Overcoming The Fear Of Other People’s Opinions with Dr. Michael Gervais

Welcome to Let It Be Easy with Susie Moore.

Susie Moore:

Well, welcome to the Let It Be Easy podcast, Dr. Michael Gervais. I'm so thrilled to have you here.

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Oh, thank you. I love your enthusiasm. I'm excited to be here with you as well.

Susie Moore:

I've been enjoying your book, the First Rule of Mastery: Stop worrying about what people think of you now. You coined FOPO

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Yeah, yeah, I did.

Susie Moore:

Can you tell us what it stands for? So, fear of other people's Opinions?

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Yes. Fear of people's opinions.

Susie Moore:

Yes, Fear of people's opinions. And my first question is this, Michael, how do we know when we're living in it, right? Because I think maybe we're in denial about this. Sometimes I think, oh, I don't really care, but I know I secretly care. What are some signs where we're living in fear of other people's judgments and thoughts about us?

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Yeah. Well first I think your question is really good. How do we know? And most of us are most the time, and we are hardwired. We are biologically hardwired to attend to other people's opinions. And as the narrative commonly is expressed, about 200,000 years ago, if we didn't fit in the tribe and we were kicked out, it was a near death sentence. Because if the two of us did something unfavorable to the rest of the tribe and we're pushed out, it's just too hard to figure out life that way, to fend, to forge, to hunt, to gather to whatever. It's just too much. So being kicked out of the tribe was a near death sentence, but that hard wiring hasn't changed over 200,000 years. And so we're walking around in modern times with very different challenges. And one of the remnants from our early brain development is that make sure that people are not judging or critiquing you because if they do that too much, it's a near death sentence. And so that's one of the reasons it feels so powerful for so many of us. And I think based on my 25 years as a high performance psychologist and the research and working with World's Best, is that we all have it less narcissist, sociopaths, and the truly enlightened, those are the three that don't have it.

Susie Moore:

So if we don't have any fear of what people think, we're like, we're one of those three.

See the very good news oor very bad news. So Michael, when you explain FOPO and what it's costing us, I mean reading your book and understanding how held back, we are doing the opposite of what I call regret proofing your life. We we're constantly in this, oh, what will she think? What will he think? How do I need to perform today? One of the things that stood out the most as I was reading is how we're actually not present because we are missing, we're actually missing what's happening in this meeting. Is my boss approving of me? Is my coworker thinking I'm dumb or smart? It's like this constant scanning. Could you just explain more about that? Because I felt very understood reading your words.

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Oh, did you? Oh, that's great. For a long time I carried this around with me privately. I didn't have a fun handle or term to put to it, but I knew that I was attending too much to what they might be thinking of me and what I was doing, and come to find out when I started working with World's Best as they were doing it too, is that we are constantly scanning and we're scanning to see if we're okay. And it's this reflexive checking mechanism based on what we're just talking about, the way our brain is wired to see if we're okay in the eyes of others. And it's so pervasive that it pulls us away from being in the present moment. And I'll give you a fun little story of how this first happened to me. The first time I recognized it is I was 16 years old and I'd save up a couple summers for my first car.

And I really liked my first car. It cost like $3,000. It was the Mazda B 2000 truck, just to give you a visual. And I'm driving down Pacific Coast Highway. I live in Southern California and there was a car that was going to be passing me in the same direction. And I remember distinctly straightening up, grabbing the steering wheel as if it was like I wanted to look cool. And I thought when they looked in here into my car, they're going to see a cool kid driving this car. And I tried to catch out of the corner of my eye, them looking into my car and they never looked. They had zero interest. So it hit me like a lightning bolt. I just went through all of this conforming, all of this shape, shifting to look a certain way for somebody who didn't even care at all.

And I was so embarrassed by it. I was so concerned. What am I doing with my life? I knew that this was not the path forward, but I didn't have anyone to talk about it because I was so embarrassed. And then as I mentioned earlier, that it kept showing up when I was working with elite athletes that they too are worried about how they look and worried about letting people down and worried about not being good enough to make the team to not look stupid if they do make the team. It's this pervasive thing that the cost is really high and the main cost is we're living life for the approval of others. We have outsourced our sense of identity. We outsource our sense of self-esteem at the whimsical critique or acceptance of another person. So the cost is really high individually and it us from being our authentic self. And I know that word authenticity can get thrown around like a buzzword, but I mean it in the most grounded sense is that when we look out to another person to see if we're okay in their eyes, what it ends up doing is unearthing our sense of who we actually are to ourselves. And there's a whole host of other reasons why in modern times, especially for our children, we are so tuned to other people's opinions. But I'll save some of that for later.

