team 6 is one of those commands that very few people knew about uh until, of course, we you know rescued Captain Phillips and Gado Osama bin Laden, and then the whole world knew about SEAL Team 6, which was bizarre. But to get there, it's a very specific and specialized selection process. So you have to do, first of all, you have to have been an AV SEAL for at least five years. You have uh psychological tests, uh physical tests, you have to have recommendations, stellar performance reviews, all that stuff. If you get through that stuff and you get invited to the command, you then go through a nine-month training process, selection course, we call green team, it's Nakedam Green Team, and only 50% of the guys make it through. So 50% of the guys are not making it through. I took over that training, I was put in charge of that training in 2010, and at the time we had for years been having trouble explaining why certain guys weren't making it through. These are top dudes not making it through. And we would say something like, Well, the guy couldn't shoot very well. And you know, a guy you tell a Navy SEAL of that caliber he can't shoot very well. This is a guy who's probably shot more rounds than most people in the military. So it becomes disingenuous to him and us, and and the leadership starts asking questions. So they said, Rich, we need you to articulate this better. This is when I really began to think about performance differently. And and one of the things I thought about was, you know, when I look at regular Navy SEAL training, you know, you spend hundreds of hours, so this is Buds now, you spend hundreds of hours uh running with big heavy boats on your head, you spend hundreds of hours exercising and running around with 300-pound telephone poles. And by the time I was doing this work in 2010, I'd already been on hundreds of combat missions in both Iraq and Afghanistan. And in not on one of them did I ever carry a big heavy boat on my head or a 300-pound telephone pole. So I realized what they were doing to us in SEAL training was not training us in the skills to be Navy SEALs. They were in fact teasing out these qualities, these attributes. Did we have what it takes to be Navy SEALs? And that's really when I began to hit me, it began to hit me. The other the other fun story that I was told by a friend of mine, he was he invented SEAL instructor years before I'd gone. And he said, Rich, there's a story about a kid who showed up to SEAL training one day, and he walked into the instructor's offices and said, I want to be a Navy SEAL. And so the so the uh the instructor said, Okay, you have to do a swim test. And the kid says, Fine. So they take him out to the pool. It's an easy test. It's 25 meters to one end, 25 meters back to the other end. Anyway, the kid gets all ready to go, he jumps into the pool and then sinks right to the bottom of the pool. And at the bottom of the pool, he starts walking across the bottom of the pool to one end, and then he touches the one end, and then he walks across the bottom of the pool back to the other end. He comes up, he's gasping for air, and the instructor looks at him and says, What the hell are you doing? And the kid, who's still trying to catch his breath, looks at the instructor and says, I'm sorry, instructor, I don't know how to swim. And at that point, the instructor looks at the kid and says, That's okay, we can teach you how to swim. Right. And why did he say that? He said that because he knew this kid had the this the qualities, the attributes to show up to Navy SEAL training without knowing how to swim. He had everything inside of him for him to be a Navy SEAL. Teaching him the skill of swimming was going to be easy. And so I began to understand there's a bifurcation between these terms. And skill is just a real quick definition. Skills are not inherent to our nature. They're learned. You know, we're we're trained, they're taught. No one's no one's born with the ability to ride a bike or throw a ball. We're trained to do those things. Skills also direct our behavior known in specific environments. Here's how and when to throw a ball or ride a bike. And then finally, because they're very visible, they're very easy to assess, measure, and test. You can see how well anybody does any one of those things. You can put scores around them, you can put statistics around them, you can put them on resumes, which is why we get seduced by skills often when we're hiring or picking teams. The problem with skills is they don't tell us how we're going to show up in stress, challenge, and uncertainty, because in an unknown environment, it's very difficult, if not impossible, to apply a known skill. So this is when we lean on attributes. Attributes, on the other hand, are elemental, they're inherent to our nature. So in other words, all of us are born with levels of patience, adaptability, situational awareness. Now, you can certainly develop attributes, which we'll talk about over time and experience, but you can see levels of this stuff in very small children. Okay. Any of us who have kids or have experienced kids will tell will agree with me when I say there are one and a half year olds who are patient and there are one and a half year olds who are impatient. Okay. So there's a nature nurture element to attributes. Attributes don't direct our behavior, they inform our behavior. They tell us how we're to show up to an environment. So my son's levels of perseverance and resilience informed the way he showed up when he's learning the skill of riding a bike and he was falling off a dozen times doing so. And then finally, because they're difficult to see, they're very difficult to assess, measure, and test. So, how do you how do you measure someone's levels of adaptability or patience, right? But they show up the most visibly and viscerally during times of stress, challenge, and uncertainty. And they are really the elemental drivers behind all of our performance. They are even underneath personality. When and when when we're at our most raw, when the you know what hits the fan, personality goes out the window. But we're still running on this set of attributes. And so I really began to understand that these attributes are driving our performance, not only every day, but especially defining our performance at our most raw. And if you talk about high-performing teams and high performing humans, the commonality between high-performing teams and high-performing humans is we understand ourselves and we perform at our most raw. We know exactly what's showing up, and we're comfortable with that. This is what understanding our unique attribute set allows us to do.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

