The 5 Steps To Get Unblocked | Elite Performance Podcast #80

00:00:00:01 - 00:00:18:06
Itamar Marani
If you had one minute to coach someone on their mindset and a performance, how would you do it? Whenever I feel like someone is not executing up to their full potential, there's basically a five step process that I take people through. So here's the first step in this. What needs to be the main thing you're focusing on? How can we give you no wiggle room for bullshit?

00:00:18:08 - 00:00:37:04
Itamar Marani
Is there anybody in your environment that if they weren't already there, would you want to bring them back? If you had one minute to coach someone on their mindset and their performance, how would you do it? So this was basically the question I was asked after keynote I gave recently at the end of it, a bunch of people came up.

00:00:37:04 - 00:00:50:21
Itamar Marani
They asked questions and it was kind of a speed round of me just trying to figure out what sounds like it. Quickly answer it quickly. Move them on. So I got everybody in line and after about three or four people, the next guy in line, he was just like, Dude, how did you do that? And I just lost and screwed up.

00:00:50:23 - 00:01:05:00
Itamar Marani
How did you actually do that? What's your framework? How did you get these people answers so fast? They were like, Aha! Moments from it. And I was like, Oh, it's pretty simple. It's a five step process. I just try to find what the constraint is. And he was like, Oh, interesting. So instead of my question, I can ask you about that.

00:01:05:02 - 00:01:24:16
Itamar Marani
And I said, Sure. And that's actually what I want to hear on the part today, that whenever I feel like someone is not executing up to their full potential, whatever their skill set should allow them to, there's basically a five step process that I think people through and I forgot what is their constraint and there is a progression to these, but you can obviously also play jazz.

00:01:24:18 - 00:01:35:07
Itamar Marani
So that's we're going to be covering today. Then we're going to be covering how to actually use A.I. to help you do that better. And we'll talk about a couple examples of that. So first off, Alex, what was the pod language, say.

00:01:35:09 - 00:01:40:00
Alex De Fina
That you invoked to see you two looking forward to getting into this Coke?

00:01:40:01 - 00:01:57:11
Itamar Marani
So here's the thing. When someone is blocked and by blocked, I mean, they know they could be doing more with their skill set and they feel that kind of frustration. They actually want to do something about it and they're not doing it. From what I've seen of coaching, going to hundreds of entrepreneurs over from 6 to 9 figures, same patterns.

00:01:57:13 - 00:02:15:07
Itamar Marani
It's a there's usually one of five things that are holding them back. Now, with that said, there is a linear process where you first make sure this is okay. Then you check off that box and check off that box and so on and so on. So before we get started, anything on your end about this.

00:02:15:09 - 00:02:19:19
Alex De Fina
Just anxiety about what the five things I'm looking forward to.

00:02:19:19 - 00:02:20:20
Itamar Marani
Finding out what.

00:02:20:20 - 00:02:48:16
Alex De Fina
The everyday anxiety just maybe it's excitement, a lack of understanding, foundational models or frameworks. I think that it gives you once you learn a framework, even though the framework might have been shared under one topic or one domain, usually I've found that they are interchangeable and it's almost like developing a new, a new mental skill in life that you can then apply through to other areas.

00:02:48:18 - 00:02:51:14
Alex De Fina
Yeah, I love the statement before finding out. Yeah.

00:02:51:16 - 00:03:20:04
Itamar Marani
Diana Garcia. I don't think I probably really came up with any of these. You know, it's probably something that some Greek guy said 3000 years ago and applied it to this or to that. And just in centralizing these things and putting them out there. So here's the first step in this. The first step when someone says, I feel a bit stuck on first of all, you clear on what you actually want and usually people like not really this kind of been going through the motions.

00:03:20:04 - 00:03:42:13
Itamar Marani
Momentum is scary to me, whatever it may be. And that's kind of the first thing on a couple levels. So let's break down clarity. So there's clarity on the surface level, which everybody talks about, which is what am I supposed to be doing? What should be my focus? Right? But there's much deeper levels to it. There's also are you clear about what you want out of life and how you doing?

00:03:42:13 - 00:04:04:02
Itamar Marani
This will align to that because in the background, two things. First off, it provides a lot of fuel. Like, as Nietzsche said, he has a strong enough we can overcome. Anyhow, that's a big thing. If you're not clear on why you're doing something, when things get hard, you can be like, Is this really worth it? Probably not. That's part one.

00:04:04:04 - 00:04:23:16
Itamar Marani
Part two is that if you haven't clearly mapped out what you want in life and how you want your life to look like, but you subconsciously kind of know it and you doing a certain thing in your business, even if it's going to get long term growth in the short term, impedes on that there's going to be a part of you is going to resist doing that.

00:04:23:18 - 00:04:40:18
Itamar Marani
So like, oh, I want to go surfing every day for 5 hours. That's what you think in the back of your head where like I if I build this product out or I go on more sales call, that's going to impede in that there's going to be a part of you that you're not aware of that is going to block that even though you logically know that's going to grow the business.

00:04:40:20 - 00:04:59:21
Itamar Marani
So the first thing is, is someone actually clear on what they should be doing and why that will serve the kind of life that they want. And in order to that to do that, they have to be clear on actually what they want out of life. And that's not something that, you know, they talk about in traction or whatever it may be, but it is a constraint I see so often.

00:04:59:23 - 00:05:09:20
Alex De Fina
So it's it's clarity of and outcome, the clarity of what actions are required to get end outcome. Would you add to that clarity.

00:05:10:01 - 00:05:29:14
Itamar Marani
Or that predictable. No, I would correct I would correct that. So it's not clarity on what actions is clearly what your main focus needs to be right now. So like actions is the smaller tactics that comes next. Toms That's the next step. But first is clarity of what you want out of life and clarity. Okay, if you want this out of life, what should be your main focus for this next season?

00:05:29:14 - 00:05:47:09
Itamar Marani
For this next quarter? For this next year? What is to be the main thing you're focusing on? For example, like we're focusing just on the book right now. That's the main thing we're focusing on. You're focusing on just launching the gyms in Singapore right now. That's it. That's really the back kind of stock. What's the focus?

00:05:47:11 - 00:05:55:20
Alex De Fina
Right. Would you would you include clarity of the costs involved?

00:05:55:22 - 00:06:31:17
Itamar Marani
I do. That next is a great question. Also, like I said, yeah, it's great question. So you basically with clarity and this is something honestly that with AMP with entrepreneurs, I see this less because a lot of them usually are willing to accept the costs. It's part of them. You know, they have that grind in them. And however, when I work with, I'm starting to work in corporate a little bit now and I do workshops for the C-suite, the C-suite employees, and especially the mid-level managers, they sometimes want the prize, but they don't accept the costs, they're not aligned, and both of them think they want the prize, but they're not willing to pay the

00:06:31:17 - 00:06:51:07
Itamar Marani
price or they haven't actually been aware of it yet. And it's actually it's actually run them through. We're like, okay, this is what you want, right? What is that going to require? Let's get it all on paper. It's going to require you to miss this sacrifice that be uncomfortable in this way, emotionally charge yourself or whatever it might be right now that we got all this on paper, let's honestly look at it.

00:06:51:09 - 00:07:13:00
Itamar Marani
Are you okay with that? And it's okay to say no. Like I'm giving you like this door out right there. There's no ego stuff. Everyone wants a different life. It's perfectly okay to say no. And what's interesting is that some of them are like, you know, when I actually look at on paper right now and I'm calm and not just going through like, oh, I'm supposed to get a promotion, I'm supposed to go higher, I actually don't want that.

00:07:13:01 - 00:07:30:00
Itamar Marani
And some of them are like, You know what? Yeah, I'm up for it. Let's go. And either direction they go, it's infinitely better than the kind of like waddling along that was going up until then. So it is included in that. But honestly, with entrepreneurs, I usually see that as less of an assessment.

00:07:30:02 - 00:07:31:22
Alex De Fina
Go to makes sense.

00:07:32:00 - 00:07:48:10
Itamar Marani
It's a great question though, and so that's part one. The clarity. Then part two, if someone knows what they want out of life, they know that this is the things they focus on. It's going to get them closer to their and they're committed to that. As far as price, like Alex said, and they still feel stuck is okay.

00:07:48:12 - 00:08:10:04
Itamar Marani
Are you clear on what you should be doing? Like what are the 1 to 3 most impactful actions that you could be taking? And a lot of times people are like, not really and of course are going to hesitate because of that. And this is hard because all the time getting clarity on those actions is a bit challenging and it requires more than just going into your emails and things I think popped up.

