Episode 25

full
Published on:

2nd May 2023

Steven Feinberg | Hidden Patterns - Neurostratigist Shares Insights on Using Patterns to Achieve Success

Join us as we welcome Dr. Feinberg, a renowned Neurostrategist, Executive Coach, and High-Performance Team architect who collaborates with America's brightest minds and businesses. Working alongside CEOs, top executives, and company founders ranging from Fortune 500 giants to ambitious, up-and-coming startups, Dr. Feinberg has contributed to the success of industry leaders such as Oracle, Google, LinkedIn, Wells Fargo, Hitachi, and Xero, ranked Number 1 innovation Start-up.

In this captivating discussion, we'll delve into the art of identifying behavioral patterns, the various tactics people employ, and the obstacles that prevent individuals from reaching their highest potential. Join us as we explore Dr. Feinberg's incredible journey from his humble beginnings sleeping on fire escapes to his current status as one of the nation's most sought-after executive coaches.

Dr. Steven Feinberg's website - https://stevenfeinberg.com/

Buy Book: Do What Others Say Can't Be Done: Play the Meta-Game

Mentioned in this episode:

1on1 App Information

https://www.thinkmovethrive.com/1on1-app/

Transcript
Dallas Burnett:

Hey, everybody.

Dallas Burnett:

We're talking to Dr.

Dallas Burnett:

Steven Feinberg today.

Dallas Burnett:

What an amazing guy.

Dallas Burnett:

He's a neuros strategist.

Dallas Burnett:

That's right.

Dallas Burnett:

A neuro strategist, an author, executive coach, has some incredible

Dallas Burnett:

stories from life and business.

Dallas Burnett:

You don't want to miss this incredible conversation.

Dallas Burnett:

Welcome, welcome, welcome to the last 10%.

Dallas Burnett:

I am Dallas Burnett sitting in Thrive Studios in my 1905

Dallas Burnett:

Koch Brothers Barber chair.

Dallas Burnett:

But more importantly, we have an incredible guest today, Dr.

Dallas Burnett:

Steven Feinberg.

Dallas Burnett:

He is a neuros strategist.

Dallas Burnett:

He's the author of a book title, which, oh my gosh, I love this title.

Dallas Burnett:

Do What Others Say, can't Be Done.

Dallas Burnett:

Play the Meta Game.

Dallas Burnett:

I You have.

Dallas Burnett:

You had me at Metagame, so welcome to the show, doctor.

Stephen Feinberg:

That's, I'm glad to be here.

Stephen Feinberg:

That's a great intro.

Stephen Feinberg:

I hope to live up to at least 5% of it.

Dallas Burnett:

we're just excited to have you on.

Dallas Burnett:

I've, you're the first neuro strategist that we've ever had on the show,

Dallas Burnett:

and, we just are excited to hear and get into some of the conversation.

Dallas Burnett:

But I will say, and when we get started this, I'm just curious because your

Dallas Burnett:

experience, we've talked a little bit before the show is incredible.

Dallas Burnett:

Now, I grew up and I had a lot of just random jobs coming along,

Dallas Burnett:

just all, all over the map.

Dallas Burnett:

But I have to say you have, you've taken the cake.

Dallas Burnett:

So tell us where you began, where you started, and where you grew up.

Stephen Feinberg:

I grew up sleeping on a fire escape in New York City,

Stephen Feinberg:

because at one point my family didn't have enough money to have a

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large enough a place for themselves.

Stephen Feinberg:

We moved back in with my grandparents and they were very loving and warm and

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kind and but it was like a three room, railroad track design of the bedroom.

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And so, My parents lived in another apartment in the building, same

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building, but with their, family members.

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And, so I'm in this, apartment with my grandparents.

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I saw my parents every day.

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it's like they were all, I was four or five years old, so I had no idea that

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I was poor, I had all my family around, but my grandparents would put me out on

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the fire, escape to sleep because, it's oh, I'd be in bed with them and they'd

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put me, my mother, my, my wife wants me to remind everybody or tell everybody,

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not remind them that they took me in when it was cold and raining or snowy.

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they didn't leave me out.

Stephen Feinberg:

They didn't leave me out there in the winter time, but yeah.

Stephen Feinberg:

So I grew up sleeping on a fire escape, but how'd I got from fire escape

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to neuros strategists is the story, and the story I tell in the book.

Dallas Burnett:

Wow, that's amazing.

Dallas Burnett:

So, so tell us a little bit about, tell us a little bit

Dallas Burnett:

about some of your background.

Dallas Burnett:

You had a newspaper delivery.

Dallas Burnett:

I grew up in the country.

Dallas Burnett:

I didn't have a newspaper delivery route.

Dallas Burnett:

I had a, an egg delivery route lit.

Dallas Burnett:

Literally I'd get a dozen eggs, I'd put 'em on my bike and I'd

Dallas Burnett:

pedal the Miss Franklin's house.

Dallas Burnett:

And I think I got a quarter off of that.

Dallas Burnett:

It was not a very good entrepreneurial venture, but that

Dallas Burnett:

was, that was the closest thing.

Dallas Burnett:

So tell us, cuz you, you take the cake, tell us some of the ventures and

Dallas Burnett:

early, early years of work that you

Stephen Feinberg:

So in addition to being a paper boy, right outside that home

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where I lived, I was a shoe shine boy.

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So I used to shine shoes.

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I was a New York City, doorman.

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I drove a cab in New York City.

Stephen Feinberg:

I.

Stephen Feinberg:

The, when I was in high school, no, I'm back.

Stephen Feinberg:

I'm jumping around a little bit sequin in terms of time, but I was in, in

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high school, I was a carnival bar, like a carnival came to town, to New

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York City and they needed, teenage kids to run the, their games and so on.

Stephen Feinberg:

So they, I got hired to do that and there's a lot of funny stories about that.

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I was a drug counselor.

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I ran a suicide prevention center.

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my family owned an Italian restaurant in Pizzeria.

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and, I, I've been, an executive coach I couldn't keep a job apparently,

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but I kept, I was an executive coach in the neuro strategist for the

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last 40 years or so, working with senior executives and top talent and

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entrepreneurs and world class companies like Apple, LinkedIn, Google, et cetera.

Dallas Burnett:

That's incredible.

Dallas Burnett:

tell us, in terms of your, research and your focus, what

Dallas Burnett:

inspired you to go into that?

Dallas Burnett:

Because you have such a, entrepreneurial background.

Dallas Burnett:

What inspired you to, and moved you towards the neuroscience

Dallas Burnett:

and that neuro strategy?

Stephen Feinberg:

the, I'd say that the core of it all

Stephen Feinberg:

came from being around my dad.

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You see my dad, the origins of this idea of do what others say can't be done.

Stephen Feinberg:

And coming a first adapter all, happened 50 plus years ago.

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Being at the foot of my dad and I'm training from him.

Stephen Feinberg:

I, you see, my dad was a big time bookie, and not the, in New York

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City in the fifties and sixties, 1950s and sixties, and not the type.

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That reads books

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah.

Stephen Feinberg:

and in one game he lost 10 large, that's

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$10,000 in booky parlance,

Dallas Burnett:

Oh my gosh.

Stephen Feinberg:

$95,000 today.

Dallas Burnett:

Oh my gosh.

Stephen Feinberg:

then by day's end, he actually won money and it started

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all over again 24 7 the next day.

Stephen Feinberg:

So it was a rollercoaster and the intensity is still affecting my brain.

Stephen Feinberg:

So, so it was a masterclass.

Stephen Feinberg:

It actually was a masterclass in handling and mishandling uncertainty.

Stephen Feinberg:

So what I talk about a lot is, how you can make the right moves.

Stephen Feinberg:

Because I wasn't, my dad just wasn't a booker, he was also a lot entrepreneur.

Stephen Feinberg:

I had a lot of businesses and I can go into that in a bit.

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But it was how to handle.

Stephen Feinberg:

How to make the right moves when uncertainty, when pressure rattles you.

Stephen Feinberg:

And the on the, price of admission is $95,000 in our conversation.

Dallas Burnett:

I love it.

Dallas Burnett:

That is so it.

Dallas Burnett:

So when he's, because that's just an incredible.

Dallas Burnett:

That's an incredible story.

Dallas Burnett:

Your dad, you, you have this experience.

Dallas Burnett:

You're watching your father who's a bookie and he's doing

Dallas Burnett:

this in New York City, right?

Dallas Burnett:

He's doing this in New York City.

Dallas Burnett:

So he's a bookie in New York City.

Dallas Burnett:

he's on this rollercoaster.

Dallas Burnett:

He's up and down.

Dallas Burnett:

How does he, and did you learn from watching him and learn from all the

Dallas Burnett:

ways he managed that kind of stress and uncertainty and that was inspiring to you?

Dallas Burnett:

Or did you see him and you see it just, you just was, did it wreck him?

Dallas Burnett:

Did that kinda stress wreck him or did he mismanage that and you go, I

Dallas Burnett:

wanna learn more about this because of some of the mistakes I saw?

Dallas Burnett:

What, which kind of direction pushed you?

Stephen Feinberg:

I think it was a little bit of, the aspects of he was

Stephen Feinberg:

successful in a lot of things that he did.

Stephen Feinberg:

So, but gambling is, I would not recommend it to everyone yet.

Stephen Feinberg:

Our brains are always trying to predict things.

Stephen Feinberg:

So we're all, our expectations are at our attempts to predict.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right?

Stephen Feinberg:

And that's part of, so we're all gambling in effect.

Stephen Feinberg:

There's different levels of it and extents and risks that our brains are trying to.

Stephen Feinberg:

To manage to deal with things.

Stephen Feinberg:

But you know, it's like the Dallas with my dad.

