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Courtney Reimer: Hi everyone, I'm Audible Editor Courtney Reimer and I'm here today with Pete Carroll and Dr. Mike Gervais, who are not only a power duo behind the Super Bowl Champion NFL team the Seattle Seahawks, but also authors and voices of the new Audible Original Compete to Create. Welcome, Coach Carroll and Dr. Gervais.

Pete Carroll: Thank you, Courtney. Nice to be here.

Dr. Mike Gervais: Thanks, Courtney.

CR: I think a lot of people who come to this listen, Compete to Create, are people who know your names through your major accomplishments in the world of sports, but as a fair-weather football fan at best, I was drawn to it not for that reason, and I wouldn't describe it as a sports book. I wonder, how would you describe it? Mike or Pete can go first.

PC: Go ahead, Mike.

MG: Well, it's an extension of our purpose, and our purpose is to help people find their very best. This is one of the ways that we have celebrated sharing some practices and some insights that we've both experienced in our individual paths and careers. And then our combined efforts together with the Seattle Seahawks over the last near decade.

CR: And Pete, how do you describe this if you were to say, "Hey, I have something on Audible. It is for this kind of person." What would you say?

PC: Well, this is an effort to share the stuff that we do in our regular work with our teams and the people that work with our clubs in our organization. And we would think to share it with anybody who's just trying to do the best they can at the work that they have in front of them. And part of that work is your business and the career. And part of that work is how you work with your family and with your clubs and your organizations and friends and all of that.

We think that we have an outlook and a mentality that we can share that everybody can have some fun with and enjoy and hopefully grow from.

CR: Excellent. Some of the terms and concepts here are what I've described in my life as woo woo, and I think Mike used the term "airy-fairy." Things like presence and meditation and mindfulness, "feel the ground beneath your feet." They're more akin to things that I hear at a yoga retreat. Pete, specifically I wanted to ask you—I know, Mike, a lot of these concepts generate from you—but Pete, it's hard for me to imagine big Super Bowl-winning athletes meditating and embracing mindfulness.

PC: I don't think you have to try to imagine that. Our guys do the things that they need to do to help themselves be as focused as they can and to be on point and be at their best. For some guys, they do their quiet time, they do meditation, or they may do their mindful work that they do. But what we have come to understand is that in everything you do in terms of performance, it's about, if you want to do well, you have to be there in the present moment. That's what focus is.

So use the word focus and use the word of mindset training maybe to help you navigate your comfort here because every great athlete, every great performer has to find the moments that they're in it, as that's all that's going on in the world. And that's what focus is and that's what mindfulness is all about: being present with the moment.

It's not something outside of ourselves. This is something that we very much have control over, and these are skills that you can train, skills that you can work to master—I don't know if you ever master them, but you work to master them. And there's so much to be gained so that you can be what you want to be. You want to be great at what you're doing. And so that's a common takeaway for people, but really, when you get down into it, this is really at the heart of the matter of being great, whatever you want to do.

CR: Mike, do you have anything to add to people who might be naysayers or hear some of those airy-fairy words and be like, "This isn't for me"?

MG: It takes an incredible discipline to work with your mind to help yourself become your very best. One of the reasons it takes discipline is because we're talking about a space that's invisible. Just like gravity. We know gravity exists and we can see the impact of gravity. Same too with the mind. We know the mind exists, we can see the impact—the artifact if you will—of a high-quality mind or mind that's struggling.

We know that the present moment is where high performance is expressed. We also know that the present moment is where wisdom is revealed and where all things that are good, beautiful, and true are experienced.

It takes incredible discipline to work with something that's invisible, but we know it has incredible impact. And so I would anchor on the side of discipline. It’s incredible discipline to work on investing in yourself. We know that the present moment is where high performance is expressed. We also know that the present moment is where wisdom is revealed and where all things that are good, beautiful, and true are experienced.