00:08:10:04 - 00:08:28:09
Itamar Marani
You really have to take a step back and you have to think about this from a strategic perspective, perhaps get outside help, which again, most people don't find comfortable. But I'm going to ask a friend going, ask a business mastermind, whatever it would be. How did you get from here to there? But that is the next step that, okay, you have clarity, what you want, what the focus needs to be.

00:08:28:11 - 00:08:41:20
Itamar Marani
Are you clear on what the 1 to 3 most impactful actions that could be and clear? I mean, to a level where you see them and you have then you're like, this is it, and all of a sudden you feel this kind of like, Oh, I can definitely go at that. If I can just nail that, I'm excited about it.

00:08:41:20 - 00:08:45:04
Itamar Marani
I get it. It's clear. Let's go.

00:08:45:06 - 00:09:09:08
Alex De Fina
With actions. Do you find that people might have the ability to to vocalize in action? So if I want to lose body thought, I should probably work out. But they might not be as clear on the intensity, frequency, duration, etc. like the nuance behind the action.

00:09:09:10 - 00:09:29:05
Itamar Marani
Yeah. So it's a great question and I think this is a point where you have to figure out those 1 to 3 impactful actions. If you're not clear on technical level, tactical level, whatever you want to call it, it's like this We have to go deeper until you get to. So what do you should do? Especially with my early on clients to you said like a clarity map that it was basically a pyramid.

00:09:29:11 - 00:09:46:05
Itamar Marani
You start at the top, this is what I want. Okay. In order to do that, what are the main three things required to achieve that? Okay. In order to achieve this thing, what are the main three things that are required to achieve that? One of the three things are until you get to this point where everything is really crystal clear, you're like, okay, I understand all the steps required.

00:09:46:06 - 00:10:06:03
Itamar Marani
And again, the beautiful part about this and but forcing yourself or having someone to do this exercise with a group, whatever it may be, do you actually do them? Because the end of the day, we usually have the answers to somewhere or we can, especially with a I these days we can find the answers, but it's just about sitting down saying, okay, this is uncomfortable.

00:10:06:05 - 00:10:33:00
Itamar Marani
I don't feel like I'm completely competent. I know exactly what I should be doing. But let's just nail this in step by step. And it's just a process. I think, again, with most of these things, with a I right now, you probably can't figure it out or with access to certain communities and so on. Yeah, you agree or disagree or like what are your thoughts on this?

00:10:33:02 - 00:10:54:05
Alex De Fina
I have found anecdotally that the nuance behind the actions or is that working out as an example? If someone says I'm fat, I want to be fit, Got it. Or that to do the action is go to the gym. Well, if you go to the gym and sit in your iPhone while you're at the gym, technically you went to the gym, you check that box.

00:10:54:06 - 00:11:31:05
Alex De Fina
You didn't actually do the things required at the gym. And so the did you watch that the new was a term. But the the sort of the technical details behind those actions of like the intensity, the duration of the frequency in a business context, I think that people will focus on an action almost like a label without going deep enough as to the the, the more technical aspects of that actually like almost always talks about just like the sheer volume behind a lot of his, his business efforts.

00:11:31:07 - 00:11:44:04
Alex De Fina
Yeah. And that's where I've had the biggest breakthroughs in business wasn't necessarily just understanding the action, but the detail of that action is usually what's right to the success versus the challenges.

00:11:44:06 - 00:12:00:05
Itamar Marani
Yeah, it's a great point. I appreciate you bringing it up. So what I should clarify, and you probably remember this from doing that arena back in the day in the trackers, at the end of it, we have actions, but also behaviors on what is a quantitative output, something that is inarguable, like going to the gym is like that's how you do it.

00:12:00:05 - 00:12:21:17
Itamar Marani
Well, that's arguable. Did you do ten reps at 40%, whatever it is, you know, that ate it up? Did you do those? Did you also do half an hour of cardio at whatever heartbeat it might be? The these things are pretty irrefutable. And I appreciate you bring it up because you do want to nail it to a point where, again, we're talking about clarity.

00:12:21:19 - 00:12:27:23
Itamar Marani
It's extreme clarity in that sense. It's not I need to go to the gym, but no, I need to go to the gym and do this and do that and do this.

00:12:28:01 - 00:12:31:07
Alex De Fina
And then cope. Yeah.

00:12:31:09 - 00:12:32:17
Itamar Marani
So is that in this.

00:12:32:17 - 00:13:11:10
Alex De Fina
I got yeah, in business. What if it was maybe sales, whether it's inbound outbound is going to be. Yeah. How many times are you following up a lead. What time of day you. Five. That late was the actual narrative or the tonality. What's actually going on in that, in that sort of point of contact. That's usually where I've seen the biggest breakthroughs in business, is that digging into that detail because it's very easy at this level to say, Yes, I'm doing outbound or yes, I'm responding to inbound inquiry, which usually separates the A players versus the see is those details of the tenacity, the frequency, the intensity.

00:13:11:12 - 00:13:23:04
Alex De Fina
And so without the perfect Google maps of business, just usually optimize towards extremism of like extreme volume extremes that are reactive times, etc. and it usually applies that pretty well.

00:13:23:06 - 00:13:45:18
Itamar Marani
So it's very well said. I usually optimize towards putting people on the hook in a very clear manner. So like what I try to do with these rules when we break it down for people is how can we give you no wiggle room for bullshit? So this is an exact thing, you know, you need to be doing this for seller for you, like saying it's volume, the amount of follow ups, how you follow up, or you hit these checkpoints during the follow up, whatever it may be.

00:13:45:20 - 00:14:04:09
Itamar Marani
And if we can get it to a point where there's no wiggle room for your brain to bullshit yourself about why it's okay to not do this, because, oh, I kind of went to the gym today. It's okay. I kind of follow it up. Some people, that's when we really get to that point where you have extreme clarity on what you should be doing.

00:14:04:11 - 00:14:24:13
Itamar Marani
Now, whether you actually execute on that's different. That's the next step. I think that's really the first part of it, getting that extreme clarity to a place where you can't argue it. It is so clear. You are very clearly putting yourself on the hook for excellence and now it's about can you live up to that and how can we help you live up to that?

00:14:24:15 - 00:14:29:01
Alex De Fina
Perfect. Okay. So yeah, and that's story number two actions.

00:14:29:03 - 00:14:45:00
Itamar Marani
Actions. And again, this all fits into like, let's take a clarity chunk here first. This is if you do this, you will get the life that you want. But again, that is easier said than done. But that's what I do first for people. I just kind of run through doing. Had really do they have clarity on this? Are they actually clear on their actual steps?

00:14:45:03 - 00:15:02:06
Itamar Marani
And like you said, the conversation very goes, oh yeah. Like are you doing like, I'm not doing something. I'm not. Did I feel a bit stuck? Okay, are you clear what you want our life, you know. Okay, figure that out. That's got to everything else is going to be downstream effects that they said Yes, I'm okay. Great. Are you clear what your next season needs to focus on?

00:15:02:06 - 00:15:23:07
Itamar Marani
What's the main constraint that if you solved is going to be the biggest impact? If they say no, cool work on that. If they say yes, great. Okay. How clear on you on the bottom actions, very specific that somebody in your place, if they wanted to achieve this, would have to be taking How clear you on a scale of 1 to 10, if they say like oh six, cool.

00:15:23:11 - 00:15:43:00
Itamar Marani
You got to go Look how we said a couple layers down that chain and really clarify those if they say ten. Beautiful. Okay, now we keep going. So that's that part is really clear. Now what I've seen and this is very interesting, so I'm part of couple separate communities that I sometimes talk at and I'm part of and so on.

00:15:43:02 - 00:16:12:02
Itamar Marani
And one of them is let's call it more lifestyle entrepreneurs. All of them have location independent businesses and one of them is more growth entrepreneurs. These have like really big brick and mortar businesses. And this is something that I've seen in both of these communities, but especially in the lifestyle one. So I'll share a story before I explain it that with one client and he was a bit of a younger guy, he was in his late twenties, still single, and he really wanted to grow his business.

00:16:12:02 - 00:16:28:23
Itamar Marani
So you get to take an exit and we figure out what he needs to do all these things and he's like, I all he was resisting it a little bit. Even though I had crystal clarity. I said, What's up? And he's like, Man, honestly, like, I'm I'm afraid life will get boring. And I don't want to just build a boring life.