That is fascinating. And the fact that you've come up with a psychometric assessment that allows you to measure and test these attributes. I'm trying to recall because I'm gonna share the screen now that shows my attributes report, and we're gonna talk through just the framework of the top five and the bottom for the highest five and the lowest five attributes you have for me. Was it 160 questions? I'm trying to recall.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Yeah, roughly between 160 and and uh 200 or so. I can't remember. Yeah, we've we tried that, we've tried to cut it down as much as much as possible, but it's tough when you have 36 attributes.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

No kidding. All right, so I've put up on the screen here my highest five attributes, which for those of you who are listening to this, instead of looking at it, were perseverance in number one. Then we had self-efficacy, conscientiousness, creativity, and learnability. And then we had a score for each of those, which is descending as I go through those five. And then there's this term called group. And for perseverance, for example, that appeared in the personal drive group, same with self-echo-efficacy. But then conscientiousness is an internal compass measure, and then creativity and learnability are cognitive range measures. So, Rich, talk me through you as my coach now on my highest five attributes. What do you see here and what does this assessment mean?

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Yes. So a couple things here, which we have to be very clear on, and that is when you look at your attributes, first of all, we all have all 36, which you know now because you've done the assessment. So you you in when you do the assessment, you get your ranking from one to 36. So just because, and I can't remember, let me see what your uh, because I have your report here. I think your 36th was competitiveness. So just because competitiveness is your last attribute doesn't mean you are you don't have competitiveness. It just means you prioritize all the attributes before competitiveness. You're lower on that. Okay, so we all have all of them. And what we have to understand is the ranking begins to determine how we show up. One of the things I do want to uh highlight here, and I can and again, uh we're we're we're always uh evolving and modding this stuff, and one of the things we're probably gonna do is take out that score. The reason why I don't want you to pay too much attention to the score is because everybody takes assessments differently. So the score, all the score is let me well, let me let me back up. Everybody takes assessments differently. So so one person takes an assessment, they may they might answer always and never a lot. Another person will take an assessment and they never answer always and never, right? So one person could have perseverance at their number one at a 6.8 like you do. Another person could have perseverance as their number one at a 5.9. All right. All we care about is where perseverance is, right? Where it ranks out. So that's number one. Look at your ranking versus anything else. The other thing I want to just highlight before I get into your top five here are your top five and bottom five. When it comes to your attributes, your top five and your bottom five do not equal your strengths and weaknesses. This is not like a personality test, okay? In other words, your success as a human being is as much because of your bottom five as your top five. And we're going to talk about why that is. All of our attributes, high and low, come with both strengths and blind spots. We have to be aware of. As we get closer to the edges, the tops and the bottoms, those are the attributes that are we're just more predominating to uh it's more our behavior is more predominant towards that level. If we get to the middle ones, it means that we flow generally fairly easily between the two polarities. That's all that means. So when we look at yours, you perseverance being your number one, and I I encourage you, you'll when you go back to the hub, you'll see it says a quick report or a quick view report. You can look at that, and that'll show your one through 36 ranking. And then the other two pages will show strengths or advantages and blind spots for each of your top five bottom five. And I'm going to go through some of those with you right now. So you can see perseverance. So one of the things about perseverance is you have a real capacity to remain steadfast in the face of getting knocked down and exhaustion. In other words, when you get knocked down, you keep on getting up. You just keep on coming, right? That's your perseverance, that's your high perseverance going. It doesn't matter, you get knocked down seven times, you get up eight. That's high perseverance, okay? So that's a huge advantage. Now, a blind spot you must be aware of because you're so high in perseverance, is that you're so wired to never quit, you may stay on a failing path for too long, trying to persevere through a situation that actually requires a pivot, right? Again, blind spots don't mean that they're always happening. It just means you have to be aware of that when you're so high on that attribute. Okay. Self-efficacy, another thing about self-efficacy, you know, hugely powerful attribute because it just means you have the confidence in the abil in your ability to handle whatever comes your way. You have this, you, you have the optimism, the initiative, and the confidence that you're like you're just gonna get it done. You're a self-starter, you're a natural self-starter. All right, so that's a huge advantage, and your high self-efficacy speaks to that. What's a blind spot? Well, a blind spot to high self-effect efficacy is because you're so you're so fast and so confident in moving out, you may have a reluctance to ask for help, okay? Because you believe you can do it on your own. And if you wait too long, it'll be uh it'll be it'll be too slow. All right. So so you you just have to be aware of the fact that your high self-efficacy is going to be one of those things that causes you to sprint forward. And in a team environment, you have to be careful because you may leave your team behind because you're so fast. So that's one of the blind spots. All right, conscientiousness advantage, right? You are wired for reliability and thoroughness, okay? You just you have real internal drive to do things the right way and maintain a standard of excellence. It's awesome. It's a real strength, and there's there's there's obviously things you can probably point at to your conscientiousness being a huge advantage. What's a blind spot? Again, I want to just make sure every make everybody clear blind spots don't mean they're happening, it means we have to be aware that they may happen.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Okay, so far you're two for two on blind strengths.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