And so it requires a discipline in the mind to be in the present moment especially when those moments are pressure-packed, when they're stressful or rugged or consequential, whatever the range of experiences for the person, that requires a disciplined mind to stay in the present moment. How do you develop a disciplined mind? You have to train it. That's really what this is about.

CR: Great. I love it.

PC: Courtney, one thing I would add to that is, it might be hard for people to cross over, but special forces, Rangers, SEAL teams, they know that they have to be at the very peak opportunity moment to perform. They're in life-and-death situations consistently. They have to be able to be present. They have to have the discipline that it takes to get your ability to quiet your mind so that you can fully function in the moments that are available to you so that you can, you know, perform at your best to save your partner and to save yourself, and this has just cascaded its way through all of performance.

There aren't golfers, there aren't baseball players, there aren't linebackers, there aren't goalies that don't understand that they have to find the way to get their mind tuned as sharply as they possibly can. That's what this is really all about.

CR: I completely agree. I'm here for trying to convert people. I meditate every day, probably not as much as I should, but I think it is an excellent practice and I love the concepts in this book. One of the things you mentioned as being really key to the success of this program is finding your philosophy, which is something I myself struggle with and I equate it with—and correct me if I'm wrong—finding your purpose and who it is and what you're driving towards at the end, at the pearly gates.

I'm curious how you would recommend to someone to find that philosophy and then in an extension of that, Pete, if you could talk about the epitome of poise, and Mike, I don't know if I got if you have a mantra that's yours, but I would love to know more about both of those things.

PC: Well, it all begins with self-discovery. For you to have an opportunity to be at your best, you have to work through the process of coming to understand who you are and what you're all about. That is a challenge, Courtney. It's a challenge for everybody. It's more of a challenge than I wish because it's so crucial to a person's development.

That takes the hard work, and Mike and I've talked about this for a great long time now. I'm trying to help people be motivated to do the work of answering the questions, what it is that you believe and what it is that you stand for and what is it that you will not compromise. What are your uncompromising principles that guide your life?

We all have them. We just have not taken the time to sit down and actually write them down and see the words in front of you and make sense so that you can buy into the fact that, "Yes, I do have beliefs, I do have a philosophy, I do have an approach and I'm already living it well. Let's see if we can come to grips with putting it together so that I can really solidify it and make it work for me." And that's where it all begins, you know?

If you don't have that knowledge, then you're acting in accordance with what you think people want you to be. Mike and I talk at great length about this, but if you're operating to be something other than what you are, you're never going to be at your very best. And so that's really the challenge where we begin.

CR: And in terms of the mantra itself, I think that that can be such a helpful tool for people to go back to in those times. You talk about how you’re training your mind for that moment when you really need it and it sounds like the mantra is a thing that can draw you back to the place. More specifically, how would you recommend somebody finding that mantra? Is it similar to the writing down who you are or is there a specific recommendation?

MG: So the idea is of having a very clear philosophy. I wouldn't call it a mantra. This is something that you can get your arms around. It's something that is so clear and so concise that it helps guide your thoughts, your words, and your actions. If you can have your thoughts, words, and actions in alignment, when it's nice and easy to do it, that's one thing. Then if you can also do that when you're in high-pressure or stressful or emotionally charged environments? That's a different level of skill.

Philosophy is the articulation of your core principles. What are the principles that matter most to you? For Coach Carroll it's always compete, and for myself it's every day is an opportunity to create a living masterpiece. There's no right and wrong way to do it, but the beautiful part about this is that we all have the ability to communicate with ourselves in honest, healthy, compassionate, open ways to explore our potential that lies within, so that we can do the same for others.

One of the accelerants of having a philosophy is, once you know who you are, nobody can take it away from you. No external world or event can strip it from you. When we know the philosophy of others, we can help support them towards their end, the man or woman that they're working on becoming on a regular basis to be in alignment with the principles that matter most in any environment.

Philosophy is the articulation of your core principles. What are the principles that matter most to you? For Coach Carroll it's always compete, and for myself it's every day is an opportunity to create a living masterpiece.