Stephen Feinberg:

I can, he didn't, as I said earlier, it wasn't just a bookie, although

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that was a large part of it.

Stephen Feinberg:

at one point he owned a, a restaurant and the economic, there was an economic

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downturn and things were going down.

Stephen Feinberg:

he might, was nerve-wracking in the sense that he might have had to, let some

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people go and they were like family to us.

Stephen Feinberg:

And, so the, and maybe even close the business.

Stephen Feinberg:

And at that time I was about ready to go to college, not quite there.

Stephen Feinberg:

And even my college tuition was on the line.

Stephen Feinberg:

So he needed to get better prices.

Stephen Feinberg:

all this uncertainty people experience now is he needed to get better prices

Stephen Feinberg:

for his business, for the restaurant.

Stephen Feinberg:

So we drove to the.

Stephen Feinberg:

His vendor and he, this vendor Joe, was a tough negotiator.

Stephen Feinberg:

And he, they went behind closed doors.

Stephen Feinberg:

He and Joe went behind closed doors.

Stephen Feinberg:

My dad said, sit over there, and five minutes past 10 minutes pass.

Stephen Feinberg:

And I got more nervous.

Stephen Feinberg:

My dad walks out from behind closed doors and he go, I said, how's it dad?

Stephen Feinberg:

how'd it go?

Stephen Feinberg:

It's it's make it or break it

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah.

Stephen Feinberg:

point.

Stephen Feinberg:

And he said, it doesn't look good and I need a glass of water.

Stephen Feinberg:

And that, those words, that phrase kept going like a loop in my head.

Stephen Feinberg:

It doesn't look good.

Stephen Feinberg:

And he walked back into his office, Joe's office, five minutes

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past 10 minutes, 15 minutes.

Stephen Feinberg:

I, this loop is just making me crazy on the

Dallas Burnett:

Oh

Stephen Feinberg:

cause I'm seeing the end of our bus, my family's business.

Stephen Feinberg:

My, what's my mom gonna do?

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What's my, my brother?

Stephen Feinberg:

What, what's gonna happen with all those poor folks who work for us?

Stephen Feinberg:

I was concerned for everybody and my tuition, you know what's gonna happen?

Stephen Feinberg:

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett:

a big deal.

Stephen Feinberg:

a big deal.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's on the line here.

Stephen Feinberg:

He walks out of the door, kisses the backwards, his right hand, and then the

Stephen Feinberg:

back of his left hand raises his hands up, says, there's nobody better than me.

Dallas Burnett:

Oh my goodness.

Stephen Feinberg:

he laughed.

Stephen Feinberg:

I laughed, and now you are laughing.

Stephen Feinberg:

Perhaps some of your audience laugh as

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah.

Stephen Feinberg:

right?

Stephen Feinberg:

It's and so I wanted to know, he told me a little bit about what

Stephen Feinberg:

had, what transpired, what actually he said and how he did it and all.

Stephen Feinberg:

I didn't quite, I was 17 or, somewhere at that age.

Stephen Feinberg:

I didn't quite understand what he was talking about other than

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I wanted to know what he actually did behind those closed doors.

Stephen Feinberg:

So what happened?

Stephen Feinberg:

That was the question you had to, the response to your

Stephen Feinberg:

question, what prompted this?

Stephen Feinberg:

What, so I've been always trying to find out what he did and what people like

Stephen Feinberg:

himself do behind those closed doors when, between a rock and hard place.

Stephen Feinberg:

when the mu the game is on the line, what do you do?

Stephen Feinberg:

And he did it again and again in all kinds of circumstances.

Stephen Feinberg:

And that's the training that I had to watch and listen to ask questions, And,

Stephen Feinberg:

I was fortunate, but I was fortunate.

Stephen Feinberg:

But it's also stressful, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

Like I said,

Dallas Burnett:

unbelievable stress.

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett:

When, especially when he comes out, I, I mean, I just picture you sitting

Dallas Burnett:

there as a kid and you got all these things and we always tend to fill in the

Dallas Burnett:

information that we don't have those gaps in knowledge with the negative anyway.

Dallas Burnett:

We already are like second guessing, and we always have this tendency to do that.

Dallas Burnett:

And then for him to come out and be like, it's not looking good, son.

Dallas Burnett:

It's just, oh, the intensity that just ratchets it up.

Dallas Burnett:

That's such a great story and it's such a marker in your life.

Dallas Burnett:

It's welcome to adulthood, class is in session and something just

Dallas Burnett:

went down behind the closed door.

Dallas Burnett:

And it's just, I feel like that just has fueled the curiosity, your

Dallas Burnett:

curiosity, the rest of your life.

Dallas Burnett:

I love how you described, I just always wanted to know what goes on behind

Dallas Burnett:

closed doors, when it all, it all counts.

Dallas Burnett:

It's all, it all, everything's on the line.

Dallas Burnett:

I love that.

Stephen Feinberg:

and then well, so then I find myself in situation

Stephen Feinberg:

rooms right in, in effect.

Stephen Feinberg:

That's what I find.

Stephen Feinberg:

I'm curious, and I'm always find myself almost a script, if you will, of

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showing up in places that, that were at.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's almost impossible what it, what appears like to people that

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the situation's almost impossible.

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And we always find a way forward.

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like it's not always perfect, but we find ways forward when I work

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with people and they the big deals.

Stephen Feinberg:

And so it's like I've worked with, as I, as you mentioned in my book,

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do what others say Can't be Done.

Stephen Feinberg:

The Forward by of that book is by the way, is by, an astronaut who

Stephen Feinberg:

flew to the International Space Station twice, a terrific guy.

Stephen Feinberg:

He's probably the most down to earth person I've ever met.

Dallas Burnett:

Ah,

Stephen Feinberg:

And, he's got an interesting story as well.

Stephen Feinberg:

but, with world-class leaders of people like Apple, the Apple ceo, with execs

Stephen Feinberg:

from various technology companies, with entrepreneurs, with creators,

Stephen Feinberg:

with leaders, business owners, so I.

Stephen Feinberg:

What does my dad, what does my big time booky dab have

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in common with those people?

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And the truth of the matter is that all our first adapters, not

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adopters, but first adapters who make game-winning, game-changing

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decisions when uncertainty strikes.

Stephen Feinberg:

And they all excel at the game of patterns, the hidden game of patterns.

Stephen Feinberg:

And it's what governs our behavior and shapes our lives and.

Dallas Burnett:

Okay.

Dallas Burnett:

let's take a second.

Dallas Burnett:

I wanna unpack that a little bit cuz you just dropped some wisdom on, on, on us.

Dallas Burnett:

You said that it's that these people at the highest levels , when

Dallas Burnett:

everything counts, are people that are experts at patterns and they are

Dallas Burnett:

first adapters, not first adopters.

Dallas Burnett:

Cause the adopters, I, we've all seen the chart of the early adopters and

Dallas Burnett:

they're, quick to move on something, but explain the difference between an

Dallas Burnett:

early adapter and an early adapter.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

Their first adapt, first adapters

Dallas Burnett:

First adapters,

Stephen Feinberg:

right?

Stephen Feinberg:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

Early responders are people who you know are heroes in the wrong, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

Let's put them in a different category.

Stephen Feinberg:

But first adapters are people who are able to see, they do three things.

Stephen Feinberg:

They see, the game that others don't.

Stephen Feinberg:

They defy expectations and they influence others.

Stephen Feinberg:

So we know that the people who are doing this are doing these three things.

Stephen Feinberg:

They're seeing the game, a game board that others don't see.

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They're defying expectations and they're influencing others to

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get moving in the direction that.

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His best move forward.

Stephen Feinberg:

Those are the three things that they're doing all the time consistently.

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and I told this to, to a fellow named James Salmon wrote a book

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called, disrupt You and he's world famous, tremendous talent, insight.

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And I described cause I interviewed 50 plus executives and talent, people from

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all walks of life, from the executive suites to people to, police chiefs

Stephen Feinberg:

and be top best teachers in the world.

Stephen Feinberg:

the teacher peer award.

Stephen Feinberg:

And so, it's all walks of life is, this pattern is about

Stephen Feinberg:

how, is about patterns, right?

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The way you think about things.

Stephen Feinberg:

And one of the things that Jay said to me was, you just described me.

Stephen Feinberg:

He just said, he said, just describe me.

Stephen Feinberg:

I see game boards that others don't.

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Defy expectations and influence others.

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That's me.

Stephen Feinberg:

That's what

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I'm doing.

Stephen Feinberg:

And so what has happened is all those people are doing that, with Jay was,

Stephen Feinberg:

and Jay was an exemplar in that, but virtually everyone I know is doing that.

Stephen Feinberg:

And so you want to acquire that, the, that framework, that lens, to be able

Stephen Feinberg:

to do that, to see those patterns.

Dallas Burnett:

let's talk about that, because I want to get into

Dallas Burnett:

what is it, what do you mean when you say the see the patterns or, see

Dallas Burnett:

the game that other people don't see?

Dallas Burnett:

what, when you say that, what do you mean?

Stephen Feinberg:

So, a pattern.

Stephen Feinberg:

So when we, when you patterns, so we all have patterns.

Stephen Feinberg:

You have pattern like habits, routines,

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett:

Routines, right?

Dallas Burnett:

Yes.

Stephen Feinberg:

routine, it's a habit.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's a tendency.

Stephen Feinberg:

You have habits, you have, patterns that are, when you are relating

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to people, when you are, you have patterns when you are driving,

Stephen Feinberg:

good drivers have patterns, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

So there's a certain.

Stephen Feinberg:

There is patterns in my arena, I'm looking at the neuro strategy approaches.

Stephen Feinberg:

I'm looking at brains, games and foes.

