Full show notes, links, and video available at https://ownyourcalendarpodcast.com/episode/15-days-to-a-better-you-redefining-productivity-and-personal-growth-with-mike-oconnor
In this episode of Unshakable Habits, Mike O'Connor shares valuable insights on how to achieve your goals and find your purpose in life.
If you've ever felt stuck or unsure about your future, this episode is for you!
Mike discusses the importance of self-assessment and reflection in achieving long-term goals.
He shares his own struggles with finding purpose and highlights the need for discomfort and gut checks to recalibrate one's mission and vision.
To make things more practical, Mike suggests some deep dive exercises to help listeners determine their current position and desired destination, allowing them to gain a sense of purpose and navigate obstacles more easily.
You also learn practical strategies to reduce anxiety before important events like job interviews. As well as how changing your environment and creating new triggers support your desired habits
Host Stephen Box also provides practical tips for habit-building, mindful practices, and self-improvement techniques. Together, they offer guidance on creating an unshakable foundation for personal growth and embracing the journey of self-discovery.
Join Stephen and Mike in this inspiring episode as they explore the power of reinventing one's identity, embracing personal evolution, and charting a course towards a more purposeful and fulfilling life.
*Links for resources mentioned in this episode can be found at: https://ownyourcalendarpodcast.com/episode/15-days-to-a-better-you-redefining-productivity-and-personal-growth-with-mike-oconnor
Mike O'Connor is the owner of The Actualized Self, a company that specializes in career and personal performance.
Mike is a former director of career discovery at Williams College, a prestigious institution where he competed with other top schools to recruit the best and brightest students.
During his time there, O'Connor noticed that many of these students were only a few steps away from achieving their full potential, but were hindered by a deep sense of impostor syndrome and shaken confidence.
Inspired by conversations with his psychologist wife and their observations of friends and clients, O'Connor set out to help individuals recalibrate their self-worth and raise their personal standards.
He embarked on a journey of deep introspection and research, combining his own experiences with the coursework he led at various universities, as well as studies on social sciences and behavior.
O'Connor developed a methodology that involved delving into personal values and envisioning the ideal version of oneself, then reverse engineering practices and habits to align with this desired self-image.
Through activities such as time and social media audits, he encouraged individuals to examine their habits and compare them to their desired brand of themselves.
Ultimately, O'Connor aimed to provide people with a new operating system and a sense of accountability, allowing them to make significant changes in their lives and reach their full potential.
With his unique approach, he hopes to help others overcome anxiety, improve performance, and find happiness and contentment in their personal and professional lives.
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Hey guys.
Stephen Box:Welcome to the Unshakable Habits podcast, where we help men to prioritize
Stephen Box:your physical and mental wellbeing.
Stephen Box:I'm your host, national Board Certified Health and Wellness coach, Stephen
Stephen Box:Box, and this week I have with me Mike O'Connor from the Actualized
Stephen Box:Self, a company that specializes in career and personal performance.
Stephen Box:And Mike is someone who has a background working at a university, recruiting
Stephen Box:some of the top talent in the world, and he has this really unique approach.
Stephen Box:Something that I don't think I talk enough about on the podcast, and that's why I
Stephen Box:wanted to have Mike on where he has a program called 15 Days to A Better You.
Stephen Box:Now, for those of you who've been listening for a while,
Stephen Box:15 days to a better, you may sound completely contradictory
Stephen Box:to what I normally talk about.
Stephen Box:Because you guys here, we talk a lot about small steps, small habits,
Stephen Box:sustainability, all that kind of stuff.
Stephen Box:And the thing is, Mike talks about that too.
Stephen Box:And what my conversation with Mike highlighted for me was the need to talk
Stephen Box:more about this because I think a lot of people, when they hear small habits,
Stephen Box:when they hear small steps, when they hear those kind of things, what they
Stephen Box:think automatically is, slow results.
Stephen Box:Couldn't even think there for a second.
Stephen Box:but they think slow results.
Stephen Box:And that's not necessarily true because the reality is you can sometimes get
Stephen Box:faster results by taking smaller steps.
Stephen Box:But it's about taking the right steps.
Stephen Box:And that's really where the conversation between me and Mike goes this week
Stephen Box:is on how to take the right steps.
Stephen Box:And we're not just gonna talk about this at a high level.
Stephen Box:We get really practical with giving you a lot of tips for how to track things, how
Stephen Box:to implement these things into your life.
Stephen Box:And Mike, as a bonus, even throws in some conversation, for those of you might
Stephen Box:be out there in the job market on how to stand out in the interview process.
Stephen Box:So for those of you looking for new employment, you might find
Stephen Box:that part particularly exciting.
Stephen Box:But even if you're not looking for a job right now, there is going
Stephen Box:to be a ton of value for you.
Stephen Box:In this episode, I hope you guys enjoy it and we'll see you back in 60 seconds.
Podcast Into/Outro:Are you ready to break free from your old habits
Podcast Into/Outro:and create a better life for yourself and those around you?
Podcast Into/Outro:If so, welcome to Unshakable Habits, the podcast dedicated to helping
Podcast Into/Outro:men be better husbands, fathers, and leaders by prioritizing their
Podcast Into/Outro:physical and mental wellbeing.
Podcast Into/Outro:Each week we'll look at health from a 360 degree perspective with
Podcast Into/Outro:inspiring stories and practical strategies for building Unshakable
Podcast Into/Outro:habits that'll transform your life.
Podcast Into/Outro:Join Stephen Box, a board certified health and wellness coach, and
Podcast Into/Outro:let's change the world together.
Podcast Into/Outro:One habit at a time.
Stephen Box:Allow me to introduce you to Mike O'Connor, who is the founder of the
Stephen Box:Actualized Self, or self Ala is Self ala.
Stephen Box:Yeah.
Stephen Box:You you got it.
Stephen Box:Yeah.
Stephen Box:I I will, should look at my notes, right?
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Mike O'Connor:Thanks for having me, Stephen.
Mike O'Connor:It's great to be with you.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah,
Stephen Box:man.
Stephen Box:I appreciate you being here today, so, so talk to me a little bit, Mike, about
Stephen Box:this idea, of the 15 Days to A Better You.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Mike O'Connor:Well thanks, thanks again and it's great.
Mike O'Connor:It's great to be with you today.
Mike O'Connor:what, what one of the things I noticed when I was working at, I was the
Mike O'Connor:director of Career Discovery at Williams College and really great school.
Mike O'Connor:We competed with Ivy League, schools for, for our students and just we're
Mike O'Connor:really fortunate to like, recruit a lot of the best and brightest.
Mike O'Connor:There were so many students that I worked with that were just one or
Mike O'Connor:two steps away of really sort of stepping into themselves, right?
Mike O'Connor:They were feeling this sort of deep sense of imposter syndrome.
Mike O'Connor:Their, their confidence was shaken for, for different reasons.
Mike O'Connor:And my wife, who's a psychologist, and I would have these like longer conversations
Mike O'Connor:around clients and friends and different people that we have in our, in our life
Mike O'Connor:that were just short of really sort of like finding that happiness or that
Mike O'Connor:contentment or whatever it was to sort of really sort of get to the next level or
Mike O'Connor:that we're dealing with real anxiety, and that weren't able to sort of perform in an
Mike O'Connor:interview setting or, or whatever it is.
Mike O'Connor:So what I wanted to really sort of create is how do we sort of
Mike O'Connor:recalibrate somebody's floor?
Mike O'Connor:I think we all talk about potential a lot, right?
Mike O'Connor:And we all talk about, wow, my ceiling's here, or, or you know, if this person
Mike O'Connor:could, whatever, could they, you know, could they a gvax or, or y.
Mike O'Connor:And all of us, I think, have this incredible, incredible
Mike O'Connor:potential and that's great, right?
Mike O'Connor:But how do we really sort of LA raise that floor?
Mike O'Connor:So what, what I wanted to do was have somebody do a really sort of deep dive
Mike O'Connor:into their values, into the, the version of themselves that they want to be.
Mike O'Connor:And then start to kind of reverse engineer from that to look at your practices,
Mike O'Connor:to look at your actual habits, to look at do deep time audits and social media
Mike O'Connor:audits and all these other sort of fairly extensive things and really sort of hold
Mike O'Connor:that up against the brand of yourself.
Mike O'Connor:And how did the two really sort of juxtapose with each other?
Mike O'Connor:So that's when I sort of went on this journey of mapping together things
Mike O'Connor:that I've done, through the coursework that I led at, at different schools.
Mike O'Connor:and through a lot of sort of research on social sciences and behaviors and James
Mike O'Connor:Clear kind of stuff, to really create something that, would hopefully let people
Mike O'Connor:sort of walk away with a new operating system and new way of doing things and
Mike O'Connor:have a little bit more accountability.
Mike O'Connor:That cool?
Stephen Box:So, so the thing I love about this is, you know, I know you
Stephen Box:focus really a lot on career and personal development and you know, I think for a
Stephen Box:lot of guys out there, we tend to focus on just like one area at a time, right?
Stephen Box:So it's like, if I'm focused on my career advancement, then everything else
Stephen Box:kind of falls to the wayside, right?