Now we're creating a rising tide. And the reason that's so important is because nobody can do the extraordinary alone; it's too difficult, it's too beautiful, it's too big and so we need each other to solve the most pressing problems that we're experiencing today across our planet and also to explore the potential that lies dormant within us. We need each other. If you want to be connected to the extraordinary potential that lies within you and others, a philosophy is one of the great accelerants to do that.

CR: Let's talk about the title of the book itself, which I know is also what you guys do together, Compete to Create. For some people, competition or being competitive can have a negative connotation. To me, as somebody who's more on the airy-fairy side of this, I think, "Oh, I'm just here to be peaceful with my fellow—"

But to the person who might see a disconnect between the principles that you're advocating here, at what point does it become healthy, competing healthily? How do those work together?

PC: We've gathered and captured the definition that competing is about striving. It's about striving for what you want, striving for what you want to become, what you want to develop, the skills that you want to master. Competing, when you think of it in the classic way, you think of beating somebody and rubbing their nose in the dirt. There's this connotation about it. But for us, it's about striving, it's about the process of working towards what you're developing and what you want to become.

For us, you're either striving or you're not, you're either competing or you're not. And so it's a big theme for us in everything that we're doing as a team, as well as individuals. It makes sense to help us stay on course. You have a guideline. Am I working at what I want to become, or am I not? That's what the striving part of it is.

And so the compete word has become generic with our thinking. Always compete, this is the philosophy and all of that, that goes along with that. It really takes on a much greater meaning for us when we're involved with it.

CR: It's almost like competing with yourself, right? Like I have my personal best on my own workouts and I don't look at the leaderboard; I just look at what I did last time. Do you think that, for someone like me, that captures it? Competing against yourself. Is that a type of competition that's embraced by you guys?

MG: Yes. The idea you mentioned, competing with yourself, has much more of the right tone than necessarily competing against others. There's something that falls short when you're competing only against others, because their best might be far lower than your capabilities. The idea is to compete within yourself, to explore, to have a sense of knowing what you might be capable of and then striving and straining and working in tandem with others, but really it is about your commitment to yourself to bring your very best even when it's difficult.

Sometimes it’s difficult to start a workout, sometimes it's difficult to stay in the agitated, scratchy edges at the end of the workout. Competing within yourself has the right tone for sure. And we're not about speaking to yourself in ways that are damaging. We're talking about knowing how to speak to yourself in ways where you're building yourself, where you are, in some respects, your very best coach, your best ally, to help you through the difficult, challenging environments that we all go through. And if you don't have your back, I'm not sure that your potential will be maximized. So there's something really important about the tone of the word competition.

CR: Right. Towards the end of this listen, one of the things you talk about is sleep, which is something I'm a huge proponent of. But talking about connotations, especially with people who are striving, they think they have to maximize every moment of every day and that includes staying awake longer than they should. Can you talk a bit about how sleep and being competitive work together despite what you might imagine, and then, Coach Carroll, for you, do you have to fight with the people you're training and your club like, "Actually, you need to rest too"?

PC: We have realized and come to regard how important it is for recovery and sleep to be a major aspect of recovery. For all of our players and all of our coaches and staff members that are involved in all the performance side of things, we have taken on a whole new outlook about the value of it and also the practice of it and the discipline that we need to pay it so that we can be at our best.

The whole thing about sleep is really important to us. I'm somewhat of a violator personally. I have my trouble staying asleep in the way I should, but I do respect it and particularly when I can, I operate at a disciplined level about it.

MG: It's one of the big rocks to get in a container when it comes to recovery. Recovery means two things: psychological recovery and physiological recovery. It's one of those big efforts to make sure you are giving yourself the best chance to be able to, you know, find your very best when you're recovered. And it's not so much about this idea that it has to be perfect at all, but if you want to live with zest and a zeal about life, but you wake up and you're tired, it's so much easier to be easily fatigued or slightly anxious and to slip into those modes. It is harder to adjust to the unfolding, unpredictable, unknown, which has every moment when you are behind the eight ball when you're fatigued.

