Rise From The Ashes
Welcome to "Rise From The Ashes," the empowering podcast designed for thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and visionary CEOs ready to turn their challenges into triumphs. Each episode delves deep into the heart of resilience, offering you a front-row seat to the comeback stories of business leaders who have dared to face adversity and emerge victorious.
Join us as we explore profound narratives of failure and success, narrated by those who have walked through fire and rebuilt their empires from the ashes. Hosted by seasoned experts, this podcast provides an in-depth look at the strategic maneuvers and bold decisions that define a resilient entrepreneur.
From life-altering challenges to innovative strategies, "Rise From The Ashes" equips you with the insights and tools to forge a path to success. Whether you're a battle-hardened CEO or a budding entrepreneur stepping into the arena, this show guides you through the tumultuous yet rewarding business world.
Tune in to transform adversity into opportunity, ignite your entrepreneurial spirit, and start crafting your remarkable success story. At "Rise From The Ashes," we don’t just tell stories—we inspire you to create your legacy of resilience and triumph. Listen now and begin your journey to becoming a phoenix in the business world.
Key Themes:
- Resilience and overcoming adversity
- Strategic business insights
- Entrepreneurial success stories
- Leadership and innovation
"Rise From The Ashes" is more than a podcast; it's a community of forward-thinkers turning their business trials into triumphs. Subscribe today and never miss an episode of inspiration, strategy, and practical advice to help you survive and thrive in the dynamic business world. Join us and rise victoriously!
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Rise From The Ashes
Gameboarding™ : How to excel under pressure
Have you ever wondered how the chaotic threads of our past weave the resilient tapestry of our future? Steven Feinberg, an expert in neuro-strategy and a man with a past as colorful as the neon lights of New York City, joins us to unravel this mystery. He spins tales from his life on a fire escape to the adrenaline-fueled world of his father's bookie business. But this isn't just a walk down memory lane—Steven's insights into the unpredictable game of life reveal how our darkest moments can lead to the most brilliant strategies for personal and professional triumph.
Steven lays out the game board of leadership as we navigate the labyrinthine pathways of influence and power. It's about the courage to lead and the finesse to adapt and play the right moves. His narratives, rich with the duel of executives Robert and Graham, illustrate the pivotal moments separating good leaders from great ones. It's a conversation that's as much about the psychology behind our decisions as it is about the practicalities of navigating corporate hierarchies and seizing opportunities.
Wrapping up our strategic symposium, we tackle the gritty realities of pushing through fears and rejections. Stephen shares stories that prove our mental frameworks are not fixed but malleable—and with the right tools, we can reshape them to our advantage. Whether it's overcoming a phobia or meeting an outrageous sales quota, the techniques discussed here are about more than just coping; they're about thriving. So if you're ready to harness the power of your past and rewrite your rules of engagement, this is the episode for you.
Friends, our time together is coming to a close. Before we part ways, I sincerely thank you for joining me on this thought-provoking journey. I aim to provide perspectives and insights that spark self-reflection and positive change.
If any concepts we explored resonated with you, I kindly request that you share this episode with someone who may benefit from its message. And please, reach out anytime - I’m always eager to hear your biggest aspirations, pressing struggles, and lessons learned.
My door is open at my Denver office and digitally via my website. If you want to go deeper and transform confusion into clarity on your quest for purpose, visit ceoimpactzone.com and schedule a coaching session.
This is Baz Porter signing off with immense gratitude. Stay bold, stay faithful, and know that you always have an empathetic ear and wise mind in your corner. Until next time!
Good day everybody, and welcome to another episode of Royce and the Ashes podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm your host, blaz.
Speaker 1:Polter, and today I'm privileged to have the guest I have today. He's worked with some phenomenal companies and people in the world. He is a legend in this industry of coaching, leadership, neuro-strategy, and I want to introduce him and, whatever, I'm going to have a drum roll with this. So we have a little drum roll. His name is Stephen Feinberg and he lives on the west coast of America New Zealand, australia, for some strange reason. America, stephen, please introduce yourself to the world and tell people who you are.