Susie Moore:

So Michael, I remember when I started my own business, I think on some level, as human beings, we know that we can fail because we already have. And failure is to be expected. And reading your book, I've come to understand that the thing isn't necessarily the failure. It's like, what are people going to say about my failure? And I remember I wanted to start putting out videos like content, and I was scared. I held off for such a long time because I had a couple of friends, let's say, who kind of didn't really support my transition. I had a good career in tech and they were like, are you sure going to be a life coach? That sounds so, I don't know, weird. And I was like, what if I put out videos and no one watches them or worse people say that they're terrible. I don't want those friends to see. And it was so I look at it now and I'm like, this is so dumb. I was scared. I was creatively holding back because of the opinions of maybe two, perhaps three people. And I'm like, this is it. This is what you're talking about.

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Yeah, no, that's exactly it. And you're right. It's not failure in and of itself. It's not the mistake in and of itself. What's the big deal? Unless those failures and or mistakes cost materially, meaning maybe somebody's life, maybe yours, maybe financial ruin. There are costly mistakes. But for the most part, most of our mistakes or failures are really social blunders, not having it all together when we're presenting as if we should, whether that's in business or in social life. And while we're talking about business, the cost of fopo is really high in organizations as well. We find that there's a decreased risk taking. There's a decreased creativity and expression of ideas, which is really innovation. There's a struggle that people have to collaborate with people. There's a reduced engagement and productivity when we're constantly consumed with what are they going to think we hold back so we don't look stupid or dumb or not good enough in the eyes of others. So there's a whole host of things, as you would imagine, it can definitely limit your growth career development as well. And

Susie Moore:

Our joy is robbed, right? It's like, yeah.

Dr. Michael Gervais:

I was going to say, yeah, of course. The last one, our mental health and sense of vitality is completely stripped.

Susie Moore:

So sometimes I observe people and I'm like, wow, they seem so free. They say whatever they want, they do whatever they want. And I'm like, and this is why here in lies that feeling of isolation, which is why this book is so fantastic because we think it's just us. Everyone seems so confident, or someone seems like, oh, they're shoving up and they just know things and they just speak with ease and they introduce themselves with they're, and we think, what about me? What happened? Am I like the odd one out over here?

Dr. Michael Gervais:

And that's because we are really good at propping up an image. And there's a really fun book. It's not well-written, but it's called The Night and Rusty Armor. And again, it's not well-written, so you got to work your way through it.

It's short. But the point is very clear, and I'll maybe save some folks from actually picking up the book, but I know I'm sorry to the author, but it's written a long time ago. And the essence is that many of us are walking around with this protective armor that is shiny and amazing and it looks great and it keeps us safe. However, it's very heavy and we have to tend to it every day. We have to oil it, we have to polish it for it to look shiny and to move well. And what ends up happening is that that's okay. We can prop ourselves up and look a certain way to the world, but the amount of work is so overwhelming that it kind of takes over. And what ends up happening to most people is they don't oil it the right way. They don't shine it enough.

And they're now carrying around this very heavy protective armor that's not moving the way it once did when you first put on your image to the world. And it just wears us down. And the author makes a crosswalks, the ideas, how much stronger are we if we were to walk around in moccasins or sandals or our feet on the earth as opposed to this big heavy armor that we have to lug around. And so it's a nice, the knight in rusty armor, I think titles it well. But it is the case for most of us, I think, I don't use this word lightly, but it's a bit of a hidden epidemic. And it just might be the single greatest constrictor of mine and yours and the person listening, it just might be the greatest constrictor of their potential. And so it's an obsession that we have of looking good.

Susie Moore:

For sure. And it's such a relief, Michael, to understand the universality of this, to understand that it's not, I think that that's the thing about fear too, right? Like the F in, like we feel so alone, and we think because it's not like we're talking about, oh, I really hope this girl accepts me. I really hope this cool girl at this party who's also on a reality TV show. I hope she takes my number and I really hope that she thought that I had a fantastic outfit on. Oh, and I really thought that she was so funny when I said that one line, no one, well, maybe some people are, but it's not like, Hey, let's have a huddle and talk about what's really going on inside of us.

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Well, we are.

Susie Moore:

What's fun.

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Yeah, we are. You are. You're community definitely is. And so I had a lot of fun in the research of this because I experienced the isolation of it. I think that that's what you're pointing to as well, because it is a bit embarrassing. However, we're all struggling with it. And then when I came across, I was doing some research about Beethoven for another project.

Susie Moore:

Yes, I love that. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Michael Gervais:

And so it made me feel a certain way that Beethoven had fopo. And it wasn't until he stopped worrying about what other people thought about him is when he shifted from performing from the world outside of him to performing from the world inside of him. And it wasn't until that point where some of his greatest works were expressed. And when he embraced what I would call the first rule of mastery is when he fully crossed over and threw himself completely to his music. And so it was just like, if Beethoven had it, okay, maybe I'm in better company than this little kid worrying about looking cool.

Susie Moore:

Yeah. What's so interesting too, don't you find that in your life when the stakes don't feel high, when you're just like, ah, I'm showing up to this thing or whatever. You are actually at your best. You find that, do you remember, I forget the name of the band now. Oh my gosh, they're so famous. Bono's the lead singer. What's the name of that band?