So sleep is one of the big ones. For both of us, we’ve got to compete within ourselves to make sure that we're disciplined to get the sleep in and to fall asleep and wake up in structured ways. So it's absolutely one of the foundations for living your very best.

CR: Great. I think this listen has a lot to offer at any time, but it's hard to ignore that we're in the midst of a historic time. And I'm wondering if any of the advice and the mechanisms to live by here change for life in a historic pandemic, or if there are ones that apply even more than usual? Mike, do you want to take that one?

MG: Sure. In relationship to the pandemic, one of the greatest assets we can have right now is a properly recovered system. The virus is met at our ecosystem, at our internal ecosystem, and our ability to work with the virus to fight it to not allow it to penetrate is really important. There are all the behavioral strategies that are correct, physically distancing in appropriate ways and making sure that we're taking all the precautions from a physical standpoint are correct. And making sure that we have proper ways of thinking about anxiousness, proper ways of thinking about the unfolding unpredictable [is important] because each moment, when we strip it down, is uniquely unique to itself. 

It is a moment that we've never experienced before. Being able to live in the present moment requires great skill, and when we have this looming idea that there's a threat right next to us, or close to us, it kicks off an anxiousness. Knowing how to work with your own mind, knowing how to work with your own thoughts to be able to embrace this new way of living is important. Right now there's a mental health crisis that we're starting to see the beginnings of. One of my fears is that there will be a mental health echo long after this virus escapes us. I can't imagine a better investment right now than to invest in oneself. And this Audible Original is built on the premise that we can be the change we want to see in the world. And that change starts with each one of us.

We are the pebble in the proverbial pond. And that change, that revolution, starts with thinking. That might be the ultimate revolution, whether it's for social justice or it's for your own health or changing your family's experience, maybe your community, maybe the world's experience. It begins with an honest investigation into how you work on a moment-to-moment basis.

The good news is that can be upgraded. Most people have not done a formal investigation into how their mind works. And that is one of the sweet spots that I think our eight-week online course, and this Audible Original, meets; the sweet spot of science, great stories, and then putting handles on how to train your mind and live aligned with the principles that matter most to you.

PC: I think for sure, Courtney, when you're challenged, like we're being challenged in so many different areas, to operate at your best is crucial and to be the strongest you can be to be there for the people that you love, and to be the one that they're counting on you to be, demonstrating that kind of consistency that gives strength to others who sometimes may not be feeling the consistency, couldn't be more crucial, and everybody needs to have their act together right now and to keep persevering through the challenges that we're facing. We all need to be in great command of our world so that we can be at our very best for the ones that we care so much about.

CR: As I mentioned at the top, Mike, you quote various creators and writers and philosophers throughout your work. After someone's done with this and this clicks with them, are there certain works that you would recommend as their next one after this?

MG: There are some of the great writings that have stood the test of time that changed the way we understand human potential, that's the first list. Any of the great writings that have been around for the ages doesn't need me to cite them; most of us know what those are. Now, when we're thinking about some more contemporary writings, certainly Viktor Frankl as a psychologist is one of the forefathers of changing the idea of living a life with purpose and meaning. His book Man's Search for Meaning is absolutely legendary. 

And then Carl Rogers was one of the four founders of humanistic psychology, and his book On Becoming [a Person] is a beautiful understanding of the human experience. His basic premise is that the ability to live with high regard for other individuals makes the difference in the relationship and it dramatically increases the quality of life for both involved. So On Becoming and Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning are two beautiful books. And then any writings Jon Kabat-Zinn has done on mindfulness, it's certainly going to be right at the center of some of our work as well.

CR: Great. Thank you. 

PC: Thanks, Courtney. 

CR: Thank you so much, I really appreciated it.

PC: All right. See you.

CR: Bye. Thanks everyone.