Stephen Feinberg:

So what are the patterns that create the exceptional, what are all the

Stephen Feinberg:

patterns that are going to identify and people who do things really well

Stephen Feinberg:

accomplished or able to do that.

Stephen Feinberg:

So in particular, the pat, like my dad was able to pattern out what happened

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in that situation with Joe to change the game with Joe cuz he wa he didn't

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want to go along at first, he didn't want to just give my dad better prices

Stephen Feinberg:

because his business was hurting.

Stephen Feinberg:

sorry Sam.

Stephen Feinberg:

But you know, I got a business to run here, he's a tough guy,

Stephen Feinberg:

and he wasn't gonna just do it.

Stephen Feinberg:

So it was like, how do you go when you negotiate?

Stephen Feinberg:

there are patterns.

Stephen Feinberg:

When you're, leading, how do you lead in an effective way?

Stephen Feinberg:

There are patterns that maintain the status quo and

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patterns that change the game.

Stephen Feinberg:

So I oftentimes, I relate, I talk about the game of patterns and the

Stephen Feinberg:

game of patterns is there are like status quo games, like playing small.

Stephen Feinberg:

That's a pattern.

Stephen Feinberg:

Or

Dallas Burnett:

what does that mean when you say playing small, what

Stephen Feinberg:

if you are in a business owner and you keep shying

Stephen Feinberg:

away from all the risks that are necessary or the or, or you're not

Stephen Feinberg:

dealing with the conflict, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

A lot of people are conflict, avoiding, again, that's a

Stephen Feinberg:

pattern, that's a game, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

And maintains the status quo.

Stephen Feinberg:

Or conversely the other side is you're trying to act tough.

Stephen Feinberg:

it's like one upping everybody.

Stephen Feinberg:

sometimes that's not so such a good idea, It's.

Dallas Burnett:

Sure.

Dallas Burnett:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

It ticks people off, makes a, and some of, but it's

Stephen Feinberg:

like there are different patterns.

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And so the game of patterns are, there's different levels.

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There's patterns or games that keep you struggling.

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patterns that keep you reactive.

Stephen Feinberg:

You keep reacting to the circumstances you encounter.

Stephen Feinberg:

There's the next level where there's, you're playing a better

Stephen Feinberg:

game, a higher performance.

Stephen Feinberg:

They're playing a different game.

Stephen Feinberg:

And then there's the highest level, what I call the meta game,

Stephen Feinberg:

the game of games, which is the

Dallas Burnett:

The game of games.

Dallas Burnett:

oh, this is good.

Dallas Burnett:

I love this.

Dallas Burnett:

Okay, so let me just un, let me slow us down for a second and go back and

Dallas Burnett:

recap just to make sure I've got this,

Stephen Feinberg:

look, before you do it, let me just add one other thing cause I

Stephen Feinberg:

think it'll help shift your conversation, is your brain is a pattern engine, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

So in order to make sense of the uncertainty you encounter,

Dallas Burnett:

Okay.

Stephen Feinberg:

the biological.

Stephen Feinberg:

Purpose of patterns is to make sense of whatever you're encountering.

Stephen Feinberg:

So what you asked when you're trying to make sense of what I'm talking about.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's your brain trying to make sense.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's patterning.

Stephen Feinberg:

You're a good interviewer and you're engaged in a pattern to, to

Stephen Feinberg:

unpack what I'm saying and to offer it up to your, to the listeners.

Dallas Burnett:

Yes.

Dallas Burnett:

So, so what you're saying is our brains are sense makers and the way we make

Dallas Burnett:

sense of things is we construct patterns so that we can predict the future.

Dallas Burnett:

Essentially, my brain is trying to predict what's gonna happen next, and

Dallas Burnett:

the only way I can do that is assemble some type of model that would allow me

Dallas Burnett:

to operate and move into that future.

Dallas Burnett:

is that right?

Stephen Feinberg:

Yeah.

Stephen Feinberg:

I think you're spot on.

Stephen Feinberg:

I think you have, we have, a guidance system like what inner

Stephen Feinberg:

guidance system, what decisions, how we're gonna interact, behavior.

Stephen Feinberg:

The inner guidance is a sense making guidance system.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

And it's the intersection of your ability to predict, come up with novel solutions

Stephen Feinberg:

to difficulties you encounter and meaning.

Stephen Feinberg:

So it's the intersection of prediction, novelty and meaning that helps guide

Stephen Feinberg:

us to make the best decisions and what I do and work with people.

Stephen Feinberg:

And when you listen to people who are playing at this, these highest levels

Stephen Feinberg:

is they have their guidance system, their internal, the guidance system as

Stephen Feinberg:

a high level of sense making, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

And so they look into, they can look, some of the clients, they

Stephen Feinberg:

go, we have to look around corners.

Stephen Feinberg:

it's a metaphor, right?

Dallas Burnett:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

looking around corners in order to do what you are talking

Stephen Feinberg:

about in your podcast, where you're talking about the last 10%, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

Is that if that's the abilities to look around corners, the last

Stephen Feinberg:

10% to go to understand what's going to play out to game it out.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right, because that's what you do to game out what's gonna happen to preempt it and

Stephen Feinberg:

be ready and prepared to make it happen.

Dallas Burnett:

So you're saying that, let's talk about the games for a minute

Dallas Burnett:

because you laid out like three different types of games that people play.

Dallas Burnett:

One is routines and patterns at the low level that kind of keep us at a low level.

Dallas Burnett:

I would say maybe I would say something like, these are destructive

Dallas Burnett:

or they're not self, promoting.

Dallas Burnett:

they're more, they keep us where we are.

Dallas Burnett:

Right.

Dallas Burnett:

So as long as we're doing these patterns, we are either hurting ourselves or

Dallas Burnett:

definitely not helping ourselves.

Dallas Burnett:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

They're limit, they're definitely limit ourselves.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

And some of them are, some you can have limiting yourself.

Stephen Feinberg:

You don't have to be, I know a lot of people talk about, self-sabotage.

Stephen Feinberg:

You don't have to be self-sabotage.

Stephen Feinberg:

They just have a limiting pattern.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

everything isn't about, a lot of people just say, there must be

Stephen Feinberg:

doing something against yourself.

Stephen Feinberg:

I'm not of that belief.

Stephen Feinberg:

I think you just may not know

Dallas Burnett:

right.

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett:

I mean, like

Stephen Feinberg:

may not know to do anything better.

Stephen Feinberg:

This is all you learned.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

I grew up on the sweets.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

And I know, like I thought growing up on the street, one of my patterns

Stephen Feinberg:

was being a tough guy on the streets.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

it's but my friends used to say, Steven, are you wise or you otherwise?

Stephen Feinberg:

And it was always a message, you better wise up fast, stop getting, and I always

Stephen Feinberg:

wore sneakers, always ready to run.

Stephen Feinberg:

So I was, had a wise mouth, but I had, I could run fast because I

Stephen Feinberg:

wasn't, I wasn't as strong as a lot of these guys were on the streets.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right.

Dallas Burnett:

I love it.

Dallas Burnett:

You wore sneakers so you can run fast.

Dallas Burnett:

That's so good.

Stephen Feinberg:

I still wear sneakers so I could run fast, because, so dollars.

Stephen Feinberg:

I'm here doing this podcast and I, I'm ready to go, baby.

Dallas Burnett:

maybe ready to take off.

Dallas Burnett:

That's so good.

Stephen Feinberg:

because, given my brain and certain uncertainty, it's

Stephen Feinberg:

like navigating, making sense of things until you learn the patterns to calm

Stephen Feinberg:

you, It's to be able to, like, how do they perform at these highest levels?

Stephen Feinberg:

a lot of it is deep breathing.

Stephen Feinberg:

these people, how do you deal with uncertain?

Stephen Feinberg:

but you have to go beyond those rests.

Stephen Feinberg:

these people who do that.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's absolutely essential.

Stephen Feinberg:

it's understand diaphragmatic breathing, and I've learned a lot about that

Stephen Feinberg:

to help my nervous system calm down.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's called the vagal nervous, the vagal tone.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's like the people have the parasympathetic and parasympathetic

Stephen Feinberg:

system, both sides of albertino to act and to also rest.

Stephen Feinberg:

my brain growing up around royal and certainly was all sympathetic that it,

Stephen Feinberg:

the pattern was to be on ready, vigilant.

Stephen Feinberg:

So I had to teach my body and my brain and my nervous system, I still

Stephen Feinberg:

am to calm and rest and restore.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right?

Stephen Feinberg:

And then at the same time, that doesn't, that's not the end, all right?

Stephen Feinberg:

Of how you live your life if you're running a business, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

And so there's an inner game, but there's an outer game.

Stephen Feinberg:

So I always looking at the inner game board and the outer game.

Stephen Feinberg:

Board.

Dallas Burnett:

Oh, that's so good.

Dallas Burnett:

That's so good.

Dallas Burnett:

So, and what I love about what you just said is you just said some of

Dallas Burnett:

the players that are operating at the highest level game, this is the last 10%.

Dallas Burnett:

These are people behind the closed doors that have influence, that are

Dallas Burnett:

seeing around corners that, that, that note, that see the game, that

Dallas Burnett:

other people don't see these people, you're saying exercise something so

Dallas Burnett:

simple that sounds at least so simple as just controlling their breathing.

Dallas Burnett:

Like that at that, I mean, but isn't that the interesting thing about the nuance,

Dallas Burnett:

what you're saying is these people that are running a lot of the world are experts

Dallas Burnett:

at negotiation, are experts at coaching, leading all these things that in these

Dallas Burnett:

environments, they're doing something and are mastering something as simple as.

Dallas Burnett:

Just controlling their breathing to the point where you're explaining

Dallas Burnett:

the whole, the two systems that are operating as a, just so you, can you

Dallas Burnett:

say I've learned a lot about that, that I think some people would gloss over

Dallas Burnett:

that and they would miss the absolute magnitude of what you just said.