A blind spot to high conscientiousness is that your your desire and and drive for perfectionism may lead you to struggle to make things in you you might overanalyze and stay on something because you just you might want things to be perfect. You're like, oh, it has to be perfect, right? So you just have to be careful about getting too paralyzed or overanalyzing because you're so wired to say, hey, this has to be done the right way and thorough. Okay, so something be aware of. Creativity. Now, creativity, really interesting. That these attributes get really cool and interesting when you start understanding the differences between some of the ones that seem synonymous. So you may have noticed that there's an attribute of creativity, there's also an attribute of innovativeness. These are two different things, okay? Creativity is the ability to um to use your imagination to bring into existence that which otherwise didn't exist. Okay, so creativity is this like sculptor with a lump of clay, painter with a blank canvas, writer with a blank sheet of paper. Innovativeness is the ability to use imagination to take something that's currently in existence and modify it and make it better. Okay, you swing more towards, and I have to look at where let me just really see where uh where you are on in so you're actually you're fairly high on innovativeness as well, number 15. So I say you're you're actually good on both. You swing. More towards creativity. In other words, you're more precluded to be the uh the creator of original ideas. Like you're more comfortable in kind of the creating the original form new ideas type stuff, which is awesome. Okay. What's a blind spot of being really creative is if you become enamored with new ideas, it might be uh overcomplicating to tasks that just need a simple solution really fast. Okay. So so you may have to stem your new idea factory, we call it in the teams. Yeah. Because it's like, hey, this we did this there's no new idea factories, we just have to go, right? Something to be aware of. All right. Cool, great. And then learnability. So learnability, I want also everybody to understand because if if if anybody in the audience takes this and they find themselves low on learnability, learnability has nothing to do with the ability to learn. Okay. Learnability has to do with the speed with which we learn and ingest and apply and metabolize our learnings. Okay. You are actually very easily able to rapidly ingest and process new concepts. You're kind of the person who I can tell I can tell you how to do something once and you got it. You very rarely make the same mistake twice. Okay. That's hugely advantageous, obviously, because you can actually be very versatile and rapid in your learning process in changing environments. Okay. What's a blind spot? Well, blind spot, biggest blind spot for learnability for those high on learnability is their frustration with people who are slower in learning stuff.

unknown 23:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Um, because it's just you're like, hey, get it. Why don't you get this, right? Also, you might become bored fairly quickly, uh, more quickly than the other person because you're just you're you're you're picking things up so fast, your brain's moving so fast, that you might want to move, you might have an urge to move on to the new challenge before you've actually fully adopted the uh the old one. In other words, because you pick up something so fast, it may be harder for you to stick to it for to achieve mastery because you're like, okay, I got it, move on.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Enough, yeah. And the other thing too, I think um you've you've you've explained me so well in 10 minutes or five minutes, however, this however long this took. It also speaks to why it is, or I guess an obsession with novelty. And I'm not saying I'm obsessed with novelty, but there is an attraction for people who do metabolize concepts quickly to move on to another thing, not necessarily, you know, with with mastery, but with a feeling of enough. So now we're gonna go to my low five attributes, which I think is gonna help me understand a little bit more about myself and how it is that I might be able to apply some of the learnings with uh this and the blind spots to maybe make some incredibly powerful changes to the way that I'm doing work with others. So talk to me about my lowest five.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

