How Pressure Hijacks Performance (And How to Fix It) | Elite Performance Podcast #76

00:00:00:01 - 00:00:18:04
Itamar Marani
An old one on one client reached out to me and I was like, Yeah, what's up? And he's like, Oh, not so good. I'm kind of stuck. I don't feel like I'm in a good place right now, but I wanted to reach out and kind of talk about it. Took on some investor money so that we could deploy them into certain tests and it didn't really go so well.

00:00:18:05 - 00:00:23:15
Alex De Fina
Were the investors aware of the risk reward profile?

00:00:23:18 - 00:00:56:04
Itamar Marani
They both understood logically, but he didn't prepare himself for how that would feel. When those hits come, you should be raising funds and taking out other people's capital. That can give you a lot of opportunities. But what it can also do is add a lot of pressure and possibly hinder your performance. On today's podcast, I want to share a recent conversation I had with an old one on one client that actually his performance started to tank after he received these new opportunities and the workarounds we figure it out and how he could get back on track and perform at his best.

00:00:56:08 - 00:01:09:17
Itamar Marani
So there's going to be some things here that are a bit more abstract and some things are very tactical tools that you can use regardless of if you're raising funds or not, but you're dealing with high stakes and really want to achieve big things. So in that note, welcome to today's podcast. Alex.

00:01:09:19 - 00:01:13:02
Alex De Fina
Thanks again. About today's You.

00:01:13:04 - 00:01:33:07
Itamar Marani
So I want to share the conversation. This was an old one on one client and he reached out to me and I was like, Oh, what's up? And he's like, Oh, not so good. So I asked him what happened? He said, Well, recently, you know how I wanted to grow things. So I took on outside money, took on some investor money so that we could deploy them into certain tests.

00:01:33:09 - 00:01:57:15
Itamar Marani
And it didn't really go so well. I had a small couple of little things that succeeded, but then on to overall it didn't go so well and we started spending a bunch of cash. Eventually, I felt so uncomfortable with it that I just wanted to kind of bail out of it. So I decided the best thing I could do is to return the money and take a personal hit myself.

00:01:57:17 - 00:02:17:07
Itamar Marani
So I'm kind of stuck. I don't feel like I'm in a good place right now, but I wanted to reach out and kind of talk about it. And it was rough to see him because I know how scaled is, and I know that he could definitely have crushed it, so to speak. But there was something in his head that caused him to underperform.

00:02:17:09 - 00:02:32:09
Itamar Marani
So I had about a 30 minute conversation with him that by the end of it, he was first I couldn't say first. He was very relieved because he was like, okay, this isn't a problem. This is how I dealt with it. It wasn't me. It was just a strategy I deployed psychologically in order to deal with this pressure.

00:02:32:11 - 00:02:50:06
Itamar Marani
And also he felt excited and he was like, you know what? This was just that. Let me get back on the horse. I want to get right back into it. And ended up calling the investors, got the money back. They were very gracious about it. And now he's on his way, so to speak. So. Any thoughts before we get on?

00:02:50:08 - 00:03:15:15
Alex De Fina
I guess my first question, I'm a bit ahead of myself here would be, were the investors aware of the risk reward profile? They didn't believe that I put money is absolutely guaranteed. It's going to be a ten XA or whatever. Somewhere in the future it could go to zero. It could be big. Yeah. And was was he aware of that risk?

00:03:15:19 - 00:03:26:21
Alex De Fina
And if both parties were aware, is this more of an emotional reaction to what was not going so well as opposed to. Well, we both knew the risks were taking. It turns out it's listen, yeah ideal.

00:03:26:22 - 00:03:43:12
Itamar Marani
But they both knew the risks and they both understood logically that there's going to be some volatility there, that it might not happen at once, so to speak. It's not going to be an immediate risk or immediate payoff. There's going to be a bunch of tests that will be run. One of them might succeed, one of them might not.

00:03:43:12 - 00:04:10:05
Itamar Marani
It might take a bit longer, whatever it may be. Now, the both the investors are obviously savvy investors. And this individual who's an entrepreneur who's been in the game for quite some time. So they both knew this. Now to kind of get into the first point. The first mistake, though, was that, again, I'm saying this a mistake from a performance standpoint is that he did not prepare himself for the possibility the first couple of tests might go wrong and how that will feel.

