How The Special Forces Taught Me To Make Hard Things Feel Easy | Elite Performance Podcast #81

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:18:03
Itamar Marani
What if I told you that the easiest way to make life and business feel easier is to actually want things to be hard... When we're trying to achieve big things, there will inevitably be obstacles. However, if we see the purpose behind it, then all of a sudden this is actually a wanted part of the process. It's not just a setback or frustration point.

00:00:18:05 - 00:00:42:04
Itamar Marani
Like, okay, great, I get to have this here. This is a gift. When challenges are expected and welcomed, then they stop adding pressure and they actually add motivation because you get you can say, "Great this is exactly what I was looking for!"
Today we're going to be talking about why craving challenges can make obstacles disappear. And it's a very powerful mindset trick that I actually learned in special operations.

00:00:42:06 - 00:01:00:07
Itamar Marani
So one of my most vivid memories from a special Ops was during Advanced Union Boot camp, and this was probably week four or five, and we were already sleep deprived, were already tired. And then in the middle of the night, all of a sudden we heard a bunch of flashbang grenades and we saw smoke and all that kind of jazz.

00:01:00:09 - 00:01:18:08
Itamar Marani
And there was it was basically a ritual where a lot of the trained operators were already qualified from. The unit would come during this point, advanced to bootcamp and kind of like not a hazing, but they would take you for one of those marches where you had like a stretcher, you know, carry sandbags and all that. And it was a lot of energy in there because they were all amateur.

00:01:18:09 - 00:01:47:04
Itamar Marani
You could tell it was it was something they enjoyed doing as well. But what I remember most about it was that they kept yelling at us, You fucking love this. You guys are animals, you fucking love this. And apologies for my cursing, but the interesting part about it is they were trying to instill a way of thinking, a mindset, and to all of us that theoretically we should despise this, you know, I mean, like we're just trying to get through boot camp where sleep deprived already and they're already like, crashing.

00:01:47:04 - 00:02:04:04
Itamar Marani
Honestly, in the middle of the night, everyone's foggy. Theoretically, we should really not want to do this. But when you come with that attitude of like, Oh, why is this here? This is frustrating, then obviously it's going to get even worse. So they instill the mindset in us. Be like, You love this, you guys fucking love this. This is what you do.

00:02:04:05 - 00:02:22:17
Itamar Marani
You guys are animals. And it was a very interesting lesson about when you actually think about yourself, someone who wants to challenges, who leans into them. All of a sudden when they do inevitably come to, Oh, okay, this is it, this is what I wanted, I want to get better. So today I want to talk about how to instill that in a very practical level.

00:02:22:18 - 00:02:33:11
Itamar Marani
And how do you combine that with external goals so that you're also achieving things not just, you know, doing things for hard things for the sake of doing hard things. With that said, Alex, welcome to the pod man.

00:02:33:13 - 00:02:37:14
Alex De Fina
Thank you. Pleasure to be here and looking forward to getting to this topic.

00:02:37:16 - 00:02:41:17
Itamar Marani
Cool. Any initial thoughts before we dive in?

00:02:41:18 - 00:03:03:06
Alex De Fina
My initial thought was how to avoid unnecessarily making things more difficult. So how do you like where's the perfect balance? Where's the Goldilocks zone of embracing adversity? Yeah, that's us. Which is personally interesting to me. But no, no other initial thoughts other than other than that.

00:03:03:07 - 00:03:29:03
Itamar Marani
Yeah, it's a great one. So I think we're actually going to dive into it a little bit later. I have that as part of the framework that I want to share, like actually do the strategic layer on top of this. But first kind of want to talk about the core idea and how to think about it. And this is something that I've learned on myself and even despite, you know, my time in the military and special ops and undercover work, this was still a lesson that I hadn't really learned until I, I was really competing in jiu jitsu.

00:03:29:05 - 00:03:51:16
Itamar Marani
So with this, I think one of the best ways to be able to do challenging things and to make them feel easier is to have a some kind of target is the reason why you're doing it. For example, like I spoke to my niece, I'm here visiting family and I spoke to my niece. She's ten years old and she is the swimming champ of Israel for her ages.

00:03:51:18 - 00:04:05:10
Itamar Marani
And I asked her like, Oh, are you going to do this and this? And she said, Yes. And it's like, Oh, but how do you deal with the challenges? And it was surprised to hear from a nine year old say this, but she was like, I think about what I want, the goal I want to achieve and how this will help it.

00:04:05:12 - 00:04:23:04
Itamar Marani
Like this is great, but it's exactly that When we have a goal in mind, we can overcome a lot of the challenges that she just said with a childlike simplicity. And so I think there, from what I've seen, there are three levels of targets that can help you overcome the hard and kind of put it into a certain frame.

00:04:23:06 - 00:04:52:06
Itamar Marani
So I'll use a jujitsu analogy to kind of like bring this home. So, you know, I'm sure you've seen this of people that come to training and they just want to win every round of training. That's their main focus. Does their progress usually skyrocket or stall? Stall? Yeah. So that's the first thing is like if you just have a very short term external target where you're competing against others or just chasing a specific kind of goal.

00:04:52:08 - 00:05:13:13
Itamar Marani
First off, it will cause your results to stagnate because you're trying to protect your ego. You're not really open to challenging yourself. So also a lot of these guys that stall, they don't make it past BlueBell If that because they're so concerned with winning right now that whenever that doesn't happen, it just adds a sense of pressure and anxiety and just makes it all unpleasant and they all want to keep playing anymore.