I will. And I will just remind you and everybody that that um we're gonna look at your lowest five and we're gonna ask ourselves, okay, let's talk about the advantages of this, because again, your success has become is because of your low five, right? You have their advantages and blind spots, and then the decision you're gonna have to come to is hey, do I actually even want to work on these low fives, right? Because just real quick, I kind of describe people, I describe human beings as automobiles. In other words, we're all we're all automobiles, we all have the same component parts. We have a steering wheel, we have tires, we have engine blocks, all that stuff, okay? But some of us are Jeeps and some of us are Ferraris and some of us are SUVs. And we would never the Jeep, you'd never judge a Jeep for not being able to drive as fast as a Ferrari, you'd never judge a Ferrari for not being able to go off-road like a Jeep. And so what we have to understand is we want to figure out what kind of vehicle we are. Because if I'm a Jeep, what I want to do is I want to maximize my Jeepness. And if I try to, for example, develop an attribute on low on, if a Jeep tries to tries to put something in in its engine so it goes faster, it may lose some of its ability to go off-road, right? So we have to be careful about which attributes we want to actually develop. And we have to be very cognizant and discerning in terms of, hey, this by developing this one, it's actually going to up my game in many areas. But we don't, the broad answer is not, oh, I got they're low, I need to develop them. The the answer is, hey, how do I maximize these? All right. So let's talk about your low ones. All right. And let's start, we'll start with competitiveness since it's number 36. Okay. All this means, so so competitiveness as an attribute just means um the well, let me let me put it this way: the high competitive person, it's how we look at the world. The high competitive person looks at the world in terms of winning and losing. Okay, they they they um they're wired to try to understand the rules and conditions that define winning and losing. Because you can't you can't have winning and losing unless there's rules and conditions that define that, right? So so the the high competitive person will immediately go into environments and be able to discern immediately what the rules and conditions are, or if there are no, if they if they're not really very, if they're kind of vague, they will they will create them or even make them up. You we all know the high competitive person, they'll find a way to make a game out of anything, okay? They'll just put rules to it. Lower competitive people like myself and you, we go into environments and we kind of say there are no rules. All right. Rules don't really drive us, and winning and losing doesn't motivate us very well. So so you and I are the type of people who, if we're in a group of, say we're on a okay, say we're on a business retreat or something, and we have a group of uh colleagues with us, and they're like, okay, everybody, we're gonna do a we're gonna do a race or something, and the winner gets this. You know, people like you and I, the the winning thing is not gonna motivate us very much, right? We we're we're we're driven by other things versus that. So we just look at the world differently. So as so by being low on competitiveness, it's it really says you're not driven by the need to win, okay? What that or or beat others? Beating someone doesn't really, you know, it doesn't really um drive uh drive you. It makes you a very excellent team player. You're happy to share the resources and information because for you, it's like, hey, if we all win, that's all cool. I don't need to be the winner, you know, it's it's it's it's good. So you're actually a really good team player, okay? Where is that a blind spot? Where do we have to be concerned, you and I, for being low on competitiveness? Well, we may we may be lacking the drive that is needed in certain environments where black and white winning actually matters, where outperforming is the primary goal. There are environments, this is why the SEAL teams, most of most SEALs people might think are this surprising. Most SEALs are actually aren't aren't high on competitiveness because we all kind of we're all kind of like there are no rules type guys, right? But there are some guys who are high competitive. And and we found in all the work we've done on in multiple teams across the world, the best teams actually have both polarities represented because it's so often in business or otherwise where it is actually quite black and white what winning and losing looks like. And you need someone to say, hey, this is winning and losing, let's go. Um there are other environments where, like, hey, winning and losing doesn't matter, right? So to have both polarities represented is actually maximized on is actually best for both teams. But that's that would be a blind spot of low competitiveness, is we just don't, we're not driven by it. And so competitiveness, when when the environment actually requires it, it we're gonna really have to get down and draw drive ourselves to actually feel that motivation. All right.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Well, no wonder I'm a little confused though about myself and and where my drive comes from, because on the one hand, I'm low competitive, but on the other hand, I run ahead. Maybe we can come back to how you would fix me, whether I'm a Jeep or a Ferrari, I don't know which one I am. But I think that this is so insightful, and I'm hoping we can get to the place where, you know, maybe there's one or two takeaways as far as what it is that someone would do with what feels like not contradictory information, because it's not contradictory, but it it does present me as somebody who has some conflicting attributes. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Well, let me ask you this. I think you I think if I'm correct, you might be saying that you feel like um while you don't while you might agree with the fact that you don't need to win or beat others, you feel like you are competitive with yourself. Is that something you'd say?

SPEAKER_01 29:39

I'm super competitive with myself.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Yeah. So uh so so here's the good news is that that is um impossible. You can't be competitive against yourself because you can't win or lose against yourself. What you are are in fact, you're very driven, and you're driven to actually succeed and move out. This that's your high self-efficacy, by the way, right? So so you can't, it's a competitiveness is always external to us, right? Because it's about winning and losing, and we can't beat ourselves. If we find I I meet people all the time like this, by the way. You are not uh you're you're you're not the first, right? Those people who really feel like, oh man, I am competitive, but you know, because I'm really competitive against myself. No, no, competitive against yourself means you're driven. You're driven to do things, to achieve, to, to accomplish, to do better than you did before, but it has nothing to do with beating other people. And and and by the way, you can break all you can break all the rules you want to do that. There are no rules assigned to beating your last, you know, your last goal or whatever, right? So so that's where competitive, we have to separate competitiveness from this internal drive because competitiveness is actually external. Does that does that help make it more sense?

SPEAKER_01 30:44

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SPEAKER_00 32:25

Yeah, so extroversion, extrovert. Listen, all we all extroversion is, and we have to just the the audience has to understand, has nothing to do with your ability to be social or even the enjoyment we get out of being social. It has to do with where we get our energy from. Okay, so as someone who's low on extroversion, which means you're more introverted, it just means you tend to get your energy more from within and with small groups. 100%. You can do it by yourself or with small groups. Doesn't mean that you don't like being social, doesn't mean that you're not good at being social. The difference is so my wife, so I'm at I'm I'm low on extroversion as well, or introverted. My wife is high on extroversion. All that means is we can go to a cocktail party together, we can walk into that cocktail party with 50 people, we can spend three hours visiting and socializing. Both of us are having a great time, both of us are enjoying ourselves. The only difference is when we leave that party, all I want to do is go to bed.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

My batteries have been draining, hers, hers have been uh filling up, right? So the what's a blind spot? Blind spots to low extroversion are that we we find social gatherings draining, right? So so we have to spend some more conscious energy on networking and getting in there and forcing ourselves into those environments. That's all that means, right? Uh, which I'm sure that happens to you when I'm on trips. You know, if I do a if I do an event with people, I love listen, I'm in front of people all day long and I actually love it, okay? Oftentimes they'll be like, hey, do you want to go have dinner or do that? And and part of me is like, no, all I need to do is just be my you know, have to recharge because I'm drained, right? So sometimes I have to force myself. I need to do this. This is a good thing to do, right? So that's the that's what that means, okay? Task switching, low task switching, all that means is your your uh so task switching is the ability to focus to to shift your your focus between two things, right? So, in other words, you're you're able to go from the email to the phone call to this to that very rapidly. You can pull out and then push back and then focus back in very rapidly. You're low on that, which means it's more difficult. So if you're, for example, writing an email and someone comes in with a conversation and you and it it it breaks your focus, it's difficult for you to get that focus in, and it's going to be difficult for you to get back into what you're doing. Okay. Being low on it just means you probably you likely possess a capacity for deep singular focus. You're much better at engaging in something and staying with it.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