Stephen Box:My health falls to the wayside, my relationship suffer, right?
Stephen Box:Everything else kind of falls off except for my career stuff.
Stephen Box:And then at some point, you know, I'm going like, oh man,
Stephen Box:I gotta take care of my health.
Stephen Box:But then other things start to fall off because I'm focused on health, right?
Stephen Box:Oh man, now my marriage is in trouble.
Stephen Box:I gotta focus on my marriage.
Stephen Box:And now our career suffer and our health suffers, right?
Stephen Box:So it's like, For a lot of guys, it's, it's really hard to figure
Stephen Box:out like, how do I balance all this?
Stephen Box:How do I take all of this in?
Stephen Box:And, you know, what I love about this framework that you're talking about
Stephen Box:here is it can be applied to career and personal development, but it
Stephen Box:can also be applied to your health.
Stephen Box:It can be applied to your marriage, it can be applied to your relationship with
Stephen Box:your kids if you, if you have kids, right?
Stephen Box:So the concepts what we're talking about are universal, right?
Stephen Box:It's just the specific application of how we're, how we're applying
Mike O'Connor:them.
Mike O'Connor:That's, that's really well said.
Mike O'Connor:I, I think one thing that we do is males, and, and you and I
Mike O'Connor:talked about this briefly before, was we, we solve for X right?
Mike O'Connor:In, in our life.
Mike O'Connor:And I think we've, we've sort of evolved to some degree to really like,
Mike O'Connor:think about the food source and how am I gonna sort of, how am I gonna
Mike O'Connor:make sure I'm providing for family?
Mike O'Connor:Or if there's this problem or there's this challenge or there's this goal.
Mike O'Connor:I'm gonna think about the stuff that I need to do to get there and then go do it.
Mike O'Connor:We can focus really well on one thing, but to your point, we do that at
Mike O'Connor:the expense of so many other things.
Mike O'Connor:And when we do that, when we get out of balance with ourselves,
Mike O'Connor:then we know we have this sort of trickle down effect, right?
Mike O'Connor:It's like you don't sleep well one night and you're not eating
Mike O'Connor:as well the next day, right?
Mike O'Connor:You're not eating as well.
Mike O'Connor:You're gonna feel a little bit more sluggish, and then that really
Mike O'Connor:important call that you have.
Mike O'Connor:All of a sudden you just don't show up as your best self
Mike O'Connor:cause you're just not focused.
Mike O'Connor:Right?
Mike O'Connor:So what I wanted to do was sort of create something, I take some different
Mike O'Connor:social scientists and people that are sort of like working on these
Mike O'Connor:different systems for doing that and sort of weave them together in
Mike O'Connor:a way for us to sort of look at most like a diagnostic, like a dashboard
Mike O'Connor:of like, you know, how's my health?
Mike O'Connor:How's my financial health?
Mike O'Connor:What am I doing in my career?
Mike O'Connor:What are these different aspects that I have?
Mike O'Connor:And then what are the gauges that I have?
Mike O'Connor:And when you, when you do that deep analysis and audit and then you
Mike O'Connor:sort of compare that to how you're really showing up, you can really
Mike O'Connor:sort of then do the thing that I think males do well, which is solvex.
Stephen Box:Yeah.
Stephen Box:And, and I think you just kind of hit on something super important here, right?
Stephen Box:It's this idea of, you know, imagine that you're going on a trip and
Stephen Box:you know where you wanna go, right?
Stephen Box:You know what you wanna do when you get there and everything else that's.
Stephen Box:That's that thing you were talking about, about, you know,
Stephen Box:establishing your values, figuring out what's important to you, right?
Stephen Box:I mean, that's, if you don't know where you're going, then there's no
Stephen Box:address to putting the G p s, right?
Stephen Box:So we have to get clear on where we're going first.
Stephen Box:But at the same time, I think for a lot of guys it is, we start with goals, right?
Stephen Box:But we don't really know why we're setting that goal.
Stephen Box:We have, we've missed the vision part of it, right?
Stephen Box:So maybe we know we want to go across the country, but we're not sure
Stephen Box:exactly what city we're gonna end up in or what we're gonna do when we get
Stephen Box:there, or why we want to go there.
Stephen Box:We just know that that's where we're gonna go and you know, so
Stephen Box:you need that, that vision part.
Stephen Box:But at the same time, I think even if we've gotten that part, even
Stephen Box:if we understand all those things, another common mistake I see is
Stephen Box:that we don't take the time to take the assessment of where we are now.
Stephen Box:And that's the equivalent of.
Stephen Box:If your GPS doesn't have a signal and it doesn't know where you are,
Stephen Box:it doesn't matter if you put in a destination, it doesn't know how
Stephen Box:to start getting you there because they can't see where you are now.
Stephen Box:So if you can't see where you are right now,
Mike O'Connor:you're, you're lost.
Mike O'Connor:That's a really great point, right?
Mike O'Connor:It's like you can, you can have that long-term vision, you can have those
Mike O'Connor:different, but if you don't have an honest assessment of where you're sort of sitting
Mike O'Connor:or a way to really sort of like assess that or test that, then you're, I think,
Mike O'Connor:I wouldn't say dead in the water, right?
Mike O'Connor:But you're gonna, you're gonna really sort of tread and struggle a, a bit.
Mike O'Connor:And I think there's this sort of like reflective component of looking in
Mike O'Connor:a little bit more inward and asking those uncomfortable questions and
Mike O'Connor:those kind of things that I think as males we're not necessarily as good at.
Mike O'Connor:And this is something that I've found myself sort of struggling
Mike O'Connor:with, quite a bit in life too.
Mike O'Connor:And for me it's almost this like, I need this sort of like, Go through some
Mike O'Connor:level of like pain or discomfort and just sort of like have this sort of gut
Mike O'Connor:feeling about like, what am I doing?
Mike O'Connor:Right?
Mike O'Connor:Like rather than, I think in over time I've learned to sort of close the gap
Mike O'Connor:of like, what are the questions that I can ask earlier to sort of sort so
Mike O'Connor:I'm not there or what's the sort of gut checks that I can do to really
Mike O'Connor:sort of self-assess about, okay, here's the thing that you're in right
Mike O'Connor:now, here's the thing that you're struggling with, and then really sort of
Mike O'Connor:recalibrate on, on mission and vision.
Mike O'Connor:And you know, I, I think when, when people think about what's my mission,
Mike O'Connor:vision or what am I sort of doing long term, there's, I don't think we talk
Mike O'Connor:enough about as men that like that's something that can change, right?
Mike O'Connor:Your vision at 20 years old shouldn't be what your vision is at 30.
Mike O'Connor:You have a completely different frame of reference.
Mike O'Connor:Right?
Mike O'Connor:And, and that's gonna change very much when you're 40, right?
Mike O'Connor:Or 50.
Mike O'Connor:And, and that's a good thing and that's a healthy thing.
Mike O'Connor:And that's, that's a, you know, that's you evolving and sort
Mike O'Connor:of stepping into yourself and being a very different person.
Mike O'Connor:So by doing this sort of deep dive exercise, is that really sort of
Mike O'Connor:figuring out this orienting who, where am I right now, to your
Mike O'Connor:point, and where do I want to go?
Mike O'Connor:You have the gps, right?
Mike O'Connor:And, and you have the systems and that pain and discomfort
Mike O'Connor:and all of those roadblocks and obstacles and all of that stuff.
Mike O'Connor:We know we're gonna hit my, becomes a lot easier to sort of get through
Mike O'Connor:because you have a purpose behind it.
Mike O'Connor:Yep.
Stephen Box:Yeah.
Stephen Box:And I, I love the fact that you brought this up because I think
Stephen Box:this is something that a lot of us struggled with, over the years.
Stephen Box:I know even me personally, I, I actually used to take a sense of pride
Stephen Box:in being able to say, you know, I'm the same person that I've always been.
Stephen Box:I, I haven't changed who I am, because some point, I, I had this
Stephen Box:wake up call and I went, wait, and that's not a good thing, right?
Stephen Box:Like, I, I shouldn't still be the same person I was when I was 20.
Stephen Box:That's, that's, that's horrible, right?
Stephen Box:Like, it's good that maybe some of my foundational beliefs, some of my
Stephen Box:principles are still in place, right?
Stephen Box:I mean, hopefully I've done a good job of creating solid principles in
Stephen Box:my life that are still the same, but hopefully I'm a better communicator.
Stephen Box:Hopefully I have better control of my emotions.
Stephen Box:Hopefully I'm in better shape physically.
Stephen Box:Hopefully I'm a better partner to, to my wife.
Stephen Box:Hopefully I'm a better, you know, leader.
Stephen Box:You know, all these different things.
Stephen Box:Hopefully I've developed skills and I'm not the same person anymore.
Mike O'Connor:Completely.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Mike O'Connor:I, I think what happens when you, when you do that, and when you do that
Mike O'Connor:sort of systematic audit and, and you think about yourself in a different
Mike O'Connor:capacity, you really create that.
Mike O'Connor:It's kind of like you're, you're sort of stepping up the staircase, right?
Mike O'Connor:You're creating a new floor for yourself, and then you're looking at where
Mike O'Connor:you want to go next and, and sort of starting this sort of like, you know,
Mike O'Connor:I don't like the word manifest, right?