Dr. Michael Gervais:

U2

Susie Moore:

They were trying to get, I remember reading a story that they were trying to get a deal, a record dealer record deal, and they were touring with all these people showing up, and no one had chosen them. And then they went to a final concert and they were like, Hey, this is it. We're out. And they performed better than ever. And you give the golf example in your story, in your book too, the different levels of player and how they perform with a camera thinking it's for charity, people watching. I mean, can you just break that down a bit? How we do better too, when we have fopo, we actually, ironically, we're at our best.

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Yeah. So I'm glad you brought all that up. That's really fun. So I'll tell one story and then I'll talk about the golf experience. Experience slash research is that I was working with an NBA athlete. He had won four titles, so he had won a lot. And I asked him, what is it like when you're at your best? And he says, oh, when I do that, I catch a case of the efforts. I don't know, I'll just use the curse word that he used. I catch a case of the fuck its, and basically what he meant was I just didn't care. I was completely free of caring what people thought of me. I didn't care about how the outcome was going to go. I didn't care about letting people down. I didn't care about if I made a mistake, how I was going to look.

In other words, I was completely free to be tuned to the demands of the moment. So he was able to meet the moment, whatever those demands were, to his best ability. And that was the assignment, just do my best at each moment of the game. And when you think about the simplicity of that assignment, it's pretty good. And so in the book, I talked about a research project that I was part of where Dr. Leslie Sherlin and myself, he's a neuroscientist and myself with the support of Red Bull in the high performance program. We had three golfers, and the first golfer is world class. He's recognized by just about everybody in the golf world. Ricky Fowler is his name. And then we had the local pro. So it was, if you go to your local golf course, he's the best one there. And then there was the weekend hack, if you will, the person more like me, that just goes every once in a while.

I don't really like golf, so it's like whatever, low stakes, my identity is not involved. Say it again? Low stakes. Oh, completely. And so what ends up happening was that we put 'em under different conditions of pressure and we measured their heart rate, their brain activity, their sweat conductance. We measured what was happening inside of them. And just like you would imagine, Ricky Fowler did great under all three conditions of pressure. And the person who had no identity to it, he did fine. His heart rate did not go through the roof. He did just great. Matter of fact, Ricky Fowler's heart rate came punched up to a really high level, and then he could maintain it. And then as soon as he let go of the ball, the club hit the ball. As soon as the ball left, there would be a lift in his heart rate and then a quick recovery.

And it's like, oh, that's interesting. So that's the mark of a master, that's the mark of expertise. They could get it really high, hold it, maintain it, and then it spills over and recovers quickly. The person that was not very good at it, his heart rate never really even got that high. It didn't matter that much. However, the person whose identity was wrapped with what they do, the local golf pro, as soon as they would walk over the ball and all of that tension was there from the cameras and the charity and all the people watching. And his heart rate would not only get to that level that Ricky Fowlers got to, but it would quickly spill over. But he hadn't golfed yet. His brain activity was like 10 out of 10 on activity and where Ricky was maintaining an eight out of 10 on activity to oversimplify it, which means that it mattered too much and he didn't have the mental skills to manage that pressure. I think that's most of us.

Susie Moore:

Yes

Dr. Michael Gervais:

I can see myself in that person where I really want to do well. It really matters on the line and people are watching and there's whatever other stakes are there, and this is what I do. So that to me sounds just like most people as managers, directors, leaders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, whatever, that just fits. And so that is most of us. So two takeaways. One, his identity was wrapped in his performance, and that in and of itself is a real problem. And so it's called the performance-based identity. I can talk about that. The second is that he didn't have the mental skills to be able to manage that demand, to manage that stress where Ricky Fowler did to me. Those, that research project and that story exemplifies how important it is to train your mind to have mental skills so you can deal with pressure and stress well, and to decouple who you are from what you do, and to let go and to transform the performance-based identity to something different, something more powerful.

Susie Moore:

It's interesting, isn't it? We can see almost how we are susceptible to the performance base identity because the world will, you're only as good as your last album, right? You're only as good as your last movie, your last launch, your last book set. So it's almost like no one would disagree with you if you thought I have to win. Or one section of the book, which I'd love to talk about too, is you say, what happens when the spotlight is on you? Because there are these moments. So at this golf tournament, it's an experiment is no big deal, but this guy's freaking out. His identity is like, I'm the local pro. I'm going to be embarrassed. Number one, no one cares. We think that everyone cares. I also want to talk about that, but we think that everyone's so obsessed with us, but when it comes to our moment, say you are, say it is an investor meeting or it is about the big public speech, or the stakes feel high, what them, what's your practice or what's your advice for this?

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Okay, so first, I love that you're bringing up a research finding called the Spotlight Effect. And it was first grounded and found by a Cornell professor, Dr. Thomas Gilovich. And what he found is that we overestimate how much people are actually paying attention to us by about 50%. And so he dubbed it. The spotlight effect is that I think the spotlight's on me. How does my hair look? How does my voice sound? How does my presentation look or whatever. And your spotlight is on you. How does your hair look? How does your voice? So we're walking around thinking about that the world is watching us when actually most people are not. And so that's the spotlight effect. So your question is not about that, I think is an important unlock agree according to research. I agree, agree, agree. Most people are not paying attention to you. My grandmother got that right. Probably yours too. Do you remember your grandparents saying

Susie Moore:

No one notices your face if you've got a blemish?