I actually now that you say it that way, I do agree with that because I do find I am capable of task switching, but I have taught myself not to task switch. And as a result, I have probably enhanced my ability for deep, long periods of focus and lost maybe some of what I maybe naturally had as a skill set around task switching. But it it is a conscious choice, and that's where this is one of the ones where I thought, I wonder if that kind of crosses over into skill land a little bit, but you're probably right. Maybe my propensity for long deep focus is the prevailing attribute here.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Well, the the idea would be, and by the way, you can we can we can consciously dial up or dial down any of these attributes in most moments, right? And that's what we're doing in most everyday life, right? If we're low on patients, for example, there are environments we're walking into and it's like, hey, I gotta dial up on patients. It just takes conscious energy to do that. So it's very likely that you're either consciously doing that, you know, when you need to, or over time you've actually trained, you've actually de-developed that attribute. Because that's it, that can happen too. So you're you're you may have been really good at task switching, and then slowly you've been saying, you know, I actually need to need to do better at the focus stuff. What the way we can answer that more fully, and you only you could answer this, would be if you think about yourself when the you know what hits the fan at your most, most raw, what's gonna be your more what's what's it what what are you being more prequel to you? What do I fall forward to?

SPEAKER_01 36:02

Yeah, and and it is absolutely in insane blinders, like crazy blinders.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

So that's and this but that that's why that is. But but but absolutely you are likely every day taking conscious focus to dial it up. And most of us can do that. We just have to know, and this is what what why understanding your attributes ranking is so important, at your most raw, when the you know what hits the fan, this is your stack, right? This is how you're showing up, right? That's so cool. And knowing that is really very powerful.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

This is your stack. What a great way of looking at it. This is how you most naturally will show up in the face of uncertainty. And that, I mean, coming back to your mindset comment at the very beginning about 99% of the game for the people that made it through those multiple levels of SEAL training, what came down to mindset? That's so helpful the way you put it as the stack. So let's talk about the last two, and then I want to move over to a discussion about identity in your next book.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, and I I'm sorry I'm taking so long just because super valuable. Okay, enthusians, real quick, insouciance, all that means is the casual lack of concern or indifference to what other people think. So someone who's high in souciance is you you you see them all the time, or you know, so you see them once in a while where they just seem to not care what anybody thinks. They just do their thing and they just are who they are, right? And they're they're just they're just out there, right? Honestly, there's a there's advantage to that. There's you know, you know, iconoclism, all that stuff, they just are who they are. Those of us who are lower in souciance, we actually care what people think and we care how we're perceived, so that being that high being highly attuned to those social norms and standards, it makes us very pressure, uh say, very professional, and we're able to kind of modulate our behavior in ways that are in tune to a group, okay? So we can we can we can flow because we're actually in tune and we care what people think. Obviously, a blind spot to the to low in Souscience that we have to be aware of is we may be overly sensitive to what the opinions of others are, what we think people think, leading us to either suppress our perspective or avoid disapproval or even behave in a certain way. So just something to think. By the way, very high and souscience people, their blind spot is they may be a social grenade, all right? Because they might just act without thinking about it. No filter.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

Yeah, no filter. That's right. So that's where Susan lies, and then humility. Being low on humility, again, it doesn't mean you don't have humility, it doesn't mean you're not humble. It just means you are actually, you're actually very, you have a strong sense of your self-worth and you're not afraid to take credit for your accomplishments, right? You it allows you to advocate for yourself and your ideas with confidence, okay? Ensuring that your contributions are recognized. So you can you're you're able to really step up and advocate, okay? Blind spot to low humility is, and again, just a blind spot. It may or may not happen, is it may you may struggle to admit when you're wrong or take a back seat. Okay. There's uh there there is sometimes if you're if you're if you're that confident in terms of your your um uh what your your ideas and your positions, okay. It may to some people it may appear arrogant or dismissive if you're overly because you're so focused on maintaining your okay, hey, this is how I think, this is what I'm doing. So so it's just a it's just more kind of, hey, this is this is generally how I show up and you know what might be some blind spots. So all right, that is your top five bottles.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

It's amazing. And and now, and I mean it's an incredibly valuable report. I I'm gonna take the screen share down now, but it is a 48-page report, super valuable, so full of so many insights. And to have you talk it out like that has helped me to see, you know, where are the things that I kind of been suppressing that are actually natural attributes for myself, and what are the ones that I, you know, by pointing at them and and and I guess honoring them in a way, it gives me a sense of blind spots, but also superpowers that I really need to be proud of when I show up to work on a team. So now I want to cross over into the from attributes over to identity because you you mentioned this next book focuses on identity. And we touched on something fascinating, which is when you and I chatted about this first, that identity can actually influence physiology. So, how does identity shape behavior or be or or inform our physiology, especially under stress and uncertainty?