Dallas Burnett:

And that's why I took a minute because it sounds so simple.

Dallas Burnett:

You're like, oh, that's whatever.

Dallas Burnett:

But then you don't do it.

Dallas Burnett:

And it that by not doing that pattern, you in inherently are

Dallas Burnett:

lowering your game to the lower level,

Stephen Feinberg:

right.

Stephen Feinberg:

That's right.

Stephen Feinberg:

If you think about, like I, I'm a big basketball fan and my favorite

Stephen Feinberg:

player now is Steph Curry, the three point shooter, best three point

Stephen Feinberg:

shooter in the world ball time.

Stephen Feinberg:

But he goes at the end of the game, who do you want to have the ball?

Stephen Feinberg:

At the end of the game, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

That's what my dad did at the end of the game.

Stephen Feinberg:

And sudden death games, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

And sudden death environments when un all this uncertainty is, and look, one of the

Stephen Feinberg:

things I was saying was that breathing is important, but it's not sufficient.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's necessary, but not sufficient.

Stephen Feinberg:

Those guys are not just breathing deep, they're breathing a lot.

Stephen Feinberg:

Let me tell you.

Stephen Feinberg:

That's, except that it's not that they don't get, it's not that they

Stephen Feinberg:

don't get nervous or anything.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's like they understand how to regain.

Stephen Feinberg:

That's what vagal tone is to regain your sense of calm.

Stephen Feinberg:

That's, I asked my, astronaut friend, what I said, how do you feel when

Stephen Feinberg:

you're on the tip of the rocket when you're getting ready to go?

Stephen Feinberg:

And he said, confident and excited.

Dallas Burnett:

Wow.

Stephen Feinberg:

And I went Seriously?

Stephen Feinberg:

I, cause I'd be like nervous.

Stephen Feinberg:

And he said, no confident and.

Stephen Feinberg:

He said, we've trained and we've retrained and I've trained again in simulators,

Stephen Feinberg:

and we know what's going to happen to a large extent, and we practice

Stephen Feinberg:

all the bad things that could happen.

Stephen Feinberg:

So when the alarm signals go off, he said, and they do in every flight we're we do

Stephen Feinberg:

to something called procedural memory, we go in and we begin to engage in the proce.

Stephen Feinberg:

And our brain just goes, what do we have to do to correct this problem right here?

Stephen Feinberg:

So like Steph Curry, when he goes to shoot the basketball, he's

Stephen Feinberg:

got bagel tone, he's got calm.

Stephen Feinberg:

You watch if you watch his eyes, if you watch the way he breathes, if

Stephen Feinberg:

you watch the way he stands there, he's going through a procedure.

Stephen Feinberg:

and all people who deal with high pressure situations go through a procedure.

Stephen Feinberg:

They know and they focus on what they're gonna do.

Stephen Feinberg:

You hear a lot of people say, just focus on shooting and all.

Stephen Feinberg:

they do that in advance, but they focus on the target and they

Stephen Feinberg:

already know what they're doing.

Stephen Feinberg:

they don't go, begin right then and there.

Stephen Feinberg:

They've already done this a thousand times.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

And they're ready to do it.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's second.

Stephen Feinberg:

And they trust their second nature.

Stephen Feinberg:

So, so Greg, the astronaut Johnson, he trusts what he's gonna do.

Stephen Feinberg:

And one of the things he was gracious enough to say in, in the book, he

Stephen Feinberg:

wrote the forward and he said, I trained and retrained and we knew

Stephen Feinberg:

what was gonna happen in the, in the space shuttle in our flights.

Stephen Feinberg:

We knew and we were prepared.

Stephen Feinberg:

He said, what are things that he learned from working with me was that he learned

Stephen Feinberg:

to be prepared for those environments.

Stephen Feinberg:

So leadership environments, those business environments that you encounter.

Stephen Feinberg:

But the thing is that as you shoot, as you as Steph Curry's making a shot

Stephen Feinberg:

as Greg is, in that launchpad is, as my dad is, in that room behind

Stephen Feinberg:

closed doors, there's the procedures, there's the breathing, but there are

Stephen Feinberg:

these three things that I mentioned early on that they're actually doing.

Stephen Feinberg:

And what they're doing in those situation rooms is they are spotting the game.

Stephen Feinberg:

they're game spotters, they are pattern busters and they are frame setting.

Stephen Feinberg:

So they, when they, so game spotting, pattern busting and frame setting, that's

Stephen Feinberg:

the procedures that they go through.

Stephen Feinberg:

And so they're reading the game board of to understand what the

Stephen Feinberg:

game is that's being played.

Stephen Feinberg:

And it's not always the one that seems, I, like I asked.

Stephen Feinberg:

when I've worked with some execs or business owners, I've said to them, do

Stephen Feinberg:

you know who, what the game is according to your competitor or according to your

Stephen Feinberg:

customers or according to your boss.

Stephen Feinberg:

So you know what game board they're playing on?

Stephen Feinberg:

They go, oh yeah, I know he wants this and she wants that.

Stephen Feinberg:

And yeah.

Stephen Feinberg:

And then I go and ask them what they want, if that's it.

Stephen Feinberg:

And honestly it's not.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's not.

Stephen Feinberg:

And it's off by a substantial amount.

Stephen Feinberg:

It sounds similar.

Stephen Feinberg:

They use the same words, but their behavior doesn't cut it.

Stephen Feinberg:

Not at all.

Stephen Feinberg:

And so I have to come in and say, Hey, you're, what you say and

Stephen Feinberg:

what you do and what they expect and what you're delivering is off

Stephen Feinberg:

by a factor that is substantial.

Stephen Feinberg:

And you're losing the game because you're not reading the game board,

Stephen Feinberg:

you're not the real criteria that what really matters to them at this time.

Stephen Feinberg:

So they're not understanding the rules.

Dallas Burnett:

a, it's, yeah.

Dallas Burnett:

So I get it.

Dallas Burnett:

Okay.

Dallas Burnett:

So when you say game spotters, what do you mean?

Dallas Burnett:

Like an example, like for example, if you're hired to do this, let's say you're

Dallas Burnett:

managing a project and we, and I've had this experience with people before, and

Dallas Burnett:

I was contracting someone to manage a project and had developed the project.

Dallas Burnett:

My, my game was, I want communication and I want real time feedback and

Dallas Burnett:

communication during the project, especially when certain issues come up or

Dallas Burnett:

in response to certain issues that arise.

Dallas Burnett:

And we can go over what those are.

Dallas Burnett:

But if you're a really, if you're a game spotter, you're picking

Dallas Burnett:

that up in the first conversation.

Dallas Burnett:

And whether I even say that explicitly or not, you're pulling that out.

Dallas Burnett:

And then when we get out of the meeting, you're following up with three emails

Dallas Burnett:

to say, here's where we are, what we're doing it, and you're just moving.

Dallas Burnett:

Now on the flip side, what I've had experience with is people like

Dallas Burnett:

that you're really describing, it's almost like a lack of, there's a

Dallas Burnett:

blind spot or a lack of awareness.

Dallas Burnett:

in an individual's perception of other people or themselves to where,

Dallas Burnett:

I think about that project manager and I say, Hey, look, I want this.

Dallas Burnett:

I'm, I really, communication's important to me.

Dallas Burnett:

Maybe I'm not really good at saying it, but I just, I get it out there.

Dallas Burnett:

And they don't pick up on the signals of what's important.

Dallas Burnett:

And then they think response time is good.

Dallas Burnett:

So they wait until I go, Hey, how's the project going?

Dallas Burnett:

And then they go, whoop, in two seconds, it's going great.

Dallas Burnett:

that gives me no detail.

Dallas Burnett:

I don't have any comfort.

Dallas Burnett:

And then something comes up and I'm caught off guard.

Dallas Burnett:

And then I walk in and I'm like, what?

Dallas Burnett:

And it's boom.

Dallas Burnett:

like, why is this the way it is?

Dallas Burnett:

Right?

Dallas Burnett:

Because.

Dallas Burnett:

the, it's a misalignment.

Dallas Burnett:

But what you're saying is that the people at the highest level are able to

Dallas Burnett:

anticipate that, and they're able to pick up those signals, even if they're small,

Dallas Burnett:

they have this level of awareness that allows them to play the game in a way

Dallas Burnett:

that is in an alignment with the person that they're essentially gaming with.

Dallas Burnett:

If we're syncing up our patterns, you're saying, oh, I know their pattern.

Dallas Burnett:

I know what's important to them.

Dallas Burnett:

Maybe it's communication, maybe it's a reputation, maybe it's, handling it or,

Dallas Burnett:

whatever it is that's important to them.

Dallas Burnett:

You pick that up.

Dallas Burnett:

I think that's really, that's very insightful.

Stephen Feinberg:

So, game spotters, this is a critical, if we deconstruct each

Stephen Feinberg:

of these three elements a little bit.

Stephen Feinberg:

Game spotting is first, adapters have a radar for looking for what's missing.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right?

Stephen Feinberg:

And so they're noticing what's missing on, in the, they're reading the room.

Stephen Feinberg:

So, the expression, read the room better, and they see the

Stephen Feinberg:

playing field and then they adapt.

Stephen Feinberg:

Where you're describing what you described, Alice was someone who would

Stephen Feinberg:

say, like an interview, well, I need someone who's good at communication.

Stephen Feinberg:

Oh yeah.

Stephen Feinberg:

I'm really good at that.

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah, immediately I'm concerned.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right, right.

Dallas Burnett:

That's

Stephen Feinberg:

Yeah.

Stephen Feinberg:

We need someone who's flexible.

Stephen Feinberg:

I'm good at that.

Dallas Burnett:

so true.