Dr. Michael Gervais:

No one's really paying attention anyways. They're paying attention to themselves. Well come to find out, there's good research to support what our grandparents eloquently shared now, but your point is well taken, which is what about when the spotlight is actually on us

Susie Moore:

And people are actually all looking at you? And it does feel, I know it's not life and death, but our physiology will have us believe that, right? That it's like this is survival right now. Yeah,

Dr. Michael Gervais:

A hundred percent. And that's because our brain cannot tell the difference between being kicked out of the tribe because that was near death sentence and a saber-tooth tiger. So the brain responds to threat in a very predictable way. And we don't have wildebeest running around anymore, at least in the suburbs, but we do have people's opinions. And this is why when I say this, you'll go, of course, this is why public speaking is the greatest fear for most humans. It's because they are experiencing the spotlight and it's because the most dangerous thing is being brought to the surface. The most dangerous thing that most of us face in modern worlds is the opinions of other people. Because some people hold real weight. They can say yes or no, thumbs up, thumbs down, and change your trajectory in life moving forward. Most people's opinions don't matter all that much, but we don't know how to discern between the two.

So walking on stage for most people is so overwhelming because the spotlight effect is in place, we are exposing that our identity is wrapped in our performance. How well we do something rather than our purpose. And if there's two ways through this. One is if you haven't done the deep, hard alone work to know your purpose, it would make perfect sense. Growing up in a western world that is obsessed with performance, that we would develop a performance based identity. We are obsessed with it. In our culture from a young age, we're force ranked. We are giving grades. The conversations are, did you make the team? Did you score? Did you get a good grade? It's all about performance or not all, but much of it is about performance. So if you haven't done the deep work to go from a performance-based identity, which would be the natural default to a purpose-based identity, then it's critically important that you invest in mental skills to manage yourself well in pressured situations.

And most situations do provide pressure because what's on the line is everything, your entire identity. And when that happens, your brain can't tell the difference between real threat and perceived. Often it's hard to do. So it reflexively defaults to get ready. And that's why our hearts pound our handshake when we're walking up on stage, our voice tremors our hands, we have a light sweat. All of that is the readiness to run from the saber tooth or the wildebeest, when actually it's just the eyeballs of other people. And so there's a whole host of mental skills. That is what I would say secondary to the deep work of going from performance-based to purpose-based. And I'll end here is that the greats, the historical greats, anybody who comes to mind that has stood up over the years, the decades that has done something special, they were purpose-based. And we think that they are special outside of this very singular idea, is they were very clear on their purpose and they committed to it. And that's kind of what made them so special. And so I'm going to ask you a question. Who are the greats for you? Who comes to mind for you? Oh my gosh. Who comes before you that you said they have fundamentally inspired and shape shifted?

Susie Moore:

The way I think of so many people, I think for me, who I consider to be great is someone who didn't have natural advantages or didn't come in from a place of advantage and still made the change or made the contribution that just called them against, not necessarily against all odds, but it was driven through their courage and consistently showing up. So if you think about even someone like Florence Nightingale, a lot of people don't realize that she was born into privilege and she could have had a very easy life as a wife having help around the house, et cetera. And she went into nursing. She saw how completely ineffective it was. People were dying, there was no organization and she was obsessed and she had horrible conditions, horrible. And no one wanted to give her any funding. And she was like, the way that hospitals are being run, it's death every day. And so how she just pursued her purpose. It was when you're saying going from personal identity, being performance based to purpose, it's like our ego is set aside. Michael, it, it's quite a lovely thing, isn't it? It's quite emotional actually. What do you think about when someone,

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Susie, do you have a time that you've walked on stage and you've been completely in the pocket where your purpose was clear and you were there on a mission and it had nothing to do with you, but it was in service of

Susie Moore:

I think it's the best feeling in the world. Like the flow, right? The flow of it. Yes. Because it's all about us. It's all about you, Michael. It's not about me. It's like there was a message here. And if you think about the people who get to read your book, get to understand fopo, get to reduce it, maybe not eliminate it, reduce it, what that means for the collective, what someone might do, how they might stand out, make a contribution, go a little bigger. It's not about us.