SPEAKER_00 40:04

Well, it's a great question. So I so I have so my second book is already out. That's it's called That's Masters of Uncertainty.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

It's the new book that's about identity.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

Okay, I mean, it came out last year. However, in Masters of Uncertainty, I talk about those things that we need to understand about ourselves so that we understand how we behave in uncertainty, challenge, stress. There's six things, I'm just the there's uh three are physiological, neurological, three are actually internal to us. Two of those three, one is attributes, which we just talked about. You have to know your attributes. The second is identity. Okay, and so uh when in writing that chapter about identity, I said, Oh, I need to write a whole book on this, and we'll talk about that. Here's the deal with identity it is the the words I am are two of the most powerful words in the human language because whatever we put after I am is actually what shapes our identity and therefore I our behavior. What we have to recognize about ourselves is that as human beings, we actually are a collection of I ams that we collect over our lifetimes and our experience. Some are fairly powerful or pretty powerful, some are fairly benign. Okay, so I went to this high school, I played lacrosse, I am a husband, I'm a father, I'm a Navy SEAL, I'm a Metallica fan, or I'm a motorcycle enthusiast. Okay, all of these I ams, every single one, both benign and powerful, come with rules and conditions and behaviors that define what it means to be part of that identity, okay? Because we all want to be parts of groups and it just defines that way. What we have to recognize as humans is that in uncertainty, challenge, and stress, we are going to behave towards whatever identity we were prioritizing in that moment. Okay. So in some cases, this is gonna be very advantageous, right? When I was overseas, you know, my Navy SEAL identity was prioritized. That's what I was behaving towards, okay? However, there are occasions where we'd be on target, the whole target would shift or change. Suddenly we'd be taking care of women and children and civilians, and I'd bring my husband-father identity forward because I have I want to change my behavior, okay? That was a conscious shift. That's the most powerful thing you could do is you can consciously shift it. Okay. There are cases we've heard of this happening unconsciously, okay? The um, the most common one you've heard is the fanatical sports fan that beats the crap out of the other sports fan, all right, and is in front of the judge, and the judge is like, what were you thinking? And the person's like, Oh, I don't know what I was thinking. I was just in the moment, right? That person was behaving towards an identity in that moment, unconsciously, that had he been able to stem and say to himself, wait a second, okay, I know I'm that sports fan, but I'm also a father, I'm a businessman, I'm a professional, that person's behavior would have changed. Okay, so so what we have to understand is that those identities we carry are super powerful. They're driving our behavior, both in individual terms and in team terms. Okay, when we talk about culture, all culture is, is a group identity. That's what it is. And the most powerful cultures are the ones that have very explicit identities defined for themselves. The most powerful one out there is the Girl Scouts, are the Girl Scouts, okay? The Girl Scouts have what's called the Girl Scout Code. And it's about nine or ten things that that there's sentences that define their behavior as Girl Scouts, okay? And this is global. No matter where you go, every Girl Scout knows us. They carry that into their behavior all the time. Okay, it's a super powerful identity. And so the reason why I want to write the next book on it is because when we start diving into identity and what what our mindset about who we are does to even our physiology, it becomes remarkable. I mean, and I think you and I talked about in our first conversation, there are there there's reports, and of course, the if you dive in too deep, you get to like the real fringes. So that's why I want to actually get some solid research. But some of the some of the actual real solid stuff are of multiple personality disorder patients, so DID, dissent uh uh identity or DID, disassociative identity disorder, um, coming into a lab and being uh and just being you know looked at and studied. One person had, say, 12 identities. In one identity, there are they are diabetic, needing insulin, and then when they switch identities, they don't need insulin anymore. Okay. Uh in one identity, they're allergic to something, they have rash, okay, and When they switch identity, the rash goes away, they're no longer allergic. So, so there are the power of what we think about ourselves cannot be understated. And I want to dive into this, but just before I dive into it with a third book, which is you know gonna be a while, the second book just talks about how just being aware of some of these identities, in fact, as many as we can, because even the benign ones, even the small ones, are gonna drive behavior. Like the if you're a Swifty, that's gonna drive your behavior in certain environments, right? You know, so I mean if you're a cowboy, I mean it's gonna drive your behavior in certain environments, right? So just understanding what identities you possess and which ones you want to prioritize will in fact help you because the best thing you can do in uncertainty, challenge, or stress is to say, okay, which identity is the best right now? Get into that and start behaving.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

That is so brilliant. And I can't help but take this back to what I mentioned at the top of the episode, which was this period of great change and uncertainty related to AI. I mean, at the end of the day, that seems to be the prevailing thing that's coming at us with so much conversation around how that's going to change the job market, the labor market, what longevity looks like, how long people can live. And this sounds to me, because when you said finish this sentence, I am. I think back over my life, I've said lots of things at the end of that sentence. I was a competitive figure skater, I was a tri-athlet, I am a competitive CrossFit athlete, an Olympic lifter now. I am a mother, I'm a business owner, all these things. The fact that I've taken the opportunity over my life to try on all of these different I ams means I have an incredible, you know, tickle trunk of costumes that I could put on at any point in time. Do you think this is a moment where the breadth of things we could be and try would be a useful thing to train at instead of kind of pigeonholing ourselves as the one thing? Because I I look back over the 20th century and you look at people in career, especially in North America, so much of their identity was was within their career and they were the one thing. And then this is something I see in my work a lot, they transition into retirement and they don't know who they are anymore because they've been that one thing for so long. So have you are you looking at that particular transition out of workforce? Or what do you have, what do you have to say about all those things?