Speaker 2:Hi, this is Stephen Feinberg. To all the supporters out there and listeners, the only legend that I know of is that it may be a legend in my own mind Every now and then. My wife makes sure that I know that the truth of the matter. We're about to be married for 43 years. I'm a lucky guy, I got lucky and so I've been. I grew up sleeping on a fire escape in New York City and I'm a neuro strategist. So my story is how did I get from the fire escape to becoming a neuro strategist? And perhaps we'll talk about that.
Speaker 2:Stephen my wife says, speaking of I mentioned my wife earlier, but my wife said that when you tell people you grew up sleeping on a fire escape, you must tell them that your parents and your grandparents brought you back inside when it was snowing, cold or rainy.
Speaker 1:You must tell them, and they absolutely did, I was totally wrong. My next question did they really, or are you just saying that to get out of catch?
Speaker 2:Out there, there's not enough space.
Speaker 1:Aspect of sleeping on a fire escape in New York. I know New York's cold. How did that actually start occurring? Was it you just were punished out there? Or were you just? Did you just opt to sleep?
Speaker 2:We moved back in at one point. So how I got to become a neuro strategist has a lot to do with my dad, but we had to move back at one point. We had to move back in to my grandparents' house because this was like early 1950s. We moved back into the Lower East Side on the Lansing Street in New York we call it the Bowels of New York. The apartment that we were in was a three-bedroom apartment, so we had my grandparents and my parents and my brother and I and my aunt, who was there also, so we were all together in this three-room apartment and there wasn't enough beds. But when I think about that apartment building, what's interesting is a block up the street or so now is the Jewish Tenement Museum, and that museum is an exact replica of the apartment building that I grew up in. So if you go into it, it's, the apartments are just like I grew up with, and so basically, I grew up in a museum. So there's the legend.
Speaker 1:It's just now you've got something incredible about the great conversations beforehand. Now you've got plenty of stories of overcoming diversity and resilience in your life, In your career. What was the main life lesson in your career that was stands out above anything else?
Speaker 2:So I started saying about how my dad was pivotal in my life. I'm a hero and so his fathers are too many kids. My dad didn't want me to go into the family business. Now most people's. The businesses are retail or construction or the services or healthcare or various legal possessions, accountants, all kinds. My dad wasn't any of those.
Speaker 2:My dad was a big time bookie in New York City, started in 1940s or so, and not the type that reads books, and he wasn't in the mob, right. He was a good man, but we could say that he was mob adjacent People who don't know what a bookie is. A bookie basically sets odds and takes bets and in one game and I was pretty fairly young in one game he lost 10 large, that's $10,000 in bookie parlor, about $95,000 in our current number. In one game he lost $95,000. And then he won it all back. This was sports gambling, so he won it all back by the end of the day and won more money Every single day.
Speaker 2:There was instability. So it was a I grew up a life of uncertainty, but it was because of how I grew up and because of the way my father looked at the world and I started seeing things. It was a masterclass in handling and mishandling uncertainty. And so today, with all this uncertainty, this is fairly familiar to me and my wife the neuro strategy is. People ask me. So what the heck is neuro strategy? Neuro strategy is focused on brains, games and foes to be able to create the exception, to create greatness.
Speaker 1:When you say about brain games and then the foes, are you able to touch on the differential entry, the unique components of them, and how do you end up learning about them? Obviously, your dad's a bookie. Every time I hear this, I'm like have you ever seen the film Lucky Number 11? Lucky Number 7? Lucky Number 11. It's got a Bruce Wallace in it and it's about a bookie and how he got ripped off and his son comes to an event years later. And when you say this like that's, what comes to my mind is this bookie in the films, which is phenomenal.
Speaker 2:Different world Let me tell you a different world. I remember going to the to see the godfather with my dad and another one of my dad's friends that he grew up with.