00:04:10:06 - 00:04:36:06
Itamar Marani
So this is the big thing. He knew that that might go like logically that might happen, but he didn't prepare himself for how will I react emotionally, especially he's someone with super high integrity, super high ethics, How would I react emotionally to losing other people's money? And because he didn't prepare for that possibility emotionally when those emotions hit, it really blindsided him.

00:04:36:06 - 00:04:49:07
Itamar Marani
And this is something we talk about very often that when emotions blindside us, things start to spiral. But if we can anticipate them, it can go a really long way.

00:04:49:09 - 00:05:10:05
Alex De Fina
That's something we joke have done a great job at IN and your counsel is preparing your clients for the emotional costs, or at least a logical analysis of what might happen past this point and how you have to prepare for any one of those outcomes ahead of time.

00:05:10:07 - 00:05:29:13
Itamar Marani
It's interesting. I remember when we did the Trump assassination attempt to Trump assassination breakdown. I got an entrepreneur came up to me at a conference afterwards, and he said the most interesting thing from that whole breakdown was when you guys said, well, his security agents, they weren't emotionally prepared for how it would feel like to try to get him to back down.

00:05:29:17 - 00:05:51:08
Itamar Marani
And then having someone who's your superior tell you, No, no, I want to put my hand up and I want to stand up. They didn't prepare for that emotional thing. And he's like, I don't never do that with my employees. So I never prepare for the kind of the backlash or the negative that might come from that. And I think this is a big part is that, you know, it's very nice to say just think positively and just handle it positively.

00:05:51:10 - 00:06:15:12
Itamar Marani
But I think what's more impactful, more effective than positive thinking is resilience. And a big part of resilience is accepting that there's going to be some kind of suck there. And a big thing when starting a project is, you know, people tell you, oh, just like think about like all the great things that can come of it. Think about it like, you know, pumping up, it'll fill up your sails with wind and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:06:15:14 - 00:06:43:14
Itamar Marani
That's true. Now, if you can also on top of that, say, you know what? What are all the potential costs that I'm going to have to pay along the way, emotionally, financially, you know, lifestyle, whatever it may be, and say, okay, I can anticipate that and I accept it. When those hits come, you'll be prepared for them. They weren't just blindside you, knock you off course, and then you're in a spiral, which is unfortunately what happened to him.

00:06:43:16 - 00:07:06:15
Itamar Marani
He did not anticipate that. And because of that, it blindsided him and it started this downward spiral where all of a sudden these thoughts that he had in his head of am I being a bad person because I'm wasting their money? What will they think about me? All these kind of things. He was trying to process them while already in a compromised emotional state.

00:07:06:17 - 00:07:28:20
Itamar Marani
And when you do that and try to process emotions in a compromised emotional state, bad things usually happen. And on the flip side, if he would have before he started this, you would have sat down and be like, you know what? Here are some possibilities we might lose like the first ten tests might come out like that. They might waste a lot of money.

00:07:28:22 - 00:07:50:20
Itamar Marani
And I can anticipate when that happens because I know my biggest values are taking care of others and making sure that everything's ethical. I will feel there will be a voice in my head, lower level. Me will try to scream out, You're doing something wrong. But I recognize that just nonsense. Because like you said, I know the risk parameters, the investors know the risk parameters.

00:07:51:00 - 00:08:07:08
Itamar Marani
We understand that this is part of the game. I need to accept that while I'm trying to round second base or whatever and be lower level, me will try to chip out of me. I need to ignore it. It can make all the difference. And I think that's how you build resilience and not just positive thinking.

00:08:07:10 - 00:08:36:09
Alex De Fina
MM So if I, if I summarize this, then your words are accurate, but if I'm, if I'm trying to level up in life, I'm going to the Super Bowl, I'm going to raise funds, There's something that I'm doing which is novel and significant in nature. Do you think that we tend to have either a bias or blind spot to focusing on what we perceive to be the positives?

00:08:36:09 - 00:08:54:23
Alex De Fina
Like if I create this company that does $1,000,000,000 in revenue, then I am pretty successful and we kind of get blindsided by the fact that that's going to come with a lot of litigation. And yet they're bored. And you know, the other sort of consequences that come with that. Is there is there a psychological it's like a protection mechanism?

00:08:54:23 - 00:09:08:06
Alex De Fina
How would you define that bias? It tends to creep in with people that we tend to look through rose colored glasses into the future and say, when I have this look like this would be great.