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Absolutely, because because one of the primary uh one of the primary reasons for PTSD in the Navy SEAL community is not, in fact, because of things we've saw or experienced on in the in combat. It's because a lot of the guys, they get out of the SEAL teams, and once you leave the SEAL teams, you are no longer a Navy SEAL. It's not like the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps has done a brilliant job, by the way, because the Marine Corps' whole mantra is once a Marine, always a Marine. This is why you can meet 90-year-old guys who say, Hey, I'm gunnery sergeant, whatever. They're still introducing themselves as gunnery sergeant. Not the same in the SEAL teams, okay? The SEAL team's motto mantra is earn your trident every day, right? As soon as you stop earning that trident, you will no longer wearing it. You're no longer a Navy SEAL. Now, I'm a former Navy SEAL, but the guys who have been most successful that I've known in the transition are the guys who've put that identity on the shelf and said, Okay, place of honor, great. I'm building, I'm I'm gonna fall back on another identity. So for me, it was I fell back on husband and father because I was always a powerful one, and then said, you know what, I'm gonna build a new identity. Okay, and so, and so in this world of uncertainty, even if you're, I mean, we're we're in the we're in a world where you don't have to retire anymore. There are people whose jobs are becoming obsolete in the moment, right? And so if they've tied their identity to the thing, they're gonna have a tough time figuring out what they're gonna do next. They're gonna feel a dearth, a vacuum. Okay, so so a couple things they can do. First of all, they can decide I'm going to build a new identity, and then they can actually redefine identity. I mean, your identity can be certain attributes. You know, if you're high on certain attributes, I mean the same attributes that allowed me to be an AV SEAL are the same attributes that are allowing me to write a book and build a business. That's right. I've just re- I've just leaned on them. So and then we can also, the cool thing about this is you can you can discard identities that may be you know benign and not useful, not valuable anymore. I mean, there's there are certain things that that you might say, yeah, no, I'm not that anymore. I don't, and oh, by the way, while I will always purport that that um that positive identity statements are are the most powerful, there are in fact some negative identity statements that can be just as powerful. There are people who have said in one moment, I am not a smoker, and in doing so, they they immediately redefine their behavior. Okay, and so and so I do not um I do not discourage the negative identity. I I would discourage having all negative, but um, but there are certain negative ones that um that are just as powerful. Um and it's a really, really powerful shift. And it can be, it's funny because because people might think, oh, identity is more permanent, attributes are changeable. It's actually the opposite. Attributes are more permanent, identity is changeable, it's immediately changeable based on what you believe in the moment, which has been proven in the lab with you know with the DID page.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

No kidding. Now, you've built you've built this platform that I'm even more impressed at today because we've talked it through. I now see other applications for people who might get de-skilled or or are uh or or repurposed out of a career and need to reskill themselves. You've built this platform to see how these dynamics also work in terms of teams. Just talk to us a little bit about the team part of what you do with an attributes report for a group of people. And I don't know, does that is that something you also see shifting as the world and the workforce shifts as far as its applicability or its utility? Tell us a little bit about the team structure.

SPEAKER_00 49:32

Well, yeah, I mean, I've seen it shift. Uh, some people are hesitant, some people are more uh more embracing. Uh the key is it has to shift. And the reason is this the way we would describe a high-performing team, and I talk about this in both books actually, because it's that important. If I were to draw for you the task organizational shape of a high-performing team, it would not be a pyramid, it would not be a flat line, it would not even be an upside-down pyramid. Okay. What would it what it would be or look like is a blob or an amoeba. And the reason is because the leader in that blob is wherever the leader needs to be in the moment. Okay, and and we call this dynamic subordination. Dynamic subordination means that a team understands that challenges and issues and problems can come from any angle at any moment. And when one does, the person who's closest to that problem and the most capable immediately steps up and takes lead. And everybody follows. And then the environment shifts and someone else steps up and takes lead. It's a dynamic swap between leader and follower relationship. I also call it alpha hopping. The alpha position just hops to wherever it needs to be. This is how all high-performing teams operate. I was an officer in the SEAL teams. I was in charge, I went on hundreds of combat missions, I was in charge of every single one. Did not mean I was always being supported. In fact, most of the time it was the opposite. I was supporting other people. Okay, sometimes the environment would shift, they'd be in support of me. But it's all environmentally dependent. It tells us that our job on a team has nothing to do with our rank and hierarchy. Our job on a team has everything to do with what we are there to contribute to the team. Now, the only way, and as leaders, by the way, it's our it's our responsibility to create a dynamically subordinating environment. The only way to do that is to understand what everybody brings to the table, right? I need to understand who my Jeeps are, who my Ferraris are, who my party buses are, who my SUVs are, because and I need them to understand that the truck with each other because when the party bus is needed, the party bus steps forward. When the Ferrari is needed, the Faris Ferrari steps forward, and everybody falls into place and play in that dynamic swap of leadership. And so it's absolutely critical if you want to create a dynamically subordinating team to understand the attributes of yourself and all your teammates so you can start stepping up. And it's funny because you mentioned it, you you said exactly what we hear in all of our workshops. We have there's often hesitancy for teams to do their attributes assessment and talk about it with a group like, well, I don't want to, but as soon as they recognize that attributes are non-judgmental, they get super proud of their highs and their lows. And they say, wait a second, I'm now proud of my cheapness, and I'm really cool. It's really cool that you're a Ferrari, you're opposite me. It does a couple things. First of all, it in it enamors everybody to talk about themselves in a powerful way. It also completely takes away judgment, okay? Because a lot of the blind spots of our attributes is because is what we'll find is we'll get frustrated with people who don't have the attribute we do. Okay, so so I no longer get frustrated with the low pay or the low patience person. If I'm high patients and I see low patients, I think impulsive, too quick, too fast, you know, all that stuff, right? The high patients or the low patience person looks at the high patient person and says slow, procrastinates, you know, doesn't move fast enough, right? Now that all goes away. Now I look at the low patients person and say, wait a second, that's someone who can actually speed me up when I need. And then the high patients looks at that person, low person that at that comes with someone who I can lean on to slow myself down when I need to. So you begin to create this empowerment between the attributes in a way that everyone's like, oh wow, we actually have a really phenomenal team because now we know each other. This is the secret to SEAL training. SEAL training is all about, I mean, day one, you learn yourself at you learn your most raw and you learn your teammates at your most raw. All SEALs do is we know each other at most raw.