00:05:13:15 - 00:05:35:16
Itamar Marani
Like in business. This is also the same thing that a lot of times we are this specific, you know, like income goal for this quarter or whatever it may be. And so that everything that goes against that also, it feels really frustrating and annoying and people kind of lose their momentum. This is when they say they have burnout, whatever it might be, first off, and like, am I making sense just with that first.

00:05:35:16 - 00:05:37:18
Itamar Marani
Yeah, short term external target.

00:05:37:19 - 00:06:08:05
Alex De Fina
So my understanding, if I do repackage it in a different way, would be if you're optimizing towards winning every game, whether it's sports business, etc.. Yeah. That you there's probably some default ceiling in terms of the levels of the game that you're playing. Maybe the way to say it is it's easy to win a smaller game than to risk losing in a more difficult or higher level of the game.

00:06:08:07 - 00:06:18:11
Alex De Fina
And so if you're optimizing towards winning, winning exclusively, then the tradeoff there is that you're likely going to stall your progress because you're playing at low levels.

00:06:18:12 - 00:06:36:18
Itamar Marani
Yeah, and it's really well set and so beyond that. So the next thing is to have longer term external targets, not short term external targets, but long term. The reason is that, for example, my issue with jujitsu, why underperforming? A lot of times in training, I was phenomenal. I was always going against like, you know, the hardest training partners.

00:06:36:18 - 00:06:53:12
Itamar Marani
And I always also was doing very well against people that were supposed to be at my level, whatever it may be. And the reason was because I had in my head, I really want to win the championships. So I had complete freedom in the training room to just go after it and not think like, okay, my hitting my target.

00:06:53:13 - 00:07:16:13
Itamar Marani
And I didn't have that added pressure. Now the problem with that was that I still had that pressure. The tournaments and that's when I would underperform. So what I'm saying is that when you have a very short term external target, everything feels like there's a lot of pressure on it because you're just trying to hit this target. However, if your goal is a longer term, like I want to get this company one day to tighten it up, then okay, these are all learning lessons along the way.

00:07:16:17 - 00:07:31:23
Itamar Marani
That's fine. And then I didn't and that's kind of phase two having a long term like as you're sitting there is limited but having a long term external target because it just reduces a lot of that pressure because in the moment, okay, this is a learning process. Learning process, learning processes. Okay. And you can have that beginner's mind.

00:07:31:23 - 00:07:35:15
Itamar Marani
We're just free to do and I'll be in your head about it.

00:07:35:17 - 00:07:56:02
Alex De Fina
Right. So increasing the field of view. So to to have that longer term view. So you can see the the day to day iterations of the thing as being those micro learning lessons. But when you get tunnel focused on that thing in the short term, there's a greater risk of trying to to win at all costs.

00:07:56:04 - 00:08:15:16
Itamar Marani
Beyond trying to win it all, cause you're not going to perform as well. Yeah, because like, everything is going to feel frustrating, like, oh, why did I get top today? So example like jiu jitsu, if you're going, if your goal is a short term, I just want to feel really good and win this match today when if somebody tops you, you're going to get frustrated and also you're going to feel a lot of pressure because I do not want to get tapped.

00:08:15:18 - 00:08:35:00
Itamar Marani
However, if your long term goal is that I want to be the best in the world, I want to expose your focus is going to be I want to expose every flaw in my technique in training today, I suppose as many things as possible, like in training. I would get tapped a lot by the black belt and I just start out more than I could have if I just wanted to stall out, so to speak.

00:08:35:02 - 00:08:49:14
Itamar Marani
Like if I just wanted to feel like, Oh, I only got top two times this round, then I could have stalled out. But because I just wanted to learn more, I was happy to be tapped out six times. Seven times was like I just got exposed six and seven times. Certain flaws in my technique. Great. I can improve on those.

00:08:49:16 - 00:08:56:02
Itamar Marani
It was just about having that different lens about what do you want to accomplish and how that serves.

00:08:56:04 - 00:09:09:11
Alex De Fina
Do you think there's a question that entrepreneurs could ask themselves might be to to avoid zeroing in on the short term? In my my trying to win or my trying to improve?

00:09:09:13 - 00:09:28:11
Itamar Marani
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And again, like I think for that requires a long term vision because if you don't and this is what happens, a lot of times people do don't have a long term vision of what they want. So they're just like looking right now this quarter, are we winning or we're losing? And that's when they get sucked into it all the time as they get, you know, messages positive.

00:09:28:12 - 00:09:43:09
Itamar Marani
I feel very frenzied. That's usually why that is, because you don't have the perspective in which to put things in. It's just like, oh, I don't really know what I want to do. I'm just doing things like, I want to make more money than this person. This person is doing well, but I should be doing that well. It's just kind of frenzy.

00:09:43:11 - 00:09:57:07
Itamar Marani
Like if you have a long term target and even if, like you, let's say a product launch fails or like a marketing launch sales, whatever it may be, and you're like, okay, but this is part of the process to get to this ultimate goal, then it doesn't stop you as much. It's still not obviously the best thing. BE Okay, cool.

00:09:57:07 - 00:10:04:17
Itamar Marani
This is a learned lesson I'm supposed to have. This is part of the game, but because you have that picture of what the bigger game is.

00:10:04:19 - 00:10:26:17
Alex De Fina
Do you find that this creeps in at a certain stage of the sort of business later? I'm assuming that for most people jumping into a new arena for the first time, they've likely got some kind of a beginner's in this mindset. I don't know what I'm doing and nobody thinks that as long as they start to get some accomplishments, whether it's ego, identity, etc..

