Join us as we welcome Dr. Feinberg, a renowned Neurostrategist, Executive Coach, and High-Performance Team architect who collaborates with America's brightest minds and businesses. Working alongside CEOs, top executives, and company founders ranging from Fortune 500 giants to ambitious, up-and-coming startups, Dr. Feinberg has contributed to the success of industry leaders such as Oracle, Google, LinkedIn, Wells Fargo, Hitachi, and Xero, ranked Number 1 innovation Start-up.

In this captivating discussion, we'll delve into the art of identifying behavioral patterns, the various tactics people employ, and the obstacles that prevent individuals from reaching their highest potential. Join us as we explore Dr. Feinberg's incredible journey from his humble beginnings sleeping on fire escapes to his current status as one of the nation's most sought-after executive coaches.

Dr. Steven Feinberg's website - https://stevenfeinberg.com/

Buy Book: Do What Others Say Can't Be Done: Play the Meta-Game

Mentioned in this episode:

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Hey, everybody.

We're talking to Dr.

Steven Feinberg today.

What an amazing guy.

He's a neuros strategist.

That's right.

A neuro strategist, an author, executive coach, has some incredible

stories from life and business.

You don't want to miss this incredible conversation.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to the last 10%.

I am Dallas Burnett sitting in Thrive Studios in my 1905

Koch Brothers Barber chair.

But more importantly, we have an incredible guest today, Dr.

Steven Feinberg.

He is a neuros strategist.

He's the author of a book title, which, oh my gosh, I love this title.

Do What Others Say, can't Be Done.

Play the Meta Game.

I You have.

You had me at Metagame, so welcome to the show, doctor.

That's, I'm glad to be here.

That's a great intro.

I hope to live up to at least 5% of it.

we're just excited to have you on.

I've, you're the first neuro strategist that we've ever had on the show,

and, we just are excited to hear and get into some of the conversation.

But I will say, and when we get started this, I'm just curious because your

experience, we've talked a little bit before the show is incredible.

Now, I grew up and I had a lot of just random jobs coming along,

just all, all over the map.

But I have to say you have, you've taken the cake.

So tell us where you began, where you started, and where you grew up.

I grew up sleeping on a fire escape in New York City,

because at one point my family didn't have enough money to have a

large enough a place for themselves.

We moved back in with my grandparents and they were very loving and warm and

kind and but it was like a three room, railroad track design of the bedroom.

And so, My parents lived in another apartment in the building, same

building, but with their, family members.

And, so I'm in this, apartment with my grandparents.

I saw my parents every day.

it's like they were all, I was four or five years old, so I had no idea that

I was poor, I had all my family around, but my grandparents would put me out on

the fire, escape to sleep because, it's oh, I'd be in bed with them and they'd

put me, my mother, my, my wife wants me to remind everybody or tell everybody,

not remind them that they took me in when it was cold and raining or snowy.

they didn't leave me out.

They didn't leave me out there in the winter time, but yeah.

So I grew up sleeping on a fire escape, but how'd I got from fire escape

to neuros strategists is the story, and the story I tell in the book.

Wow, that's amazing.

So, so tell us a little bit about, tell us a little bit

about some of your background.

You had a newspaper delivery.

I grew up in the country.

I didn't have a newspaper delivery route.

I had a, an egg delivery route lit.

Literally I'd get a dozen eggs, I'd put 'em on my bike and I'd

pedal the Miss Franklin's house.

And I think I got a quarter off of that.

It was not a very good entrepreneurial venture, but that

was, that was the closest thing.

So tell us, cuz you, you take the cake, tell us some of the ventures and

early, early years of work that you

So in addition to being a paper boy, right outside that home

where I lived, I was a shoe shine boy.

So I used to shine shoes.

I was a New York City, doorman.

I drove a cab in New York City.

I.

The, when I was in high school, no, I'm back.

I'm jumping around a little bit sequin in terms of time, but I was in, in

high school, I was a carnival bar, like a carnival came to town, to New

York City and they needed, teenage kids to run the, their games and so on.

So they, I got hired to do that and there's a lot of funny stories about that.

I was a drug counselor.

I ran a suicide prevention center.

my family owned an Italian restaurant in Pizzeria.

and, I, I've been, an executive coach I couldn't keep a job apparently,

but I kept, I was an executive coach in the neuro strategist for the

last 40 years or so, working with senior executives and top talent and

entrepreneurs and world class companies like Apple, LinkedIn, Google, et cetera.

That's incredible.

tell us, in terms of your, research and your focus, what

inspired you to go into that?

Because you have such a, entrepreneurial background.

What inspired you to, and moved you towards the neuroscience

and that neuro strategy?

the, I'd say that the core of it all

came from being around my dad.

You see my dad, the origins of this idea of do what others say can't be done.

And coming a first adapter all, happened 50 plus years ago.

Being at the foot of my dad and I'm training from him.

I, you see, my dad was a big time bookie, and not the, in New York

City in the fifties and sixties, 1950s and sixties, and not the type.

That reads books

Yeah.

and in one game he lost 10 large, that's

$10,000 in booky parlance,

Oh my gosh.

$95,000 today.

Oh my gosh.

then by day's end, he actually won money and it started

all over again 24 7 the next day.

So it was a rollercoaster and the intensity is still affecting my brain.

So, so it was a masterclass.

It actually was a masterclass in handling and mishandling uncertainty.

So what I talk about a lot is, how you can make the right moves.

Because I wasn't, my dad just wasn't a booker, he was also a lot entrepreneur.

I had a lot of businesses and I can go into that in a bit.

But it was how to handle.

How to make the right moves when uncertainty, when pressure rattles you.

And the on the, price of admission is $95,000 in our conversation.

I love it.

That is so it.

So when he's, because that's just an incredible.

That's an incredible story.

Your dad, you, you have this experience.

You're watching your father who's a bookie and he's doing

this in New York City, right?

He's doing this in New York City.

So he's a bookie in New York City.

he's on this rollercoaster.

He's up and down.

How does he, and did you learn from watching him and learn from all the

ways he managed that kind of stress and uncertainty and that was inspiring to you?

Or did you see him and you see it just, you just was, did it wreck him?