Dallas Burnett:

That's so true.

Dallas Burnett:

Oh,

Stephen Feinberg:

they don't describe in behavioral terms

Stephen Feinberg:

what makes them good at that.

Stephen Feinberg:

Or an example of going, I, I used to not be good at that and here's what I learned.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

That tells you that they're attending to the depth of your

Stephen Feinberg:

question that you presented to them.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

And oftentimes they don't see that.

Stephen Feinberg:

So, a game is a pattern of interactions.

Stephen Feinberg:

it's a story between players, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

We're on a game board that has, objectives, rewards and rules.

Stephen Feinberg:

And so we're understanding what the objectives, rewards and rules, and all

Stephen Feinberg:

behavioral games have deeper purposes.

Stephen Feinberg:

it's who could say what to whom?

Stephen Feinberg:

And when, for instance, can you say something to your boss, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

That's a rule set.

Stephen Feinberg:

Some people go, you could tell me whatever you want behind closed doors.

Stephen Feinberg:

You can't say it in front of everybody,

Dallas Burnett:

Right,

Stephen Feinberg:

So there's a rule in that relation, and you go, you

Stephen Feinberg:

might have a different point of view of how the, of how it's supposed

Stephen Feinberg:

to go in your one company goes, no, we want it all, everyone can say

Stephen Feinberg:

it and I can handle, disagreements.

Stephen Feinberg:

Some people can say that, but can't actually live by it,

Dallas Burnett:

Yes.

Dallas Burnett:

That makes total sense.

Dallas Burnett:

So I may think that you should be able to handle everything in the

Dallas Burnett:

open, in the meeting and just hammer it out right there, that's my rule.

Dallas Burnett:

But if your rule is the exact opposite, where, listen, you don't, if you

Dallas Burnett:

got a problem with me personally, you take it, after the meeting, you

Dallas Burnett:

come and find me after the meeting.

Dallas Burnett:

the question then is, which rule am I gonna choose to follow?

Dallas Burnett:

And I, and those spotters, you're saying the game spotters are like,

Dallas Burnett:

I know exactly which one is the one that I'm playing the game against.

Dallas Burnett:

I'm gonna follow their

Stephen Feinberg:

Or they

Dallas Burnett:

or I'm gonna know when to break it.

Stephen Feinberg:

or they test it, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

So all these behavioral games have some kind, typically have

Stephen Feinberg:

a status rule hidden somewhere.

Stephen Feinberg:

as I said, who can say what to whom and when?

Stephen Feinberg:

Who can, if someone has to be one up or one down or, speaking a hard

Stephen Feinberg:

truth to your boss or, parents think about us as parents who.

Stephen Feinberg:

in terms of rules, not about who could say what to whom, but just in terms of rules

Stephen Feinberg:

is parents who don't let their kids handle adversity are actually incentivizing

Stephen Feinberg:

the kids to stay dependent on them.

Stephen Feinberg:

And the game message that to the kids is, you're not capable.

Stephen Feinberg:

You can't handle this.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

And we don't see that until it's too, until the gaming

Stephen Feinberg:

dynamics, until it's too late.

Stephen Feinberg:

So what I try to do is help people see the games and see

Stephen Feinberg:

the deeper game that's going on,

Stephen Feinberg:

and in the, in, in the higher level, the meta game, that's highest

Stephen Feinberg:

level game that we were talking about earlier is the key move.

Stephen Feinberg:

The key move of any meta game is stretching, not

Stephen Feinberg:

shrinking to stretch yourself.

Dallas Burnett:

Okay.

Dallas Burnett:

All right.

Dallas Burnett:

So unpack that a little bit.

Dallas Burnett:

You said the highest game we can play is the meta game, and you said the

Dallas Burnett:

highest activity that you can do in the meta game is stretching, not shrinking.

Stephen Feinberg:

right?

Stephen Feinberg:

So you wanna stretch yourself, you wanna move forward, find different

Stephen Feinberg:

ways of accomplishing things.

Stephen Feinberg:

I had, I was, giving a speech at Wells Fargo at the, with the, the IT department,

Stephen Feinberg:

the CIO of the, of Wells Fargo, who's, who wrote them forward to my first book,

Stephen Feinberg:

which called the Advantage Makers, he had me come give a speech about collaboration.

Stephen Feinberg:

He was terrific opening it up and he was saying, look, we need to

Stephen Feinberg:

all learn to collaborate cause we don't typically do that.

Stephen Feinberg:

We're all in school.

Stephen Feinberg:

We learn to be independent individuals and we need to learn how to work

Stephen Feinberg:

together now in this new environment.

Stephen Feinberg:

So brilliant setup.

Stephen Feinberg:

And so I brought you here.

Stephen Feinberg:

I brought Dr.

Stephen Feinberg:

Feinberg here to talk to you about collaboration.

Stephen Feinberg:

And I, and he said, oh, by the way, he said, Steven told me not to tell

Stephen Feinberg:

you that he was, a psychologist.

Stephen Feinberg:

He's a shrink, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

Because he'll think I'll get you all nervous.

Stephen Feinberg:

So he says this in front of several hundred people in the eye.

Stephen Feinberg:

He says, so for no further ado, let's welcome, Steven Feinberg, right?

Dallas Burnett:

He totally set you up.

Stephen Feinberg:

and like he's from Brooklyn, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

And I'm from Lower Eastside Manhattan, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

And so I went, thanks Barry.

Stephen Feinberg:

I really appreciate that was a great introduction.

Stephen Feinberg:

Spot on.

Stephen Feinberg:

and then I turned to the audience and the muse hit me Dallas.

Stephen Feinberg:

I got lucky.

Stephen Feinberg:

The muse hit me and I turned to the audience.

Stephen Feinberg:

I said, how many of you here want to be shrunk?

Stephen Feinberg:

Nobody raised their hand.

Stephen Feinberg:

Everyone was, pulled back.

Stephen Feinberg:

I said, how many of you would prefer to be stretched?

Stephen Feinberg:

Everyone raised their hand, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

I said, so today what we're gonna talk about is stretching

Stephen Feinberg:

yourself in your behaviors, in your thinking and your approach.

Stephen Feinberg:

No, I got lucky in that day.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right?

Dallas Burnett:

good.

Dallas Burnett:

That was very witty.

Dallas Burnett:

Well done.

Dallas Burnett:

That's a great transition too.

Dallas Burnett:

That's awesome.

Dallas Burnett:

and I think that's true.

Dallas Burnett:

I think that's the ideal.

Dallas Burnett:

Of a great coach.

Dallas Burnett:

we talk about coaches and the way we define coaches are people

Dallas Burnett:

who in, who help close gaps.

Dallas Burnett:

And coaches are also people who battle for belief.

Dallas Burnett:

if I'm gonna, if I'm coaching you, I want to identify, mind, body, spirit, craft

Dallas Burnett:

kind of type things, where are those gaps?

Dallas Burnett:

And then I'm gonna engage in helping you to go from where you are to

Dallas Burnett:

where you want to be in those gaps.

Dallas Burnett:

Or I'm gonna identify these beliefs, kinda like what you're saying at

Dallas Burnett:

these, at these levels that you just really, may not be aware.

Dallas Burnett:

Bring awareness to that and then help that.

Dallas Burnett:

Son.

Dallas Burnett:

I think what you're talking about is as a coach, we're engaging to close

Dallas Burnett:

a gap, especially if anywhere where someone else has been for a while,

Dallas Burnett:

especially if they're on that bottom tier in, in your structure on that.

Dallas Burnett:

If they're in, if they're on that bottom level there, there

Dallas Burnett:

has to be some uncomfortable.

Dallas Burnett:

Shift it to stretch like that uncertainty is it exists and

Dallas Burnett:

there's real risk of failure.

Dallas Burnett:

There is, uncertainty of performance there, there has to be that engagement.

Dallas Burnett:

And as a coach, I'm facilitating that process, which is really inspiring.

Dallas Burnett:

I think that's one, one of the reasons I love coaching.

Dallas Burnett:

I'm sure you do as well to facilitate that, but if someone's pulling back

Dallas Burnett:

and they're getting defensive and they're holding that power of inertia,

Dallas Burnett:

man, that's a tough, that's tough.

Stephen Feinberg:

so, so

Dallas Burnett:

operate.

Stephen Feinberg:

if you think about , the conditions of when you're working

Stephen Feinberg:

with someone who wants to stretch themselves or wants to achieve something,

Stephen Feinberg:

but they're, they can't understand why, what's getting in their way.

Stephen Feinberg:

Or they've attempted a couple of times in our brains, we have

Stephen Feinberg:

a risk reward center, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

It's called, like one, neuroscientist told me, he said, it's like an accountant.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's not a real accountant, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

But it's an image you can use.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's, and it's measuring risk versus rewards.

Stephen Feinberg:

And so you don't have, you have to understand that the risk is bigger than

Stephen Feinberg:

the reward when some of those things, when you pull back, when, so we have

Stephen Feinberg:

our, we shut down, I call it in my book, refer to it as the shutdown syndrome.

Stephen Feinberg:

So your brain pulls back and you shut down your patterns.

Stephen Feinberg:

The game of patterns rules all of us, and you can only perform at the

Stephen Feinberg:

level of the pattern that you're in.

Stephen Feinberg:

So if you want, what you see oftentimes is their attempted

Stephen Feinberg:

solution is maintaining the problem.

Stephen Feinberg:

And so you have to find ways around that.

Stephen Feinberg:

If your coaching is to show them other patterns that they can have access to

Stephen Feinberg:

and available to them to stretch them in any high stake situation, the person

Stephen Feinberg:

with the widest range of responses, the deepest response to the situation, the

Stephen Feinberg:

most adaptable patterns wins more often.

Dallas Burnett:

The most adaptable patterns.