00:16:29:00 - 00:16:44:17
Itamar Marani
Housing great, because this something we get to work on. How do you vocalize it? And it was one of those things that if you're again crafting this life that you do not want to live, a part of, you is going to resist that and you're not going to do it. You're going to weather self-sabotage, slow down your speed or whatever.

00:16:44:17 - 00:16:59:03
Itamar Marani
Maybe you're going to hit a certain pain line internally that you're not going to get across. So what we said for here, like what would need to be in place for you to feel like you're actually living a life you're excited about, like this is still fun. I'm going to grow the business by taking the exit and I'm still having fun.

00:16:59:05 - 00:17:17:10
Itamar Marani
He said, Oh, you know what? It's actually not that much. I want to be able to go out once a week. I want to be able to also go out and I say, Well, until when? Like what would be the point of diminishing returns, you know, to you. Right, Right. What else do you want to do? I want to be able to do this.

00:17:17:10 - 00:17:33:16
Itamar Marani
I want to be able to do that. And we figure it out that if we put all of these things into his calendar preemptively, all of a sudden he looks at his calendar and he's like, Oh, you know, this is cool. I want to do this. That part of him that was resisting it before, it doesn't exist anymore.

00:17:33:18 - 00:17:54:11
Itamar Marani
And it was interesting because once he did that, he really, really started scaling the business he already had really I think honestly, when I look at it, he probably had clarity on what he need to do before That was just that piece of internal resistance that was stopping him from actually going for it because he felt like once I step into this and I really do these things, life is going to be unpleasant.

00:17:54:13 - 00:18:09:23
Itamar Marani
And it's a concept now I call guardrails and it's something I put in for myself as well. Like I have surf sessions every week. I date nights with my wife on the calendar every week. I have time with my son. Every week is a single. If I show my calendar, you see that roll out into the infinite future.

00:18:09:23 - 00:18:29:01
Itamar Marani
Basically, it uses blocks of time minus the surf because unfortunately the ocean isn't that consistent. But there are these date nights and times with my kid. Those are things that are pre-built into the calendar. It's my main concern is that as I build the business, I don't want to lose my relationship or I don't want to not see my kid growing.

00:18:29:03 - 00:18:40:04
Itamar Marani
And I found that when you put in these guardrails for people, it goes a really, really long way into giving them the mental permission to really go for it.

00:18:40:06 - 00:19:11:13
Alex De Fina
That example you showed before was your client. Was there some degree of possibly like a false assumption on his part about those actions? It wasn't until he got clear on those actions that he actually felt a sense of relief from hearing you recall that story. It seems to me that there was a gap in terms of defining the actions, which was giving him the resistance when he went through the process of of, I guess, the habitual pausing or.

00:19:11:15 - 00:19:41:18
Itamar Marani
Yeah, actually, I'm it's a great question because I think there's a there's a deeper answer to it. I think he focusing on I'm thinking about a couple of guys that kind of pop into my head with these similar examples. And it's not that they're not clear on the specific things. It's they're not clear that's a possibility because a lot of the messaging is like, oh, you know, go and mug mode, go into an extreme like go to Silicon Valley, kill ten years of your life off and then rise again.

00:19:41:20 - 00:20:00:20
Itamar Marani
Right. And what there is and they're not aware there's an option. See that you can still go into growth mode in a bit of a more sustainable way. It is still intense. Yes, absolutely. But is it going to leave you with infinitely less regrets if you're just systematic about it? Yes, as well. I mean, and I think that was the main thing.

00:20:00:20 - 00:20:11:21
Itamar Marani
He just didn't he wasn't aware that's an option that you can it's not exactly have your cake and eat it, too, but kind of you know what I mean. This make sure that the important things don't fall off.

00:20:11:23 - 00:20:37:03
Alex De Fina
Right. So it's almost like losing a bit of personal agency in that as previously maybe an analogy was there's these different modes that you can go into and entrepreneurship mode is one of them. You know, with these modes, this is a defined by work all hours of the day and nothing else matters. That's almost like picking somebody else's approach or just adopting that.

00:20:37:05 - 00:21:10:21
Alex De Fina
Whereas if you just remind yourself that you are the engineer of your own reality and that how hard you work or what sacrifices you make does not necessarily equal business outcome. So the hardest working people make a bigger sacrifices or worth nothing than people who might be in or doing next to nothing might have a huge outcome. And so reminding ourselves that we are the engineer and that we could take agency in our approach as opposed to adopting something which media or business influences to feed us.

00:21:10:23 - 00:21:12:01
Alex De Fina
Yeah.

00:21:12:03 - 00:21:31:10
Itamar Marani
And I think it's also about there's an interesting intersection of two principles here. One of the point of diminishing returns that, again, you know, if you work a certain amount of time today, at a certain point you're going to your productivity is going to fall off and recognizing that you can't fill up your calendar with 18 hours a day like some people want to pretend that they do.

00:21:31:12 - 00:21:47:11
Itamar Marani
That's point one and point to a sustainability that one of the easiest ways to fail as an entrepreneur is to not want to keep playing the game. If you're like, I do not like this game, I do not want to keep playing it. That's when people quit. And it's what you see with a lot of businesses that close down.

00:21:47:11 - 00:22:15:07
Itamar Marani
They're like, I just I can't deal with it. In COVID, that happened a lot. A lot of people are like, I can't. Business is already challenging. There's also all this I can't handle. And by putting these things into your schedule, it actually makes it much more desirable. So even with one CEO that I'm working at multiple nine figures, when we started introducing these things into the schedule, all of a sudden his business actually started going better because he was more excited about it also.

00:22:15:07 - 00:22:31:11
Itamar Marani
And he was like he said, I didn't know this could actually be enjoyable. I thought this was going to have to be a slog for the next couple of years. And for example, like with the weight loss example that you get, if you notice somebody, they say, I really want to lose weight. I know it's important for for my health, for my quality of life, for everything.

00:22:31:11 - 00:22:47:12
Itamar Marani
And like Alex gave me a game plan. I was one of his gyms and I'm exactly what I should be doing down to a tee. But they're not doing it. It could be that the big thing is it's going to be a silly thing. They're just like, Man, I have this one weekly dinner with friends that I feel like I'm going to have to sacrifice.

00:22:47:13 - 00:23:06:00
Itamar Marani
And I don't want to do that because my social life is important to me. And if you do something or don't, you can actually just go have that one dinner that could be your cheat meal. Or in that dinner you can just have these foods, whatever, maybe be like, Oh, okay, now I can do that. Now I'm open for it and it's just 100%.

00:23:06:02 - 00:23:44:17
Alex De Fina
Yeah, I see that in the fitness world. A lot of it in the business world, a lot. And I think that's a danger sometimes of being a lone wolf in these things that if you don't have other people to think out loud ways to to act as an accountability body, you can convince yourself that's truth and keep on marching forwards with this essentially false belief that the benefit of of groups and performance coaches like yourself is that you've got structured ways to, I guess, play devil's, advocate yourself and hopefully identify what is or should be a false flag as being false.

00:23:44:19 - 00:23:47:03
Alex De Fina
Discard it and replace it with something else.

00:23:47:05 - 00:23:54:21
Itamar Marani
Yeah, there's basically there's always we like to think in binary ways and an external perspective, guys. But hey, what about option C, D and E?

00:23:54:23 - 00:23:55:11
Alex De Fina
Exactly.

00:23:55:14 - 00:24:14:08
Itamar Marani
And that's usually hard to do for ourselves. It's one of the basic law of decision making theory is that whenever you're faced with a decision to either do this or that, ask yourself, if I couldn't do either, what would be option? KHEDERY And it's just that simple rule of thumb can go a really long way, also kind of bringing it back and someone's really clear on what they want out of life.

00:24:14:08 - 00:24:30:05
Itamar Marani
They clear what their main focus should be. They're clear on the tactics, like you said, to a tee. Then you ask them like, okay, do you feel like life would be terrible if that's what you did? If they say yes to do great, how can we not make it terrible? What are the things you would have to have in place if they say no?

00:24:30:05 - 00:24:50:12
Itamar Marani
But okay, great. Let's continue on. That's the next step. The next step is performance anchors. Performance anchors are basically do you have things in your environment that are just making this so hard and so annoying and so unpleasant or just uncomfortable that it's causing this to be much more painful than it needs to be? And therefore, again, it's not sustainable.