Did that kinda stress wreck him or did he mismanage that and you go, I

wanna learn more about this because of some of the mistakes I saw?

What, which kind of direction pushed you?

I think it was a little bit of, the aspects of he was

successful in a lot of things that he did.

So, but gambling is, I would not recommend it to everyone yet.

Our brains are always trying to predict things.

So we're all, our expectations are at our attempts to predict.

Right?

And that's part of, so we're all gambling in effect.

There's different levels of it and extents and risks that our brains are trying to.

To manage to deal with things.

But you know, it's like the Dallas with my dad.

I can, he didn't, as I said earlier, it wasn't just a bookie, although

that was a large part of it.

at one point he owned a, a restaurant and the economic, there was an economic

downturn and things were going down.

he might, was nerve-wracking in the sense that he might have had to, let some

people go and they were like family to us.

And, so the, and maybe even close the business.

And at that time I was about ready to go to college, not quite there.

And even my college tuition was on the line.

So he needed to get better prices.

all this uncertainty people experience now is he needed to get better prices

for his business, for the restaurant.

So we drove to the.

His vendor and he, this vendor Joe, was a tough negotiator.

And he, they went behind closed doors.

He and Joe went behind closed doors.

My dad said, sit over there, and five minutes past 10 minutes pass.

And I got more nervous.

My dad walks out from behind closed doors and he go, I said, how's it dad?

how'd it go?

It's it's make it or break it

Yeah.

point.

And he said, it doesn't look good and I need a glass of water.

And that, those words, that phrase kept going like a loop in my head.

It doesn't look good.

And he walked back into his office, Joe's office, five minutes

past 10 minutes, 15 minutes.

I, this loop is just making me crazy on the

Oh

cause I'm seeing the end of our bus, my family's business.

My, what's my mom gonna do?

What's my, my brother?

What, what's gonna happen with all those poor folks who work for us?

I was concerned for everybody and my tuition, you know what's gonna happen?

Yeah.

a big deal.

a big deal.

It's on the line here.

He walks out of the door, kisses the backwards, his right hand, and then the

back of his left hand raises his hands up, says, there's nobody better than me.

Oh my goodness.

he laughed.

I laughed, and now you are laughing.

Perhaps some of your audience laugh as

Yeah.

right?

It's and so I wanted to know, he told me a little bit about what

had, what transpired, what actually he said and how he did it and all.

I didn't quite, I was 17 or, somewhere at that age.

I didn't quite understand what he was talking about other than

I wanted to know what he actually did behind those closed doors.

So what happened?

That was the question you had to, the response to your

question, what prompted this?

What, so I've been always trying to find out what he did and what people like

himself do behind those closed doors when, between a rock and hard place.

when the mu the game is on the line, what do you do?

And he did it again and again in all kinds of circumstances.

And that's the training that I had to watch and listen to ask questions, And,

I was fortunate, but I was fortunate.

But it's also stressful, right?

Like I said,

unbelievable stress.

Yeah.

When, especially when he comes out, I, I mean, I just picture you sitting

there as a kid and you got all these things and we always tend to fill in the

information that we don't have those gaps in knowledge with the negative anyway.

We already are like second guessing, and we always have this tendency to do that.

And then for him to come out and be like, it's not looking good, son.

It's just, oh, the intensity that just ratchets it up.

That's such a great story and it's such a marker in your life.

It's welcome to adulthood, class is in session and something just

went down behind the closed door.

And it's just, I feel like that just has fueled the curiosity, your

curiosity, the rest of your life.

I love how you described, I just always wanted to know what goes on behind

closed doors, when it all, it all counts.

It's all, it all, everything's on the line.

I love that.

and then well, so then I find myself in situation

rooms right in, in effect.

That's what I find.

I'm curious, and I'm always find myself almost a script, if you will, of

showing up in places that, that were at.

It's almost impossible what it, what appears like to people that

the situation's almost impossible.

And we always find a way forward.

like it's not always perfect, but we find ways forward when I work

with people and they the big deals.

And so it's like I've worked with, as I, as you mentioned in my book,

do what others say Can't be Done.

The Forward by of that book is by the way, is by, an astronaut who

flew to the International Space Station twice, a terrific guy.

He's probably the most down to earth person I've ever met.

Ah,

And, he's got an interesting story as well.

but, with world-class leaders of people like Apple, the Apple ceo, with execs

from various technology companies, with entrepreneurs, with creators,

with leaders, business owners, so I.

What does my dad, what does my big time booky dab have

in common with those people?

And the truth of the matter is that all our first adapters, not

adopters, but first adapters who make game-winning, game-changing

decisions when uncertainty strikes.

And they all excel at the game of patterns, the hidden game of patterns.

And it's what governs our behavior and shapes our lives and.

Okay.

let's take a second.

I wanna unpack that a little bit cuz you just dropped some wisdom on, on, on us.

You said that it's that these people at the highest levels , when

everything counts, are people that are experts at patterns and they are

first adapters, not first adopters.

Cause the adopters, I, we've all seen the chart of the early adopters and

they're, quick to move on something, but explain the difference between an

early adapter and an early adapter.

Right.

Their first adapt, first adapters

First adapters,

right?

Right.

Early responders are people who you know are heroes in the wrong, right?

Right.

Let's put them in a different category.

But first adapters are people who are able to see, they do three things.

They see, the game that others don't.

They defy expectations and they influence others.

So we know that the people who are doing this are doing these three things.

They're seeing the game, a game board that others don't see.

They're defying expectations and they're influencing others to

get moving in the direction that.

His best move forward.

Those are the three things that they're doing all the time consistently.

and I told this to, to a fellow named James Salmon wrote a book

called, disrupt You and he's world famous, tremendous talent, insight.

And I described cause I interviewed 50 plus executives and talent, people from

all walks of life, from the executive suites to people to, police chiefs

and be top best teachers in the world.

the teacher peer award.

And so, it's all walks of life is, this pattern is about

how, is about patterns, right?

The way you think about things.

And one of the things that Jay said to me was, you just described me.

He just said, he said, just describe me.

I see game boards that others don't.

Defy expectations and influence others.

That's me.

That's what

I'm doing.