00:10:26:18 - 00:10:46:07
Alex De Fina
So in jujitsu, it's like the blue belt little. I just worry about the blue belt. Yes. So the in the blue belt, I know jujitsu a little bit. And rather than blending from the all the belts above, they just want to smoke every white box that comes through for the first session. Or in business they reach six figures.

00:10:46:09 - 00:11:03:16
Alex De Fina
So like that ability to pay rent or that themselves is now met. But they're unwilling or there's a fear about business failures, setbacks, etc. which stop them from reaching more.

00:11:03:18 - 00:11:19:23
Itamar Marani
Yeah, absolutely. So I first saw it in jujitsu like you out of the blue, but level. I just thought it was something that I had figured out. This Blue Bell Titus thing, but that in Krueger effect, that affects everyone. Like, like we have this field where we're all saying we feel a little bit competent, and then that causes us to be confused and think we actually know everything.

00:11:20:00 - 00:11:34:15
Itamar Marani
So our ego kind of like shows up and wants to protect that. And now beyond that, I think because like what you said, it's the biggest thing is that they don't ask for help anymore. They don't want to feel like they don't know.

00:11:34:17 - 00:11:35:14
Alex De Fina
Right?

00:11:35:16 - 00:11:58:02
Itamar Marani
I mean, like that's one of the the best documentaries ever saw on Netflix was from Quincy Jones. You know, he's a multi multi-ethnic one, 27 Grammys. He's one of the biggest producers. And his daughter asks him at one point, Dad, how come you were so comfortable like asking for help and getting all these people to work with you?

00:11:58:04 - 00:12:16:19
Itamar Marani
It is commonly said, my goals were too big to have an ego, and I thought that was so profound. I think when your goals are small, they're short term. Then your ego is going to pop up when your goals are so big and so long term that you recognize. It's completely ridiculous for me to not ask for help.

00:12:16:21 - 00:12:25:10
Itamar Marani
There's no way I can achieve this where I currently am. Often it frees you up to ask for help and to have less of an ego.

00:12:25:12 - 00:12:49:06
Alex De Fina
Could this be compounded externally through our environments where not just are we struggling to fully understand in our identity as we gain higher degrees of competency, whatever arena, but that our external environment? When you're the student in a new thing, it's very easy to turn up to jujitsu class, to a business workshop and say, I'm new, I don't know anything now.

00:12:49:08 - 00:13:19:17
Alex De Fina
And it's almost like a get out of jail free card because you're the student. Maybe that goes into this valley where you're no longer the student, yet you're far from being a domain expert. Does that gap in maybe external social dynamics or just trying to understand how your identity fits into a larger involvement? Does that sort of potentially compound this?

00:13:19:19 - 00:13:39:06
Itamar Marani
I don't know. Tell me if I'm answering correctly what you meant by this. But I think a big part of it is that the martial arts, I think one of the beauty in them is the belt system, because it actually shows you you're not a black hole until you are black belt. And then it also shows you just a first degree black belt or a second or you're black and there's also competition.

00:13:39:08 - 00:13:55:02
Itamar Marani
And I think that's one of the beauties in the martial arts, why people get to have a white belt mentality because it's already so clear you're a white belt and why it's so helpful for some CEOs to come into jujitsu and to start out and they're like, Oh, okay, I'm a white belt here. And it gives them permission to feel like a white male because it really is.

00:13:55:04 - 00:14:12:02
Itamar Marani
And all of a sudden they're like, Oh, this mentality is helpful here. Maybe I can also adopted into business where it's needed. Does that kind of answer what goes on for? It does. Yeah. I think like I actually this is on my home office. I'm visiting, but in my home office I have a giant sign in front in front of my desk actually, to remind me.

00:14:12:02 - 00:14:30:15
Itamar Marani
It says Keep a white belt mentality. It's supposed to be fucking hard for. There's something that I have there every day to remind me that together I think we're all susceptible to the ego of like, you know, we get some success, whatever it may be, and all of a sudden we want to show up and feel like an expert or that we know something that is as in one of the bigs.

00:14:30:15 - 00:14:32:07
Itamar Marani
So I go for it.

00:14:32:09 - 00:14:53:03
Alex De Fina
So is there a is there a trait or a behavioral trait or even a sound bite that you've picked up on, which is a signal that the individual is essentially trying to win it a smaller gain rather than being open to progression by playing in more events, can.

00:14:53:05 - 00:15:16:21
Itamar Marani
It's a great question. So when I look at inversely, like, what are the people that I see that are really wanting to go to the next level? It's usually a blend of an extreme desire to achieve more with an extreme humility and curiosity. Like the clients I have that are like they see the fastest growth trajectory. They have those two things.

00:15:16:22 - 00:15:32:14
Itamar Marani
They have an extreme desire for growth and an extreme where it's almost like it takes me aback sometimes I'm like, It's inspiring to me, and these guys are so curious and humble and they're so open to just saying, like, I don't know, this thing that I leave those sessions on is like, I need to do more of that.

00:15:32:16 - 00:15:51:10
Itamar Marani
So I think inversely, it's when someone is like, No, I got it, or they don't want to ask for help. They all want to put their hand up, right? It's like, I don't want to knock on doors anymore. I don't need the answers when it really does. I don't want to protect my ego from getting no's and does that answer it?

00:15:51:12 - 00:16:14:23
Alex De Fina
It does. What? One of the things that I've picked up on, which I wasn't really conscious of until this conversation, was when you are the domain expert and you're trying to coach educate the other individual rather than receive the feedback, they start looking for like service level excuses. So it might be, Hey Bob, you should have done X is that of why?