00:09:08:08 - 00:09:22:23
Itamar Marani
It's a great question. And they'll say, I don't know how to define it, and this is where we actually use it better than me at language patterns. But it just, you know, it's why the grass always seems greener because we just see the upside. It's why shiny objects exist as you just see the shine in them. Not all the shit on the bottom of it.

00:09:23:00 - 00:09:42:18
Itamar Marani
Yeah. I had a conversation with a friend recently and he has a pretty big business and he was telling me like, Dude, I would love to have your business. My boss is much smarter than him, but it's much more cash flow. There's less volatility in it. I'll let you have your misses. Don't this. There's bigger overall revenues. There's some cool things that come with it.

00:09:42:20 - 00:10:00:01
Itamar Marani
And we're like, Yeah, but you don't know my chance. And I'm like, Yeah, but you don't know myself and it's just part of it. And I don't have a specific term for it, but it's just understanding that on the outlook things, you always just look at the positive. We don't see all the stress and because we don't see all the stress again, we get blindsided.

00:10:00:03 - 00:10:16:16
Itamar Marani
I think we're all there's something my my mentor, Colonel G from the side used to say all the time that we're much more capable than we give ourselves. But in order to reach that capability, we have to prepare ourselves. Like if I tell you, like, Alex, listen, I'm going to punch you in the stomach, right? So I need you to brace.

00:10:16:18 - 00:10:34:21
Itamar Marani
You'll be able take a much, much stronger punch than if I just catch you off guard. You probably still stay, my friend as well, you know, But it's like if we don't prepare for these punches, it's going to create problems. And I think that's the big thing. First off, he just he didn't prepare for that psychological gut punch right.

00:10:34:23 - 00:10:55:08
Itamar Marani
And just us talking through it a little bit all of a sudden does create a lot of releases like, oh, man, this wasn't actually an issue. It was just an emotional reaction that I had while I was already emotionally reactive and unprepared. And that's why it felt like such a big deal. And that already created some relief. That's point one.

00:10:55:10 - 00:10:59:16
Itamar Marani
Any last thoughts on that?

00:10:59:18 - 00:11:30:22
Alex De Fina
Is there a balance between having if I have zero understanding of what one of the potential costs or the challenges I might experience emotionally to achieving this having absolute zero supply, that is going to be very reactive enterprise and really and emotionally trying to think through the feelings. Is there a point where you have too much fear or concern and it might be inaccurate?

00:11:30:23 - 00:11:49:23
Alex De Fina
So there's kind of this weird Goldilocks zone of accuracy? Yeah, there was a before because I've had some of those conversations with people who they just they do the opposite. They amplify the the least bit those probability most extreme potential bad consequences. And they use that as a reason not to move forwards.

00:11:50:01 - 00:12:07:10
Itamar Marani
It's a really great question. And I think also like what you said, it's just how you use it. Are you using it as a reason not to move forward or using like, okay, I might get messed up here a little bit. Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, and I think it's also there is some wisdom that I know everybody wants different things in life.

00:12:07:12 - 00:12:31:05
Itamar Marani
Everybody wants to take on different goals. And if again, not extreme, worst case, very unprofitable scenario. But if you're saying this is a probable scenario that I'm going to have to go through this level of challenge or pain or whatever it may be, and you preemptively say, you know, that's actually something I don't want to take on. It could save you actually a lot of time and effort just getting to, you know, the almost finish line, but not crossing it because you didn't want it.

00:12:31:05 - 00:12:45:07
Itamar Marani
You didn't preemptively accept it. That's going to be the price of it. And I think that I see a lot of people actually do they you know, they don't own the fact that they don't want to do something, so they start doing it. And then when it gets to get to the hard part, all of a sudden they don't do it.

00:12:45:07 - 00:13:04:11
Itamar Marani
All they do is they waste effort. Now, there might have been something else, a different project, different opportunity, whatever it may be, that is more realistic for them to take on. And it could be a general thing just in life in general, or could be in their situation. So, for example, a lot of the guys that I work with are new fathers, and a lot of time is being realistic.

00:13:04:11 - 00:13:25:02
Itamar Marani
And then, okay, you are now going to be sleep deprived for the next three months as you guys are kind of getting this figuring this out. You're also going to readjust your marriage with your wife. There's going to be different circumstance. It's going to be a lot of things you have to figure out. So in this time, do you think this is something that you should take on at this level, or should we just aim maybe a tier next to it that you can absolutely accept?