Speaker 2:It just so happens that this friend that he grew up with became a cop and then he became a rogue cop. So a rogue, he was the bag man for the mafia, so he didn't do anything, hurt people like those, but he was money. So we're watching this movie and I was about 17 at the time when they came out 16, 17, 18, something like that and as we're walking out, not in seeing mumbling to each other about different people that they know or knew or think about, or one that they think it's real or not.
Speaker 2:I just walk out a little old lady who's probably my age now. She said there's no such thing as a mafia. And I looked at her and I looked at this bag man and I looked at her and I know my dad's a big time bookie and does that. I went. How is it that she doesn't know what's right in front of her? How is it that I can't see what's there? And that actually is a lot of what I do is to show people how to see what they don't see, how to see possibilities that they don't think is possible. Through the whole goes on the back to the fire escape. From that fire escape I looked down on the street and I could see all this action, all these people interacting all the time.
Speaker 2:It was always look like a game, right, and I grew up with the idea of games and betting on games and games. And so what's the game? What are they up to Right, what's going on? And actually the neural strategy, really, as I said, brain. So it's about how you, how it's a. The neural part is about the GPS for the mind neck the dots aims. A game is a pattern of interactions. What I think about it's a. We look at the meta game. It's a pattern of interactions, story on a game board, with rules, threats and rewards, and we look at what, what these are and how to navigate through them, and then the foes will. Maybe we'll talk about that bit, but that's how I differentiate and started seeing all these kinds of things.
Speaker 1:So I love that. And I've got a question. Do you like chess?
Speaker 2:I like the. I'm not good at chess. I like to. I like the. I like go. I'm not good at go, but I like what's a lot about the chess. What I like about chess is the ideas that they're involved in. It is like a grandmaster is always one step ahead. What I work with, teach, show people how to do, is how to be one step ahead. So I could go and ask the. It's been. It's not about on an actual chess board, but it's a good metaphor.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna get this. Yeah, I'll just call this one Jane.
Speaker 1:Other than the fact that your back story is quite incredible to the way you were the transition of your learning from your father. What makes you you and your company, unique? Because there are a lot of coaches listening to this, going I can do that, but an actual fact they can't because you have something very unique to you that makes what you do so elevated in. That's correct. I know that's correct because I've had enough conversations with you. But what is that uniqueness that you bring to the table so let me just put it in the context of a story.
Speaker 2:I, the CIO of Wells Fargo, asked me to come into the the company and to give a speech about collaboration. A lot of people give speeches about collaboration Very important Just before I went on stage. The CIO is first name is Barry. I was friendly with him. He's from Brooklyn, so I knew we got along. And he says what do you want me to say about you? And I said whatever you want, but I'm a psychologist or shrink. Don't tell him I'm a shrink, because it makes everybody nervous and we want that to be talking. So I go on. Barry goes on. He makes this great introduction about them, how important is to collaborate, how it makes a difference. And we weren't trained to do that. We all got grades individually and we weren't working together. When we grew up he said so.
Speaker 2:I've really brought here Dr Feinberg. Please welcome me. Oh, by the way, he told me to shrink, and so I walk on stage, I start chocolate to myself thrown under the bus and I went. Thanks, barry, I appreciate that. And I looked at it at the audience. It was like several hundred people. I look at the audience and I say how many of you want to be shrunk? No one, silence. And I said how many of you would prefer to be stretched? And everyone's hands shut up. So I said that's why we're here to stretch our thinking.
Speaker 2:And how do you stretch your thinking is to play what I call the medigame, which is the basic, one of the key elements of what I do. Stretching is one of the key elements and in order to do that, people often come to me and they ask how, when, in the corridors of power, when leaders reside often and entrepreneurs have their own power, they power world. There's the desire, the intensity, to be great, to boost impact and get great results. Fast fast track results is one of the questions that I address oftentimes. They want to be great and they want to grow.