And so what has happened is all those people are doing that, with Jay was,

and Jay was an exemplar in that, but virtually everyone I know is doing that.

And so you want to acquire that, the, that framework, that lens, to be able

to do that, to see those patterns.

let's talk about that, because I want to get into

what is it, what do you mean when you say the see the patterns or, see

the game that other people don't see?

what, when you say that, what do you mean?

So, a pattern.

So when we, when you patterns, so we all have patterns.

You have pattern like habits, routines,

Yeah.

Routines, right?

Yes.

routine, it's a habit.

It's a tendency.

You have habits, you have, patterns that are, when you are relating

to people, when you are, you have patterns when you are driving,

good drivers have patterns, right?

So there's a certain.

There is patterns in my arena, I'm looking at the neuro strategy approaches.

I'm looking at brains, games and foes.

So what are the patterns that create the exceptional, what are all the

patterns that are going to identify and people who do things really well

accomplished or able to do that.

So in particular, the pat, like my dad was able to pattern out what happened

in that situation with Joe to change the game with Joe cuz he wa he didn't

want to go along at first, he didn't want to just give my dad better prices

because his business was hurting.

sorry Sam.

But you know, I got a business to run here, he's a tough guy,

and he wasn't gonna just do it.

So it was like, how do you go when you negotiate?

there are patterns.

When you're, leading, how do you lead in an effective way?

There are patterns that maintain the status quo and

patterns that change the game.

So I oftentimes, I relate, I talk about the game of patterns and the

game of patterns is there are like status quo games, like playing small.

That's a pattern.

Or

what does that mean when you say playing small, what

if you are in a business owner and you keep shying

away from all the risks that are necessary or the or, or you're not

dealing with the conflict, right?

A lot of people are conflict, avoiding, again, that's a

pattern, that's a game, right?

And maintains the status quo.

Or conversely the other side is you're trying to act tough.

it's like one upping everybody.

sometimes that's not so such a good idea, It's.

Sure.

Right.

It ticks people off, makes a, and some of, but it's

like there are different patterns.

And so the game of patterns are, there's different levels.

There's patterns or games that keep you struggling.

patterns that keep you reactive.

You keep reacting to the circumstances you encounter.

There's the next level where there's, you're playing a better

game, a higher performance.

They're playing a different game.

And then there's the highest level, what I call the meta game,

the game of games, which is the

The game of games.

oh, this is good.

I love this.

Okay, so let me just un, let me slow us down for a second and go back and

recap just to make sure I've got this,

look, before you do it, let me just add one other thing cause I

think it'll help shift your conversation, is your brain is a pattern engine, right?

So in order to make sense of the uncertainty you encounter,

Okay.

the biological.

Purpose of patterns is to make sense of whatever you're encountering.

So what you asked when you're trying to make sense of what I'm talking about.

It's your brain trying to make sense.

It's patterning.

You're a good interviewer and you're engaged in a pattern to, to

unpack what I'm saying and to offer it up to your, to the listeners.

Yes.

So, so what you're saying is our brains are sense makers and the way we make

sense of things is we construct patterns so that we can predict the future.

Essentially, my brain is trying to predict what's gonna happen next, and

the only way I can do that is assemble some type of model that would allow me

to operate and move into that future.

is that right?

Yeah.

I think you're spot on.

I think you have, we have, a guidance system like what inner

guidance system, what decisions, how we're gonna interact, behavior.

The inner guidance is a sense making guidance system.

Right.

And it's the intersection of your ability to predict, come up with novel solutions

to difficulties you encounter and meaning.

So it's the intersection of prediction, novelty and meaning that helps guide

us to make the best decisions and what I do and work with people.

And when you listen to people who are playing at this, these highest levels

is they have their guidance system, their internal, the guidance system as

a high level of sense making, right?

And so they look into, they can look, some of the clients, they

go, we have to look around corners.

it's a metaphor, right?

Right.

looking around corners in order to do what you are talking

about in your podcast, where you're talking about the last 10%, right?

Is that if that's the abilities to look around corners, the last

10% to go to understand what's going to play out to game it out.

Right, because that's what you do to game out what's gonna happen to preempt it and

be ready and prepared to make it happen.

So you're saying that, let's talk about the games for a minute

because you laid out like three different types of games that people play.

One is routines and patterns at the low level that kind of keep us at a low level.

I would say maybe I would say something like, these are destructive

or they're not self, promoting.

they're more, they keep us where we are.

Right.

So as long as we're doing these patterns, we are either hurting ourselves or

definitely not helping ourselves.

Right.

Right.

They're limit, they're definitely limit ourselves.

Right.

And some of them are, some you can have limiting yourself.

You don't have to be, I know a lot of people talk about, self-sabotage.

You don't have to be self-sabotage.

They just have a limiting pattern.

Right.

everything isn't about, a lot of people just say, there must be

doing something against yourself.

I'm not of that belief.

I think you just may not know

right.

Yeah.

I mean, like

may not know to do anything better.

This is all you learned.

Right.

I grew up on the sweets.

Right.

And I know, like I thought growing up on the street, one of my patterns

was being a tough guy on the streets.

Right.

it's but my friends used to say, Steven, are you wise or you otherwise?

And it was always a message, you better wise up fast, stop getting, and I always

wore sneakers, always ready to run.

So I was, had a wise mouth, but I had, I could run fast because I

wasn't, I wasn't as strong as a lot of these guys were on the streets.

Right.

I love it.

You wore sneakers so you can run fast.

That's so good.

I still wear sneakers so I could run fast, because, so dollars.

I'm here doing this podcast and I, I'm ready to go, baby.

maybe ready to take off.

That's so good.

because, given my brain and certain uncertainty, it's

like navigating, making sense of things until you learn the patterns to calm

you, It's to be able to, like, how do they perform at these highest levels?

a lot of it is deep breathing.

these people, how do you deal with uncertain?

but you have to go beyond those rests.

these people who do that.

It's absolutely essential.

it's understand diaphragmatic breathing, and I've learned a lot about that

to help my nervous system calm down.

It's called the vagal nervous, the vagal tone.