00:13:25:03 - 00:13:34:22
Itamar Marani
This is going to be the price is going to be the cost. I can question what do you think? So it's about kind of knowing thyself as well. Does that answer it in a bit of a roundabout way?

00:13:35:00 - 00:14:04:17
Alex De Fina
It does. I think that the challenge with a lot of entrepreneurs will be that we we live in a vacuum of overhead. And it's not always obvious to how to challenge ourselves which way to pick up on losses, biases and blind spots. It's just the value of working with a performance coach like yourself in terms of having someone in close quarters who can see behind the curtain a little bit about what's going on and have those props and be able to read out responses to that to help us navigate that process.

00:14:04:17 - 00:14:21:18
Alex De Fina
So think it's very, very difficult to do a lot because you post this, I said you kind of like the poison and antidote all in one. You have you have the keys to resolving this, but you're hamstrung because somewhere within you is the boss applies. So yeah.

00:14:21:20 - 00:14:40:08
Itamar Marani
Yeah. And I think also ego to official. So ego, for example, again with the new fathers, a lot of time it's this ego like I don't want to all of a sudden not push as hard as I pushed but the lay of the land is different So you having the same strategy when the lay of the land has changed doesn't make any logical sense.

00:14:40:11 - 00:14:41:22
Itamar Marani
It's an ego thing.

00:14:42:00 - 00:14:44:06
Alex De Fina
Yeah, you know what I mean? It makes sense.

00:14:44:07 - 00:15:05:13
Itamar Marani
I like kind of moving on to what you were saying about tactics, and this is this is the big tactic that we actually like to use with him to change everything was shifting the goal from an external ones and an internal one. So from my experience, when ever I've wanted to achieve something, I felt a lot of pressure.

00:15:05:15 - 00:15:32:19
Itamar Marani
When I've looked at something as an opportunity to become better, I perform much better. So, for example, Zimbalist examples in jujitsu, when I really wanted to win a competition, all of a sudden, every little thing that got thrown at me as a glitch or, you know, I didn't have my exact time to warm up my water bottle was whatever it may be all of a sudden that put on pressure like, shit, I want to win this and now I have this going against me or this is hard.

00:15:32:21 - 00:15:50:18
Itamar Marani
Why is this getting in the way? And it would add more pressure and a little bit of frustration when instead of that I said, You know what? I'm going to perform at my best today regardless of what's thrown at me. When those things happen, it wasn't an issue because it wouldn't get in the way. So to see it was this, okay, great.

00:15:50:18 - 00:16:19:04
Itamar Marani
I get to learn how to perform my best even when I didn't have time to warm up, even when the judges try to rob me because I was a gringo in Brazil, whatever it may be, I get to just practice on that. And that's what we shifted for him, that his goal was like, We want to hit a certain amount of RR And because of that, the losses and the pressure from investors, all these added things, they added so much pressure when in reality that goal had him thinking about it.

00:16:19:04 - 00:16:40:20
Itamar Marani
It didn't really add much value because he already had the skill set and the strategy to get there. So him focusing on it, it wasn't helpful. It wasn't I took it from the get go. Let's focus on what do we actually want to do. He's already passed the. So when we shifted the focus to I want to be able to operate with a sense of strategic calm while deploying investors money.

00:16:40:22 - 00:16:58:16
Itamar Marani
He's like, Oh, that's interesting because Matt or I could see how without that capability, if I wanted to focus on that, that would help me so much in life in various ways and ongoing in my career. And just shifting the focus of is it just a goal or is to become the kind of person who can achieve these things?

00:16:58:18 - 00:17:01:18
Itamar Marani
It reduces so much of the pressure that causes underperform.

00:17:01:18 - 00:17:10:12
Alex De Fina
But if you're quite honest, when you focus on the target or when you focus on the try to target.

00:17:10:14 - 00:17:13:20
Itamar Marani
The out.

00:17:13:22 - 00:17:35:01
Alex De Fina
I'm claiming as your quote that. So I think that that quote makes a lot of sense and I think one of the there's is a worldwide history of high performance athletes moving into business and doing well and other people have tried to summarize it as being well, maybe that's the mindset is like never give up and so on.