Dr. Michael Gervais:

I think it's being in service of, yeah, you're nailing it. And flow state is a little different. So when you're in the pocket, that is, you are hinting right at flow state, but

Flow state doesn't necessarily mean that your purpose is clear, but you do dissolve your sense of self and ego, so you squared them correctly. And I was more interested in not necessarily priming for flow state, which there's good training to support that grounded in sports psychology for sure. But the second piece is when you are just very clear, I'm on a mission, this matters. Whether it's like I'm doing this in service of something bigger than me, it is suffering. And if you haven't done that alone intellectual work to try to line up your head and your heart, what am I doing here? What am I really doing with my time here? And when you can get connected to something that really matters to you, that's essentially what purpose is. Something that matters, something that's bigger than me and something that is not solvable today. There's a horizon to get this thing done, and maybe in my lifetime it doesn't get solved, but I am in service of it and I'm going to really go for it. It matters that that is such a freeing way to go through life. That again, I'll go back to the first statement. That's what the greats do, and that is worthy of study. How do the best, the culture shifters, the people that have brought the best out of us, how do they organize their inner life and how do they muster resources to get that thing done? That is worth study.

Susie Moore:

I completely agree. This is one reason that I love to also read biographies, histories of people like what they enjoyed. We see the final results, we see the grand slams, or we see the gold medals, the awards, et cetera. We don't see so much. We actually see very little, if any of the road to get there unless someone is willing to share or people in their life share. And I think that one thing that happens a lot that people often don't acknowledge, and as a result, we fear it so much is just being rejected. And tell me, think about this, Michael. In my community, most recently we did a rejection challenge. I said, you have to get 10 rejections in a week, pure exposure therapy. I'm like, just go for it, whatever it is. And I gave some examples. You play around, I joke that I'm rejection proof, ha ha. But I'm like, okay, so you'll be rejected. You'll be rejected a lot, and it's not the best feeling, but you'll still be breathing. I promise you, your life won't change actually at all, in fact, and can you imagine what happened when people start going through all the things? They're not rejected a hundred percent of the time, right? They did or

Dr. Michael Gervais:

They did not.

Susie Moore:

So I said 10 rejections in a week, people are sharing. Oh, someone said, yes, wait for three years. I wanted to ask this person for advice. And I asked her and she's like, yeah, I'm free today. I'm like,

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Yeah. I mean, showing up is a big part of the whole thing. And so yeah, we can get in our heads well before, and I spent a bunch of time in heavyweight boxing and I, yes, there was a saying in boxing, which was, don't leave the fight in the locker room. And so we can express so much energy in the locker room before we go out that we can leave the best of us in the locker room before we're actually in the arena. And so it's the same with our mental activities that we can just ruminate and create all the narratives of why something won't work. And that's a protection mechanism, both for self-esteem and physical safety is to figure out the threats and the dangers, but to differentiate, is this a physical risk that I'm taking or is this a self-esteem risk? And if we can not outsource our self-esteem, but know how to build a sense of worth and value within ourselves, then the self-esteem risks begin to dissipate. And that really is what freedom is.

Susie Moore:

And isn't it the best?

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Yeah, It's so good

Susie Moore:

To be free. I think that everything we want is to create a feeling of freedom.

Dr. Michael Gervais:

This is why money Susie, I think you get there a lot.

Susie Moore:

Yeah.

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Do You?

Susie Moore:

I think so. Yeah. I think so. I think sometimes I had the blessing of an early challenge in life going through the way that I grew up. And so I feel as if I want to look through a lens of being conscious and seeing what really is threatening or possible and frankly being a bit lighter about it. For example, with this rejection challenge, if you need to get 10 rejections, you're going to have to do quite a lot of work. There's going to be some actions that you take. And I didn't want to tell anybody this ahead of time, but I'm like, not everyone's going to say, no, you are going to get some yeses. And I do that myself. I'm like, this is really uncomfortable, so I have to do it. This is something that is absolutely feels frightening. I have to approach it. You have to go straight to the thing. Do you believe that too? Is that, are you like action cures or helps?

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Yeah. I mean our physical and our mental beings are not separate from each other. Descartes did a nice job pulling the two apart so we could have a conversation, but our cognition and psychology and emotion and our physical being are intimately connected. So it's not just action. It's like being aware of the action that you're taking is the mental activity. But awareness alone is not enough. Awareness is ground zero. It is the bedrock for everything. However, when it's in service of something, there's action to be taken. And so yeah, I definitely biased towards action, but action with awareness. And when you can get those two together, you end up seeing something very different is three as opposed to just the doers and just the beings. It's pulling those two things together. It's quite elusive actually, for many of us.

Susie Moore:

One thing that struck me in your book was the encounter that you had with your mentor that stuck with you for a long time. Do you recall this story? I just thought that was very human. I thought it was sharing that. And I think we all have some version of this in our lives. Could you share that story? I think it'll be so helpful to our listeners.

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Yeah. So this was actually in the UFC. So the UFC is mixed martial arts, and it's not quite heavyweight boxing, but it's similar. And it's the sport where people walk into a cage and elbows and fists and knees and heels. Everything except for biting and hooking are basically allowed. And it's a wild sport. And these were the early days. So I was fortunate to be able to corner a fight. And so the head coach, the athlete and myself were at the place right before the athlete was to walk up the five steps to get into the cage. And it was in a packed arena in Las Vegas, like 20,000 people and millions of people watching. And we had rehearsed everything to help support that athlete to be his very best. But we didn't rehearse where we were going to go. We knew we had to work our way around the cage to get to the corner, but we weren't clear exactly how that was going to go.