It's like the people have the parasympathetic and parasympathetic

system, both sides of albertino to act and to also rest.

my brain growing up around royal and certainly was all sympathetic that it,

the pattern was to be on ready, vigilant.

So I had to teach my body and my brain and my nervous system, I still

am to calm and rest and restore.

Right?

And then at the same time, that doesn't, that's not the end, all right?

Of how you live your life if you're running a business, right?

And so there's an inner game, but there's an outer game.

So I always looking at the inner game board and the outer game.

Board.

Oh, that's so good.

That's so good.

So, and what I love about what you just said is you just said some of

the players that are operating at the highest level game, this is the last 10%.

These are people behind the closed doors that have influence, that are

seeing around corners that, that, that note, that see the game, that

other people don't see these people, you're saying exercise something so

simple that sounds at least so simple as just controlling their breathing.

Like that at that, I mean, but isn't that the interesting thing about the nuance,

what you're saying is these people that are running a lot of the world are experts

at negotiation, are experts at coaching, leading all these things that in these

environments, they're doing something and are mastering something as simple as.

Just controlling their breathing to the point where you're explaining

the whole, the two systems that are operating as a, just so you, can you

say I've learned a lot about that, that I think some people would gloss over

that and they would miss the absolute magnitude of what you just said.

And that's why I took a minute because it sounds so simple.

You're like, oh, that's whatever.

But then you don't do it.

And it that by not doing that pattern, you in inherently are

lowering your game to the lower level,

right.

That's right.

If you think about, like I, I'm a big basketball fan and my favorite

player now is Steph Curry, the three point shooter, best three point

shooter in the world ball time.

But he goes at the end of the game, who do you want to have the ball?

At the end of the game, right?

That's what my dad did at the end of the game.

And sudden death games, right?

And sudden death environments when un all this uncertainty is, and look, one of the

things I was saying was that breathing is important, but it's not sufficient.

It's necessary, but not sufficient.

Those guys are not just breathing deep, they're breathing a lot.

Let me tell you.

That's, except that it's not that they don't get, it's not that they

don't get nervous or anything.

It's like they understand how to regain.

That's what vagal tone is to regain your sense of calm.

That's, I asked my, astronaut friend, what I said, how do you feel when

you're on the tip of the rocket when you're getting ready to go?

And he said, confident and excited.

Wow.

And I went Seriously?

I, cause I'd be like nervous.

And he said, no confident and.

He said, we've trained and we've retrained and I've trained again in simulators,

and we know what's going to happen to a large extent, and we practice

all the bad things that could happen.

So when the alarm signals go off, he said, and they do in every flight we're we do

to something called procedural memory, we go in and we begin to engage in the proce.

And our brain just goes, what do we have to do to correct this problem right here?

So like Steph Curry, when he goes to shoot the basketball, he's

got bagel tone, he's got calm.

You watch if you watch his eyes, if you watch the way he breathes, if

you watch the way he stands there, he's going through a procedure.

and all people who deal with high pressure situations go through a procedure.

They know and they focus on what they're gonna do.

You hear a lot of people say, just focus on shooting and all.

they do that in advance, but they focus on the target and they

already know what they're doing.

they don't go, begin right then and there.

They've already done this a thousand times.

Right.

And they're ready to do it.

It's second.

And they trust their second nature.

So, so Greg, the astronaut Johnson, he trusts what he's gonna do.

And one of the things he was gracious enough to say in, in the book, he

wrote the forward and he said, I trained and retrained and we knew

what was gonna happen in the, in the space shuttle in our flights.

We knew and we were prepared.

He said, what are things that he learned from working with me was that he learned

to be prepared for those environments.

So leadership environments, those business environments that you encounter.

But the thing is that as you shoot, as you as Steph Curry's making a shot

as Greg is, in that launchpad is, as my dad is, in that room behind

closed doors, there's the procedures, there's the breathing, but there are

these three things that I mentioned early on that they're actually doing.

And what they're doing in those situation rooms is they are spotting the game.

they're game spotters, they are pattern busters and they are frame setting.

So they, when they, so game spotting, pattern busting and frame setting, that's

the procedures that they go through.

And so they're reading the game board of to understand what the

game is that's being played.

And it's not always the one that seems, I, like I asked.

when I've worked with some execs or business owners, I've said to them, do

you know who, what the game is according to your competitor or according to your

customers or according to your boss.

So you know what game board they're playing on?

They go, oh yeah, I know he wants this and she wants that.

And yeah.

And then I go and ask them what they want, if that's it.

And honestly it's not.

It's not.

And it's off by a substantial amount.

It sounds similar.

They use the same words, but their behavior doesn't cut it.

Not at all.

And so I have to come in and say, Hey, you're, what you say and

what you do and what they expect and what you're delivering is off

by a factor that is substantial.

And you're losing the game because you're not reading the game board,

you're not the real criteria that what really matters to them at this time.

So they're not understanding the rules.

a, it's, yeah.

So I get it.

Okay.

So when you say game spotters, what do you mean?

Like an example, like for example, if you're hired to do this, let's say you're

managing a project and we, and I've had this experience with people before, and

I was contracting someone to manage a project and had developed the project.

My, my game was, I want communication and I want real time feedback and

communication during the project, especially when certain issues come up or

in response to certain issues that arise.

And we can go over what those are.

But if you're a really, if you're a game spotter, you're picking

that up in the first conversation.

And whether I even say that explicitly or not, you're pulling that out.

And then when we get out of the meeting, you're following up with three emails

to say, here's where we are, what we're doing it, and you're just moving.

Now on the flip side, what I've had experience with is people like

that you're really describing, it's almost like a lack of, there's a

blind spot or a lack of awareness.

in an individual's perception of other people or themselves to where,

I think about that project manager and I say, Hey, look, I want this.

I'm, I really, communication's important to me.

Maybe I'm not really good at saying it, but I just, I get it out there.

And they don't pick up on the signals of what's important.

And then they think response time is good.

So they wait until I go, Hey, how's the project going?

And then they go, whoop, in two seconds, it's going great.

that gives me no detail.

I don't have any comfort.

And then something comes up and I'm caught off guard.

And then I walk in and I'm like, what?

And it's boom.

like, why is this the way it is?

Right?

Because.

the, it's a misalignment.