00:16:15:03 - 00:16:38:17
Alex De Fina
And rather than Bob saying gripes, how would I do that? Or they will start to go, yeah, but the reason why I did X was for all these reasons, which is an indication that whether it's subconscious or not, that they're reacting defensively to what should be pretty easy to understand information, and it's unlikely they would respond in the same way if it was day one, week one was their one way, but right.

00:16:38:18 - 00:17:00:20
Alex De Fina
That's a new way for me to to improve the skill. So when I capture people, rather than internalizing the feedback and trying to work through how they're going to habitual as their behavior moving forwards, they start to make excuses for themselves to deflect the feedback as opposed to receive it. So it's essentially like a a deflection rather than a reception.

00:17:00:20 - 00:17:03:09
Alex De Fina
And that's one thing I picked up on in my direction.

00:17:03:09 - 00:17:09:05
Itamar Marani
So. QUESTION When you notice that, what's your intervention tool like? How do you override that with them?

00:17:09:07 - 00:17:31:18
Alex De Fina
I what I try to do a lot of work successfully is based on the context of the conversation is try to reestablish an understanding or an appreciation that there's a knowledge gap. Because if I can get them back focused on the fact there was a knowledge gap, you know, you are not the fastest partner of the athletics team and you need to be the fastest runner.

00:17:31:19 - 00:17:46:02
Alex De Fina
Now they're more open to more sitting information because they've created nothing more their brain. They want to close that loop. Like one of the things I need to be doing to get that position, just if. Yeah, so that's my positive view. Yeah, please.

00:17:46:04 - 00:18:07:15
Itamar Marani
Because so what I'm hearing, what you're saying is I establishing their head, there is a long term goal that we want to accomplish here. So stop just trying to protect yourself in the short term. The short term goal right now is always going to be for you to protect your ego. But by me establishing a long term goal in their head, a long term external target, then that overrides this short term thing and they're open to it.

00:18:07:17 - 00:18:29:12
Itamar Marani
And I think that's the goal for us internally as well. If we can have these longer term external targets, they override a lot of the ego stuff. Yes. Now kind of like bridge it into the next section. While that overrides that ego of me wanting to be seen as great, right now, these long term targets still create a lot of pressure on us because what if I don't meet these targets?

00:18:29:12 - 00:18:48:20
Itamar Marani
What does that mean about me? And for me, for example, I had a long term target that I wanted to be the world champion in jujitsu, and that allowed me complete freedom in the actual in the training room. But in competition, it would cause me to underperformance like, Oh shit, this is actually the moment. So as to, you know, and that's where these.

00:18:48:20 - 00:18:49:19
Alex De Fina
External goals.

00:18:49:19 - 00:19:07:17
Itamar Marani
Usually hit a limit and it comes from different angles. It's like, I've seen this also with with clients, with friends that they have an external goal, they kind of reach it and then they're like, Man, my life is I don't know how to I don't have that boost anymore. I just feel like I'm acting out of integrity with myself.

00:19:07:17 - 00:19:28:04
Itamar Marani
I'm not being the kind of person I'm proud of. Like I'm just kind of flailing around, whatever it may be. And the way to the finally, I think, wrong of this ladder to override that is to have an internal target. So for me, jujitsu, this shifted purple belt and purple belt. And up until then I kept wanting to win the tournaments.

00:19:28:06 - 00:19:47:16
Itamar Marani
And I remember there was one time where I flew to Brazil and my flight's I had a couple of connections. One of them got canceled and I got stuck and I basically arrived in Rio at the airport like 5 a.m., and the tournament was supposed to start at 8 a.m., like very little likelihood that I would even make the tournament.

00:19:47:16 - 00:20:10:15
Itamar Marani
And I probably should have signed up for a term my first day at Rio, but there was a very low likelihood that would actually make it there. So I just honestly, I went to the the place I had Airbnb and I just stayed there. And that week I met one guy who was an American guy and we chatted and he said to me, You know what, dude, I think you should have went to that tournament.

00:20:10:17 - 00:20:26:19
Itamar Marani
And I was like, okay, he's like, You probably wouldn't have won, but you could have gotten an opportunity to test yourself and if you would have wanted that. Also, a lot of the things that I Carlsson would have been a fun opportunity to really test yourself and all the deck is stacked against you and for whatever reason I like that it made everything click.

00:20:26:21 - 00:20:48:14
Itamar Marani
And from then on when I went into tournaments, even if I didn't sleep well, even if I didn't eat well, even if I did get the right warm up, the prep for before wasn't great. I was in a great headspace because I said Great. This is an opportunity for me to test myself, especially when the deck is stacked against me and when doing that, obviously my performance was was much better than worrying about like, how will I perform today?

00:20:48:14 - 00:21:16:17
Itamar Marani
Will I win? And I think the way this correlates to life in general is that it can make a lot of those obstacles feel purposeful instead of just annoying and frustrating. Like when we're trying to achieve big things, there will inevitably be obstacles. However, if we see the purpose behind the because we are aspiring to be of a certain virtue, a certain level of courage, a resilience, whatever it be, internal things, then all of a sudden this is actually a wanted part of the process.

00:21:16:23 - 00:21:34:14
Itamar Marani
It's not just a setback or a frustration point. Like, okay, great, I get to have this here. This is a gift. I get to become the person who's courageous. We get to overcome things even I think that's really the final rung of the ladder. What I've experienced myself and also what I've seen in a lot of clients, when you shift to an internal target.

00:21:34:16 - 00:22:03:13
Alex De Fina
A really similar anecdotal story where I please, thankfully in hindsight, I, I chose the the higher path it was prior to my, my first powerlifting competition. It was the deadlift and the competition. So you're only performing three attempts at a deadlift. That competition was on a Saturday and I'd always been pretty strong, but this is my first time of committing to a competition with an audience and that whether I came first or last.