00:24:50:13 - 00:25:18:08
Itamar Marani
And I'll say this the word sustainability throughout this, because I think motivation and inspiration is great. It's important. But beyond that, if you have a system where things are consistently harder than they need to be, you're just fighting an uphill battle. And that's not sustainable. It's not effective. So performance anchors on a low level, this is just all the stuff that we have going on in our lives that doesn't serve our focus for right now.

00:25:18:10 - 00:25:36:16
Itamar Marani
And it drains our a lot of energy. Anything small from, you know, like the stupid WhatsApp groups that people are in that we said those get sucked into anything from the people in our workspace that aren't performing to certain things that we just have to let it slide all the way to the deep things and the deep things.

00:25:36:16 - 00:26:06:20
Itamar Marani
The deep anchors are usually the ones that really hold people back and these are relationships and it could be romantic relationships, it could be professional relationships with, as the co-founder that you and him just simply do not mesh with an employee who was your star employee when you were just starting out? He was great. And now either he's regressed through whatever reasons his life has brought up and he's just regressed and he's done that person anymore that committed as much.

00:26:06:22 - 00:26:26:12
Itamar Marani
Or also it's just it's completely outgrown his skillset. But you still feel bad about it. But he keeps dragging everything down and every time you move something forward, he causes a bunch of slip ups and it's frustrating, but it's a very deep thing. Like I feel a sense of loyalty to him or just certain people in your social circle.

00:26:26:14 - 00:26:43:06
Itamar Marani
You're like, every this person just drains my energy so much. It's like some people, you know, it's their in-laws. That's a classic. What? But what are all of these performance anchors? There are things that just making this much harder than you need to be, and they need to be sorry.

00:26:43:08 - 00:26:52:20
Alex De Fina
What's the most common performance anchor Possible question to answer that Is it is it relationships? As you said, point to?

00:26:52:23 - 00:27:14:19
Itamar Marani
So it's interesting. I would yeah. The most common one I'll split that that question up a little bit. So a different view of the most common one and the most impactful. Okay. So the most common one are those WhatsApp groups are spending too much time on your phone, on YouTube or whatever it may be, because they're like, I shouldn't be doing that.

00:27:14:19 - 00:27:52:07
Itamar Marani
Of course, just put your phone into this. Make that a rule. You're however, the performance anchors that I've seen that once people, you know like cut them off, they go really, really fast. Really fast is the relationships. And there's also something about how close that relationship is that has a direct correlation. So cutting off an employee, especially if they're of its other skill set, it's been grown, but it's their let's call it their set of values and who they are and whatever it may be, that gives a big boost.

00:27:52:09 - 00:28:13:03
Itamar Marani
The thing that gives the biggest boost and this is the thing that's uncomfortable to say, is that some people recognize that they shouldn't have gotten into that marriage and they cut it off. And this is what's weird. I got a those at a conference last July and one guy who I'd never met in person, but we kind of know each others in similar circles.

00:28:13:05 - 00:28:39:08
Itamar Marani
And you're like, So is your job to help people get divorced? Yeah, I just love that he happened to know three people that went through the program that realize that. And the reality is that it's a hard thing. You know, a lot of times people get married when they're young and they either it was the wrong person or was the exact right person, but they both just naturally grew apart for whatever reasons.

00:28:39:10 - 00:29:01:05
Itamar Marani
And they have different desires in life. And if you have someone where every time you try to do what you want to do, they're not even telling you don't do it. But you can just feel this resistance or they're not even just supporting you. That's a big anchor. And it's like, again, we talked a lot about that plan, like you don't want to do something if it's going to be so uncomfortable subconsciously, it's that as well.

00:29:01:07 - 00:29:23:21
Itamar Marani
We crave approval. It's part of our species is how we wired. So if the person that you're the closest to, so to speak, doesn't approve of what you're doing, it's going to naturally just drain your energy. And those are the ones, those performance areas like obviously is usually a dip at first because someone has to, you know, feel that even if you know, it's the right thing, you had the wind knocked out of you a little bit and you have recovery time.

00:29:23:21 - 00:29:42:15
Itamar Marani
You do that. But then usually people go up really, really high, really quick ways. They're like, well, I know I as a coach assigned to these people, like, I didn't know they had that. And that's why that is like that's the place where people really surprised me when they let go of performance. They go, that's deep. That's when they really, really like, I'm like, I didn't I didn't think that's what they're going to get.

00:29:42:19 - 00:29:48:02
Itamar Marani
That's wild. And it's amazing. So does that kind of answer that question?

00:29:48:04 - 00:30:19:11
Alex De Fina
It does. I want to ask about the relationships side. So whether it's a romantic relationship, spousal, whatever, or it's business partnership, what do you think leads to a situation where people essentially either drift to drift apart in a connection or that were both at the same level of competency in a domain and over time one person's of higher value than the other.

00:30:19:13 - 00:30:32:06
Alex De Fina
What do you think allows that to sit in subconscious until the point, if ever, it's realized that they can actually then decide what to do about it?

00:30:32:08 - 00:31:04:00
Itamar Marani
I'm going to answer this in a different way. So what I've seen with this is both the guys and the women that I've coached and have gone through this is that they were just insecure. They didn't see themselves for who they were when they were younger. Like, honestly, they it's usually it's it's usually a correlation with people that were a bit out of shape as well physically, and that probably had something to do with it.

00:31:04:01 - 00:31:22:01
Itamar Marani
But it was a consistent pattern where I remember one guy was saying and I was like, Man, that is one of the bravest things I have, one of the most honest and like bravest things I've ever heard someone say. And he was telling me like I was scared and I married someone who I thought I was good enough for that time.

00:31:22:03 - 00:31:50:02
Itamar Marani
And even though I logically knew that this is not a great person and he had married and they were married, I think for almost like 25 years or something like that. And they had a bunch of kids together and here they finally just had to accept it and to recognize, you know what? Like that was a decision. I made it from a place of fear where I thought I wasn't good enough, and I thought that this person would never leave me because, like, they're not really good and I'm really good, but I'm a little bit better than this.

00:31:50:02 - 00:32:17:02
Itamar Marani
So they would never leave me. And I think for most of these people, that's usually where it comes from. From what I've seen, again, a very small amount of data with this. It actually not as many thing as that Guide to Comfort said. But from what I've seen, that's usually what it is. When people are afraid of not being good enough, adequate enough, they try to find someone that they feel comfortable around, not someone that they actually are inspired by or that improves their life or whatever it may be.

00:32:17:04 - 00:32:56:19
Alex De Fina
Right? Right. Yeah. I wonder if it's lack of measurement. Yeah, it's like that old adage of what gets measured gets improved. To make an Netflix analogy here, if you and I were both joining some athletics team right now and we both were 100 meters at the exact same time, but over time you're improving and I'm stagnant. If you start to level up through the divisions and now you're on the sort of competition team or whatever, there's probably not a whole lot of difficult conversations between us about why I'm not on the relay team at this stage because day after day, week after week, we're measuring numbers.

00:32:56:19 - 00:33:22:11
Alex De Fina
And I can see that you're improving. And I'm not it and I'm not. And what I found in my business, I'm at a point in my entrepreneur life where my care factor about how my employees perceived me has never been lower yet the relationships have never been stronger. And the reason is, is that if I could go back to the stage.

00:33:22:13 - 00:33:23:06
Alex De Fina
Yeah, sure.

00:33:23:08 - 00:33:41:11
Itamar Marani
I'm curious, of course, if I'll be, I'll hit the nail on the head with this is because when in the past, when you cared more about how they were perceived, you, you weren't as they didn't have as clear as much clarity on what they should be doing. So they didn't know how to succeed. Is that it?

00:33:41:13 - 00:34:08:01
Alex De Fina
Exactly that. Exactly that. So it was it was an 11 on good intentions and a much lower number in terms of structure, policies, standards, auditing, reviewing, etc.. And so at a time I've just learned from past mistakes and very, very clear on expectations what good books like how how do I spend it's wrong number. How often are we going to measure this?

00:34:08:03 - 00:34:33:01
Alex De Fina
And it allows people to understand are they sort of at or below the standard, the respecting of them on a really consistent and it is sort of it's a great maintenance of the relationship. It doesn't allow the weeds to grow where the situation like I've had many times in the past, where someone thinks they're performing brilliantly, I think they're performing terribly.