But what you're saying is that the people at the highest level are able to

anticipate that, and they're able to pick up those signals, even if they're small,

they have this level of awareness that allows them to play the game in a way

that is in an alignment with the person that they're essentially gaming with.

If we're syncing up our patterns, you're saying, oh, I know their pattern.

I know what's important to them.

Maybe it's communication, maybe it's a reputation, maybe it's, handling it or,

whatever it is that's important to them.

You pick that up.

I think that's really, that's very insightful.

So, game spotters, this is a critical, if we deconstruct each

of these three elements a little bit.

Game spotting is first, adapters have a radar for looking for what's missing.

Right?

And so they're noticing what's missing on, in the, they're reading the room.

So, the expression, read the room better, and they see the

playing field and then they adapt.

Where you're describing what you described, Alice was someone who would

say, like an interview, well, I need someone who's good at communication.

Oh yeah.

I'm really good at that.

Yeah, immediately I'm concerned.

Right, right.

That's

Yeah.

We need someone who's flexible.

I'm good at that.

so true.

That's so true.

Oh,

they don't describe in behavioral terms

what makes them good at that.

Or an example of going, I, I used to not be good at that and here's what I learned.

Right.

That tells you that they're attending to the depth of your

question that you presented to them.

Right.

And oftentimes they don't see that.

So, a game is a pattern of interactions.

it's a story between players, right?

We're on a game board that has, objectives, rewards and rules.

And so we're understanding what the objectives, rewards and rules, and all

behavioral games have deeper purposes.

it's who could say what to whom?

And when, for instance, can you say something to your boss, right?

That's a rule set.

Some people go, you could tell me whatever you want behind closed doors.

You can't say it in front of everybody,

Right,

So there's a rule in that relation, and you go, you

might have a different point of view of how the, of how it's supposed

to go in your one company goes, no, we want it all, everyone can say

it and I can handle, disagreements.

Some people can say that, but can't actually live by it,

Yes.

That makes total sense.

So I may think that you should be able to handle everything in the

open, in the meeting and just hammer it out right there, that's my rule.

But if your rule is the exact opposite, where, listen, you don't, if you

got a problem with me personally, you take it, after the meeting, you

come and find me after the meeting.

the question then is, which rule am I gonna choose to follow?

And I, and those spotters, you're saying the game spotters are like,

I know exactly which one is the one that I'm playing the game against.

I'm gonna follow their

Or they

or I'm gonna know when to break it.

or they test it, right?

So all these behavioral games have some kind, typically have

a status rule hidden somewhere.

as I said, who can say what to whom and when?

Who can, if someone has to be one up or one down or, speaking a hard

truth to your boss or, parents think about us as parents who.

in terms of rules, not about who could say what to whom, but just in terms of rules

is parents who don't let their kids handle adversity are actually incentivizing

the kids to stay dependent on them.

And the game message that to the kids is, you're not capable.

You can't handle this.

Right.

And we don't see that until it's too, until the gaming

dynamics, until it's too late.

So what I try to do is help people see the games and see

the deeper game that's going on,

and in the, in, in the higher level, the meta game, that's highest

level game that we were talking about earlier is the key move.

The key move of any meta game is stretching, not

shrinking to stretch yourself.

Okay.

All right.

So unpack that a little bit.

You said the highest game we can play is the meta game, and you said the

highest activity that you can do in the meta game is stretching, not shrinking.

right?

So you wanna stretch yourself, you wanna move forward, find different

ways of accomplishing things.

I had, I was, giving a speech at Wells Fargo at the, with the, the IT department,

the CIO of the, of Wells Fargo, who's, who wrote them forward to my first book,

which called the Advantage Makers, he had me come give a speech about collaboration.

He was terrific opening it up and he was saying, look, we need to

all learn to collaborate cause we don't typically do that.

We're all in school.

We learn to be independent individuals and we need to learn how to work

together now in this new environment.

So brilliant setup.

And so I brought you here.

I brought Dr.

Feinberg here to talk to you about collaboration.

And I, and he said, oh, by the way, he said, Steven told me not to tell

you that he was, a psychologist.

He's a shrink, right?

Because he'll think I'll get you all nervous.

So he says this in front of several hundred people in the eye.

He says, so for no further ado, let's welcome, Steven Feinberg, right?

He totally set you up.

and like he's from Brooklyn, right?

And I'm from Lower Eastside Manhattan, right?

And so I went, thanks Barry.

I really appreciate that was a great introduction.

Spot on.

and then I turned to the audience and the muse hit me Dallas.

I got lucky.

The muse hit me and I turned to the audience.

I said, how many of you here want to be shrunk?

Nobody raised their hand.

Everyone was, pulled back.

I said, how many of you would prefer to be stretched?

Everyone raised their hand, right?

I said, so today what we're gonna talk about is stretching

yourself in your behaviors, in your thinking and your approach.

No, I got lucky in that day.

Right?

good.

That was very witty.

Well done.

That's a great transition too.

That's awesome.

and I think that's true.

I think that's the ideal.

Of a great coach.

we talk about coaches and the way we define coaches are people

who in, who help close gaps.

And coaches are also people who battle for belief.

if I'm gonna, if I'm coaching you, I want to identify, mind, body, spirit, craft

kind of type things, where are those gaps?

And then I'm gonna engage in helping you to go from where you are to

where you want to be in those gaps.

Or I'm gonna identify these beliefs, kinda like what you're saying at

these, at these levels that you just really, may not be aware.

Bring awareness to that and then help that.

Son.

I think what you're talking about is as a coach, we're engaging to close

a gap, especially if anywhere where someone else has been for a while,

especially if they're on that bottom tier in, in your structure on that.

If they're in, if they're on that bottom level there, there

has to be some uncomfortable.

Shift it to stretch like that uncertainty is it exists and

there's real risk of failure.

There is, uncertainty of performance there, there has to be that engagement.

And as a coach, I'm facilitating that process, which is really inspiring.

I think that's one, one of the reasons I love coaching.

I'm sure you do as well to facilitate that, but if someone's pulling back

and they're getting defensive and they're holding that power of inertia,

man, that's a tough, that's tough.

so, so

operate.

if you think about , the conditions of when you're working

with someone who wants to stretch themselves or wants to achieve something,

but they're, they can't understand why, what's getting in their way.