00:22:03:15 - 00:22:30:03
Alex De Fina
So I had this extra pressure attached to this. On the Wednesday before the Saturday competition, I was talking to a friend whose house and did a backflip down some steps the stairs and ended up with this huge hematoma related couldn't walk. So this is three days before I'm trying to put my body under people. You know, it's but for me, there was no doubt in my mind whether I was going to compete or not.

00:22:30:05 - 00:23:01:08
Alex De Fina
I knew that my performance be diminished just structurally. But the because it was such a significant moment for myself to put myself under that additional pressure, I viewed taking the sort of the excuse of I'm injured, so I'm looking to participate as more of a personal cost then potentially coming lost in the competition. And as I had people around me during that three or four day period, I'll just end my injury.

00:23:01:08 - 00:23:21:02
Alex De Fina
And so on. I recognize that the people that I aspire to some way to be more like were the people who kind of gave me like a gentle head, not like you can't walk, but you still got to compete in a political position for that's cool. And then the people who I didn't aspire to be like were the people who were more vocal in trying to maybe assist or influence me too.

00:23:21:04 - 00:23:31:04
Alex De Fina
So they accept the l I don't repeat I to wash out for the next one. So yeah, I think that they are different personalities have. Yeah.

00:23:31:04 - 00:23:38:09
Itamar Marani
So what do you think enabled you to have that frame of mind to that cause? How old were you then.

00:23:38:11 - 00:23:42:14
Alex De Fina
Oh well, within the twenties.

00:23:42:16 - 00:23:57:20
Itamar Marani
What do you think enabled you to recognize like in that moment, like, No, this is an opportunity for me to push through and be something, a power. It was other people in that environment kind of sending these kind of messages. Like what? Because, you know, that's not the natural default state, as we're saying. So what do you think enabled you to do that?

00:23:57:22 - 00:24:25:20
Alex De Fina
I think it was that I'd had my own personal, transcendent moments through facing adversity. But in sports and other areas of life that I was just sort of so biased towards, do the difficult thing that in some way actually looking back on it now, I think it was actually like a low level of excitement. The festivals interest, like the fact that it just got that much harder to me was like, This is a personal journey.

00:24:25:22 - 00:24:42:03
Alex De Fina
It's like my own sort of heroes tale, and it's a story I'm writing for myself, for myself, for myself. It was very much a completely an internal motivation because of course, if I was focused on winning the competition, I would have competed. Wouldn't have competed.

00:24:42:05 - 00:25:10:03
Itamar Marani
Yeah. I think it's an interesting point because it's also on a principle level, like we face failure, we constantly try to optimize just for feeling good about ourselves. We recognize feedback from the world that doesn't actually benefit us and actually causes pain, and then we adjust our behaviors basically from your story, from my story as well. And I think it's probably a process that everybody kind of has to go through where naturally we we set the short term targets, external ones of looking good.

00:25:10:05 - 00:25:28:22
Itamar Marani
Then we recognize that actually is not productive and then we shift eventually at some point to some kind of like, oh, not everybody, but the people who really want to be elite are the people that have gotten the opportunity to be exposed to that way of thinking. Recognize this is how you actually do that. You're not just positive, but this is how you overcome that and you shift that internal thinking, Oh, this is my journey.

00:25:28:22 - 00:25:48:00
Itamar Marani
This is what I want to do. I want to make myself a better version of myself and so on. And again, I think like, how are using this analogy of, you know, sports, weightlifting, martial arts, whatever it may be, is there is a beauty in how many lessons you get to learn there that can be applied everywhere else in life because it's just like a clear domain, you know?

00:25:48:00 - 00:26:06:07
Itamar Marani
I mean, you get so many opportunities, like these competitions are so obvious and clear domain to challenge yourself for in business. Like we don't have anything as clear, you know, I mean, but the lessons still carry through that when you really want to just test yourself and challenge yourself. Like I said, all of a sudden things feel better when you end up getting a much better result than if you were just going there.

00:26:06:07 - 00:26:10:15
Itamar Marani
Like, Oh, I hope I can kind of win today. This time I.

00:26:10:17 - 00:26:45:22
Alex De Fina
And to pull that strategy slide out of the connection between sports and business, obviously they are different domains and sports is an easy way for us to communicate this because as I said, it's quite clear. However, my personal opinion is that there's an absolute card. Like the personality trait, I think is almost universal domain. I would much prefer to have a business partner is a person who does a difficult thing despite having the fear of failure, etc. in a sport domain, because I think they're more likely to be about it in business as well.

00:26:46:00 - 00:27:12:15
Alex De Fina
So I'm actually very sensitive to people's personality traits, to health and fitness, and to general life behaviors in their private life. And I make judgments on that as to how they're going to perform their business life, because if they're overweight, depressed and negative about everything in their personal life, that doesn't sound to me like a highly valuable business partner or employee yet to bring on to the team.

00:27:12:15 - 00:27:20:01
Alex De Fina
So I think they are connected in some way. It's more about a personal standard you hold to yourself or not.

00:27:20:03 - 00:27:36:18
Itamar Marani
I agree. And I'll say something really interesting is that a lot of times people aren't aware of it. It's a weird thing where sometimes you have to remind somebody, and I do this a lot with with clients or just people I meet at conferences and they're like, Oh, I do this and you do that. Okay, so you're saying that you have this ability to do hard things, right?