Mike O'Connor:But you're starting to sort of speak that in exist a little bit and
Mike O'Connor:you're, and you're using the thing that I think males do well, which
Mike O'Connor:is, okay, here's where I want to go.
Mike O'Connor:Here's the parameters I need to control for, here's the step that I
Mike O'Connor:really need to, to, to go and do that.
Mike O'Connor:And I've done, I've done the same thing at different points, right?
Mike O'Connor:Like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm so similar, or I'm the,
Mike O'Connor:I'm the same kind of person.
Mike O'Connor:And I think there's, there's values that people, I think, naturally
Mike O'Connor:have from upbringing and that are inherent to them, that aren't
Mike O'Connor:necessarily fixed, but, but evolve.
Mike O'Connor:But, but there's some, some patterns that I think to stay the same.
Mike O'Connor:But you're absolutely right.
Mike O'Connor:Like you wanna level up on the person that you are and, and really sort
Mike O'Connor:of fit that to the, the life that you currently have and wanna have.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Stephen Box:Yeah.
Stephen Box:The thing I, I think is so important for people to kind of see here is
Stephen Box:it's recognizing your strengths, but also recognizing your weaknesses.
Stephen Box:Right?
Stephen Box:And, and as you said, for a lot of men out there, problem
Stephen Box:solving is a strength, right?
Stephen Box:I mean, that is something that just generally speaking is a
Stephen Box:commentary for a lot of guys, right?
Stephen Box:We are very good at problem solving, but the issue is that we aren't necessarily
Stephen Box:all great at seeing the big picture.
Stephen Box:And so the problems that we're solving are so small in the
Stephen Box:grand scheme of things, right?
Stephen Box:They might feel big in the moment.
Stephen Box:But they're smaller in the grand scheme of things.
Stephen Box:And then we don't understand why we keep solving problems
Stephen Box:so things don't get better.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah, that's really well said.
Mike O'Connor:and it's, and it's hard sometimes, right?
Mike O'Connor:To see this sort of bigger picture about what is, what is the thing that
Mike O'Connor:I'm really sort of trying to control for and do that, that really sort of
Mike O'Connor:gets me to, to where I, I want to go.
Mike O'Connor:And one thing that I'm guilty of is like, I'm a big to-do list person and like I'm,
Mike O'Connor:I'm constantly sort of like writing down what I need to do and then just like,
Mike O'Connor:I'm good at just focusing there, right?
Mike O'Connor:And I get that little like dopamine stack every time I cross the thing off the
Mike O'Connor:list or what know, like whatever it is.
Mike O'Connor:But what I've had to do with my system, and I, and I have this in the course
Mike O'Connor:cuz I just find it pretty helpful.
Mike O'Connor:But I found the student from White Combinator that essentially took
Mike O'Connor:your, the test that you have, but then it puts them in a a three column
Mike O'Connor:spreadsheet where it just like, okay, test impact and then complexity and.
Mike O'Connor:When you start to really sort of control for what's the impact of this specific
Mike O'Connor:thing and what's the complexity of it when you start with things that
Mike O'Connor:are high impact and low complexity.
Mike O'Connor:You know, I'm, I'm hesitant to use the word game changer, but it's, it's
Mike O'Connor:really helpful, because you're almost sort of doing this like daily 80 20
Mike O'Connor:analysis and you're doing of the things that you talked about earlier, Stephen,
Mike O'Connor:which is like, you're, you're, you're tapping into really sort of where you
Mike O'Connor:are and where you want to go and, and it forces you to really sort of really
Mike O'Connor:think of, is this really sort of useful?
Mike O'Connor:and is this something that I want to do?
Mike O'Connor:Like I have this instinct that just like go all the time and to sort of just try
Mike O'Connor:to head, head down, charge into the next problem and try to knock down whatever
Mike O'Connor:is in front of me, through my male d n a.
Mike O'Connor:And that's not always the best thing.
Mike O'Connor:Sometimes she needs to like, to think and recalibrate a little bit and be
Mike O'Connor:like, okay, like rather than playing lead bocker right now, Maybe step
Mike O'Connor:back and see the, the broader field.
Mike O'Connor:And, and for me, the, the simple task of like that orient and principle, it's like,
Mike O'Connor:okay, we've got, we've got your task.
Mike O'Connor:Great.
Mike O'Connor:You know how to do that really well, but what's the impact and what's the
Mike O'Connor:complexity and how are you really using your time to get what you need to be done?
Mike O'Connor:Helping me step back a bit.
Stephen Box:Yeah.
Stephen Box:And, and I love, like I was looking over, your, your course here, right?
Stephen Box:And the thing I love and just looking at your curriculum is, first of all, you
Stephen Box:start like, even before day one, right?
Stephen Box:Just like on the getting started section, one of the things that you have on
Stephen Box:there is like showing up every day.
Stephen Box:And, and I love that because I think that is something that a lot
Stephen Box:of people struggle with, right?
Stephen Box:It's, I have time for this today, so I'm gonna focus on this today.
Stephen Box:But then tomorrow when seven other things come up that I wanna
Stephen Box:prioritize, I'm gonna let this go.
Stephen Box:And you cannot achieve anything in life until it becomes a
Stephen Box:regular part of your routine.
Stephen Box:Right?
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Mike O'Connor:That's like, that's so, so well said.
Mike O'Connor:And like, what I've had to do for myself over time and, and what I've
Mike O'Connor:tried to sort of like, build in for people, and you, you talk about habits
Mike O'Connor:a lot is, is sort of just helping people habituate the new normal.
Mike O'Connor:And for me, like I'm a, I'm a big systems person that if you, if, if I can just
Mike O'Connor:sort of slowly over time evolve my system to just be like, here are the
Mike O'Connor:five things that are non-negotiable that I'm doing every single day.
Mike O'Connor:And, and you know, I've, I, I've tried to really sort of embed this into, into
Mike O'Connor:the chorus about like, you're gonna get in the habit of really sort of doing
Mike O'Connor:this and being consistent with it.
Mike O'Connor:But if you, if I, for instance, for me, it's just like, okay, every
Mike O'Connor:single day I have to do writing.
Mike O'Connor:And that's a non-negotiable.
Mike O'Connor:I have to do it.
Mike O'Connor:And I have specific sort of KPIs that are sort of set out for that and different
Mike O'Connor:places that it needs to go, but it needs to sort of happen and the blocks.
Mike O'Connor:And if I don't do that, then I'm not gonna sort of reward myself with, you know, with
Mike O'Connor:the different things that I have that, but like, you have to build these, these
Mike O'Connor:to checklists and then you have to build in, I think, some positive reinforcing
Mike O'Connor:mechanisms to reward yourself for the good things that you're already doing.
Mike O'Connor:and that looks very different for everybody.
Mike O'Connor:And, and you and I were having this really great conversation beforehand about, when
Mike O'Connor:we're most productive and how that works.
Mike O'Connor:But, you know, you, you have to have systems to really sort of keep yourself.
Mike O'Connor:Focused because the reality is like life is just gonna get in the way.
Mike O'Connor:You're gonna have things pop up and a lot of them are gonna be
Mike O'Connor:completely outside of your control.
Mike O'Connor:So what the new baseline was, the new floor you create for yourself to know,
Mike O'Connor:here's my daily non-negotiables, and if I do these, it's gonna get me towards sex.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Stephen Box:And, and, and one thing that how I just wanna kind of point out
Stephen Box:to people here, and, and I would love to hear your thoughts on this as well, is
Stephen Box:don't try to change everything at once.
Stephen Box:Right.
Stephen Box:It's, it's impossible.
Stephen Box:Like you can't, you know, do this whole like thing where like, Hey, you know
Stephen Box:what, suddenly I'm gonna start waking up two hours earlier than normal.
Stephen Box:I'm going to, you know, do a workout first thing in the morning.
Stephen Box:I'm gonna start, you know, fixing breakfast at home when you normally
Stephen Box:stop to get something to eat.
Stephen Box:And you know, then when I get to work, I'm gonna do this, this, and this.
Stephen Box:Right?
Stephen Box:And all of a sudden you're trying to make seven changes and it's, you might
Stephen Box:pull it off for a couple of days, right?
Stephen Box:But it's not sustainable.
Mike O'Connor:No, no.
Mike O'Connor:It's, you know, James Clear talks about this in his book, right?
Mike O'Connor:Atomic Habits, which is, I, I think one of those books I just find myself, you know,
Mike O'Connor:encouraging people to read more and more.
Mike O'Connor:but he talks about habits stacking, right?
Mike O'Connor:And yeah, and the triggers associated with that.
Mike O'Connor:And you're exactly right, like the w with the people I know that are
Mike O'Connor:sort of having, that are feeling that they're stuck or whatever, right?
Mike O'Connor:And they're just, they're not feeling great about, you know, their, their
Mike O'Connor:life trajectory, whatever the, the three things I tell them sort of to do, and
Mike O'Connor:I don't have them sort of do it all at once, but I'm like, okay, you're
Mike O'Connor:feeling stressed or feeling anxious when you get to work in the morning.
Mike O'Connor:Spend five minutes, you have five extra minutes.