00:34:33:03 - 00:34:56:21
Alex De Fina
And then we have to have a lot of friction in the relationship to sort of soul solve that equation. Whereas if they've got more consistent, more accurate feedback on a performance like that, the disparaging analogy I know what everybody just looks like, I know what time it is, if I know what what the expectation is and I'm meeting or exceeding that, then I could tick the box that I'm sort of competent in my role.

00:34:56:23 - 00:35:18:14
Alex De Fina
And I wonder if that's one of the things that leads to these rifts in dynamics over time, and that what started off as a good idea is no longer a good idea at some point in the future. And I think that some part of it comes down to that or oversight or just inability to actually understand what should be tracking and tracking on a regular basis.

00:35:18:16 - 00:35:34:15
Itamar Marani
Yeah, I think it's a big part like I really agree with you on this. I think the way I take in what you're saying in a more blunt fashion is a lot of relationships get ruined because people don't feel comfortable saying exactly what they want, quantifying that and then getting another person to be like, Hey, do you actually want to do this or not?

00:35:34:20 - 00:35:42:22
Itamar Marani
Is this the silence of what are my expectations of what I hope this person does? And then, like with all those kind of things, they rarely get?

00:35:43:00 - 00:35:52:23
Alex De Fina
And do you think that's from a is from a place of not being comfortable about sharing expectations and in some way that's bad or demanding?

00:35:53:01 - 00:36:11:09
Itamar Marani
This is a big one. It's a big one and it's a Segway for radio, but I think it's actually a good one to talk about. Sure. I'll put it this way. I think there's a couple of things here. First off, there is some some things that people are think that you're not supposed to be able to say. You're not allowed to say this.

00:36:11:11 - 00:36:30:08
Itamar Marani
You're not allowed to say to like your partner, hey, I want to have sex twice a week. Like especially if you're just past having a kid or whatever it may be. You're not allowed to say like, Hey, this is what I want you to do. You know, you can't change somebody's thought about changing somebody about them. Like, we want to live a great life together.

00:36:30:12 - 00:36:51:00
Itamar Marani
This is my perspective. We want to live a great life. For example, me and my wife, we have a tracker for each other, like how we have the performance tracker from the arena. We have a similar one for each other where it's her job, her responsibility to clarify what she wants out of me as a husband and for me to deliver that and vice versa.

00:36:51:02 - 00:37:08:11
Itamar Marani
And what that does that, again, there's not a lot of room for confusion there. Does it create an initial friction because I don't want to do this or she doesn't want to do that or it doesn't all add up? Absolutely. But it puts it all on the table. Then we can work on and I think with a lot of relationships, socialization is romantic.

00:37:08:11 - 00:37:40:08
Itamar Marani
There's nothing's ever spoken about until it hits a certain resentment precipice and then it gets to be a blowup. And what's the to also say what you said about what are the clear standards and so on. What I found to be one of the most interesting things that were unexpected to me when we started doing this was how and I'm relatively clear out what I want in life, how unclear I was, how incorrect I was about what actions I thought would deliver what I want.

00:37:40:10 - 00:37:56:08
Itamar Marani
So, for example, I would tell my wife like, Hey, I want you to do this or that. This is what I want out of the relationship. She would do that perfect ten score. And I was like, Oh, that then actually gave me the feeling that I thought I wanted to have from this. So that's not on her. That's on me now.

00:37:56:08 - 00:38:14:07
Itamar Marani
I need to figure that out. And she can help me and we can talk about it and so on. But it's a constant process of iteration and clarification. And in business we do this all the time, right? This was a strategy. We did this like we hit these KPIs. We didn't hit the goal. So what happened here and we know that's something you should be doing and makes sense.

00:38:14:09 - 00:38:31:03
Itamar Marani
And I think a big part of it is also because, you know, like if you don't do it, you see the scoreboard very clear. As far as the money, that's a very clear indicator this is working or not working with relationships. It's not as clear, it's not as tangible of a measure like how much is the bank on got up or down.

00:38:31:05 - 00:38:47:19
Itamar Marani
And again, it's a taboo thing. Like you're not supposed to talk about these things. You're not supposed to tell your partner, I want this or I want that. There. I talked to one entrepreneur and he was like, I told my wife, I want to have more sex. You're not allowed to say that they're going to keep. What do you do from there?

00:38:47:21 - 00:39:01:08
Itamar Marani
I mean, how would you. It's a tough thing. All right. That's kind of my perspective on this, that it's a bit taboo. Some people don't want to talk about it. It's uncomfortable, but it's important.

00:39:01:10 - 00:39:29:00
Alex De Fina
It's actually really helpful. I don't it because. Yeah, well showing might as well was coming from the perspective that I think one of the biggest performance anchors is someone's either a subconscious or conscious desire to be liked or appreciated or to avoid conflict and so the Adlerian School of Psychology talk about this a lot. This is a great book called The Courage to be Disliked.

00:39:29:02 - 00:40:09:03
Alex De Fina
And when you're very clear about your expectations, by default, there's a fairly comparable risk of conflict that the the other party was a romantic partner or business partner might not see the world the same way. And so it requires the courage to be clear about do what? Knowing that there's potential friction by showing that information, but inability or not doing the clear communication is like what most likely allows these productive partnerships to drag on for a long period time.

00:40:09:05 - 00:40:15:06
Alex De Fina
It boils beneath the surface and it all flares up at some point in the future, and you pay the tax downstream.

00:40:15:07 - 00:40:34:13
Itamar Marani
Yeah, I think also something that people don't talk about is that so when you're in a relationship with someone that you know isn't a fit for you, what we naturally want to do is blame sex. Oh, they're the reason why I'm not doing this or that, you know, like why by other parts of my life aren't as great as they want to be.

00:40:34:15 - 00:40:58:21
Itamar Marani
The reality is that the more you're in that relationship that you know you shouldn't be in, the more it erodes your self-esteem. Because, you know, you are the kind of your being, at least the kind of person who stays in something when they know it's the wrong thing. Just out of, like I said, fear of being this like fear of being alone, whatever it may be, and the amount that that saps your self-confidence and your belief in what you can do is wild.

00:40:58:23 - 00:41:22:08
Itamar Marani
And really what I think the reason these entrepreneurs that I've seen that have removed those kind of relationships from their life and really sometimes said, this is fucking terrifying. I'm afraid to be alone, especially I'm afraid to be alone at, you know, 40, 50, 60, whatever it may be. And they've actually done it. The biggest impact that's had on their energy, because this person isn't them anymore, but on their energy because of their sense of self.

00:41:22:08 - 00:41:49:12
Itamar Marani
All of a sudden, the amount of self-respect that they all of a sudden reassume and have, again, that's the big thing. Often they're like, you know what? I'm the kind of person who does these things. What else could this kind of person do? And kind of everything kicks off in their life, really, their health. They usually lose a lot of weight and they're like other relationships, although they find these really great people and business and in everything, I think it's really just an identity shift that factors into everything here.

00:41:49:14 - 00:42:20:04
Alex De Fina
Yeah, that's definitely has been a huge performance. Anchor in the past is is avoiding difficult conversations because I wanted to be liked or understood or appreciated more that I wanted to actually be clear about what expectation was and is spent on those without entirely others as well. So understand that a performance anchor is helpful to then untie that anchor and really forces a different approach to vacation.

00:42:20:06 - 00:42:37:12
Itamar Marani
Yeah, and to kind of tie it all back in a holistic perspective. This is probably the point where some people think, Oh, that's a really cold way to live life. It's like you're only optimizing for certain business goals or external goals and you're cutting these people offline. No, no, no, no. At the very beginning we said, What do you want in life in general?

00:42:37:14 - 00:42:53:00
Itamar Marani
Not what do you want out of your business? So what do you want to of your life in general? Is this a performance anchor? In regards to that you're saying? I want to feel consider. I want to feel like I have an opportunity explore to go do big things, to be excited about life, to deal with hardships, like, okay, this is a cost of performance anchor to this.

00:42:53:00 - 00:43:12:17
Itamar Marani
Someone is not on board with you to performance anchor and like you said, that language like understand without extreme clarity the beginning and and say in relation to that is this a performance booster or performance and what is and again some things obviously are in absolutes, but where is it on that spectrum? And then like I said, it's the courage to do it.

00:43:12:19 - 00:43:15:03
Alex De Fina
Yeah, yeah. Cool, cool.