Dallas Burnett:

Winsor.

Dallas Burnett:

And that makes sense.

Dallas Burnett:

because if you, like going back to our meeting example, if you

Dallas Burnett:

don't like being, given, criticism in the meeting and you are my.

Dallas Burnett:

You're my, direct boss or manager, and I am a number eight on the

Dallas Burnett:

Enneagram, and I'm gonna challenge you in front of everybody.

Dallas Burnett:

that's not as adaptable for me.

Dallas Burnett:

So then I'm challenging you.

Dallas Burnett:

That may not work out for me.

Dallas Burnett:

Whereas if I am adaptable and I say, okay, I know he doesn't like me to

Dallas Burnett:

call him out in the meeting and I do, then all of a sudden I get this great

Dallas Burnett:

performance review or get a great raise or get, I get moved over, to get promoted.

Dallas Burnett:

and I, that's a win.

Dallas Burnett:

Right?

Dallas Burnett:

So, and it's being adaptable.

Dallas Burnett:

I'm being able to adapt to that new game.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right, and that's what first adapters are doing, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

They're adapting.

Stephen Feinberg:

They're playing, they have a wider range of responses, and it comes in

Stephen Feinberg:

part from, there's a law in cybernetic called the Law of Requisite Variety.

Stephen Feinberg:

So the law of requisite variety, basically it's by this, scientist,

Stephen Feinberg:

cyberneticians and Ashby.

Stephen Feinberg:

And it says in any complex system, the controlling device must match

Stephen Feinberg:

the variety and complexity of that system in order to be effective.

Stephen Feinberg:

So if you have a controlling device, it must be able to match the variety and

Stephen Feinberg:

the complexity in order to be in control.

Stephen Feinberg:

Otherwise, it's at the effect of everything.

Stephen Feinberg:

So, humans, in order to be in control, we want, a lot of people go, you're

Stephen Feinberg:

a controller, you're over controller.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's the, that's not the issue.

Stephen Feinberg:

some people are over controlling.

Stephen Feinberg:

We want to deal with that.

Stephen Feinberg:

But a lot.

Stephen Feinberg:

But a lot of times it's, people are outta control.

Stephen Feinberg:

If you're running a business, you wanna be in control, you wanna be outta control.

Stephen Feinberg:

You know, it's like, let it float.

Stephen Feinberg:

that's not the way, if you're driving a car, just let the car drive.

Stephen Feinberg:

If you have a self-driving car, great.

Stephen Feinberg:

You make you, the mechanism is there, but you want to set your brain to, to

Stephen Feinberg:

control, to be able to be in control of the situation if you feel like

Stephen Feinberg:

your leader has a sense of control.

Stephen Feinberg:

And I mean that in the widest range, not in the sense of authoritarianism

Stephen Feinberg:

or anything like that, but in the sense of being able to shape and influence

Stephen Feinberg:

and make good decisions along the way.

Stephen Feinberg:

It makes pe gives people a feeling of safety and people want case

Stephen Feinberg:

insecurity and that's a good thing.

Stephen Feinberg:

So the person, what that rule says is the person who is the most

Stephen Feinberg:

adaptable wins, not the person who's strong arm, it's like Ito.

Stephen Feinberg:

They have the strong, they have tough guys, and then you have

Stephen Feinberg:

an ito, a little short ito mess.

Stephen Feinberg:

Take them and throw the person because they understand the, it's not a matter of

Dallas Burnett:

Brute force.

Stephen Feinberg:

understanding the underlying patterns that allow

Stephen Feinberg:

you to move through the wall.

Dallas Burnett:

That is a, I've never heard that.

Stephen Feinberg:

That's what stretching is about to

Dallas Burnett:

and there's just like when you said that there's just my,

Dallas Burnett:

my head was exploding because there's just so many thoughts going on.

Dallas Burnett:

What there, there's so many different ways you could take that because it

Dallas Burnett:

also demonstrates that kind of principle and I've never heard that before.

Dallas Burnett:

I've never heard that rule before.

Dallas Burnett:

It's fascinating though, but it explains why, even it explains why black swan

Dallas Burnett:

events happen because you're saying that the model has to be as complicated

Dallas Burnett:

and as flexible as the system or it doesn't work, which makes total

Dallas Burnett:

sense, but there is to work the model.

Dallas Burnett:

Many times we construct models that aren't they are quick and easy.

Dallas Burnett:

They're like heuristics and they're not gonna always work with the systems.

Dallas Burnett:

And that's why you have these black sws because it would be too cumbersome to

Dallas Burnett:

work with a model that was, sufficient to cover all the complexities that

Dallas Burnett:

we deal with in business or in life.

Dallas Burnett:

But on the flip side of what you're saying, it totally makes sense why,

Dallas Burnett:

the more experience a leader has, the more, industry knowledge, the

Dallas Burnett:

more capabilities that they have for the position that the more security

Dallas Burnett:

that gives the people below 'em, cuz they're like, they've seen all this.

Dallas Burnett:

they know the complexities and they're made to handle it and they're adaptable.

Dallas Burnett:

So I feel really good cuz whatever comes come, what made this

Dallas Burnett:

person, I trust them to lead.

Dallas Burnett:

So it works both ways.

Dallas Burnett:

I, that is fascinating,

Stephen Feinberg:

and what great leaders are doing is they're connecting the dots.

Stephen Feinberg:

They're making new patterns, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

They crossed the chaos.

Stephen Feinberg:

It was one of my mentors said it.

Stephen Feinberg:

They crossed the chaos chasm for you.

Stephen Feinberg:

They're helping us all move forward in the face of uncertainty.

Stephen Feinberg:

let me give you an example of a pattern where people, I had two senior

Stephen Feinberg:

executives and Robert and Graham, and they're tremendously talented guys.

Stephen Feinberg:

Extremely competent, really smart, got lots of stuff done, and

Stephen Feinberg:

then they encounter each other.

Stephen Feinberg:

in a meeting, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

They need to work.

Stephen Feinberg:

They have op, they have a task that requires them to work with each other.

Dallas Burnett:

Okay.

Stephen Feinberg:

People get, do stuff with other people all the time.

Stephen Feinberg:

But these two guys had patterns.

Stephen Feinberg:

One guy's pattern, let's call 'em the task commander.

Stephen Feinberg:

And he, Graham had to get stuff done and he was like a bullet

Stephen Feinberg:

on its way to the target, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

And Robert, brilliant guy it is always figuring out the complexities in advance

Stephen Feinberg:

so that he can preempt the last 10%, right, of what the problems are gonna be.

Dallas Burnett:

Wow.

Stephen Feinberg:

you get these two guys in a meeting and they are

Stephen Feinberg:

the big egos, smartest guy in the room and they're trying to navigate

Stephen Feinberg:

their pattern of interaction, what they think is a way of doing.

Stephen Feinberg:

So they sit down with me and I go, wow, these two guys are

Stephen Feinberg:

really smart, they're competent.

Stephen Feinberg:

And they go so.

Stephen Feinberg:

What can you do with the high price consultant?

Stephen Feinberg:

they say there'll be something like that,

Dallas Burnett:

Like it's your problem.

Dallas Burnett:

Now they have the problem now is you, and now it's you.

Dallas Burnett:

what you gonna do about it, Mr.

Dallas Burnett:

High Pricing Consultant.

Stephen Feinberg:

right?

Stephen Feinberg:

So I said to them that I listened to how they atte their attempted solutions.

Stephen Feinberg:

A lot of times, Dallas, the pattern, the problem is in your attempted solution.

Stephen Feinberg:

And they were operating inside an attempted solution

Stephen Feinberg:

that maintained the problem.

Stephen Feinberg:

So every time, Graham saw, let's move forward, Robert said,

Stephen Feinberg:

would say, let's hold back.

Stephen Feinberg:

Every time Robert said would say, we need more information.

Stephen Feinberg:

Graham said, we got enough.

Stephen Feinberg:

Let's go.

Stephen Feinberg:

So their attempted solutions kept maintaining it.

Stephen Feinberg:

So how do you solve something like that?

Stephen Feinberg:

I told them that it was a, they had a grammar problem.

Stephen Feinberg:

they go, they look at me and they go, what are you talking about?

Stephen Feinberg:

And I said, the grammar, it's a, it's.

Stephen Feinberg:

Who goes first, like it's a verb or the noun or which way, how

Stephen Feinberg:

do you move forward on this?

Stephen Feinberg:

It's a sequence issue here.

Dallas Burnett:

That's

Stephen Feinberg:

and so I suggested, I said, if I'm understanding your, you

Stephen Feinberg:

correctly, Robert, if you could get enough of your questions addressed in advance,

Stephen Feinberg:

you're okay with Graham just running with this sucker and going as fast as possible.

Stephen Feinberg:

He said That would be perfect.

Stephen Feinberg:

And I said, Graham, if you could answer his questions as quick as you can upfront,

Stephen Feinberg:

would you be okay then just taking the sucker and finishing the last 10%?

Stephen Feinberg:

He said, absolutely.

Stephen Feinberg:

I said, so what you guys need to do is work together not in, in

Stephen Feinberg:

a way that honors your talent.

Dallas Burnett:

Yes.

Stephen Feinberg:

of counterproductive, your attempted solutions have been to

Stephen Feinberg:

go independently rather than together.

Stephen Feinberg:

And these guys, two guys who are battling for long time,

Stephen Feinberg:

they're still close friends.

Stephen Feinberg:

And they do stuff.

Stephen Feinberg:

They do things out of, out of work, they talk to each other because it was not

Stephen Feinberg:

about, a lot of people think it's this personality thing and who's trying to

Stephen Feinberg:

control, but it was really this pattern, this hidden pattern that needed busting.