Do we walk up on the outside of the cage or will we be directed on the ground level? So the lead empire points up the stairs. So the athlete goes up the stairs, closes the cage door behind them, then the head empire points to us to go up the stage and then kind of walk around the edges of the cage. And the camera caught us walking up and walking around. So we were just in the camera's way. And so it was a great fight. The athlete was really tested. He did everything that we had hoped. He was actually in a very compromised position and everything that we physically and mentally had prepared him for that because this other person he was fighting was world's best. And the thing that he was world's best at, it was called the triangle choke. And that's where he wraps his legs around your neck basically to choke you off.

I mean, it's a remarkable sport. He found himself, our athlete, found himself in that compromised position, and he did everything he was supposed to do. He didn't freak out, he didn't panic, he postured. And when you make your back big and your neck and posture big, it makes it very difficult on the groin muscles to be able to be choked. He did it under a very compromised position, broke that ended up winning the fight. It was amazing. And so this was the first UFC fight that I had been part of and cornered. And I was so happy for this athlete because he was near broke and he was going to get a $30,000 paycheck. This was almost 20 years ago or 15 years ago. And this was going to be a really important moment for him.

And it all happened. We're all so happy with how the training went and everything. So I'm driving home and my mentor called and said, Hey, I saw you on tv. And I was like, oh, you saw the fight? And he said, yeah, what are you doing in front of the camera? That's not where you're supposed to be. No, I'm sorry. What are you doing in front of the camera? Get yourself out of the front of the camera. And I thought, oh, oh my God, I totally screwed up. And I was like, what? Wait a minute. Maybe I should have walked around. Maybe I shouldn't have listened to the umpire. Maybe I should have done the other thing, because psychologists are not supposed to be here. We're in the back. And I took that message to be, know your place, Mike, and you just crossed the line.

He never said those things, but I was embarrassed in front of him. He was my mentor that I had let him down. I had done something that was grandstanding, if you will. And when I'm really honest, I loved that I was part of something big. I loved that there was cameras there, it was being captured, it was electric. I loved being part of that. And I didn't have anyone to talk to about that because I was also embarrassed that my mandate was to be in the background. That's what psychologists do. Stay back there, do the work in the shadows. We don't come forward. Matter of fact, if we see each other in a grocery store as a trained psychologist, I'm supposed to act like I don't know you.

I never understood that I do get the legal piece and the sanctuary that we're creating, but it's all shrouded in taboo. And I thought this beautiful science of psychology did not belong in this shroud of shame. I didn't think it was the right way. Anyways, so I had all these narratives. I liked that I was part of it. I liked it. There was that moment, and at the same time, it was not where I was supposed to be. And here I am confronted by my mentor and I shriveled. I felt small. I was embarrassed is the best word. I wanted to get off the phone. I didn't want to try to defend myself. I didn't want to try to understand his point of view. I just wanted to escape from it. And I just stayed on the surface. I stayed on the pleasantries and I laughed, ha ha ha.

I was conforming to shape shift in a way rather than speak my truth. Because at that moment, my truth would've been, what do you mean? And I would've asked him to explain himself. And then I would've said, I think it's time that psychology is part of sport. And I wish I would've because for 15 years I played it small and in the background, and I didn't do a service to athletes because you know what? Now they too have to play it small to be embarrassed by psychology. And it wasn't until many years later that two incredible athletes, Kerry Walsh Jennings, one of the best to ever play beach volleyball, Misty Maye and Carrie Walsh won more than just about anyone else. And I had done a bunch of work with them and they made it very public of our work on NBC. And so she was, in my mind, one of the first to come out and she was a four-time gold medalist.

She came out right at the height of her strength to say, oh yeah, I've invested in my technical training, my physical training and my mental training, and I want to thank Dr. Dve for the work that we've done for me to be able to handle mistakes, for me to be calm, to have confidence, to bring my best foot forward, independent of the conditions. And that was some version of that was set on NBC. And I think about all the lives that if that athlete or I had stood for psychology being recognized as an important part of the training. It's not about Mike, it's about the discipline and the art and the science. And so it wasn't until years later that I saw him at a conference that I was presenting at. And I was different. I was more grounded, I was more clear. I had worked through a bunch of my fopo, not all of it.

And at the end of the conference, I walked up to him and I thought, I'm not even going to address it. But I really lost my relationship with my mentor. I lost a relationship with my mission. I lost a relationship with how I wanted to carry myself for a long time. And so I shared that in the book because I wasn't originally in there. And my editor said, Mike, the science is really good. The practical insights are great. This is going to make a difference for people that want to read a boring book, but you're not in it. So thank you, Susie, for bringing the most painful part of my life work

Susie Moore:

Anytime, Anytime.

Dr. Michael Gervais:

So it's a really good story, but they're not always that good. But it was a really good story for me.