00:27:36:20 - 00:27:50:23
Itamar Marani
Why are you doing this hard thing? Oh, because I want to challenge myself to cool. So you're saying you know how to do this kind of way of thinking? What if you did that in this level of business, applying it to this specific goal that you have and it's where the people are like, Oh, that's so interesting. I didn't think about it like that.

00:27:51:04 - 00:28:07:22
Itamar Marani
To get there is that we just have to remind people, like you have this mentality over here in this part of your life. What if you already took this mentality that you spent a lot of time and effort building and then just look at this part of life with that same mentality, that same mindset, and is reminding people that it's wild how much you evolves.

00:28:07:22 - 00:28:25:10
Itamar Marani
And like this wasn't like, Oh, I didn't know I could just do that. I didn't think about it like that. Yeah. So like with the people that are already proven in some ways to say, Hey, what if you just transferred this mindset to this arena? It goes a really, really long way and is short because a lot of that stuff out of person.

00:28:25:12 - 00:28:41:15
Itamar Marani
So now I want to move on to the strategic lair. I like what you were saying at the beginning. How do we make sure that we're not just doing hard things for the sake of hard things? And the the first thing to do with that is to get clarity in actually what you want. And this is always the the hardest part because everything is the downstream effects from that.

00:28:41:15 - 00:28:59:03
Itamar Marani
But you're not just aimlessly just doing hard things like what do you want out of life? And this is both on an internal level and then that creates an external level like what needs to be there externally in order for me to feel this way, this sense of pride, accomplishment, virtue, whatever it is, okay, Like how does that look like for me?

00:28:59:03 - 00:29:15:13
Itamar Marani
For some people it's 100%. Our company, for some people is a great relationship. For some people is great health, some people it's the trifecta or whatever it may be. And then saying to yourself, and this is the stuff that we talk about in the book as well, like we all share. Like, how do you find the most direct path to that?

00:29:15:15 - 00:29:36:22
Itamar Marani
What is the most direct path that if you had to have somebody, you had to coach somebody else and they would ask you, like, How could I do this if I had to as quickly as possible, don't do these things regardless of how uncomfortable it feels. And then, like you basically said, once you have those things that you need to be doing, then the next day was like, okay, like how do I frame this not as just a burden?

00:29:36:22 - 00:29:53:21
Itamar Marani
Like, Man, this is so hard, this is so uncomfortable. No, no, this is actually how I lead back to that internal sense of pride that I want it to have. I'm going to view it as a gift, and I reframe these challenges as an intentional upgrade to myself. Like this is how I actually get to be the kind of person I want to be.

00:29:53:23 - 00:30:10:22
Itamar Marani
So I'm clear on the external things that I need to accomplish, and I need to be doing what I viewed through an internal target lens. Again, I'm not trying to do this thing and I'll try to win this thing, but this is just a way for me. Like it's just it's kind of like a flink. It's like, this is not to me, this is the means, not the actual end, and is a challenge.

00:30:10:22 - 00:30:19:00
Itamar Marani
And me getting to persevere through this and the kind of person I've become because of that. So I suppose the fast but that kind of add up.

00:30:19:02 - 00:30:49:03
Alex De Fina
It does if, if the means is the challenge, is there advice you have as to how to ensure that? You know, I think I personally suffer from like enjoying challenge and potentially creating unnecessary challenge. Is there a is a prompted you have to help someone understand whether the challenge is is a flaw.

00:30:49:05 - 00:31:09:01
Itamar Marani
Yeah. So it's actually one of the in the book we talk about three performance killers few performance drops are and one of them is to try to prove people wrong. And whenever we want to prove people wrong and we have something in our past where we want to prove it, we overcomplicate things, whether it's to prove to them how capable we are also is to prove to ourselves how capable we are.

00:31:09:07 - 00:31:29:02
Itamar Marani
And I was guilty of this as well. And again, I think the simplest way to override that, like you don't do, you know, years of therapy or whatever be done win that you can just externalize the problem to just say if somebody else needed to do this needs accomplish this goal. Well, we the simplest and most effective way for them to do that.

00:31:29:04 - 00:31:47:17
Itamar Marani
And then you do just that. So we don't have extra feature to the product, We don't delay it. We don't, you know, try to like do this while also doing that just to show how capable we are, because once we externalize it, we get rid of a lot of our bullshit. Then the hard part is that we have a clear roadmap.

00:31:47:17 - 00:32:10:00
Itamar Marani
Is okay, how do we avoid letting our bullshit slip in? But when like for example, like in your situation and this is like everybody, myself included, or anybody who wants to like, prove something as a point to prove, recognizing that in virtue of courage or resilience is to say, I'm going to walk this direct path to success that I would tell somebody else.

00:32:10:01 - 00:32:38:03
Itamar Marani
And whenever I feel that pinch or that desire to do other things, that's when I have to override that. Whenever I feel like if I just do it like this, it's not going to seem as, as, you know, admirable or as great or whatever it may be. That's where I get to override that. And that's where in 30 years from now, I get to be proud of myself for not letting that part of me just wants to prove a point and actually isn't wise and isn't strategic, not actually run the show.

00:32:38:05 - 00:32:48:19
Itamar Marani
And so externalization, you know, the right thing is. And then you get to look at that as opportunity to override a previous version of yourself really.

00:32:48:23 - 00:33:14:21
Alex De Fina
I think this is why entrepreneurs need performance coaches, because if you cannot correctly articulate what the end goal is, it might feel like an admirable goal. If I can look back on my entrepreneurial career for the longest time, I think my I thought that I wanted to be successful financially, but that's not actually really what I wanted to do.