Stephen Feinberg:

And so once they, so what would happen from that moment forward is

Stephen Feinberg:

Robert would bring up some issues and Graham said, so what else?

Stephen Feinberg:

What other questions do you have?

Stephen Feinberg:

What are the questions?

Stephen Feinberg:

And Robert said, and Robert

Stephen Feinberg:

would say, and Robert would say, there's also this, and this.

Stephen Feinberg:

And he'd bring them up.

Stephen Feinberg:

He said, good.

Stephen Feinberg:

He said, is that it?

Stephen Feinberg:

Do we have that?

Stephen Feinberg:

And so if we answered that, and here's how we do that, Robert

Stephen Feinberg:

say, good, we're good to go.

Stephen Feinberg:

And Graham and Robert would say, Take it and run.

Stephen Feinberg:

You got it.

Stephen Feinberg:

And boom, off to the races.

Stephen Feinberg:

They were.

Stephen Feinberg:

And they were a tremendous skillset,

Dallas Burnett:

Isn't that amazing though?

Dallas Burnett:

Cuz you can spot that when you were describing their strength there.

Dallas Burnett:

These are two people that could not be more polar opposite in strengths.

Dallas Burnett:

One's this planner, sequencer strategist.

Dallas Burnett:

one's the a absolute epitome, achiever.

Dallas Burnett:

Doer.

Dallas Burnett:

go get it done and we'll figure it out while we run.

Dallas Burnett:

and then you go, how do those two work together?

Dallas Burnett:

And it's yeah, neither one works great in a vacuum.

Dallas Burnett:

we all need that counterbalance.

Dallas Burnett:

And these are like the two perfect counterbalances to each other.

Dallas Burnett:

This guy's kind of seeing around corners to begin with.

Dallas Burnett:

This guy's knocking down walls while they're running.

Dallas Burnett:

It's this is a great team.

Dallas Burnett:

And you just show up and just, were like, guys, what are you arguing about?

Dallas Burnett:

And then I'm sure they heard that what are we, what, why have we been arguing?

Dallas Burnett:

And then you said, send me the check boys.

Stephen Feinberg:

right.

Dallas Burnett:

That's so good.

Dallas Burnett:

That's so good.

Dallas Burnett:

I love that.

Dallas Burnett:

it's a great story.

Dallas Burnett:

I love how you said that about the pattern.

Dallas Burnett:

And this is another brilliant thing that you've said, the actual problem

Dallas Burnett:

is in the attempted solution.

Dallas Burnett:

I think people don't understand when you're walking into an environment

Dallas Burnett:

that's really toxic or very aggressive or just they're hitting

Dallas Burnett:

brick walls, they can't get over.

Dallas Burnett:

And you just have this da da just this easy, nice, solution because you can

Dallas Burnett:

see it, you understand the model of patterns you saw that, but they are

Dallas Burnett:

constantly trying to solve this problem in ways that are in their own pattern,

Dallas Burnett:

which is just exacerbating the problem.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

here's a, a way of thinking about it.

Stephen Feinberg:

Do you know a Chinese finger cuff?

Stephen Feinberg:

You know those things that lock you up?

Stephen Feinberg:

Like I actually have one here.

Stephen Feinberg:

I don't know if we're on video here, but, here's this Chinese,

Stephen Feinberg:

you can see this, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

So what's your attempted solution?

Stephen Feinberg:

Dallas.

Stephen Feinberg:

Your attempted solution is to pull harder, to get free of it, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

And the design of the problem is to, of the finger cuts is the

Stephen Feinberg:

harder you pull, the tighter it gets, the less likely you get free.

Stephen Feinberg:

So the attempted solution needs to be a 180.

Stephen Feinberg:

You have to actually push rather than pull, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

So your attempted solution is often, so you want unlock the pattern, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

And obviously people's problems or work are more complex than

Stephen Feinberg:

a Chinese finger cuff example.

Stephen Feinberg:

But it tells your brain.

Stephen Feinberg:

It tells your brain understands the elegance of understanding that.

Stephen Feinberg:

What's my attempted solution isn't maintaining the problem,

Stephen Feinberg:

And then what would be a 180?

Stephen Feinberg:

What would be something different here that would be, that would change the game?

Stephen Feinberg:

I had a, another exec who was, he had this warrior mentality, and he was

Stephen Feinberg:

fighting, he was not only fighting with everyone around him, he was fighting

Stephen Feinberg:

with himself also, just battling.

Stephen Feinberg:

and we were talking, and it, at one point it became obvious that there was another

Stephen Feinberg:

strategy, a different rule in his head.

Stephen Feinberg:

The warrior mentality was a rule in his head, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

That's what I said about games.

Stephen Feinberg:

So it was a rule in his head.

Stephen Feinberg:

And what he changed it from warrior, battling warrior to a

Stephen Feinberg:

conductor like a musical conduct, a conductor of a musician, bringing

Stephen Feinberg:

out the best in his people.

Stephen Feinberg:

And he'd switched it from warrior to conductor.

Stephen Feinberg:

Game change,

Dallas Burnett:

That, that's such a, a strong illustration.

Dallas Burnett:

when you say patterns, I think there's so many patterns that we.

Dallas Burnett:

We formulate as stories, that we have, we're telling this story

Dallas Burnett:

like we, it's us against the world.

Dallas Burnett:

We have this warrior mentality.

Dallas Burnett:

I'm go, it's my will or theirs, and I've got to prevail.

Dallas Burnett:

and he's going into every situation with this story and that

Dallas Burnett:

pattern underlying that story.

Dallas Burnett:

And then when you can just shift that perspective and you can shift that story

Dallas Burnett:

to something like, Hey, you realize that you're in the center of all this

Dallas Burnett:

and we can make some beautiful music.

Dallas Burnett:

If you would just tell yourself this new way of thinking, this show this new way.

Dallas Burnett:

I love

Stephen Feinberg:

He changed the rule in his head.

Stephen Feinberg:

The, it was a rule in his.

Stephen Feinberg:

Remember, games are run by rewards, objectives and rules.

Stephen Feinberg:

And when you talk about being a game changer, you change the rule.

Stephen Feinberg:

Game changers, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

So here's he changing the internal rule in his head.

Stephen Feinberg:

Sometimes it more difficult to change the rules out on the game board, but

Stephen Feinberg:

in his head, he could change that rule.

Dallas Burnett:

if we are, if we have and with, think we thrive, we offer,

Dallas Burnett:

teams, this coaching app for their leader coaches and some of these leader coaches.

Dallas Burnett:

In fact, I was having a conversation not too long ago with someone.

Dallas Burnett:

He said most people in businesses are managed by that

Dallas Burnett:

first level of leaders, is.

Dallas Burnett:

Which is new leaders, young leaders, or maybe they've been very technically

Dallas Burnett:

proficient, but they've just been promoted into this over people and to

Dallas Burnett:

this point, they've been either, really great coders or really great technicians

Dallas Burnett:

or really great, doctors or lawyers.

Dallas Burnett:

Now they're in this position and they're at being asked by their company

Dallas Burnett:

by to, to now be a team leader or a coach or manager of these people.

Dallas Burnett:

If they're engaging these people and developing.

Dallas Burnett:

What is something that you've seen just that would be helpful to someone

Dallas Burnett:

that's just getting into, they're not a trained psychologist, but they're

Dallas Burnett:

just getting into building trust, building that relationship and coaching

Dallas Burnett:

and developing their team members.

Dallas Burnett:

what would you say would be some really good advice for them to take home?

Stephen Feinberg:

there's a number of things, but in, I've worked

Stephen Feinberg:

lots of engineers and you would not think of engineers as typically

Stephen Feinberg:

your people oriented folks.

Stephen Feinberg:

They're all humans, right?

Stephen Feinberg:

They're all carbon units work, but typically they're not, I one-on-one,

Stephen Feinberg:

they're all great, if once you talk to 'em, they respect you, then they open

Stephen Feinberg:

kimono, they'll talk about anything.

Stephen Feinberg:

But typically, because they go logical.

Stephen Feinberg:

I, one of the things I always try to convey to people is that,

Stephen Feinberg:

that humans are not logical.

Stephen Feinberg:

They're psycho logical.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

And that, so it's like even if you've been at your, you've been in

Stephen Feinberg:

situations where despite your best efforts, you can't move forward.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

Even the smartest people this happens to.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

And so what we want is to be able to understand what's causing

Stephen Feinberg:

that or what's contributing that it happens to the best of us.

Stephen Feinberg:

One of the things when you're collaborating with people, and

Stephen Feinberg:

that's part of what, as a team you're starting to collaborate, is to

Stephen Feinberg:

advocate your points of view strongly.

Stephen Feinberg:

To have a strong, here's my point of view, but then to ask the people that you're

Stephen Feinberg:

working with, do you see it differently?

Stephen Feinberg:

Am I missing anything?

Stephen Feinberg:

So when you do that now you're saying, Hey, I'm willing to have

Stephen Feinberg:

my rules in my head that I think is right, investigated, that opens

Stephen Feinberg:

up the level of trust tremendously.

Stephen Feinberg:

And let me tell you, if you do this at home with your spouses, be careful.

Stephen Feinberg:

Cause they may tell you,

Dallas Burnett:

don't ask if you don't want to know.

Dallas Burnett:

Right.

Dallas Burnett:

That's

Stephen Feinberg:

do you see it?

Stephen Feinberg:

Am I missing something?

Stephen Feinberg:

it helps tremendously.

Stephen Feinberg:

am I missing some, do you see it differently?

Stephen Feinberg:

So that it just open, it just connects to people because you want to hear,

Stephen Feinberg:

like you said, you actually want to hear, what's going on and what's the

Stephen Feinberg:

possibilities that they, because they're an extra set of eyes on the front line.

Stephen Feinberg:

Hey, I don't see it this way.