Mike O'Connor:Great.
Mike O'Connor:Spend five minutes just jotting everything down and just do a complete brain
Mike O'Connor:dump of everything that you're doing.
Mike O'Connor:All right?
Mike O'Connor:And just sort of releasing that about getting your monkey mind on paper.
Mike O'Connor:Just letting it go is great.
Mike O'Connor:Okay?
Mike O'Connor:Once you've done that, What we're gonna do is we're gonna start, we're gonna start
Mike O'Connor:to note things that you're grateful for.
Mike O'Connor:Again, we're not talking big changes, we're talking five
Mike O'Connor:minutes of, of brain dumping.
Mike O'Connor:Then you're gonna spend maybe even three to four minutes just writing
Mike O'Connor:the few things that you're grateful for, whatever comes to mind.
Mike O'Connor:Yep.
Mike O'Connor:VOing yourself.
Mike O'Connor:That's a big amount, right?
Mike O'Connor:Great.
Mike O'Connor:You do that and you have those two pieces, and it's just like, okay,
Mike O'Connor:let's, let's put in a little bit of like breathing technique, right?
Mike O'Connor:Or like a, a simple, you know, I know meditation has different connotations, but
Mike O'Connor:like some type of mindfulness, maybe just sitting quietly for a little bit, maybe
Mike O'Connor:it's a longer walk or whatever, right?
Mike O'Connor:But like, you start to sort of like layer in these behaviors and once people
Mike O'Connor:get habituated to doing the, they see that positive benefit, they have that
Mike O'Connor:positive feedback loop, then you can really start the layer on more stuff.
Mike O'Connor:and, and I, but you're exactly right.
Mike O'Connor:If you try to sort of like force dive everything sort of into, you
Mike O'Connor:know, it's the thing all at once, it becomes really, really tricky.
Mike O'Connor:You know, another real thing that I really like, that I've just personally
Mike O'Connor:found helpful is, but when you change your environment or you make
Mike O'Connor:like small tweaks to, to that, and you have different triggers, yeah.
Mike O'Connor:That can really sort of help, help quite a, quite a bit too.
Mike O'Connor:And, like a really sort of small example, but I've got, in my office here, I've
Mike O'Connor:got like all sorts of different exercise equipment that I leave strategically
Mike O'Connor:in different places that like, as I'm sort of going through the day, it's just
Mike O'Connor:really easy for me to, or I'd almost say it's actually harder to just sort
Mike O'Connor:of see the thing and be like, okay, well I can do a little bit right now.
Mike O'Connor:yes.
Mike O'Connor:But as you start to build these things in organically to your, you know, to
Mike O'Connor:your life, you, rather than trying to make the big change, you, you start
Mike O'Connor:to see this, ramp effect over time.
Stephen Box:Yeah.
Stephen Box:So one thing you just, touched on there is this idea of, trigger workouts, right?
Stephen Box:Which is something that I teach and.
Stephen Box:It's this idea that you just put things literally like you just said
Stephen Box:in your environment where when you see them, it triggers that thought
Stephen Box:of, Hey, you know, I got two minutes right now, let me knock out a couple
Stephen Box:curls or a couple squats, or whatever.
Stephen Box:Right?
Stephen Box:maybe you got a kettlebell sitting next to you and you just pick it up and do
Stephen Box:a couple of, you know, squats or some kettlebell swings or something, right?
Stephen Box:It's, it doesn't have to be big.
Stephen Box:It doesn't have to be a huge workout.
Stephen Box:It's just kind of that mental model.
Stephen Box:But one thing that I've actually seen happen with people, and this
Stephen Box:goes back to our earlier points you made, is after a while you
Stephen Box:become blind to that object, right?
Stephen Box:It's just in there, but you start to ignore it unless you have a system in
Stephen Box:place that forces you to use it, right?
Stephen Box:And that's, that's where these things, like, I think a lot of
Stephen Box:times we get, you know, messed up.
Stephen Box:We hear these ideas are like, that sounds like a great idea.
Stephen Box:And it works for a week, and then it stops working.
Stephen Box:And it's because we never put a system around it.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah, yeah.
Mike O'Connor:That makes, that makes a ton of sense.
Mike O'Connor:And like for me, I have to constantly sort of switch up what my system is.
Mike O'Connor:and I'm, I'm a big systems guy.
Mike O'Connor:Like, like you, right?
Mike O'Connor:So it's like I, but I have to constantly sort of reinvent that
Mike O'Connor:because to your point, I just start to ignore it at some point.
Mike O'Connor:Right?
Mike O'Connor:So the new thing I have, just because it sort of works with the current schedule,
Mike O'Connor:it's just like I need to either A, go to the gym, b complete this, like it's,
Mike O'Connor:for me, it's like this simple diagnostic of e every day's 30 sets, right?
Mike O'Connor:It just needs to be 30 sets of something.
Mike O'Connor:and that can be pushups, squats, blah, blah, blah, right?
Mike O'Connor:Whatever.
Mike O'Connor:Right.
Mike O'Connor:But it's like, it's 30 sets.
Mike O'Connor:Or it's like a three mile run.
Mike O'Connor:And then there's different calibrations there.
Mike O'Connor:Like I did one mile and I did 20 cents.
Mike O'Connor:Great.
Mike O'Connor:Right.
Mike O'Connor:yes.
Mike O'Connor:But I had to really sort of invent that around my current life.
Mike O'Connor:And I know that at some point this system or this sort of diagnostic I have, like,
Mike O'Connor:I won't like as much, so I'll have to sort of like reinvent something else to
Mike O'Connor:sort of form fit what I have in my life.
Mike O'Connor:But that's, it's, it's a really good point you made of like over time the trigger
Mike O'Connor:becomes less, like you just don't have the same conditions or response that you would
Mike O'Connor:if you sort of, when you had it initially.
Mike O'Connor:So you have to reinvent how you're sort of using your environment, your system
Mike O'Connor:to really, you know, reach your goals.
Stephen Box:Yeah.
Stephen Box:You, you just kind of hit on this and, and I love, cuz this is actually one of the
Stephen Box:things that I teach that's a little bit different from what most of is out there.
Stephen Box:Right.
Stephen Box:Even looking like James Clear, you know, a lot of the stuff that he
Stephen Box:teaches in his book is very rigid.
Stephen Box:It's like, you do this, you do this, it's step A, step B, step C.
Stephen Box:Right?
Stephen Box:And I think it's easy to fall into that trap when you're writing a book, right?
Stephen Box:Because in a book, people expect you to give them the exact steps to take.
Stephen Box:And so it's very easy to fall into that trap.
Stephen Box:But to me, your systems have to be flexible.
Stephen Box:If they are not flexible, they will fail because every single system has a
Stephen Box:pressure point at which it will break.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Mike O'Connor:I couldn't agree more.
Mike O'Connor:you know, and kind of to the point that we were both making earlier,
Mike O'Connor:like, fins are gonna pop up, right?
Mike O'Connor:You're gonna have a loved one die.
Mike O'Connor:you're gonna, you're gonna absolutely have days that.
Mike O'Connor:For whatever reason, you can't get to the gym, right?
Mike O'Connor:Or, you know, you can't hit this sort of this daily goal that you have for X Or
Mike O'Connor:if you're taking the course, you might have like legitimate life circumstances.
Mike O'Connor:Like, okay, I have to, I have to put an hour and 10 minutes into this today.
Mike O'Connor:Like, I'm not gonna have that.
Mike O'Connor:And, and I think the, the thing that I, that I sort of like always sort of fall
Mike O'Connor:back on for me, it's just like, it's not gonna happen two days in a row, right?
Mike O'Connor:That I, yeah, I might, I might miss the gym or I might miss a workout or, you
Mike O'Connor:know, something might happen with one of my daughters that I need to sort of
Mike O'Connor:go do X and this client meeting sort of in the way of this or, or whatever.
Mike O'Connor:But I'm not gonna miss that second day.
Mike O'Connor:And that's just the rule and the thing that I've had for myself to sort of
Mike O'Connor:just have the, the fallback from, from what I know is gonna happen.
Mike O'Connor:But you're right, the systems have to be, they have to have a
Mike O'Connor:degree of flexibility with them.
Mike O'Connor:because over time, you know, you're just gonna have things pop up and
Mike O'Connor:you're gonna just become less.
Mike O'Connor:the word like I rigid to sort of the, the thing that's not
Mike O'Connor:gonna sort of be as effective.
Mike O'Connor:So if you're not reinventing the system, you have to have some degree
Mike O'Connor:of like, flexibility in, I think.
Stephen Box:Yeah, and, and I think this idea of, of reinventing your systems
Stephen Box:and, and making these changes, which you've touched on in a couple different
Stephen Box:ways, already is important to recognize that it's not just a matter of you get
Stephen Box:bored or that circumstances around you change, but internally we change, right?
Stephen Box:As we grow, our systems need to grow with us.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Mike O'Connor:They, they have to, they have to really sort of evolve and, you know, the,
Mike O'Connor:the version of you like five years ago is very different than the version of
Mike O'Connor:you shelf that you, that you are now.