00:17:35:03 - 00:17:57:02
Alex De Fina
And I don't think it's necessarily work ethic and genetics in business to don't matter what I believe it is. As an athlete, we typically focus on the work, we focus on the actions. I'm going to the gym, I'm doing this thing, we focus on the process. The goal is to, yeah, of course the goal is to improve in jujitsu or lift heavier.

00:17:57:02 - 00:18:19:14
Alex De Fina
When we know that the goal is improvement, we focus much more. What are the actions I'm doing today? How to develop this feedback loop from those actions and improve my my actions tomorrow? Yeah. And just trust that improvement will come. But if we focus on the on the improvement, then we lose sight of the actions that are actually required to actually move us forward.

00:18:19:14 - 00:18:48:20
Alex De Fina
So I want to show that sort of athletic analogy for business because I find that any time that I'm in a state of anxiety or ambiguity, it's when I'm of default to focus on the outcome. Yeah, I instantly have clarity and move things forward to bring it down. I said, okay, great. I know that I want more of the same, but these are the actions I can take today to move before it's kind become a healthy little trip off of me.

00:18:48:20 - 00:18:56:02
Alex De Fina
Any time I find myself thinking like that too, to maybe back into What can I pragmatically do today to move to sports.

00:18:56:04 - 00:19:13:04
Itamar Marani
Yeah. And also on top of that, for me, it's challenging to ask myself what are the actions I should be taking to move forward? Because for when I ask myself what are the things I should be doing, I still get in my own way. Sort of like how you're saying my blindspots, my biases still get in the way.

00:19:13:06 - 00:19:33:00
Itamar Marani
And an interesting little trick to override that, to sidestep that is to ask what would somebody who would want to achieve this thing, what would they be doing? What would they be thinking? And I and that was the thing that for him was like, okay, it's not about me achieving the goal and what that will mean about me if we hit a certain amount.

00:19:33:04 - 00:19:59:11
Itamar Marani
Are just like, Oh, how would somebody who wants to operate calmly while deploying this amount of cash into the marketplace, How would they can I become that kind of person? The stakes all of a sudden felt much lower. And paradoxically, everybody things, you know, just things to higher stakes, more pressure performance, it actually helped them perform better. And before the podcast, this kind of leading to a question you ask, how do you ask it exactly?

00:19:59:12 - 00:20:01:12
Itamar Marani
You remind me.

00:20:01:13 - 00:20:28:15
Alex De Fina
If other personalities actually perform better with that external pressure. So, you know, for that for that client, it was the raising of capital that changed the environment. He was operating under. And then he suffered the emotional consequences that things weren't working out. So he on schedule according to plan and to the change of the environment, was there was external capital.

00:20:28:17 - 00:20:47:14
Alex De Fina
Have you seen clients who would have improved? Do they become more focused on their actions and less focused on the outcome? Do they have a higher degree of accountability or just speed? Or how do you saw when the pressure from external was is increased?

00:20:47:16 - 00:21:07:02
Itamar Marani
I think it's really depended on the individual and where they are because they bring up this performance pressure bell curve sort of where they are and it naturally or circumstantially. So if they were not training the lower part where they they honestly that more pressure would have helped them perform and getting it from an external source, that's the kick in the butt they need all of a sudden.

00:21:07:04 - 00:21:25:08
Itamar Marani
And a lot of times you see this when people don't have internal pressure anymore. For example, after an exit, they can just kind of tinker around, kind of messing around of some. They raise funds like, Oh, actually I have to do this now because there's external accountability as well, not just my own internal needs. And all of sudden they perform much better because of that.

00:21:25:10 - 00:21:39:05
Itamar Marani
For some people when they already put a lot of pressure on themselves from the case with this individual. That's why I said at the beginning, had this really, really high level of in order for me to be ethical, I have to do this. And this is really important for me to be ethical and to make sure everyone is treated right already.

00:21:39:05 - 00:21:54:13
Itamar Marani
Put a lot of pressure on himself for that. That's why in his case, removing some pressure was the thing that I get him back into that optimal that performance. So I think it's very circumstantial and individual.

00:21:54:15 - 00:22:24:01
Alex De Fina
And hence I think the value of performance coaching because there is not a one size fits all. This is not a David Goggins motivational speech of just going up a grind harder or, or just push through. The emotional status of this is a is a bespoke strategies based on bespoke circumstances of bespoke individuals. And you really need someone who at a high level can identify what your constraint is, is it pressure or lack of pressure?