Speaker 2:I think it takes three elements to do this, and the three things, the three qualities one is pattern recognition. The ability to see patterns enables you to predict. So that's what I'm, and when you can predict something, then you can know what can be successful and whatnot. So one is the skill set of pattern recognition, which is that also is the ability to spot the game. So that ability to spot the game is one of the core things that I do, that a lot of people don't see the game board that they're on. They say they are, but I'll tell you some stories where I tell you clearly they don't know, because there's the conscious game, not the obvious game, but we want to know where the adaptive power, which is the second element, which is adaptability. So once you know what the patterns are, you have to be able to adapt them to be in your favor.
Speaker 2:And if you're going to be a game changer which is what we focus on a lot to make a big impact, then you have to defy expectations. I think of Serena Williams. She defied expectations. So the first is pattern recognition and developing that skill to spot the game, like Sherlock Holmes. The second is the ability to adapt and have to have the adaptive power and adaptive speed, be able to do that, know how to do that, like Serena Williams, to defy expectations.
Speaker 2:And the third element that, once you can see what's going on and recognize the patterns and can bust the patterns, change it. If you're going to do anything with other people and get other people to do stuff, if you have an entrepreneur or a leader or you work together or whatever role you are, if you work in public people, you have to be able to influence them, and so you have to be able to set the frame. If you think about Mahatma Gandhi, influence the whole nation of people, right? So the key elements of what I do is be able to spot the game, bust the pattern and set the frame in the context of these skills of pattern recognition, adaptability and influence, and there's very specific skills that are going to show people how to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's what I like about how you use the adaptability and behavior and pattern recognition. Many people just think they do it because this is how, who they are. But, like you said, if you can identify the patterns, you can then start to change them and change the belief system and the values and all the rest of it that goes with it In the framework of what you do and then there's the.
Speaker 2:So what that is is what I talk about. What I do is game boarding. So a lot of my clients they talk about so what's the game board? I always talk about the game board because it's the hidden game board, the game board of power that we're on and what I'm trying, what I focus on, is giving them. Game boarding is the strategic master key to pinpointing the essential elements of the levers of power, the critical levels of power. So game boarding is the being able to spot or be able to identify what the critical levels of levers of power are, to unlock the game of patterns and so I've been talking about the game of patterns and unlocking these game of patterns. And in order to do those three things, what enable you? When you do it well, you become a first adapter, not an early adapter, but a first adapter. We can talk more about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that was good, that was good.
Speaker 1:It's gonna lead me to my next question, for this was clarified game board and what that means to you in bringing encompassing how you show up for your clients and even in your office. Everything is at some level of game. The life is a game, if you should view it like that. I do, and I love the idea of-.
Speaker 2:I think that's a high level game, right. Yeah, it's a story. Right, so we hear about people telling, not stories. A game is a pattern of interactions right, it's a story with players on a game board with rules, threats and rewards, and the game board that leaders play on is the game board of power. And so when you know the mechanics of power, you can be more power, more effective and create things. The purpose is not to dominate others, the purpose is to have impact. It's a really important distinction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's what I love about how you the distinction between power and the other side of it, where the game board comes in. You can't play at them levels if you're not on the game board. It's that simple. When we look at your own experience and the and the constant of resilience within this, when you explore resilience, can you share what that actually is for you, Because people have variations of this explanation? It's quite interesting.
Speaker 2:Strategic agility is the adaptive power, to be able to reimagine the patterns and the rules, the parameters, the patterns to work in your favor. And the person with the most adaptive power is the person who's in charge of the outcome. If you can make prediction, the most powerful person in the room is actually a person who knows what's going to happen next, Because they're predicting, so they're masters of patterns. They could be made, and it's not about psychological traits or it's not about being outgoing or charismatic. You can have quiet people who are reading the game board, who see the field of play. We have people that talk about it say I needed to read the room. That's a game board. I needed to understand my environment, what's going on, the culture.