Mike O'Connor:and, and one of the other reasons that I sort of really sort
Mike O'Connor:of landed on this course and.
Mike O'Connor:I, I was on this track professionally to be a college president, and feeling,
Mike O'Connor:feeling pretty, pretty good about that.
Mike O'Connor:where I got very long story short, I got promoted in a couple roles, stepped into
Mike O'Connor:a dean role and then sort of stepped into, essentially sort of a role in a
Mike O'Connor:president's office where I got sort of see behind that mechanisms and works with
Mike O'Connor:this incredible woman leader, really, really bright and such a great mentor and
Mike O'Connor:all of these different types of things.
Mike O'Connor:And I was on this track for like a very long time, and planning my day and my
Mike O'Connor:life and, and the content I was consuming and all these other things and be like,
Mike O'Connor:okay, where are the, where are the big gaps that we have in this industry?
Mike O'Connor:And one of the things that I can bring that are, that are competitive
Mike O'Connor:an advantage that I value that do all these different types of things.
Mike O'Connor:But what happened for me personally was I was just, I hit this point
Mike O'Connor:where, kind of to the point that we were where book making earlier.
Mike O'Connor:My, my values just weren't mapping to the places that I was in, working in, or the
Mike O'Connor:industries that I wanted sort of be in.
Mike O'Connor:And, and I really value autonomy and, and being able to create and add value
Mike O'Connor:in ways that sort of makes sense for me.
Mike O'Connor:Whereas, not that that's not allowed at all in terms of the industry, but
Mike O'Connor:it, for me, it was just not jiving with the long term vision of what
Mike O'Connor:I needed, what I was actually sort of doing in my professional life.
Mike O'Connor:So I knew, I was just like, okay, you've been teaching this for a long
Mike O'Connor:time and you felt a lot of students really sort of recalibrate, find
Mike O'Connor:things that are up needed to them.
Mike O'Connor:You have to do this for yourself and if you're not doing it for yourself
Mike O'Connor:and you're not really li living with this integrity, you know that
Mike O'Connor:that's just gonna eat at you and it's gonna really sort of bother you.
Mike O'Connor:So yeah, I had to really sort of reinvent a lot of pieces of identity and.
Mike O'Connor:As much as I was sort of like, I think tried to be detached amigo and all the
Mike O'Connor:different types of things, there was a really core piece of my identity that
Mike O'Connor:was so, that was connected to my job, and I knew that I had to really sort of
Mike O'Connor:rethink who this was and who I wanted to be and do it in a way that sort of served
Mike O'Connor:the broader values that I have of how I wanna sort of serve and help people.
Mike O'Connor:but it's, it's tough.
Mike O'Connor:It's, it's definitely, I think, it's a humbling experience to go through and,
Mike O'Connor:not easy to really sort of rethink and honestly assess where you are, where you
Mike O'Connor:want to go, and then reverse engineer the steps that you're actually taking
Mike O'Connor:to, to see if those are fitting or not.
Mike O'Connor:Could be a, I think a humbling process and a, yeah, I think
Mike O'Connor:humbling is probably the best word.
Stephen Box:Yeah.
Stephen Box:I, I think it, it takes a lot, right?
Stephen Box:And that's why, you know, I encourage people, you know, Take a course like
Stephen Box:yours or get coaching with somebody like me, because what that person can help you
Stephen Box:do, what that other person can help you do, is they can ask the questions, right?
Stephen Box:They can help you start to get the answers to these things.
Stephen Box:They can help you.
Stephen Box:We talked about this a little bit before we, started recording this
Stephen Box:idea that, you know, you get really focused in on one specific thing and
Stephen Box:you can't see the bigger picture.
Stephen Box:You can't see everything around you, right?
Stephen Box:And so going through a course like yours or getting coaching is really like,
Stephen Box:imagine that you're in a museum and you're staring at a picture and you are
Stephen Box:so locked in on this picture that you can't see all the other art around you.
Stephen Box:And what this outside help does is it helps you to take a step back and realize
Stephen Box:there's an entire wall with pictures.
Mike O'Connor:one, one exercise that I love that just something you said
Mike O'Connor:just trigger triggered it in my mind.
Mike O'Connor:but I, I found this like so useful and I started doing it in a,
Mike O'Connor:in a few classes that I taught.
Mike O'Connor:it's called What's My Superpower, right?
Mike O'Connor:And there's something about having, not you self-assessing necessarily,
Mike O'Connor:but the power of asking other people to tell you what is the thing
Mike O'Connor:that I'm really uniquely good at.
Mike O'Connor:And there's something about other people's feedback on that process that
Mike O'Connor:just puts a few lights off for you.
Mike O'Connor:It just says like, huh, okay.
Mike O'Connor:Because the thing that you, that just come easy to you that are natural, you
Mike O'Connor:undervalue those relative to other people where it's like the mentors, the friends,
Mike O'Connor:the people that really know you, the work colleague that you worked really
Mike O'Connor:closely on, they lean on that superpower.
Mike O'Connor:And, and when you ask them for that help, they're happy to give
Mike O'Connor:it and sort of tell you, but it's.
Mike O'Connor:It does something where it's like, you, you see that and then like you
Mike O'Connor:start to really connect that with like, okay, well what does the world need?
Mike O'Connor:Right?
Mike O'Connor:Or, or what, how is this really sort of applied to, to, you know, different
Mike O'Connor:industries or this, this, you know, this entrepreneurial idea I have.
Mike O'Connor:And when you start to kind of connect those dots, it's really sort of freeing
Mike O'Connor:and unlocking for the person that you could potentially be, because
Mike O'Connor:you're just sort of seeing yourself in a completely different context,
Mike O'Connor:than, you know, than you, you might, and in undervalued and I think skills
Mike O'Connor:that are really sort of unique.
Stephen Box:Yeah.
Stephen Box:There's actually a, excuse me, a book that I love, it's called Insight.
Stephen Box:It's by, Tasha Urich, hopefully I pronouncing her name correctly.
Stephen Box:and, and it's, it's called Insight, why We're Not Self as self-aware as we think.
Stephen Box:Right.
Stephen Box:And she kind of touches on a lot of this stuff.
Stephen Box:We're like, We so severely un undervalue our own skills while completely
Stephen Box:overestimating our ability to do so.
Mike O'Connor:It's fascinating.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Mike O'Connor:I, so I, I not, I did a lot of like, with, with interviewing and, like the,
Mike O'Connor:the school I worked at, we had one of the most robust employer networks of
Mike O'Connor:any small cool school in the country.
Mike O'Connor:So we had like 150, 160 companies that were actually coming onto campus every
Mike O'Connor:year and, and actively recruiting.
Mike O'Connor:So, in the basement of the building that I was in, it was, it was kind of cool
Mike O'Connor:to meet all different types of employers from all different types of industries.
Mike O'Connor:They're just walking around.
Mike O'Connor:You have these informal conversations with them, and what I learned is like
Mike O'Connor:the, you know, the best employers and, you know, we, we all know the names and
Mike O'Connor:the, the biggest companies and the, the places that recruit most students, the.
Mike O'Connor:The amazing skilled interviewers that they had, despite the fact that they had these
Mike O'Connor:like very well thought out questions that mapped very specifically to the types of
Mike O'Connor:person that they were seeking that fed into their funnels in terms of like, who
Mike O'Connor:they're recruiting, blah, blah, blah.
Mike O'Connor:Like all that was thought through.
Mike O'Connor:But human biases still played such a role in terms of like how they
Mike O'Connor:were showing up in the interviews and even the best places, the best
Mike O'Connor:people, the best interviewers, and the most sort of like the, the humble,
Mike O'Connor:like incredible sort of people.
Mike O'Connor:They were, everybody has biases, right?
Mike O'Connor:and little tiny things that you have, like first impressions are forming
Mike O'Connor:in like all of seven seconds, right?
Mike O'Connor:And, and similarly enough, like the biases that you have around yourself.
Mike O'Connor:Right.
Mike O'Connor:And, and like, and how you're showing up to like a, to professional interaction
Mike O'Connor:like that and like the imposter syndrome that you are feeling that like sometimes
Mike O'Connor:is kind of coming through, right?
Mike O'Connor:Because you're undervaluing to the point you made and around
Mike O'Connor:that book you're undervaluing the, the things that you have.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Mike O'Connor:And undervalued your ability to really sort of assess it.
Mike O'Connor:But it's, it's fascinating the role of that biases play, in, in this sort
Mike O'Connor:of space because the most brilliant people I've ever seen and worked with,
Mike O'Connor:the most accomplished people, everybody has biases and, and it's really hard
Mike O'Connor:to really sort of step outside that.
Mike O'Connor:and you're never gonna sort of like work outside the
Mike O'Connor:boundary of those, those biases.
Mike O'Connor:But you can learn to sort of work with them and and I think to some
Mike O'Connor:degree be, be more self-aware.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Mike O'Connor:You,
Stephen Box:you've, we've mentioned a couple times the importance of, of setting
Stephen Box:those values and kind of understanding, and I wanted to kind of create this tie
Stephen Box:in because you just kind of brought up a very good point that happens, right?
Stephen Box:With people go to do interviews and there's that, that nervousness that,
Stephen Box:you know, fear of what if I'm not good enough, and what if they see that?