00:22:24:03 - 00:22:28:19
Alex De Fina
And and of course engineer those things on your behalf would work with you to engineer them?

00:22:28:21 - 00:22:48:13
Itamar Marani
Yeah, I think also actually there's a lot of people just need targets. They're at a certain point of that bell curve and a lot of people just need that kick in the ass. And for some people they also need that kick in the ass just for a little bit. I need to get back on the horse, but I really it's kind of like go into the next point, kind of piggy back off what you currently said.

00:22:48:15 - 00:23:15:00
Itamar Marani
It's also about understanding what the actual bottleneck is. So his focus, he thought the bottleneck, the real issue that he wanted to focus on was he needs to be more skillful and he needs to focus on this goal of air. He thought that was a goal when in reality the actual bottleneck in his success was his ability to tolerate, amplify, accountability and the pressure that that creates.

00:23:15:02 - 00:23:35:13
Itamar Marani
Because he wasn't aware of that. He wasn't able to focus his resources on dealing with that. How do I get myself to not be emotionally reactive and just a common logical? Because if he was common logical, he definitely has the skill set. Again, you know, there's risk parameters, there's likelihoods, whatever, but actually like give himself the best opportunity to succeed.

00:23:35:15 - 00:24:12:06
Itamar Marani
However, because he wasn't cognizant of the fact that that was his bottleneck on success and not just getting the company to grow because he already has that ability. He faltered. He was blindsided by that unexpected challenge because he wasn't aware of it. And I think it's a big part. It just being aware what is the actual bottleneck? Is it the company growth or is it my ability to stay calm and help the company grow and a lot of times, you know, when you read about these very successful CEOs, a common trait is it's able to stay calm under pressure.

00:24:12:08 - 00:24:37:06
Itamar Marani
Sometimes you hear about people like Steve Jobs. They just think so fast and it's amazing their IQ. But a lot of time they just are able to deploy their full IQ because they can stay calm. And I think this is a big thing for the listeners at home to ask yourself, when I'm operating from a calm level, when I'm rational and strategic, could I scale this thing?

00:24:37:08 - 00:24:54:00
Itamar Marani
If the answer is no, because I do not know how to grow a sales team, I don't have that knowledge. Seek that out if the answer is yes. But sometimes I feel frantic or all of a sudden I recognize that I was acting in a ways where I thought, Why did I do that? Or What was I thinking?

00:24:54:02 - 00:25:18:07
Itamar Marani
Then there's probably some emotional issues that's causing pressure and causing you to not perform at your best. I think it's about identifying the bottleneck and that was for him. He recognized, you know, the bottleneck actually wasn't me focusing on the business tactics. It was me focusing on myself because if I would have had me of the same amount of knowledge, same amount of business skill, but just a conversion of me out of Excel, that this.

00:25:18:09 - 00:25:47:00
Alex De Fina
It's a really powerful insight. And I think it's especially applicable to entrepreneurs in the changing state of business at the company going through as the AI revolution starts to take. So yeah, there's going to be a lot of entrepreneurs coming across similar circumstances, whether it's injections of capital or a radical reorganization of the old structure or anything else, and having the clarity to the confidence, the capabilities to actually navigate that.

00:25:47:03 - 00:26:10:12
Alex De Fina
I think is is massively improved by having someone like you in the corner and advising them because the effort to define those constraints and, you know, I do business consultancy, etc., that's the number one thing I speak to is profound. How many people answer that question? What is your constraint? I don't know. So great. Well, until we do know, you are unable to remove it.

00:26:10:12 - 00:26:19:00
Alex De Fina
So let's take all that energy focusing on like completing this and it's my constraint is nothing else matters until we can actually identify it.

00:26:19:02 - 00:26:41:14
Itamar Marani
Yeah, and I think that's perhaps seems to be the summarizing question we'll get back to in this. Like what is my constraint where you said there's really great before we're going to get summarizing question one last kind of thing that we use for him. So up until now, during that conversation, we we figure out a couple of things for ourselves that he wasn't practically prepared for the emotion, for the downside and how that would feel.