Or they've attempted a couple of times in our brains, we have

a risk reward center, right?

It's called, like one, neuroscientist told me, he said, it's like an accountant.

It's not a real accountant, right?

But it's an image you can use.

It's, and it's measuring risk versus rewards.

And so you don't have, you have to understand that the risk is bigger than

the reward when some of those things, when you pull back, when, so we have

our, we shut down, I call it in my book, refer to it as the shutdown syndrome.

So your brain pulls back and you shut down your patterns.

The game of patterns rules all of us, and you can only perform at the

level of the pattern that you're in.

So if you want, what you see oftentimes is their attempted

solution is maintaining the problem.

And so you have to find ways around that.

If your coaching is to show them other patterns that they can have access to

and available to them to stretch them in any high stake situation, the person

with the widest range of responses, the deepest response to the situation, the

most adaptable patterns wins more often.

The most adaptable patterns.

Winsor.

And that makes sense.

because if you, like going back to our meeting example, if you

don't like being, given, criticism in the meeting and you are my.

You're my, direct boss or manager, and I am a number eight on the

Enneagram, and I'm gonna challenge you in front of everybody.

that's not as adaptable for me.

So then I'm challenging you.

That may not work out for me.

Whereas if I am adaptable and I say, okay, I know he doesn't like me to

call him out in the meeting and I do, then all of a sudden I get this great

performance review or get a great raise or get, I get moved over, to get promoted.

and I, that's a win.

Right?

So, and it's being adaptable.

I'm being able to adapt to that new game.

Right, and that's what first adapters are doing, right?

They're adapting.

They're playing, they have a wider range of responses, and it comes in

part from, there's a law in cybernetic called the Law of Requisite Variety.

So the law of requisite variety, basically it's by this, scientist,

cyberneticians and Ashby.

And it says in any complex system, the controlling device must match

the variety and complexity of that system in order to be effective.

So if you have a controlling device, it must be able to match the variety and

the complexity in order to be in control.

Otherwise, it's at the effect of everything.

So, humans, in order to be in control, we want, a lot of people go, you're

a controller, you're over controller.

It's the, that's not the issue.

some people are over controlling.

We want to deal with that.

But a lot.

But a lot of times it's, people are outta control.

If you're running a business, you wanna be in control, you wanna be outta control.

You know, it's like, let it float.

that's not the way, if you're driving a car, just let the car drive.

If you have a self-driving car, great.

You make you, the mechanism is there, but you want to set your brain to, to

control, to be able to be in control of the situation if you feel like

your leader has a sense of control.

And I mean that in the widest range, not in the sense of authoritarianism

or anything like that, but in the sense of being able to shape and influence

and make good decisions along the way.

It makes pe gives people a feeling of safety and people want case

insecurity and that's a good thing.

So the person, what that rule says is the person who is the most

adaptable wins, not the person who's strong arm, it's like Ito.

They have the strong, they have tough guys, and then you have

an ito, a little short ito mess.

Take them and throw the person because they understand the, it's not a matter of

Brute force.

understanding the underlying patterns that allow

you to move through the wall.

That is a, I've never heard that.

That's what stretching is about to

and there's just like when you said that there's just my,

my head was exploding because there's just so many thoughts going on.

What there, there's so many different ways you could take that because it

also demonstrates that kind of principle and I've never heard that before.

I've never heard that rule before.

It's fascinating though, but it explains why, even it explains why black swan

events happen because you're saying that the model has to be as complicated

and as flexible as the system or it doesn't work, which makes total

sense, but there is to work the model.

Many times we construct models that aren't they are quick and easy.

They're like heuristics and they're not gonna always work with the systems.

And that's why you have these black sws because it would be too cumbersome to

work with a model that was, sufficient to cover all the complexities that

we deal with in business or in life.

But on the flip side of what you're saying, it totally makes sense why,

the more experience a leader has, the more, industry knowledge, the

more capabilities that they have for the position that the more security

that gives the people below 'em, cuz they're like, they've seen all this.

they know the complexities and they're made to handle it and they're adaptable.

So I feel really good cuz whatever comes come, what made this

person, I trust them to lead.

So it works both ways.

I, that is fascinating,

and what great leaders are doing is they're connecting the dots.

They're making new patterns, right?

They crossed the chaos.

It was one of my mentors said it.

They crossed the chaos chasm for you.

They're helping us all move forward in the face of uncertainty.

let me give you an example of a pattern where people, I had two senior

executives and Robert and Graham, and they're tremendously talented guys.

Extremely competent, really smart, got lots of stuff done, and

then they encounter each other.

in a meeting, right?

They need to work.

They have op, they have a task that requires them to work with each other.

Okay.

People get, do stuff with other people all the time.

But these two guys had patterns.

One guy's pattern, let's call 'em the task commander.

And he, Graham had to get stuff done and he was like a bullet

on its way to the target, right?

And Robert, brilliant guy it is always figuring out the complexities in advance

so that he can preempt the last 10%, right, of what the problems are gonna be.

Wow.

you get these two guys in a meeting and they are

the big egos, smartest guy in the room and they're trying to navigate

their pattern of interaction, what they think is a way of doing.

So they sit down with me and I go, wow, these two guys are

really smart, they're competent.

And they go so.

What can you do with the high price consultant?

they say there'll be something like that,

Like it's your problem.

Now they have the problem now is you, and now it's you.

what you gonna do about it, Mr.

High Pricing Consultant.

right?

So I said to them that I listened to how they atte their attempted solutions.

A lot of times, Dallas, the pattern, the problem is in your attempted solution.

And they were operating inside an attempted solution

that maintained the problem.

So every time, Graham saw, let's move forward, Robert said,

would say, let's hold back.

Every time Robert said would say, we need more information.

Graham said, we got enough.

Let's go.

So their attempted solutions kept maintaining it.

So how do you solve something like that?

I told them that it was a, they had a grammar problem.

they go, they look at me and they go, what are you talking about?

And I said, the grammar, it's a, it's.

Who goes first, like it's a verb or the noun or which way, how

do you move forward on this?