Stephen Box:Right?
Stephen Box:So we work extra hard to make a great first impression.
Stephen Box:And so, you know, you go and, and you dress the part and you
Stephen Box:try to say the right words and you try to answer questions in
Stephen Box:the way that you've been taught.
Stephen Box:It's the best way to answer questions.
Stephen Box:But the thing is, if those things you're doing are not in align with who you are,
Stephen Box:you're going to feel like an imposter.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Mike O'Connor:Incredibly well said.
Mike O'Connor:you, you're exactly right, and I think like good interviewing is.
Mike O'Connor:I think connecting the real to like what the person wants to hear.
Mike O'Connor:Right.
Mike O'Connor:because I, like, I, I think we could also to be asked, there is a
Mike O'Connor:performative aspect of it, right.
Mike O'Connor:And it is, it is straight competition, like, for sure.
Mike O'Connor:Right.
Mike O'Connor:But you know, the first question that you're gonna get in any kind of
Mike O'Connor:interview is some variation of why are you interested in this position?
Mike O'Connor:I can be asked in all sorts of different ways.
Mike O'Connor:Right.
Mike O'Connor:But if you're not able to talk about the, you, the real you mm-hmm.
Mike O'Connor:And sort of map that to the them, and if you're not able to Correct.
Mike O'Connor:Create that connection, the interview's dead in the water.
Mike O'Connor:Right, right away.
Mike O'Connor:And, and that's a hard thing to do.
Mike O'Connor:it's, and it's like, and it takes a good amount of practice in different pieces.
Mike O'Connor:And, just to sort of back up to what you were saying around sort of the
Mike O'Connor:anxiety and all that, that pre, pre stuff, one thing I work with my clients
Mike O'Connor:and, I, I find this just to be a really sort of helpful practice, is.
Mike O'Connor:Everybody knows you need to do a bunch of research.
Mike O'Connor:And, I've got some simple frameworks that people can use to really sort of tap
Mike O'Connor:into like what they should be looking at.
Mike O'Connor:But a simple, a simple framework of exercise, quick exercise, just getting
Mike O'Connor:that heart rate high, followed by some type of mindfulness, followed by, sounds
Mike O'Connor:funny, but a power pose, to get your, your testosterone and your, your, your
Mike O'Connor:dopamine surgery and all that goes in a good direction lowering cortisol.
Mike O'Connor:And then, like a, a pump up song, like a, a song that puts
Mike O'Connor:you in a good elevated mood.
Mike O'Connor:That rubric right there, I, I pulled that from Josh White Skin who wrote
Mike O'Connor:this really incredible book and he does some great performance coaching.
Mike O'Connor:But that simple thing of like, okay, channel that stress, you know,
Mike O'Connor:get, get that heart rate pumping.
Mike O'Connor:Do some mindfulness to just quiet.
Mike O'Connor:Get your thinking clear.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Mike O'Connor:And then, you know, get your, get, do the power poles, get your cortisol and,
Mike O'Connor:and everything sort of going in a good direction followed by that song to put
Mike O'Connor:you in a good mood set does so much more like that like little simple thing
Mike O'Connor:does like as much as hours of research.
Mike O'Connor:Like, and it, and it puts you in just a good position and it quiets your
Mike O'Connor:mind a little bit and you still wanna do like all of that other stuff, don't
Mike O'Connor:get me wrong, but like that 20 minutes like has so much r o i relative to like
Mike O'Connor:hours of extra research that people do.
Mike O'Connor:and it just helps you show up and like just be present and be there and, yeah.
Mike O'Connor:I love finding like little things like that that just help people sort of
Mike O'Connor:like perform and be themselves better and be a little bit more comfortable.
Stephen Box:Yeah.
Stephen Box:I, I like the, the idea too of, you know, we talked about the importance
Stephen Box:of, of showing up as you Right.
Stephen Box:Which is to me, If you take the time to really understand these values and
Stephen Box:who you are as a person when you're doing that research, ideally you're
Stephen Box:seeing things that this company stands for that align with your values.
Stephen Box:Otherwise, I'm not sure why you want this job.
Stephen Box:Right?
Stephen Box:so hopefully there's an alignment there.
Stephen Box:And so now when you are sitting down to talk with this person, they ask that
Stephen Box:question of Why do you want this position?
Stephen Box:You're now able to speak confidently about your values, what's important to
Stephen Box:you, and tie that back to the company.
Stephen Box:And if you just do that, you're already giving yourself a buffer for mistakes that
Stephen Box:you might make later in the interview.
Stephen Box:Right?
Stephen Box:Just because it's, because like you said, that first impression is fixed so fast
Stephen Box:that just talking about that and getting that person to be like, wow, this guy's
Stephen Box:really in alignment with what we want.
Stephen Box:They will miss other mistakes that you make later on because they've
Stephen Box:already convinced themselves that you're the right person.
Stephen Box:That's so well
Mike O'Connor:said.
Mike O'Connor:And it's so true.
Mike O'Connor:It's so, so true, right?
Mike O'Connor:Because person, it's this, it's like these biases that we talked about before, right?
Mike O'Connor:first impression bias is a huge one.
Mike O'Connor:Like Halo, a fact is another one, right?
Mike O'Connor:Where if the person's really good at one, they're good at other things.
Mike O'Connor:but those biases like work to your advantage to some degree.
Mike O'Connor:I think people are afraid to say that, but it's true, right?
Mike O'Connor:So if you're able to sort of map that, and another thing that just I think
Mike O'Connor:shows that you're a really high value target, you know, or high value person
Mike O'Connor:if, if you really spend the time to ask very, very thoughtful questions.
Mike O'Connor:Questions that get at the, the, the soul of the organization or,
Mike O'Connor:or things that sort of get to the, the deeper understanding of.
Mike O'Connor:Of, mission culture values, like whatever, like if you're, if you're, if you're
Mike O'Connor:doing the research on the podcast that, that the c e o has done and you're taking
Mike O'Connor:notes and you're sort of using that to sort of inform thoughtful questions, or
Mike O'Connor:if you're going a little bit deeper with, you know, finding content that's out there
Mike O'Connor:on, company values or how they're showing up in the community, or like all these
Mike O'Connor:different things that map to who they say they're, it shows that you're really sort
Mike O'Connor:of like, not just intellectually curious, but you're really thoughtful, right?
Mike O'Connor:And you're, and you're being really sort of intentional about
Mike O'Connor:how does this map to who I am?
Mike O'Connor:And it puts that value pro proposition on them to really sort of have
Mike O'Connor:to sort of tell you who they are.
Mike O'Connor:yes.
Mike O'Connor:But yeah, but those, those things are all hard to do if you're trying to just
Mike O'Connor:like perform and be the person that you think they are, that they want to be.
Mike O'Connor:And when, when somebody's sort of been, and I've been on the other side of this
Mike O'Connor:where I've done, HR kind consulting work.
Mike O'Connor:It's like when you're.
Mike O'Connor:Looking at and assessing like a wide number of people.
Mike O'Connor:it's hard to remember all the spec specificity or whatever, but you
Mike O'Connor:remember how they made you feel, right?
Mike O'Connor:And you can, you can suss out the people that don't really sort of seem to map
Mike O'Connor:to the vision that you have for, you know, for the organization, whatever.
Mike O'Connor:So to your point, right, like, you, you want to put the thought into
Mike O'Connor:like, how does this really sort of fit for me and what's that bridge?
Stephen Box:Yeah.
Stephen Box:I, I mean, it's kind of like somebody's listening to this interview right now
Stephen Box:and we've hit on so many different things and so many different ways that
Stephen Box:if I were to sit down right after this interview, finishes and say, okay,
Stephen Box:tell me five points that Mike made today, you would struggle to make, to
Stephen Box:write down those five points, right?
Stephen Box:I mean, unless you were taking notes and you're like cheating on it, right?
Stephen Box:Glancing notes, but just like off the top of your head, you would
Stephen Box:struggle to give me those five points.
Stephen Box:But what you would do is that one that really hit hard for you, right?
Stephen Box:That one that really stuck to you.
Stephen Box:You'd be able to tell me that one.
Stephen Box:Like instantaneously, and that's the one that was the most important for you.
Stephen Box:Now, the other ones might be valuable.
Stephen Box:You might write 'em down, you might implement them at some point, but that one
Stephen Box:that was stuck with you, that's the one.
Stephen Box:Right.
Stephen Box:And, and that's kinda what you're saying here is that it's, it's not really
Stephen Box:just about like remembering everything or getting every detail perfect.
Stephen Box:It's about the feeling and feelings come from what, what
Mike O'Connor:we value.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Mike O'Connor:That's really well said.
Mike O'Connor:I, I, I almost sort of look and you just made me realize, or, or think about this
Mike O'Connor:in a, in a, in a different way, right?
Mike O'Connor:It's almost like a, a sort of a mental model, right?
Mike O'Connor:That you're, that you're sort of building on the fly about, you know,
Mike O'Connor:like who, who am I in terms of like my identity for this organization, right?
Mike O'Connor:And.
Mike O'Connor:And that's going to change to some degree.
Mike O'Connor:But the core you is, is you.