00:26:41:16 - 00:27:00:12
Itamar Marani
He didn't privately like prepare and accept that that's one. He didn't expect that and accept two is that he had an external goal instead of an internal goal. When that internal goal of focusing on how could I learn to operate calmly while putting a lot of funds into the marketplace, how that can give him a much more calm and offset and be like, you know, this is a great opportunity.

00:27:00:12 - 00:27:25:20
Itamar Marani
Whatever challenges came along the way when there were downturns, you know, this is exactly where I go. What I needed is what I want in order to learn how to be a better performer instead of being like, Oh, crap, why is this happening? It's getting me away from this goal of RR three was understanding the bottleneck of what it actually was instead of solving saying we need more business knowledge, it was I need to be able to operate column that's actual bottleneck.

00:27:25:22 - 00:27:48:06
Itamar Marani
Now the last thing is that I think I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, after a certain point when things went south, he decided he didn't want to play the game anymore and he told the missus that and she told him, You know what? Yeah, you do look like you're very off. You're not enjoying this anymore. This isn't serving you.

00:27:48:07 - 00:28:29:20
Itamar Marani
And he told himself, You know what? I'm just going to close this deal. And he took a personal he refunded the he returned the investor money and also refunded the loss from his personal finances, which shows you the ethics of this person, so to speak. But the problem was that that was not a great strategy. His missus was great in helping him identify, Hey, something does feel off with you right now, but she doesn't have a background in business and it was unfortunate is that he didn't have as a default to say when I recognize that I'm an emotionally compromised like my missus, as pointed out, I have 3 to 5 people that I can

00:28:29:20 - 00:28:59:17
Itamar Marani
call. He only called me afterwards, for example, instead of in the moment. And I think having just a default behavior of saying when I recognize in some way that I'm emotionally compromised. But if somebody tells me, hey, you're really off your game, that knows me as a default. To call someone you trust of like 3 to 5 names, you can say, I can call whether it's a mastermind, buddy, whether it's a form eight, whether whatever it may be, just somebody that, you know, that can be like, Hey, man, I get what you're doing right now.

00:28:59:19 - 00:29:27:05
Itamar Marani
I get it feels like the world is imploding. Let's not do anything reactive that's not going to serve you. And if you don't have that in, you know, your mental toolbox of 3 to 5 people, you can call the default action before you make a big decision, especially when you're emotionally compromised. It's a shame because it could save you both a lot of headache and a lot of finances as well.

00:29:27:07 - 00:29:29:06
Alex De Fina
Great analysis and great advice.

00:29:29:08 - 00:29:59:13
Itamar Marani
Yeah. All right. So the kind of recap it how Alex said is what's your constraint? If you don't know that you really can't move forward? And the way I want to go about this from a bit of a different angle is that if you're feeling really stressed out from a goal or you're trying to pursue, list it out and then rewrite it as an internal goal for the kind of person it can help you become if you achieve it.

00:29:59:15 - 00:30:19:05
Itamar Marani
It's a very weird psychological trick, but all of a sudden the goal doesn't feel as threatening anymore. It's not like if I don't hit it, what will this mean? But it's just like, how can I focus on becoming that kind of person? So for my example, I'm not focusing right now on how to getting the book to be as big as possible.

00:30:19:06 - 00:30:46:05
Itamar Marani
That's not what's going on in my head every day. But instead of it, I'm trying to ask myself, how would someone who wants a book to really blow up, think and act? That little change in dynamics can create a big jump in performance. And for my whole client, just going to those things and first off, frantically accepting there's going to be downsides and how they will feel changing the narratives and external from an external and internal goal.

00:30:46:07 - 00:31:08:06
Itamar Marani
And like what I'm doing in the book, being able to recognize what actual bottleneck is and do so. 3 to 5 allies have a default rule. It made a big change for him. Since then, he's talked to the investors because he was so overly ethical and explain to them what happened. They were more than happy to actually give him back the money, give him back the funds and try again and he's able to move forward.

00:31:08:08 - 00:31:26:22
Itamar Marani
And I think it's a big thing is like if you're in a challenge, reach out to a friend. But also like, don't let yourself get caught off guard by emotions whenever you're trying to do something big. Absolutely think positively of what it will get you and at the same time, have some, let's call it preemptive resilience by anticipating the shock and saying, you know what, this is going to happen.

00:31:26:22 - 00:31:35:08
Itamar Marani
It doesn't mean something's wrong. It's a part of the process. So and on that note, we'll leave you guys for today. Thanks for listening.