Susie Moore:

I think it's so human because you have this result. You're riding high, you're thrilled, you realize the impact of your work, and then you're hoping to have this celebratory conversation, and it's just this moment of just complete deflation. It's like the opposite. And you just so quickly want to wrap it up. You don't even go, Hey, wait, say more. Let's vibe on this for a moment. We don't have to agree. I don't know. Maybe

Dr. Michael Gervais:

I just got so small, I wish I could have done what you just said. That's the best of me when I can say it's probably the best of you too. And if I say, Hey, Susie, I don't know. When you wear salmon colored shirts, it's really off. Whatever.

Susie Moore:

It looks crap.

Dr. Michael Gervais:

And then the best of you goes, you can separate me from you and my opinion from what you wanted. And when you have that healthy separation and individuation, and you're not afraid of my thoughts, but it's like, oh, those are his thoughts, that's really interesting. Tell me more about that. And you probably find out that if I were to say that, I don't believe that. But if I were to say that to you, it's probably more about I was embarrassed wearing salmon at some point, or there's something about

Susie Moore:

Someone told you,

Dr. Michael Gervais:

yeah, someone told you that it's not about you. And so yeah, the best of us are able to stay grounded and be curious. And the smallest of us, when I feel my smallest is when I'm just like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just stay on the surface and I just want to retreat. And I think that, I hope you can at least recognize some points in your life that you felt

Susie Moore:

That too. Oh's.

Dr. Michael Gervais:

The only weird one,

Susie Moore:

Oh my gosh, I remember I being told that I'm like too much. I am naturally excitable. I have a lot of enthusiasm. I think the world needs more enthusiasm, frankly. So I encourage it. But even in my career, I've been told it's too much. Like, ah, good things are happening and people have different personalities. And normally I'm like, yeah, yeah, okay. Thinking they're right. I'm clearly wrong. I need to correct my behavior versus I'm not so sure about that. I don't know,

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Maybe. Yeah, that's the work that is the work is that we are at some level still young kids because we don't all of a sudden become completely adult. We still got little parts of us that are innocent. And matter of fact, I think the older we get, the wiser we get, we return to the innocence, but at some stage, we still have that young part of us that we're protecting. And as soon as somebody taps that young vibrance, that zest for life that you have that vivaciousness, they poke at it. It's like, oh, is that part of me not okay, that we can unravel quite quickly. And it's not until we can say, until we can fully say no, we can't completely say yes. And so being able to say no to something, no, I disagree. Thank you for engaging in this. It's actually helped me be more clear and I know what I'm going to say yes to. Right? Isn't it interesting? Yeah. And that shows up in relationships too. Until we can say no to our intimate partner, maybe this isn't for me. Do we fully get to say yes? I think that that's showed up a lot for relationships that I've been helping.

Susie Moore:

Yeah, I think Michael too. Tell me what you think. Sometimes I think that we've lost something when we aren't able to have no discourse. Oh, someone's right, I'm wrong. Someone says something. The person who might be a little bit more sensitive is shut down. Whereas maybe if there were the confidence for two people to have a discussion without ego, without being defensive, Michael, I think you belong in the background. You don't belong on the camera, or I think you should quieten down over there. You know how I feel about it. I feel like I know energy is contagious. I think that this is quite an uplifting one to be around. I like being around enthusiastic people. It makes me feel alive. I like it when I see people who help people with their mental wellness, with their mental stamina. I love seeing them. I love how public they are. It makes everyone feel confident and comfortable seeking out support. I mean, I think it's a very generous thing to be visible in your position,

Dr. Michael Gervais:

To show the most. The risk is real, but the opportunity to just keep doing what I love doing, and it happens to be in captured places. I dunno. I had to get through it and I'm really happy. I like how it's going. But the discourse, our ability to, I mean, especially now in the political climate, I don't know your political affiliation, but I do know that if we saw it differently, it likely could be electric quickly and not, it's just so polarizing. And I love the conversations. I just had a conversation with somebody that had a very different ideation than me, and he's brilliant, brilliant. And he says, I'm really curious. Tell me about why you have your thoughts. And it was not critical. He's like, I really like how you think. Tell me about why you're thinking that way. Where did that come from?

Where do you get your ideas? What are you resting the ideas on? It was just great. So it was about worldview. And we both actually have a very similar worldview, but the tactics to getting there are radically different. And that polarization is amplified right now because we are so unwell and agitated. We are tired and fatigued and knocked around more than most of us have ever felt in our lifetimes. Less like we do need to remember the dark ages. Were really hard. So it's still really good for about 4 billion people on the planet. 3 billion people don't have, I think that's the number right now. Let's call it two to be safe, don't have internet access. And there's 300 million that don't have running water and gas in one country alone. And so I say that because there's a lot of privilege, there's a lot of good that is happening for many of us, and we are still at the wits end of fatigue. And that's not because the world's that bad for us. It's because we are that unskilled mentally and emotionally to deal with things that don't go our way. So we're still acting like a 7-year-old,

Susie Moore:

And when people don't agree with us, we're like backup versus with the person who you didn't have the same political views with. I'm sure maybe you learned something and so did he.