Mike O'Connor:Right?
Mike O'Connor:So you're trying to sort of figure out like, what's this unique bridge or sort
Mike O'Connor:of unique thing or the aspects of my like, you know, hyper uniqueness that
Mike O'Connor:really sort of ran and connect me better to this sort of place it place itself.
Mike O'Connor:but yeah, that was an interesting connection that you just made for me cause
Mike O'Connor:I hadn't really exactly thought of it like
Stephen Box:that before.
Stephen Box:Yeah.
Stephen Box:For, for me, everything starts with the mindset.
Stephen Box:and, and honestly, I'm, I'm actually, I'm, I'm happy that I gave you that insight,
Stephen Box:but I'm, I'm actually a little surprised because, and look into your course, one of
Stephen Box:the things that I really love is, I mean, I already kind of gave you like the, you
Stephen Box:know, the one about showing up every day.
Stephen Box:But I think people would expect, okay, I'm only gonna get 15 days to do this.
Stephen Box:So we're, we're gonna jump right into the deep end.
Stephen Box:You're gonna start giving me, you know, like, actions to go take things
Stephen Box:I'm supposed to go do every day.
Stephen Box:And from what I can tell, just in looking at the curriculum, you don't
Stephen Box:really give someone that first like solid, like go do this specific physical
Stephen Box:thing until about day 12, right?
Stephen Box:Everything up to day 12 is all about setting your values,
Stephen Box:getting your mindset right?
Stephen Box:It's about taking an assessment of where you are.
Stephen Box:It's all about getting all the pieces in place, right?
Stephen Box:It's like the old, I don't know if it's real, quote or not, but I've, it's always
Stephen Box:been attributed to, Abraham, Abraham Lincoln about, you know, if I had to
Stephen Box:chopt down a tree, that's been the first two hours sharpening the ax, right?
Stephen Box:And, and that's what you're doing here.
Stephen Box:You're helping people to spend those first 11 days sharpening the ax.
Stephen Box:So that day 12, when you start chopping the tree, that bad boy's coming down fast.
Stephen Box:Yeah, that's
Mike O'Connor:really well said.
Mike O'Connor:No, you, you're exactly right.
Mike O'Connor:You're doing a really sort of deep diagnostic.
Mike O'Connor:The first part of it is you're really sort of looking at, okay,
Mike O'Connor:who's the person I wanna sort of be?
Mike O'Connor:What are those values?
Mike O'Connor:How am I sort of showing up in the world?
Mike O'Connor:But then there's a lot of audits, right?
Mike O'Connor:Where you're essentially sort of looking at like, okay, here's the
Mike O'Connor:brand that, here's the me, here's the brand that I wanna start to put out
Mike O'Connor:in the world that's organic and true and all of those different things.
Mike O'Connor:But then I'm really sort of looking at like, how am I, how am I sort of doing it?
Mike O'Connor:What are the audits?
Mike O'Connor:Like?
Mike O'Connor:How am I showing up?
Mike O'Connor:But I'm doing a deep dive on, on these different, these metrics that I have
Mike O'Connor:and like, am I sort of going towards the goals that I say I, I wanna have or not?
Mike O'Connor:And you're really doing that.
Mike O'Connor:But then what you're doing sort of as you're sort of doing this sort
Mike O'Connor:of deeper di diagnostic is you're starting to one, sort of get in
Mike O'Connor:the habit of self-improvement and you're building that into, that
Mike O'Connor:you're doing this, this meditation, or some, some type of mindfulness,
Mike O'Connor:I shouldn't say just meditation.
Mike O'Connor:Combined with, with some journaling and some real sort of task batching and,
Mike O'Connor:and, and trying to get better at your, your daily sort of 80 20 analysis.
Mike O'Connor:But then you're really starting, starting to think of what are the
Mike O'Connor:things that I can do that I can build into my routine that have outsized roi?
Mike O'Connor:How am I starting to hold myself accountable?
Mike O'Connor:Right?
Mike O'Connor:And as you do that, and you go through it, you're gonna then get prompts after the
Mike O'Connor:course ends two weeks later, Hey, where are you at with these types of things?
Mike O'Connor:What have you been doing?
Mike O'Connor:who is the, who's your accountability buddy?
Mike O'Connor:Or like, who's the person that you're checking in to make sure that's happening?
Mike O'Connor:Maybe that's me.
Mike O'Connor:Maybe that's somebody else.
Mike O'Connor:But you are building in something and you're trying this operating
Mike O'Connor:system and the first version, 1.0 isn't gonna be perfect, right?
Mike O'Connor:And we know that, and it never is, but it's gonna be better and it's gonna be
Mike O'Connor:better than what you're currently doing.
Mike O'Connor:And the hope is, That by recalibrating where your floor is and really sort
Mike O'Connor:of looking at that and seeing the positive end of recalibrating that
Mike O'Connor:floor, you're gonna then sort of like 30 days later reassess again and make
Mike O'Connor:this a, a continual sort of practice.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Stephen Box:Yeah.
Stephen Box:I think, you know, and this is going back to what I said in the introduction, right?
Stephen Box:Where this at, at the surface might seem different than
Stephen Box:what I normally teach, right?
Stephen Box:This idea of like, you're gonna do this in 15 days, but you know, I'm hope,
Stephen Box:I'm hoping that now people see that it's not about you're gonna completely
Stephen Box:change everything and fix everything and have life be perfect in 15 days.
Stephen Box:It's taking that 15 days and using it as a launchpad for the next 60 days, 90 days,
Stephen Box:whatever, and being able to implement those things and make those changes.
Stephen Box:But those 15 days are.
Stephen Box:What's going to give you the foundation you need to be
Stephen Box:successful in those changes.
Mike O'Connor:Exactly.
Mike O'Connor:Exactly.
Mike O'Connor:You know, and we're, we're trying to sort of get people up to, to
Mike O'Connor:some degree of base camp, right.
Mike O'Connor:but you're gonna sort of, you're gonna hike these foothills and you're gonna
Mike O'Connor:do things that are, that are hard and challenging, really sort of make you
Mike O'Connor:think so that you can sort of like look at and sort of reassess the bigger
Mike O'Connor:mountain mats that's in front of you.
Mike O'Connor:but you're exactly right, right?
Mike O'Connor:I mean, 15 days is a short period of time.
Mike O'Connor:It is, is it enough time to, it is enough time to sort of recalibrate
Mike O'Connor:and sort of pull together a mission vision and start to pilot things.
Mike O'Connor:But in terms of long term, 15 days is a drop in the bucket, right?
Mike O'Connor:So trying to reset your floor and then sort of think bigger picture
Mike O'Connor:about where you want to go and who you want to be and start going in
Stephen Box:that direction.
Stephen Box:Yeah.
Stephen Box:And, and I think something that people miss out on so often is it's really
Stephen Box:about that mental clarity, right?
Stephen Box:It's about.
Stephen Box:Having an understanding of what you actually want to do, because how often do
Stephen Box:we struggle to accomplish something for no other reason than we're just not sure how
Mike O'Connor:to start.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah, that's really well said.
Mike O'Connor:and yeah, that, that, that direction and then that clarity in all of
Mike O'Connor:these different pieces, you know, I kind of going back to the point
Mike O'Connor:that we made before about men, those are, I think those are tough, right?
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Mike O'Connor:And, and I think it's, I, I don't know that I know I, I certainly wasn't raised
Mike O'Connor:to sort of like, think about myself and think about like, What do I want
Mike O'Connor:or what do I sort of need or whatever.
Mike O'Connor:It's like I'm putting, I'm, I'm thinking about my family.
Mike O'Connor:I'm thinking like, how am I providing for them and what am I doing and how am I
Mike O'Connor:sort of doing the different things to sort of help them be their best self, right?
Mike O'Connor:So I think there's, there's pieces of it that are uncomfortable and
Mike O'Connor:weird and, and just different, but there is this, I think this sort of
Mike O'Connor:gut check reality that we all have.
Mike O'Connor:like when things aren't, you know, even if you're not the most, sort of inward
Mike O'Connor:looking person, and I know that I've, I've had to really sort of grow a lot of that,
Mike O'Connor:but there's this gut check piece about things just don't feel right sometimes.
Mike O'Connor:or, or, you know, I, I, I'm doing all of these kind of things and it
Mike O'Connor:just doesn't, there's just something in my gut that's telling me this
Mike O'Connor:is like, this is something wrong.
Mike O'Connor:yes.
Mike O'Connor:And that's really like the, the, I, I kind of created this thing to sort
Mike O'Connor:of solve challenges of, of people that I know and work with that.
Mike O'Connor:That we're sort of having it, but I also did it for myself, right.
Mike O'Connor:About, you know, what's, what's, what are the things that help me sort of
Mike O'Connor:level up to get to where I want to go?
Mike O'Connor:and, and force me to really sort of like, look at the thing that I
Mike O'Connor:don't necessarily wanna look at.
Mike O'Connor:And, and stare those in the face.
Mike O'Connor:Because as soon as you confront them, you know, again, we can kind
Mike O'Connor:of solve Forex a little bit more.
Mike O'Connor:but we need to know what those, what those pieces are, and to the points
Mike O'Connor:that you've made a number of times.