00:33:14:22 - 00:33:33:21
Alex De Fina
I really wanted to be the hardest work in the room to pick the hardest fight in business and to win the hardest fights. And so when you find yourself toothless, punch drunk and get lost and you wonder, How did I get here? So you kind of engineered this. You were looking for the hardest fights and you got them.

00:33:33:23 - 00:33:54:07
Alex De Fina
And so if I had had the benefit of a performance coach like you back in those days, I would have been able to get clearer on the goal and recognize that the patterns I was creating were not aligned to the goal of financial freedom, etc. and that actually I was running really fast. It's kind of like running a marathon.

00:33:54:07 - 00:34:11:10
Alex De Fina
It's pretty for the first hundred meters. It's like I'm winning. You're still winning. But I didn't have I did. My aperture wasn't increased. Can I sustain this pace indefinitely? Of course, the answer was no. And then I learned the hard way.

00:34:11:12 - 00:34:16:09
Itamar Marani
So what do you think caused the shift for you to find out the hard way?

00:34:16:11 - 00:34:39:15
Alex De Fina
Defiant. How funny At the hard way And in a vain That's that's a challenge is that you've got a false reinforcement if if if the goal is to be winning and the satisfaction of the marathon goes and you spread the first two meters, everyone around you might be telling you to slow down like I'm winning at 40 meters, I'm still winning.

00:34:39:15 - 00:35:05:16
Alex De Fina
And then you can start to convince yourself that you're built different and that this is too much, too intense for girls. But your special and what I realize is that whether or not there's the cadence of of about what I was doing was incredibly unsustainable. And I was I was acting in ways purely to win difficult fights, obviously, to move a tangible measure forwards.

00:35:05:18 - 00:35:28:00
Itamar Marani
Like you said, where we're talking about winning the definition of winning that's internal or external. And it was it's a short term external, like I just won this fight, but a short term like a long term external of I want financial freedom and versus an even deeper thing of internal targets. I'm saying I just want to become the best version of myself, who's calm, who's strategic, who's wise.

00:35:28:02 - 00:35:50:02
Itamar Marani
Like, if that was the goal, consistently the reminder that I want to be calm, strategic and wise, a lot of that probably would have been mitigated 100% is a there's a saying in corporate America, I'm probably watching this a little bit, that everybody has two jobs. One is a job. The acts you're supposed to do and other is a job of keeping a sort of perception of how others see them doing their job.

00:35:50:04 - 00:36:11:17
Itamar Marani
And while that sounds funny about corporate just human condition, we all are like that. And that's the real thing. A lot of times we set these external targets and we're just worried about how are people going to perceive us. However, when we set an internal target, it removes a lot of that. It removes both like how you called it the mimetic desire.

00:36:11:17 - 00:36:27:10
Itamar Marani
I think you said this in a couple episodes ago. If it's like saying, Oh, everyone's doing this, I should do that too. Or the pressure as well of how people perceive. And I think that's the big performance boost when all of a sudden it's an internal drive of why I should be doing this. Like, Oh, I want to do this.

00:36:27:10 - 00:36:48:04
Itamar Marani
Oh, this is a chance. You're great. I want to overcome it. I want to learn how to overcome that and become that person who learned to overcome these things. Based on your performance, I was really shooting up a colleague about pressure lessons. The motivation actually arises because you can really see why it fits into what you're trying to do and who's trying to become your performance is really goes on turbo with it.

00:36:48:06 - 00:37:23:01
Itamar Marani
So I think that's the biggest thing kind of yes, I would say that's kind of the main point I wanted to get when when challenges are expected and welcomed because you have an internal target of the kind of person you want to be, then they stop adding pressure and they actually add motivation because you get Jazmin, what a great this is exactly what I was looking for, like when I was on a low level, just trying to like find jiu jitsu tournaments and be like, How can I challenge myself when there were weird warning times when there was no warmup area, whatever it may be, I was like, Great, this is where I get to

00:37:23:01 - 00:37:43:02
Itamar Marani
learn. And actually it increased my energy instead of this all the sudden stopping me and causing me to be worried. And I think when you see this as well, if you have the right strategy, you've externalize it. You can just stay combat. Okay, This one needs to get done right. It's an opportunity and that's how we keep it both tactical and let's call it like philosophical and performance based.

00:37:43:04 - 00:37:45:16
Alex De Fina
That's awesome.

00:37:45:18 - 00:37:50:15
Itamar Marani
Cool. Any last thoughts or questions before Rob is upset about the thoughts?

00:37:50:15 - 00:38:13:02
Alex De Fina
My my core takeaway from this conversation has been to continue to focus the longer term and to be really, really specific with my goals because you you lost about just before about maintaining that focus on the outcome of being the best version of myself. That sounds a bit cliche, but if you can maintain.

00:38:13:04 - 00:38:30:11
Itamar Marani
It absolutely sure that there's there's a beauty in the cliches, you know, I mean, it's sure there's nothing to dismiss that it might sound corny or cheesy, not as cool saying my goal is to make X amount of millions. But the weird paradox is that the more you focus on that, the more likely you are actually going to achieve what you want to achieve.

00:38:30:12 - 00:39:01:12
Alex De Fina
Yes, And if I can look back at my entrepreneurial journey today. Yes. So many of the unnecessary, difficult battles were by me trying to engineer difficult fights, necessarily, trying to progress something forwards. And what I've learned through observation conversations with other entrepreneurs is that when they're in that mindset, they're talking about a specific challenge they're working through in very existential terms, which is a sign that, again, that they're focused on the short term I want to win.