SPEAKER_01 52:53

Right. Yeah, no kidding.

SPEAKER_00 52:55

We just lean on each other that way. Yeah. And so and so the the the workshops we do with uh with teams allow for them to get make those discoveries and they can move out so much faster.

SPEAKER_01 53:04

That is so brilliant. And I think there's a couple of topics we're not even gonna get to today, but they would be so juicy in the face of where we're just coming off of. And that has to do with when you start to fit AI agents into teams and and how that I mean, I don't even know if that's a part of your new book, but also the the other term that I'm really a fan of lately too is the synchrony that gets created when you have that understanding of each other at your most raw, and that there's a there's a speed element and there's a uh an instinct element that probably becomes heightened because you are so aware of the whole amoeba, not just of yourself. But to finish off today, I I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 53:43

If I could just add one thing, Julian, just because I wanted to say, because you're absolutely right. And I will just say about AI. One of the reasons why we feel like this is so important is because the the one thing the AI that AI are the two things AI does not have attributes and identity. Okay, so our attributes and our identity are the massive value proposition, the MVP of human beings. And so if we start to lean in this direction, we can start to work with AI the way we're supposed to. I mean, the AI, I think, is a super powerful. I'm excited about all of it, but we have to we have to understand what we are there to bring to it. Um, it is gonna take away a lot of the skills stuff. That's fine. It's not gonna take away attributes, it's not gonna take away identity. There's so an MVP that the human can can give to the equation. That's what we have to focus on.

SPEAKER_01 54:24

What a brilliant teaser. Oh, we're gonna use that one. That is seriously, that uh I I can't wait to read the new book when it comes out. I am super grateful because today's conversation just reminds me that, you know, as you just said a moment ago, these two aspects of attributes and identity are core to the human experience. They're also core to the value we can continue to offer no matter what else is changing around us, but we gotta know them. And so doing the attributes assessment and getting your attribute support, understanding your role within your team, but also who you can be to constantly recreate yourself, that is a stroke of genius. Did you see? Did you have like a crystal ball or something that this was all gonna be so useful?

SPEAKER_00 55:03

I I um no, I I think, and I I I first of all, I like to think about things. And and this is actually more for the for the younger folks listening. I spend a lot of time in my head. I don't listen to music, I don't scroll on my phone, I put my phone away. If I'm on an airplane on a long flight, I spend uh an enormous amount of time just looking out the window and thinking about things. When I go for runs, I just think, you know, and so so I think uh for me, I just like I like um I like to marinate ideas uh and let I let ideas marinate. I'm just fascinated with human performance. So that's that's how this all came to be.

SPEAKER_01 55:35

Well, that's obviously how it all came to be. And I think those are great words of wisdom for anybody, young or old, to to spend a little time with themselves and with their attributes, because in the future, as in right now, flourishing is not about avoiding uncertainty, but becoming exactly the kind of person who you already are to move through it. Rich DeVinny, thank you so much for joining me today. I can't wait to have you back again.

SPEAKER_00 55:57

Thank you, Jillian. It's been it's been a pleasure, and I can't wait to come back again. So we'll stay in touch.

SPEAKER_01 56:01

Awesome. Have the best day. Take care. Join me next week on the Flourish Feed Podcast to keep exploring the infinite game. In the meantime, remember to stay curious, turn your passions into purpose, and play hard. I'm rooting for you. This program was prepared by Gillian Stovel Rivers, who is a senior wealth advisor with CI Asante Wealth Management. This is not an official program of CI Asante Wealth Management, and the statements and opinions expressed during this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of CI Asante Wealth Management. This show is intended for general information only and may not apply to all listeners or investors. Please obtain professional financial advice or contact Gillian to discuss your particular circumstances prior to acting on the information presented.