Mike O'Connor:It's like they're so interconnected and holistic that if, if we're not doing them,
Mike O'Connor:if we're not sort of serving ourselves, then we're not gonna show up for the
Mike O'Connor:people around us as best as we can.
Stephen Box:Yeah.
Stephen Box:And, and I think, you know, something that you just kind of highlighted
Stephen Box:there that I wanna point out is, It's not about what we do, right?
Stephen Box:It's about the interconnectivity.
Stephen Box:you know, I've seen so many guys, you know, who have, have come to
Stephen Box:me and had that realization of my entire existence to this point, as
Stephen Box:an adult, has been about my job.
Stephen Box:It's about my job title.
Stephen Box:It's about the amount of money I bring in.
Stephen Box:And they've convinced themselves that the things that they're doing
Stephen Box:chasing after these things, finale is hours at work dedicating themselves
Stephen Box:to, to their job is all in the name of being a great provider, right?
Stephen Box:That's what they see themselves as.
Stephen Box:And they've missed the point that their, their spouse, their kids
Stephen Box:don't really care about the money.
Stephen Box:They want to spend time with them, they want them in their life.
Stephen Box:And, you know, the.
Stephen Box:Going through a lot of this stuff that Mike is, is talking about, is
Stephen Box:gonna start to help you to realize what's actually important, right?
Stephen Box:Like what actually matters to you.
Stephen Box:And it's not to say that you can't make money, it's not to say that work shouldn't
Stephen Box:be important to you or anything like that.
Stephen Box:That's not what we're saying.
Stephen Box:But it's a matter of, it's gonna help you to find that balance to actually
Stephen Box:help you start to show up as a better version of you so that your family, the
Stephen Box:people who depend on you, the people that you're providing for, can also show
Stephen Box:up as zen besa as their best selves.
Stephen Box:Right?
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Mike O'Connor:That's, that's really well said.
Mike O'Connor:I, I'm almost cautious to say anything more because you,
Mike O'Connor:I think you, you nailed it.
Mike O'Connor:You nailed it right there.
Mike O'Connor:it's, it's about being the best version of, of yourself and sort of showing
Mike O'Connor:up in ways that I think supports and augments, you know, the, the good around
Mike O'Connor:us and the good that we, we wanna be, And that's, again, I think it's, I think
Mike O'Connor:it's incredibly challenging, work and I, I wanna sort of acknowledge and own that
Mike O'Connor:cuz I think as men, you know, are not always the most sort of self-reflective
Mike O'Connor:or in we're looking or, or whatever.
Mike O'Connor:but the, the more that we can sort of just see the bigger sort of holistic
Mike O'Connor:patterns is sort of interconnectivity of some of these different pieces
Mike O'Connor:in the broader context of how these inform, how we show up as a father
Mike O'Connor:and how we're sort of helping, you know, helping be a better spouse.
Mike O'Connor:How we're helping our communities, how we're helping lead, how we're
Mike O'Connor:doing all those different things.
Mike O'Connor:You know, then we start to kind of see just how critical and, and
Mike O'Connor:important they're, and you know, I I, you could, you could tell anybody
Mike O'Connor:or I could tell anybody, like, if you're not doing the things to level
Mike O'Connor:yourself up, you know, you're, you're, you're not just stopping yourself.
Mike O'Connor:You're actually stagnating the growth of other people around you, right?
Mike O'Connor:And, and the people that really sort of depend on you or that
Mike O'Connor:spend a lot of time with you.
Mike O'Connor:If you're not being your best self or the sort of best version of what or whatever
Mike O'Connor:it is, then there's a, there's a real sort of trickle down of how that's helping
Mike O'Connor:them sort of show up in, in their lives.
Mike O'Connor:Right.
Mike O'Connor:So I, I hope this has been helpful.
Mike O'Connor:I'm, I'm more than happy to talk to anybody, about any of these topics
Mike O'Connor:because, I think as somebody that's sort of gone through and gone through the
Mike O'Connor:journey themself and, and has sort of had to recalibrate and really refine, what,
Mike O'Connor:what brings joy and where can I add value in all those different types of things,
Mike O'Connor:I'm, I'm hoping it's, I can, I can really help serve other people in that as well.
Stephen Box:Yeah.
Stephen Box:yeah, we, we didn't get a chance to really touch on a much, and we're,
Stephen Box:we're kind of like hitting up on time here, but, you know, I would just kind
Stephen Box:of share with people, you know, in our previous conversation, you, you told me
Stephen Box:that this course for you actually came about because, you know, Like most of us.
Stephen Box:2020, your life was in turmoil, right?
Stephen Box:both because what was going on in the world and a lot of things that you had
Stephen Box:gone on personally, and this really came about as something that you had to
Stephen Box:do to help you get right, like right.
Stephen Box:You had to find what was important to you.
Stephen Box:You had to figure out how to become your best self.
Stephen Box:A and now you, you know, similar to my story now have this passion
Stephen Box:where like you've seen the changes this's made for you and you wanna
Stephen Box:share that with other people.
Stephen Box:You wanna give other people those tools.
Mike O'Connor:Yeah.
Mike O'Connor:No ex exactly right.
Mike O'Connor:I mean, I think, just sort of cover it briefly, but I think yeah, March
Mike O'Connor:of 2020, just like everybody, right?
Mike O'Connor:you know, I, I was in this, you know, I think, I think a big job where I had a
Mike O'Connor:lot of people at every level organization relying on me, to sort of do, to do more.
Mike O'Connor:And I'm, you know, I'm trapped inside a house for one year
Mike O'Connor:plus with two small kids.
Mike O'Connor:and working insane amounts of time.
Mike O'Connor:My wife's also sort of working and serving and just like we talked about
Mike O'Connor:before with, with regards to that sort of broader diagnostic, I saw things
Mike O'Connor:just not working the way I wanted to.
Mike O'Connor:Right?
Mike O'Connor:Like my marriage was strained, my relationship with my kids was strained.
Mike O'Connor:people at work are, are sort of, are feeling sort of strained and
Mike O'Connor:I'm doing all these different things and, and trying to sort of like
Mike O'Connor:hold up everybody as, as best I can.
Mike O'Connor:And I think I did a really good job all things considered, but
Mike O'Connor:internally I was struggling, right and compounded over time.
Mike O'Connor:by the time we actually got our kids into daycare, which was a year plus later,
Mike O'Connor:so it was 13 months of all of us being in a really sort of confined space.
Mike O'Connor:And all these sort of crazy stress stresses and triggers and the
Mike O'Connor:things that are sort of happening.
Mike O'Connor:I just noticed all of the things about myself were like,
Mike O'Connor:were kind of deteriorating.
Mike O'Connor:And I, and I felt like there was this shrinking part of me about the
Mike O'Connor:things that I loved and all of that, like that little, there was still a
Mike O'Connor:light there, but man was a damn right.
Mike O'Connor:It just wasn't, I just wasn't as happy.
Mike O'Connor:And, you know, it wasn't until I went out, I, I had a trip with friends
Mike O'Connor:to, to Colorado in May, and it really just sort of reignited like
Mike O'Connor:the things that I sort of loved.
Mike O'Connor:And, and that was like, that was so much later and I, and I, I started outta
Mike O'Connor:this sort of path of creating something that, that I, I hope will sort of bring,
Mike O'Connor:bring a lot of value to, to people.
Mike O'Connor:But, Yeah, I, I think everybody's sort of probably gone through
Mike O'Connor:their own versions of that.
Mike O'Connor:and as somebody that's sort of like, come out the other side of it and has been able
Mike O'Connor:to sort of recalibrate and find so much, you know, keep, keep moving, keep going.
Mike O'Connor:and I would, I would love to help and work with you to just help,
Mike O'Connor:help you connect to that theme that is bigger than you, that gives you
Mike O'Connor:purpose and really find what that is.
Mike O'Connor:As simple as it sounds like, I find that like a, having a, a simple mission
Mike O'Connor:vision, just a, a two sentence, you personal mission statement helps so
Mike O'Connor:much in terms of sort of seeing bigger picture, contextualizing problems,
Mike O'Connor:working through challenges, and, and using it as a filter to decide is
Mike O'Connor:this something that I wanna do or not?
Mike O'Connor:so it's been a, it's been a real sort of big, big thing for me and,
Mike O'Connor:and wanna help more people find.
Stephen Box:Awesome.
Stephen Box:I love it, man.
Stephen Box:so again, I want to thank Mike for, for coming on today, sharing so many
Stephen Box:insights, so much wisdom with us.
Stephen Box:appreciate it.
Stephen Box:In the show notes, there will be two links.
Stephen Box:one is to a free, guide that Mike has for you, and then the other
Stephen Box:one is going to be to his course.
Stephen Box:so definitely encourage you guys to check that out, especially if you feel
Stephen Box:like there's just something missing.
Stephen Box:It's like something doesn't quite feel right, but you
Stephen Box:can't figure out what it is.
Stephen Box:this is gonna be a great course for you to help start taking those steps to
Stephen Box:figure out what that is and to correct it.
Stephen Box:but as always, guys wanna remind you that none of us are born Unshakable
Stephen Box:or we can all become Unshakable.
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