Stephen Feinberg:

What?

Stephen Feinberg:

So tell me, and now you ha, now you're engaged.

Stephen Feinberg:

I may not agree with you, right.

Stephen Feinberg:

But I'd like to know, I'd like to see what's going forward and

Stephen Feinberg:

that, that really seems to help.

Stephen Feinberg:

But there's three things.

Stephen Feinberg:

as a general rule, there's three things that I always look for,

Stephen Feinberg:

but th we can talk about that.

Stephen Feinberg:

Did I answer your,

Dallas Burnett:

No, that was great.

Dallas Burnett:

No, that's great.

Dallas Burnett:

I love that.

Dallas Burnett:

I just think that this has been just so helpful.

Dallas Burnett:

I mean, you've talked, there's been just a load of knowledge and I.

Dallas Burnett:

You've just got a lot to share.

Dallas Burnett:

I would love for our readers, our listeners, to be able to connect with

Dallas Burnett:

you, to be able to read your book.

Dallas Burnett:

where can people find you?

Dallas Burnett:

Where can they connect with you?

Dallas Burnett:

how do they get your book?

Dallas Burnett:

where's it at?

Stephen Feinberg:

they can come to my website, by the way.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's what's, www.stevenfeinberg.com.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's s t e v e n.

Stephen Feinberg:

Feinberg is F as in family, e i, N as in Nancy, B as in boy, e r g.com.

Stephen Feinberg:

And there's a free chapter to the, To my book, the first chapter,

Stephen Feinberg:

I think it might be the Forward by the astronaut Greg Johnson.

Stephen Feinberg:

there's also an assessment tool that should be up in the next month or

Dallas Burnett:

Oh really?

Dallas Burnett:

Oh wow.

Dallas Burnett:

And what's the assessment about?

Stephen Feinberg:

assessment is called the First Adapter Score Scorecard.

Stephen Feinberg:

And it evaluates you on these three factors that I've been

Stephen Feinberg:

talking about being a game spotting pattern, busting frame setting about

Stephen Feinberg:

influence, and it evaluates you along.

Stephen Feinberg:

It has it's nine questions and takes about five minutes and it comes, spits out a

Stephen Feinberg:

report about where your strengths are and where your weaknesses are and what some

Dallas Burnett:

Oh, that's wonderful.

Dallas Burnett:

Oh,

Stephen Feinberg:

so, so, you could also go get my book on Amazon.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's on, it's on amazon.com.

Stephen Feinberg:

So, but the way I think about it is if on this first adapter scorecard or if

Stephen Feinberg:

this is a gameboard, if, my metaphor it's a gameboard, is to look at.

Stephen Feinberg:

And there's on this game board, there's game spotting, pattern

Stephen Feinberg:

busting and frame setting.

Stephen Feinberg:

So what small behavior can you take to have a big impact today?

Stephen Feinberg:

So, instead of uncertainty, you could ask yourself, what's

Stephen Feinberg:

the real game board I'm on?

Dallas Burnett:

Right.

Stephen Feinberg:

can ask yourself, how's my approach working?

Stephen Feinberg:

If it's not, do a 180, what would be a 180 here?

Stephen Feinberg:

Ask yourself, in what way is changing the frame?

Stephen Feinberg:

Can I change the game?

Stephen Feinberg:

Like that,

Dallas Burnett:

Yes.

Stephen Feinberg:

the fellow whose rules were about the internal game of being

Stephen Feinberg:

a warrior rather than a, a conductor.

Stephen Feinberg:

What's the frame that you're setting?

Stephen Feinberg:

And so, so I think that's part of what you can also do.

Dallas Burnett:

I think that you have laid out your main three, the, the

Dallas Burnett:

game spotting, the pattern busting and the frame setting, and honestly, the.

Dallas Burnett:

we really only scratched the surface today with, we spent a lot of time

Dallas Burnett:

on, on game spotting and a little bit on pattern busting, but we have so

Dallas Burnett:

much, we, we just, we've got a lot.

Dallas Burnett:

We got, there's a lot more there that we didn't even get a chance to talk about.

Dallas Burnett:

The problem.

Dallas Burnett:

I love how you talked about how the problem, is, was often found

Dallas Burnett:

in that attempted solution.

Dallas Burnett:

I thought that was fantastic.

Dallas Burnett:

And I loved also how you had talked about the highest level of pattern,

Dallas Burnett:

people in operating at that highest level were stretching and not shrinking.

Dallas Burnett:

I thought that was great.

Dallas Burnett:

We talked about, how the, every pattern has these objectives

Dallas Burnett:

and rules and rewards.

Dallas Burnett:

You just covered all of that so masterfully.

Dallas Burnett:

I would love to have you back on the show sometime to unpack even some more.

Dallas Burnett:

Then we get into the frame setting and all these things that we didn't really

Dallas Burnett:

get a chance to cover a lot today.

Dallas Burnett:

I just think you have just so much to share, especially

Dallas Burnett:

to, to leaders and coaches.

Dallas Burnett:

Obviously, I think this time was so well spent.

Dallas Burnett:

We will put all those links in the show notes.

Dallas Burnett:

So if you were listening to the show today and you would like to, I would encourage

Dallas Burnett:

you to go to his website, go to Dr.

Dallas Burnett:

Feinberg's website, check it out, look through it, take

Dallas Burnett:

his assessment when it's out.

Dallas Burnett:

we would love to support you in that.

Dallas Burnett:

And also buy his book on Amazon.

Dallas Burnett:

We're gonna include all those in the show notes link.

Dallas Burnett:

Dr.

Dallas Burnett:

Feinberg, we always close the show by asking.

Dallas Burnett:

If there was somebody that comes to mind in our guest that, in our guest

Dallas Burnett:

mind's eye that they would like to hear, or on the last 10% as a future guest,

Dallas Burnett:

does anybody come to mind for you that you would like to recommend that we go

Dallas Burnett:

after and try to, try to get on the show and, have a great conversation with?

Stephen Feinberg:

I have, a number of people that, that I think would be great

Stephen Feinberg:

for your show and would be edifying and, elucidate the future for all of us.

Stephen Feinberg:

Jay Samit, who I mentioned earlier, who else?

Stephen Feinberg:

Oren

Dallas Burnett:

And who is Jay?

Dallas Burnett:

Oh, Lauren class?

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah.

Dallas Burnett:

Orrin Cl.

Dallas Burnett:

Yeah.

Stephen Feinberg:

right.

Stephen Feinberg:

those

Dallas Burnett:

And who are they?

Stephen Feinberg:

So, Jay Samit is a, a former Sony exec and has

Stephen Feinberg:

written books about disruption.

Stephen Feinberg:

Orla has written books about, influence and framing, and pitching.

Stephen Feinberg:

and those are two, people who have, a high level.

Stephen Feinberg:

they're, I would call them people who are in this ma met playing this meta game.

Stephen Feinberg:

They're playing at

Dallas Burnett:

They're in the meta game.

Dallas Burnett:

Ugh.

Dallas Burnett:

We

Stephen Feinberg:

There's,

Stephen Feinberg:

there's some execs that, that I work with named Robert Sharp.

Stephen Feinberg:

He was a Apple exec.

Stephen Feinberg:

He would be a great person.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's intriguing, examples.

Stephen Feinberg:

And, so tho there you go.

Dallas Burnett:

That's one, that's an incredible list.

Dallas Burnett:

We will absolutely, reach out to , These wonderful metagame players and see if

Dallas Burnett:

we can get them on the show that sounds like it'd be some fun conversations.

Dallas Burnett:

I just can't thank you enough, Dr.

Dallas Burnett:

Feinberg, for being on our show today.

Dallas Burnett:

This has been an absolute pleasure.

Dallas Burnett:

You, I feel like I've just sat through a masterclass you have

Dallas Burnett:

dropped some knowledge on us today.

Dallas Burnett:

It has been fascinating and I hope our listeners, I know our listeners

Dallas Burnett:

have gotten a lot out of it and so, we just wanna thank you for being on

Dallas Burnett:

the show today and we look forward to having you back on the show again

Dallas Burnett:

so we can cover some more of this great stuff that's in your book.

Stephen Feinberg:

It's, it'd be my pleasure.

Stephen Feinberg:

And, some of the st the thing that I remember with my dad was behind

Stephen Feinberg:

those closed doors, one of the things that he accomplished was

Stephen Feinberg:

that I want, I understood winning.

Stephen Feinberg:

Right, but I wanted to know how to create the exceptional, which is what

Stephen Feinberg:

he did behind those closed doors.

Stephen Feinberg:

So the gambling was winning, but then creating where that's applicable to

Stephen Feinberg:

everyone else, and that experience was triumph, and I wanted that experience of

Stephen Feinberg:

triumph as I moved forward in my life.

Dallas Burnett:

Oh,

Stephen Feinberg:

I wish that on everybody as well.

Dallas Burnett:

we want you guys, I hope you just felt

Dallas Burnett:

that was a lot of great energy.

Dallas Burnett:

We want you, as listeners of the last 10% to check out Dr.

Dallas Burnett:

Feinberg's book so that you can go and triumph.

Dallas Burnett:

Thanks again and we'll see you soon

Dallas Burnett:

. Stephen Feinberg: My pleasure.

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About the Podcast

The Last 10%
Inspiring People, Coaching Teams, and Improving Cultures
Join The Last 10% for incredible conversations that help uncover the secrets of what it takes to finish well and finish strong. Our guests share their journeys, hardships, and valuable advice. We release new episodes every other Tuesday. If you are a leader, a coach, a business owner, or someone looking to level up, you are in the right place!

You can give 90% effort and make it a long way. But it’s the finding out how to unlock the last 10% that makes all the difference in your life, your relationships, and your work.

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Dallas Burnett