00:43:15:05 - 00:43:34:17
Itamar Marani
So that's what I figure out. And I usually the way I ask is like, how's your environment? Do you think it's facilitating your success or is it kind of holding you down? Is there anybody that in your environment is what I said? Is there anybody in your environment? This could be personal life, relationships, employees, whatever it may be, that if they weren't already there, would you want to bring them out?

00:43:34:19 - 00:43:46:23
Itamar Marani
Because if the answer to that is no, I wouldn't want to bring them in if they weren't already there. That means that the thing that's causing them to be there is just your discomfort of breaking it off, and that's uncomfortable. And that's really how I go.

00:43:47:01 - 00:43:48:21
Alex De Fina
That's a really powerful question.

00:43:48:23 - 00:44:21:10
Itamar Marani
Yeah, it's a very comfortable, though, as I feel like I feel like comfortable because I can see how people react to that. Okay, we're going to go for it, which I'll talk about later, I think is is the big thing that is important with coaching. That's part four. The performance anchors. Part five is if everything's clear so far, they're really clear what they want, a life where their focus needs to be, how to do it down to a T, like you said, they're you know, they have the guardrails that make it feel like this is a good idea for me to do.

00:44:21:10 - 00:44:39:13
Itamar Marani
I'll give myself permission to do. And they don't have any anchors the way It's okay. Why do you think this is a bad idea? What we've nailed in all the logical things about why you should be performing at an elite level. But that means there's a subconscious part in you that is resisting that. And then it's really about nailing that story.

00:44:39:15 - 00:44:55:14
Itamar Marani
And I think that's why you were. I remember one of the things that surprised to me when we when you joined the arena, we were like, oh, you didn't ask me about my past at all at the beginning. And I was shocked about it. AS Yeah, this is not about it. It's about like first we've got to figure out where you want to get to and how we can get that and only that as a necessary evil.

00:44:55:14 - 00:45:19:20
Itamar Marani
We'll look at the past if we need to, and which I think is is what a lot of little mindset programs or whatever are missing. And it's honestly something that's just not necessary from what I've seen to dig into that. And it's like it's only the last resort. You want to first figure out all these illogical things that, okay, like then if all these things are in place, why is your subconscious fighting?

00:45:19:22 - 00:45:36:06
Itamar Marani
And the interesting thing is also that if you've already done all that prep work of figuring out what are the exact things you should be doing and what are the things that you should, you know, have in your life so that you're not resisting and so on. You get to corner your mind, like not just starting out. A thousand different reasons are involved.

00:45:36:06 - 00:46:04:20
Itamar Marani
But no, this is actually the reason you're still resisting doing that after all that. And you can find the resistance really, really quickly and you can challenge it if it's valid or not. That's usually the five steps that I go through in my head very, very quickly when I talk with someone. And it is an arsenal that I think everybody could have to really understand if they're feeling stuck with someone else, you're sort of an employee or there's feeling stuck, whatever it may be, that you run them through this filter, usually find out what's causing.

00:46:04:22 - 00:46:12:21
Alex De Fina
And so that that fifth step, could you just how would you say that's qualification or validation? Like how would you relabel?

00:46:12:23 - 00:46:43:09
Itamar Marani
I call it emotional fortitude. I think the thing is like if you have a story in your head about why something and this is a great point about So if you have a story, you had about why something is still a bad idea, even if you realize that it's fake. So for example, if you think that if I do all these outreach, people are going to make fun of me and I'm going to be outcast because that's what happened to you once in grade school, which is a true story from an entrepreneur you got made fun of once on the bus when you moved to a new town, you tried to tell a joke on

00:46:43:09 - 00:47:12:11
Itamar Marani
the first day and everybody made fun of him. And 30 years later, he had this assumption in his head that if I try to reach out to new people, they're going to make fun of me without knowing. It stopped him from really now working on growing his business. So even once you logically recognize that this isn't true and you're like, okay, this isn't true, This is the story in my head that I have to recognize that when I'm about to do the action down to the, like you said, reach out to ten people every day in this kind of way and follow up that it up that part of my brain is still going to

00:47:12:11 - 00:47:28:23
Itamar Marani
scream, Don't do it, Don't do it. That's when you have to have that fortitude over my emotions to be able to say, this feels uncomfortable. A part of me is yelling, a part of me is yelling, Run for the hills. But I'm not going to listen to that part of me and I'm just going to do the thing.

00:47:29:01 - 00:47:54:08
Alex De Fina
I think the reason I think counseling, therapy, a lot of conversation based dynamics where people are trying to get a relief or a sending in something default to this. Let's go back into the history books and unpack your life. And it could very easily become this sort of perpetual hamster wheel of rehashing former wins or losses, but never actually moving things forwards.

00:47:54:10 - 00:48:15:11
Alex De Fina
A fitness analogy here. If someone said, I want to lose weight so great, the choices are chicken salad and tuna salad. And guess what? You spent many hours a day moving and doing difficult stuff as possible. That's almost guaranteed way to lose weight. Now they're going to probably start talking about their food preferences and their schedule. A lot of that stuff doesn't have a context.

00:48:15:13 - 00:48:24:00
Alex De Fina
It's just if you keep going, if you keep falling on that thread, eventually you're going back to talking about so much stuff from the past.

00:48:24:04 - 00:48:26:13
Itamar Marani
You've lost all of this. And really.

00:48:26:15 - 00:48:33:07
Alex De Fina
Yeah, the efficient, effective path to the outcome you're looking for Results. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

00:48:33:09 - 00:48:50:16
Itamar Marani
Yeah. And I wonder how much of that like it's interesting when I heard you speak as also am is right now I'm visiting family and talk about and I'm still in contact with a bunch of military friends and guys from the Special Ops and the Shin Bet And how much of that is because we were never asked what we want to do.

00:48:50:20 - 00:49:05:01
Itamar Marani
They're like this what you guys need to do, like a boot camp and all that. You're never asked. There's that. Like, how do you guys with this? It's like this. There is all we need to do go right. We need to figure it out. Takes that we were like, you know, tired, sleep deprived, shift up, okay, you still got to do this.

00:49:05:03 - 00:49:29:05
Itamar Marani
And perhaps that's a big reason why go at it like this. It's just this first off, from a competitive standpoint, it's just about getting results. And that's what's exciting. But also what's kind of I think how do I say, enhance that desire in me or taught me that this is a good thing, is that from what I've seen, I get I don't deal with people with trauma.

00:49:29:05 - 00:49:53:19
Itamar Marani
I want to say that's very different. But when anyone that I've worked with, the best way to enhance their self-image is by helping them achieve bigger things and better things. And it's like a lot of these things that we think we need to talk about or to get through. It's like, you know what? If we can just disprove all that notion about your self esteem by helping you do a lot of really cool shit that you're really excited about and it's aligned with what you want.

00:49:53:21 - 00:50:08:20
Itamar Marani
And then you could tell self, Okay, if I'm doing these kind of things on a consistent basis, this is who I am. Yeah. And all of a sudden those things we don't even need to talk about and they're like, Oh, they're just irrelevant. That's that's who I was, but this is who I am. Oh, okay, great. And this nullifies a lot of that.

00:50:08:20 - 00:50:28:18
Itamar Marani
And I think that's also honestly why you see how passionate and when I talk about this stuff and how I say, okay, that's the transformation I think actually makes an impact. Not about just talking about your past and making it healing it, whatever, can just move you to a place where like, Oh, that's not even me. That was, that was old me, and that's not even relevant anymore because look at all this evidence that I've just accrued.

00:50:28:20 - 00:50:37:09
Itamar Marani
But it's obvious through this evidence so you can win. And aside from like the financial ones and so on, it's also the internal one. You're okay. This is who I am today.

00:50:37:11 - 00:51:03:02
Alex De Fina
Exactly. Like, like that sort of colloquial term. That guy's about about it, more or less. This is summarizing someone who's like that. They define themselves by their actions. Yeah, not yet. Always go back to the past and trying to sort of engineer stories from it. It was just if I define myself as being a person who achieves X, Y, Z, these are the actions we have to do.

00:51:03:02 - 00:51:23:09
Alex De Fina
I just repeat those actions. My confidence now comes from these consistently repeated actions and I don't need to attend a motivational pep talk or do any kind of work. Spiritual healing. I know what I'm about because I'm about doing it every single day. It just becomes so ingrained into the psychology just through action.