It's a sequence issue here.

That's

and so I suggested, I said, if I'm understanding your, you

correctly, Robert, if you could get enough of your questions addressed in advance,

you're okay with Graham just running with this sucker and going as fast as possible.

He said That would be perfect.

And I said, Graham, if you could answer his questions as quick as you can upfront,

would you be okay then just taking the sucker and finishing the last 10%?

He said, absolutely.

I said, so what you guys need to do is work together not in, in

a way that honors your talent.

Yes.

of counterproductive, your attempted solutions have been to

go independently rather than together.

And these guys, two guys who are battling for long time,

they're still close friends.

And they do stuff.

They do things out of, out of work, they talk to each other because it was not

about, a lot of people think it's this personality thing and who's trying to

control, but it was really this pattern, this hidden pattern that needed busting.

And so once they, so what would happen from that moment forward is

Robert would bring up some issues and Graham said, so what else?

What other questions do you have?

What are the questions?

And Robert said, and Robert

would say, and Robert would say, there's also this, and this.

And he'd bring them up.

He said, good.

He said, is that it?

Do we have that?

And so if we answered that, and here's how we do that, Robert

say, good, we're good to go.

And Graham and Robert would say, Take it and run.

You got it.

And boom, off to the races.

They were.

And they were a tremendous skillset,

Isn't that amazing though?

Cuz you can spot that when you were describing their strength there.

These are two people that could not be more polar opposite in strengths.

One's this planner, sequencer strategist.

one's the a absolute epitome, achiever.

Doer.

go get it done and we'll figure it out while we run.

and then you go, how do those two work together?

And it's yeah, neither one works great in a vacuum.

we all need that counterbalance.

And these are like the two perfect counterbalances to each other.

This guy's kind of seeing around corners to begin with.

This guy's knocking down walls while they're running.

It's this is a great team.

And you just show up and just, were like, guys, what are you arguing about?

And then I'm sure they heard that what are we, what, why have we been arguing?

And then you said, send me the check boys.

right.

That's so good.

That's so good.

I love that.

it's a great story.

I love how you said that about the pattern.

And this is another brilliant thing that you've said, the actual problem

is in the attempted solution.

I think people don't understand when you're walking into an environment

that's really toxic or very aggressive or just they're hitting

brick walls, they can't get over.

And you just have this da da just this easy, nice, solution because you can

see it, you understand the model of patterns you saw that, but they are

constantly trying to solve this problem in ways that are in their own pattern,

which is just exacerbating the problem.

Right.

here's a, a way of thinking about it.

Do you know a Chinese finger cuff?

You know those things that lock you up?

Like I actually have one here.

I don't know if we're on video here, but, here's this Chinese,

you can see this, right?

So what's your attempted solution?

Dallas.

Your attempted solution is to pull harder, to get free of it, right?

And the design of the problem is to, of the finger cuts is the

harder you pull, the tighter it gets, the less likely you get free.

So the attempted solution needs to be a 180.

You have to actually push rather than pull, right?

So your attempted solution is often, so you want unlock the pattern, right?

And obviously people's problems or work are more complex than

a Chinese finger cuff example.

But it tells your brain.

It tells your brain understands the elegance of understanding that.

What's my attempted solution isn't maintaining the problem,

And then what would be a 180?

What would be something different here that would be, that would change the game?

I had a, another exec who was, he had this warrior mentality, and he was

fighting, he was not only fighting with everyone around him, he was fighting

with himself also, just battling.

and we were talking, and it, at one point it became obvious that there was another

strategy, a different rule in his head.

The warrior mentality was a rule in his head, right?

That's what I said about games.

So it was a rule in his head.

And what he changed it from warrior, battling warrior to a

conductor like a musical conduct, a conductor of a musician, bringing

out the best in his people.

And he'd switched it from warrior to conductor.

Game change,

That, that's such a, a strong illustration.

when you say patterns, I think there's so many patterns that we.

We formulate as stories, that we have, we're telling this story

like we, it's us against the world.

We have this warrior mentality.

I'm go, it's my will or theirs, and I've got to prevail.

and he's going into every situation with this story and that

pattern underlying that story.

And then when you can just shift that perspective and you can shift that story

to something like, Hey, you realize that you're in the center of all this

and we can make some beautiful music.

If you would just tell yourself this new way of thinking, this show this new way.

I love

He changed the rule in his head.

The, it was a rule in his.

Remember, games are run by rewards, objectives and rules.

And when you talk about being a game changer, you change the rule.

Game changers, right?

So here's he changing the internal rule in his head.

Sometimes it more difficult to change the rules out on the game board, but

in his head, he could change that rule.

if we are, if we have and with, think we thrive, we offer,

teams, this coaching app for their leader coaches and some of these leader coaches.

In fact, I was having a conversation not too long ago with someone.

He said most people in businesses are managed by that

first level of leaders, is.

Which is new leaders, young leaders, or maybe they've been very technically

proficient, but they've just been promoted into this over people and to

this point, they've been either, really great coders or really great technicians

or really great, doctors or lawyers.

Now they're in this position and they're at being asked by their company

by to, to now be a team leader or a coach or manager of these people.

If they're engaging these people and developing.

What is something that you've seen just that would be helpful to someone

that's just getting into, they're not a trained psychologist, but they're

just getting into building trust, building that relationship and coaching

and developing their team members.

what would you say would be some really good advice for them to take home?

there's a number of things, but in, I've worked

lots of engineers and you would not think of engineers as typically

your people oriented folks.

They're all humans, right?

They're all carbon units work, but typically they're not, I one-on-one,

they're all great, if once you talk to 'em, they respect you, then they open

kimono, they'll talk about anything.

But typically, because they go logical.

I, one of the things I always try to convey to people is that,

that humans are not logical.

They're psycho logical.

Right.

And that, so it's like even if you've been at your, you've been in

situations where despite your best efforts, you can't move forward.

Right.

Even the smartest people this happens to.

Right.

And so what we want is to be able to understand what's causing

that or what's contributing that it happens to the best of us.

One of the things when you're collaborating with people, and

that's part of what, as a team you're starting to collaborate, is to

advocate your points of view strongly.