00:39:01:12 - 00:39:27:09
Alex De Fina
I want to get the highest open rate on this email campaign to optimize this lead cost. I want to improve this sales metric. There's a focus on how do I become the most effective, efficient entrepreneur possible in a long term. They probably wouldn't be talking about this near-term issue unless it is truly existential in the same with the same language, which is a signal to how much gravity is holding inside of them.

00:39:27:11 - 00:39:46:15
Alex De Fina
In the same way I said something I'll be able to observe in other people observing myself. And so now I'm starting to build a bit of a skillset. If I see that pattern emerging in my own thoughts and my own language, I've got a better pattern recognition to hopefully see if we're just saying that that's the low way of thinking sort of version of me and going forwards.

00:39:46:15 - 00:39:57:04
Alex De Fina
I need to have a clearer articulation of what the goal is and a longer term view that's going to give me better clarity as to how significant this is. My challenge.

00:39:57:04 - 00:40:25:23
Itamar Marani
MUFFETT Yeah, I think you said something very interesting there about how people make existential. So as you're kind of my framework for how I do this internally with myself, the beauty of starting as a way built in jiu jitsu and the way that it already has, I could say some successes in life was that I didn't feel like I was a flawed person, like I wasn't a bad person.

00:40:25:23 - 00:40:52:09
Itamar Marani
I was just a very bad jujitsu practitioner because I was a white belt. It was that I was extremely flawed in this domain of life and a ton of flaws that needed to be exposed so they can be polished and improved and so on in the path that like blue belt, about brown black belt and so on. And what helps me a lot is to simplify these things and to make it myself to not fall into these hard performance traps in business.

00:40:52:11 - 00:41:25:13
Itamar Marani
It's also to say I have a lot of flaws in business, still have a lot of flaws in coaching. I'm a very flawed coach still. I'm a very flawed business person, still, and all of a sudden assumes, okay, we're just trying to improve this thing. Not about me. It doesn't all of a sudden put my sense of ego and my sense of self into threat and I think like what you were saying about, you know, someone who has their act together in life in general with its health, fitness, relationships, whatever it may be, the more you have the rest of your life in order, the easier it is to also just detach from one part

00:41:25:13 - 00:41:44:19
Itamar Marani
of it and say, This is just where I'm extremely flawed. Like I do a lot of work. To have a great relationship with my wife and with my son is like, it's easier because of that to let's just look at business. This doesn't define me, you know, like I'm very flawed here. Still great. Let's expose more of these flaws so I can eventually get better.

00:41:44:21 - 00:42:01:17
Itamar Marani
And I think just looking at in that kind of silo, this is not who I am, but this is a part of me, a part my skill set is a skill of mine that is very flawed, whether it's jujitsu, its business, its leadership, whatever it may be, all of a sudden it creates a kind of playful mentality to go, okay, this is a problem solver.

00:42:01:19 - 00:42:20:10
Itamar Marani
It's something about me that I'm flawed, and then my ego doesn't spike and I don't focus on short term external targets, even the long term ones. Zero. Cool. How can I use this tool of business to help me develop into a better person? Just use it as a game? Yeah. I think if people can silo that, the more they can do it and the more I say, Look, I of course I'm flawed in this thing.

00:42:20:12 - 00:42:32:20
Itamar Marani
I'm not the best in the world, and even the best in the world is probably still a lot of this thing. Then the easier it becomes, the less pressure there is just to look at it as a problem, solve it, keep moving forward, not have ego first that actually ruin your performance.

00:42:32:22 - 00:43:09:07
Alex De Fina
What's what's your reaction to a a statement? This is a a practice or a habit more than it is a single epiphany or like a brain break moment in the same way that meditation is a process of understanding that you are not your thoughts and you're developing this ability internally. To say, that was a thought I had. That doesn't define me as an individual, that this is an ongoing process that, yes, you level up over time, but it's not as if you this is just podcast or read a book and say, oh, okay, I'm six now and I'll forever think differently moving forwards probably not.

00:43:09:09 - 00:43:36:22
Alex De Fina
Probably needs a repeat process. I think that's a benefit of having high level performance coaching is that you've got people with batteries included, how to navigate this, how to prompt you in a way to see beyond your own biases or blind spots and get you closer to your version of the truth as opposed to false truths which are giving you other sort of comfort or a pieces of emotional got.

00:43:37:00 - 00:43:54:10
Alex De Fina
So yeah, I highly encourage anyone who's listening to this, to this experience, these this performance gap, to consider performance coaching, to apply for the IT and to see how they can habituate a higher level of internal dialog with themselves because I've started to benefit from it. Yeah. Yeah I think it's.

00:43:54:15 - 00:43:55:19
Itamar Marani
Appreciate it and I think.

00:43:55:22 - 00:43:57:08
Alex De Fina
About this.

00:43:57:10 - 00:44:15:03
Itamar Marani
Yeah it's about having some kind of external forcing function. Like for me, I'm still, like I said at the very beginning, I saw that sign right in front of my desk to remind me to keep a wipe out mentality. The clients that I work with, they're actually forcing functions for me, that they're inspiring the way they are, and I know I need to do more of that.

00:44:15:05 - 00:44:35:17
Itamar Marani
So whatever way it is, whether it's you know, performance coach, whether it's a mastermind buddy, whether it's someone you really respect, whatever it is, it's human nature to, you know, to revert back to our ego state. That's where we have to have these external things that are in our environment that force us to remember, like, get out of your head, stop doing that thing that a part of you naturally want to do it.

00:44:35:17 - 00:44:49:17
Itamar Marani
Protect your ego and act with a certain level of virtue and long term thinking about who you want to become or sing. On that note, we'll wrap it up for today. Thank you very much, Alex. Great episode and you guys for listening here on the next week.