00:51:23:11 - 00:51:39:08
Itamar Marani
Yeah, I think a big part of that, you don't have to heal your old stuff if you just feel like it's not relevant for you anymore. If it's still part of that old stuff as me, then yeah, you're going to heal it. But in fact, that's just not me. Everything in my life is wrong. That's on me. What we talked about with relationship examples.

00:51:39:10 - 00:51:54:22
Itamar Marani
Once they like go, okay, I don't have to deal with like, why was I so afraid to let go of this person or why were they so afraid to be alone? Oh, yeah, because everyone's afraid. That's a general thing. We're all afraid to be alone. But when I look at who I am today, I'm like, Oh, wow, I do all these scary things.

00:51:54:22 - 00:52:23:14
Itamar Marani
I do all these uncomfortable things. Great. Oh, I guess that's why I was five years ago. Three years ago. It's not who I am today. Happy days. Move on. And I've find these things that a lot of people talk about need to heal, become non-issues and really helpful. So yep, so those are the five things. So obviously this wasn't as tactical as an in-depth on how to do that, but this one that I was going to say we're going to talk about anyway with the way I think is going to be irrelevant.

00:52:23:16 - 00:52:42:03
Itamar Marani
Like this isn't an age anymore where you get to, you know, your information or whatever you think all the information is out there. And even before the whole thing started, we were going to write the book and we did write the book and it's coming out soon. We're sure exactly how to do all these steps. So this could be a friendly that if any of these things hit home, it's like, Oh, this is my constraint.

00:52:42:03 - 00:52:59:19
Itamar Marani
This is actually what I think is going on here inside the book there's an exact method and step by step of how you actually do this. And we're also going to be releasing tools that are book companions to help you do this by yourself. So first off, that's all available for preorder now. It will be live October 1st.

00:52:59:19 - 00:53:30:13
Itamar Marani
There's going to be a link in the show notes where you can find out. I think the book is they're putting out $2 for now in the preorder, never going to be cheap or less so that's that. Now with this said, I want to talk a little bit about I and let's call it coaching community or whatever it may be where I think there's still an importance for people to get outside just them and a tool and in all of this is honestly like you have I think, a lot more domain expertise than me with, with I and this would be a very interesting conversation.

00:53:30:15 - 00:53:52:02
Itamar Marani
So I want to share before we get into the story. So somebody who was actually an old teacher of mine, an old jujitsu teacher, might reach out to me about two months ago and he's a multiple time world champion. He had like the jet black belt at the highest, highest level. One of these guys that when I would roll with him, I would just think to myself, maybe I'm not.

00:53:52:02 - 00:54:12:15
Itamar Marani
Maybe this jujitsu thing is not for me. Like, yeah, it was just like, all right. And he was even he was my away. Classes still felt like that, which rarely happens. And basically he reached out to me and he was like, Hey man, would you be open if you have a job? I've seen some of your content and so on.

00:54:12:17 - 00:54:39:13
Itamar Marani
And I said, Cool. And he was basically telling me that some of his stuff in his life since the last time we've met, which was about like nine years ago, hasn't gone great. Like his academy's kind of like been on a down and all this and some of his personal relationships aren't that great. Like people aren't people aren't as they don't reach out to him as much anymore or they don't bring them into certain opportunities or certain things or whatever.

00:54:39:15 - 00:54:54:06
Itamar Marani
And he was telling me about his goal, and his goal was just basically like, have a farm somewhere Brazil that he could have. And it was a very low key goal. And he was saying, you know, I mean, it's like I'm I recognize things are like always going to be amazing. So just like kind of like temper down my goals.

00:54:54:10 - 00:55:17:01
Itamar Marani
And I just want to like to think simply, you know what I mean? And but yeah, but I'm not getting into opportunities in this kind of stuff and asked if I can just be very honest with him. And he said, yes, I like the way the way you're living is extremely unattractive to the people that when you see someone who's unexcited about life, when he's just trying to do like the smallest thing possible, you're going to want to connect with him.

00:55:17:01 - 00:55:34:19
Itamar Marani
Like if you have a student in your gym which says, Oh, you know what, I'm not athletic. I'm not really going to go for it. I just want to do the bare minimum. And maybe, maybe someday I'll get to BlueBell to a proper bowl. Are you going to be invested in him like you would see? Some student is like, Dude, I really want to get the black belt and I want to compete.

00:55:34:21 - 00:55:50:16
Itamar Marani
And he said, no. And I was like, Okay. It's like, That's the reality, man. It's like, I get what you're trying to do is it feels logical, but you're going if you're trying to live a diminished life, no one is going to want to do that with you. It's not they're not going to bring you into business opportunities.

00:55:50:16 - 00:56:22:11
Itamar Marani
We spoke before that a big opportunity. Some of the friends have. They're not going to want to bring you in because when they look at you like, oh, he's not the guy he's really going for, and he just like men fuck for over that. He's like, Fuck, no one tells me this stuff, man. And he's like, my my girlfriend, you know, she'll tell me this like, not really tell me this, but only yell at me something that when we get into a fight and it comes out like how esthetic is a resentment thing, not as a place where she's comic and telling me this on like the caring compassion level on a place where he's

00:56:22:12 - 00:56:49:07
Itamar Marani
able to receive it. And he was like, Man, no one tells me this kind of stuff. And he was very grateful and very appreciative of it. And I think this is still where a lot of the eye stuff falls behind. And I especially like I work a lot with CBT and with Clyde, and it annoys the crap out of me when they do something and I try to fix it and I'm like, change it, do it my way.

00:56:49:07 - 00:57:21:22
Itamar Marani
And I'm like, What do you think about this? And the initial response is that it's a great improvement because of this and this, but I want honest feedback and it could be that I'm not probably correctly, but that place of somebody to say the very honest truth that is very uncomfortable but is the thing that you need to hear that is still rare, both from again, this could be a prompting thing where I don't get air correctly, but also because another human, you're probably going to listen to it on a different level than I, Yet I know we're not used to really seeing that kind of feedback from our internalizing the same way we do

00:57:21:22 - 00:57:31:09
Itamar Marani
with another human being. What are your thoughts on this man as someone who's much more into the realm.

00:57:31:11 - 00:57:57:10
Alex De Fina
I need to self audit the feedback that I get from my on almost every on almost every single product. Here's what I think I need to do that at least one, is that the other limbs are essentially training off your interactions with them and we don't know what the weights in the same way we don't know what a social media algorithm is.

00:57:57:12 - 00:58:21:01
Alex De Fina
We don't know how the actual weighting of this algorithm has been set up. But for sure it's been optimized to essentially be some form of reinforcement tool. So if you go on to church to where the model you're using looks, hey, I'm thinking this maybe that is my is like, what a profound insight. Tom Yeah, that wasn't a profound insight.

00:58:21:03 - 00:58:50:15
Alex De Fina
So it's got a lot of these sort of inbuilt niceties to reinforce the way you think that will just what I've observed as a user. So any time I'm trying to think out loud with the tool, even though I'm trying to extrapolate on a thought or to qualify something, I massively try to avoid blind spots of biases by then.

00:58:50:17 - 00:59:20:00
Alex De Fina
Opportunity. Same great wisdom of blind spots. If you had to find a blind spot, my sneaking worries of where's a breakdown in logic since it doesn't naturally give that to. And that's where I think we can separate the A.I. tools right now versus the human being, because the human being right now, if they have the skills or experience in whatever the topic is, they're more likely going to pick up on of the B.S. rates.

00:59:20:00 - 00:59:41:03
Alex De Fina
They're going to have better pattern recognition than the technology. They might be able to play devil's advocate from a place of of love and care, not from a place of trying to sort of bring you down. If that means they have to point out some hard truths or quiz you on some things that maybe you're very confident that you should be as competent on.

00:59:41:05 - 01:00:00:19
Alex De Fina
I found that to play out in my interpersonal relationships much more than I have in my relationships with with the AI model. So whilst they're incredibly powerful, I think that people have put far too much trust into these tools far too quickly. It's profound to think there was only a few years ago. We're looking at the first relationship.

01:00:00:19 - 01:00:29:06
Alex De Fina
Beauty is like a better email. Water, and now people are talking to this thing almost like some form of digital god. And it said this. That must be true. But not recognizing that it's likely reinforcing, it's optimized towards telling you what you want to hear or telling you that you're right, not necessarily overwhelming you with evidence about where you might be incorrect.