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Oh, no, I had all the answers.

Susie Moore:

You're perfectly correct.

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Yeah, right. It was great. It was good. Neither of us. We didn't move. And the data is quite clear. You don't have to, most people don't move their ideation, but it was nice to explore a good person, a great mind, and ethically sound, and how they're thinking about a better future, really what political ideation is supposed to rest on. So yeah, it was a good exercise. And

Susie Moore:

I think to myself too, I wonder what Fopo could unlock, if we can reduce it, if we can play around with it, if we can understand it better, what jewels might show up, what intimacy. I mean, we could, who knows? I mean, it could be this candy store of like, oh my, if I could just set something aside a little bit, right? It's not this rapid overnight. I don't care anymore. Zero fucks. I'm me. That's it. No,

Dr. Michael Gervais:

That's actually obnoxious, right? That's really obnoxious. I don't care about, so the subtitle of the book is Stop worrying about what people Think. It's not Stop caring about what people think, the people that walk around, I don't care what you think, I don't care what you think. Well, we're actually sharing a space. If most people would recognize that if I'm smoking, which I don't smoke, but if I'm smoking right in front of you, that air quality has compromised your air quality. And so to be a good citizen, a social citizen, I do need to care about how people's experience in their life is. But this excessive worry about, am I okay in your eyes? That's the part that we can do without. So caring is different. We need more caring. We need more compassion and empathy. We need more action. Compassion is the action of empathy. We need more of that in our life, but less excessive worry about Am I okay? According to you.

Susie Moore:

So Michael, if you had, I know it's hard, and of course the book is so truly thank you again. I love it. I love it.

Dr. Michael Gervais:

How would you describe, sorry to interrupt you. I just thank you for that. The way you say it makes conjures up a gratitude and a real appreciation. And so I just, again, I want to say thank you.

Susie Moore:

Well, I mean what I'm saying, and I think that when, to me, this feels like your purpose work. It's not like, oh, Michael needs a new book out for to be able, the speaking circuit. It's like you, and by the way, everyone's intentions live your life. But I feel like what went into this, and if you could describe what is your intention? So someone's like, oh, well, my mother-in-law doesn't like me. And that girl at work and that boyfriend who dumped me and everyone on social media couldn't ever possibly post a real picture because I'm kind of overweight or any human being who's like, oh, this book, what's your intention for them, for the reader?

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Well, the first is just to bring it to the surface. Once it's in the light, we can do something about it. But I think that this thing has been so it's not clinical anxiety. It's not social anxiety. What is it? What is this excessive worry about what they think of me? So I'm just bringing that to the surface. Fopo is just a fun way to put a handle on it, but it is the excessive worry. Am I okay in the eyes of other people, like what they might be thinking of me? Is that influencing how I think my actions and is it influencing how I'm living my life, the clothes I'm choosing, the words I'm choosing, the actions I'm taking, all of that. So the first hope is to bring it to life. And the second hope is to provide a handful of tools that people can use and skills that they can develop to be able to navigate that sense of excessive worry so that they can be more free.

And when they're more free. The analogy I'll make is that I see humans like a pebble in a pond, and the heavier the pebble, if you're the pebble, the greater the ripple effect that you can have. So be a heavy pebble in the pond, make a great ripple, but that comes from you being you. And we need you to be you, whatever that means. And if you can do it with being part of the social fabric of the world, we're more like coral reefs, then we are these individuals running around disconnected from each other. If you can be a good citizen and to be you in a way that is adding to the collective, it's awesome. And we need you to be you. Sometimes you're going to be prickly, sometimes you're going to be have vivacious, bubbly. Sometimes you're going to have a stern word or a look. Just be you and be your very best to bring the best of you forward, because that typically will bring the best of other people as well.

Susie Moore:

Dr. Michael Gervais, where do people go to find out about you to get Everyone books are sold. Anything. Where can the people go?

Dr. Michael Gervais:

No, that's so fun. Yeah. So our podcast is a great place. Finding Mastery is a place that you can be part of our community. But if you're wondering, do I have Fopo? How much fopo do I have? We do have an online assessment that you can take for fun to just get a sense. So that's cool. It's finding mastery.com/fopo assessments. And so you can just check that out for fun as well.

Susie Moore:

I hope we'll come back. What a joy speaking with you. Thank you much. Oh my gosh, I got the assessment. The book such fun today. Thank you so much. Yeah,

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Very cool. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. And you know what, let us know. So you know what we did, Susie, so I know we're wrapping up, but right when the book was published, we asked the Finding Mastery community to find all the mistakes in the book. We did our best. We did our best, but there's still mistakes that came up. So they let us know on social in a very fun way, like, Hey, page number, whatever. So maybe there's a little bit of an Easter egg for folks to find.

Susie Moore:

Yes, don't hold back. Let us know.

Dr. Michael Gervais:

Yeah, for sure.

Susie Moore:

Until next time, my friends, so much love and ease.