To have a strong, here's my point of view, but then to ask the people that you're

working with, do you see it differently?

Am I missing anything?

So when you do that now you're saying, Hey, I'm willing to have

my rules in my head that I think is right, investigated, that opens

up the level of trust tremendously.

And let me tell you, if you do this at home with your spouses, be careful.

Cause they may tell you,

don't ask if you don't want to know.

Right.

That's

do you see it?

Am I missing something?

it helps tremendously.

am I missing some, do you see it differently?

So that it just open, it just connects to people because you want to hear,

like you said, you actually want to hear, what's going on and what's the

possibilities that they, because they're an extra set of eyes on the front line.

Hey, I don't see it this way.

What?

So tell me, and now you ha, now you're engaged.

I may not agree with you, right.

But I'd like to know, I'd like to see what's going forward and

that, that really seems to help.

But there's three things.

as a general rule, there's three things that I always look for,

but th we can talk about that.

Did I answer your,

No, that was great.

No, that's great.

I love that.

I just think that this has been just so helpful.

I mean, you've talked, there's been just a load of knowledge and I.

You've just got a lot to share.

I would love for our readers, our listeners, to be able to connect with

you, to be able to read your book.

where can people find you?

Where can they connect with you?

how do they get your book?

where's it at?

they can come to my website, by the way.

It's what's, www.stevenfeinberg.com.

It's s t e v e n.

Feinberg is F as in family, e i, N as in Nancy, B as in boy, e r g.com.

And there's a free chapter to the, To my book, the first chapter,

I think it might be the Forward by the astronaut Greg Johnson.

there's also an assessment tool that should be up in the next month or

Oh really?

Oh wow.

And what's the assessment about?

assessment is called the First Adapter Score Scorecard.

And it evaluates you on these three factors that I've been

talking about being a game spotting pattern, busting frame setting about

influence, and it evaluates you along.

It has it's nine questions and takes about five minutes and it comes, spits out a

report about where your strengths are and where your weaknesses are and what some

Oh, that's wonderful.

Oh,

so, so, you could also go get my book on Amazon.

It's on, it's on amazon.com.

So, but the way I think about it is if on this first adapter scorecard or if

this is a gameboard, if, my metaphor it's a gameboard, is to look at.

And there's on this game board, there's game spotting, pattern

busting and frame setting.

So what small behavior can you take to have a big impact today?

So, instead of uncertainty, you could ask yourself, what's

the real game board I'm on?

Right.

can ask yourself, how's my approach working?

If it's not, do a 180, what would be a 180 here?

Ask yourself, in what way is changing the frame?

Can I change the game?

Like that,

Yes.

the fellow whose rules were about the internal game of being

a warrior rather than a, a conductor.

What's the frame that you're setting?

And so, so I think that's part of what you can also do.

I think that you have laid out your main three, the, the

game spotting, the pattern busting and the frame setting, and honestly, the.

we really only scratched the surface today with, we spent a lot of time

on, on game spotting and a little bit on pattern busting, but we have so

much, we, we just, we've got a lot.

We got, there's a lot more there that we didn't even get a chance to talk about.

The problem.

I love how you talked about how the problem, is, was often found

in that attempted solution.

I thought that was fantastic.

And I loved also how you had talked about the highest level of pattern,

people in operating at that highest level were stretching and not shrinking.

I thought that was great.

We talked about, how the, every pattern has these objectives

and rules and rewards.

You just covered all of that so masterfully.

I would love to have you back on the show sometime to unpack even some more.

Then we get into the frame setting and all these things that we didn't really

get a chance to cover a lot today.

I just think you have just so much to share, especially

to, to leaders and coaches.

Obviously, I think this time was so well spent.

We will put all those links in the show notes.

So if you were listening to the show today and you would like to, I would encourage

you to go to his website, go to Dr.

Feinberg's website, check it out, look through it, take

his assessment when it's out.

we would love to support you in that.

And also buy his book on Amazon.

We're gonna include all those in the show notes link.

Dr.

Feinberg, we always close the show by asking.

If there was somebody that comes to mind in our guest that, in our guest

mind's eye that they would like to hear, or on the last 10% as a future guest,

does anybody come to mind for you that you would like to recommend that we go

after and try to, try to get on the show and, have a great conversation with?

I have, a number of people that, that I think would be great

for your show and would be edifying and, elucidate the future for all of us.

Jay Samit, who I mentioned earlier, who else?

Oren

And who is Jay?

Oh, Lauren class?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Orrin Cl.

Yeah.

right.

those

And who are they?

So, Jay Samit is a, a former Sony exec and has

written books about disruption.

Orla has written books about, influence and framing, and pitching.

and those are two, people who have, a high level.

they're, I would call them people who are in this ma met playing this meta game.

They're playing at

They're in the meta game.

Ugh.

We

There's,

there's some execs that, that I work with named Robert Sharp.

He was a Apple exec.

He would be a great person.

It's intriguing, examples.

And, so tho there you go.

That's one, that's an incredible list.

We will absolutely, reach out to , These wonderful metagame players and see if

we can get them on the show that sounds like it'd be some fun conversations.

I just can't thank you enough, Dr.

Feinberg, for being on our show today.

This has been an absolute pleasure.

You, I feel like I've just sat through a masterclass you have

dropped some knowledge on us today.

It has been fascinating and I hope our listeners, I know our listeners

have gotten a lot out of it and so, we just wanna thank you for being on

the show today and we look forward to having you back on the show again

so we can cover some more of this great stuff that's in your book.

It's, it'd be my pleasure.

And, some of the st the thing that I remember with my dad was behind

those closed doors, one of the things that he accomplished was

that I want, I understood winning.

Right, but I wanted to know how to create the exceptional, which is what

he did behind those closed doors.

So the gambling was winning, but then creating where that's applicable to

everyone else, and that experience was triumph, and I wanted that experience of

triumph as I moved forward in my life.

Oh,

I wish that on everybody as well.

we want you guys, I hope you just felt

that was a lot of great energy.

We want you, as listeners of the last 10% to check out Dr.

Feinberg's book so that you can go and triumph.

Thanks again and we'll see you soon

. Stephen Feinberg: My pleasure.