01:00:29:08 - 01:00:53:23
Alex De Fina
And so I've just that was what my sort of the spidey sense was as I'm going into more complex, I'm doing a pretty complex investment proposal at the moment on a business. And as I'm getting a lot of this feedback from Jupiter, that's really smart, that's really clever, like, hang on a sec, you know, you tell me what I want or what I want to hear or is this actually right?

01:00:54:01 - 01:01:20:01
Alex De Fina
So, yeah, that's that's sort of my $0.02 on air right now. I think it's a very powerful tool, but like all tools, it could be used for great constructive or destructive or even like keeping you stagnant. And so I think we're a long way from having a perfect tool. And so just using the tools for where they're great and also using a human beings where they're great, that's probably, you know, we're at right now.

01:01:20:03 - 01:01:39:14
Itamar Marani
It's interesting that I, I am going to assume that at a certain point it will become the perfect tool, so to speak, and they'll know like you can, you can it'll ask you to in and okay what do you kind of conversation do you want to have to do you want to have an honest, tough love conversation? Are you at a place where you will ask it all these kind of like tender ways we a place we have been.

01:01:39:14 - 01:02:02:19
Itamar Marani
We're tired, just want support. What is it? And what I'm curious about and we'll to see how we adapt. It is the how we'll be able to receive it as human beings. So for example, that guy, even if and I would have told him like, Hey man, you're living a diminished life and nobody wants to be with you right now because of that.

01:02:02:21 - 01:02:17:18
Itamar Marani
It's one thing seeing that from an AI tool. It's another thing seeing that from someone who has a personal connection with. And I'm like, you know, we were over Zoom, but I'm still metaphorically putting my hand on his shoulder in a very like, obviously, dude, I want what's best for you kind of way in saying it and that.

01:02:17:20 - 01:02:33:08
Itamar Marani
And just because of that, because of what I'm saying, how is it being able to receive you how he's able to receive it? And I wonder if they'll get to a point where also, you know, we get so accustomed to AI and perhaps they'll be looking like an AI avatar and Zoom or whatever it may be, that it could get to that level.

01:02:33:10 - 01:02:37:18
Itamar Marani
But do you think until it does.

01:02:37:19 - 01:03:04:08
Alex De Fina
Go first, I think we've we've got we've got those performance anchors right now of, yeah, I want to be writer. I want to feel comfortable. We don't need any more diet books. Sorry for causing allergies like to fitness but we're done with guidebooks and we don't give people anymore about how the body responds to to training stimulus. So why is it anyone still complaining that they're overweight or don't have as much muscle mass as all the tools are out there already?

01:03:04:10 - 01:03:29:12
Alex De Fina
Well, I just don't like what the tools tell them to do. Yeah, I think the same is true for for business, personal relationships, etc.. You know, in your background, you don't make it into these units by being told that you're amazing and that was good enough. It's got very high expectations, very low average of standards and and sort of brutal ordering of what performance is.

01:03:29:14 - 01:03:39:07
Alex De Fina
I haven't seen any air tools come out just yet. Unless as I open I will air dark version. Now, the the the day that I.

01:03:39:07 - 01:03:52:23
Itamar Marani
Was going back to really, I actually wanted to ask you about this because and again, I'm not as literate and I deep sea was Chinese. Right. And how do you play it first off have you played with it?

01:03:53:01 - 01:03:54:00
Alex De Fina
Haven't posted it.

01:03:54:00 - 01:04:09:17
Itamar Marani
Now. I'd be curious about that because, you know, like we both know that Asian culture, especially the Chinese, can be a lot more blunt, a lot more direct, Like emails will still be like, Hey, you have gained weight, you're fat. You know, I've been either allows it be like, Hey, you need to get their illness first. They like haven't seen it in three years.

01:04:09:19 - 01:04:26:06
Itamar Marani
You know you look better with a nose job, things of that nature. So I would be curious to see how culturally why are they is to let's call it the Northern California kind of woke culture versus a more Chinese culture. That would have been an interesting thing to say.

01:04:26:08 - 01:04:49:00
Alex De Fina
That's a great point. And that might become one of the things that separates these different technologies right now, Right now with this release, which is the saying that, you know, Claude is slightly better than this one. Slower, these things, but maybe you have a time where they do become quite divergent in their application is on some type of spectrum.

01:04:49:02 - 01:05:15:19
Alex De Fina
These models are more likely to tell you what you want to hear and still have a benefit to you, but optimize towards your to have a congruence or feeling good. These ones over here are most likely to get what you want, but they're also the most brutal, painful, honest, etc. And for a lot of people they might choose to have a lesser performing tool but be more comfortable as opposed to the nose performing tool in the discomfort.

01:05:15:21 - 01:05:23:02
Itamar Marani
Yeah, they'll be like a gauge and charge. You became one through ten. Like how extreme do you want to take this thing? But yeah, I think so.

01:05:23:04 - 01:05:24:09
Alex De Fina
This is very.

01:05:24:11 - 01:05:56:12
Itamar Marani
Which is, which is honestly what we're trying to create. We're trying to put my frameworks and all that on top of any ISO. It filters it in that way. But that's going to be honest that one of the things that we said as a companion for the book are people buy it, they're going to get it back to the point where I think, again, like knowledge isn't rare right now, but accountability from someone that you respect and you care about that can be so this is not something you have to have performance coaching with, but you do need to have people outside of your own head, whether that's a mastermind, but that's a community, whether

01:05:56:13 - 01:06:19:03
Itamar Marani
it's as a social group that meets on a consistent basis, whatever it may be. It's the reality is it is very hard for us to see ourselves outside ourselves, myself included, like everyone included. And if you don't have somebody or people in your life that can do that for you, most likely you're just going to keep tripping yourself up without being aware of why it is happening.

01:06:19:05 - 01:06:37:20
Itamar Marani
So that was the big thing I wanted to say about I absolutely use I tools and at the same time have people in your life that will point out the things that you didn't even know you needed to prompt they about because there were such blind spots of yours. Yeah. So that was one of the.

01:06:37:22 - 01:07:23:22
Alex De Fina
Things that was new to this Itamar who then whatever, through listening to this part, then I just had some takeaways that they're not as clear on the outcomes. We're looking for that to increase that clarity, get clearer on what the actions and what the focus is needs to be, what the performance echoes likely are. How would you how would they best find that that that human element of of of coaching this opportunity for them to to jump on the presales for the book applications kind of the open arena how how could someone who's looking to move their business forwards or just move their life forwards find that tool in here now.

01:07:24:00 - 01:07:45:06
Itamar Marani
As like I said, like applications open for the arena for the Q for one. Also the book is on preorder is going to be the cheapest. We're going to do it. We're going to also the big things for the launch of it, not big marketing things, but I see big kind of thought application in workshops where you actually take these tools and apply them and we're all going to do it together, whether it's going to be one in-person event, one a virtual event.

01:07:45:12 - 01:08:09:12
Itamar Marani
So to make sure that again, people just take this knowledge and actually apply it to their life and it's going to be free for anybody who buys the book, I think leave it or leaves that are review. That's how we're doing it right now. Well, yeah, like basically if any of this resonate, you're welcome to reach out. But if it's not me and it's someone else, just find someone you respect to be able to tell you the truth and to say it in a way where you'll be open to receiving it and want to receive it and take it to the next level and action.

01:08:09:14 - 01:08:23:07
Itamar Marani
That's the main thing. How people around you that you deeply respect and that are willing to have those very uncomfortable conversations with you because they care more about you than the comfort they're feeling at the very moment. I think that's the biggest thing.

01:08:23:09 - 01:08:50:18
Alex De Fina
Yeah. And I just think those those forces which if someone saying I don't feel confident in right now or I feel confident business relationships, etc., well, working backwards, confidence is the end outcome preceding that is commitment, courage, capabilities. So you're confident because you have the capabilities. You have the capabilities because you didn't have the courage. The scariest thing you could ever do is to commit to something new.

01:08:50:18 - 01:09:18:13
Alex De Fina
And so if that's applying for the arena, finding a performance coach that you resonate with, taking that first step is so meaningful because essentially it's a pattern shifted to what you've previously been on before and you might feel anxious about the commitment, etc. That's natural. As you go through that work, you start stacking capabilities and eventually you become about it because you've now got capabilities and the confidence is the is the end outcome through.

01:09:18:13 - 01:09:20:12
Alex De Fina
That's what's being done.

01:09:20:14 - 01:09:27:16
Itamar Marani
Yep, Yep. All right. Thank you very much, guys. Thank you very much, Alex. And we'll see you guys on the next episode.