Speaker 2:That's the game board. You work on the being able to what's the context when your context drives understanding. So if you have a guy who's bald, standing facing other way and, depending upon the context, that bald guy it could be a tough guy, a gangster, it could be a guy who's had been cancer treatments you won't know unless you know the context. And so that's the game board. I, when people get in trouble or have difficulties or have stress or do things that work out. I like to say to them it's not your fault, it's the game board. So to be able to see, to step back and see what the game board is Now, that doesn't mean there isn't an inner game and an inner game board that they need to grow and change.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I like about observing scenarios the things I teach some of my clients when they go on stage. Most people think the speech starts or the keynote starts when you go on stage.
Speaker 2:It isn't.
Speaker 1:It starts well before that, even before the introduction of you, when the host is reading out the bio and all the rest of it, because a good speaker will sit back and do an analysis on the room while they're speaking and they're being introduced.
Speaker 1:The reason for that is because they're trying to assess who their client is or who they're speaking to. Most people, if they're not seasoned enough, go in there and say, oh, my keynote starts while I'm on stage. It starts well before that, even to the sort of interactions before you go into the room having these small conversations if you have time to do that. But it really comes down to that analogy of taking a step back and looking at the game and each component of that to go. That's my client there, that's the person I want to speak to, that's the person that needs to hear this message and what you've constructed in your analogy. There is a layer by layer construction of seeing things from a much elevated point of view in behavioral analysis, in why people do what they do, for the reasons they do and they're not even actually aware of going up what it is and the resilience from it.
Speaker 1:But there's also an element of courage when it comes to anything. In your own words, can you describe what the difference is between courage and the resilience in a component in a business environment with leaders?
Speaker 2:The way I think about it. That's a great question because I haven't thought of it in advance, but the way I think of most leaders that I work with is that they're under enormous pressure and are in high stakes, challenges with great deals of uncertainty, and the pressure is intense and they get frustrated when the outcomes fall short of expectation. Most of these people that I work with are extremely competent people, extremely capable. They are heroic already in what they do. In fact, sometimes that's the default response to use their courage, to push forward, to use their willpower. They actually think of heroic willpower as their go-to strategy when they're in difficulties and obstacles, and willpower is great and necessary and courage is great. The root word of courage is heart, so when they can bring their heart to it, it's great. You want to show up. But sometimes, even for the most seasoned, strategic and resilient of players, sometimes they get stuck and that their attempted solution of heroic willpower because they don't see the game board only makes things worse. It's like quicksand they're working harder inside of it and they don't see the real challenges understanding the game board of power and having that strategic agility to be able to change what they're doing, adapt what they're doing to the game board or to change the game altogether? Am I even playing the right game? Because if they're just playing willpower, they'll just go forward.
Speaker 2:Let me give you an example. So I have two executives at a high-tech company, both of them extremely competent. Both of them have big jobs what I call big jobs. They have a lot to do, they have a lot to deliver, and then they're given this task that they need to work together to resolve certain things. And when you get people at that level and they've got to work together they know enough to play the political chess game. You mentioned chess and they're playing this chess game. Here's what's interesting. So if you default to a chess game of willpower, what happened was they started bucking heads. Who's got more willpower? Who's more courageous? I'm not going to get stopped by this guy. Both of them are extremely smart and one of them searches into the future. His tendency is to look in the future and look at the complexity of things and try to resolve things before he takes action. The other guy his name is Graham. First guy's name is Robert.
Speaker 2:Graham is like Mr Task Commander he goes, give me the task, let's go, and he will make it happen. All is in front of me, I'll take it down. He's just let's go. He's a great guy, but he always gets it done. So these two unmovable guys have their own way of doing it and they're fighting for whose method they're going to use and who's going to go first. So both of them want to go first. They want to use their approach. We all do. That's how we succeeded, that's how we believed this is how we approach things to be great. And they had, like I said, they were extremely accomplished leaders.
Speaker 2:So I was listening to them and I said to him you guys have a grammar problem. And they said Thimber, what are you talking about? Can you just leave? What are you talking about? This is not English class, let's go. But we got really nice guy, get out.
Speaker 2:It wasn't the first time people tried to throw me out, but I came back and some now they asked me to come back again and so I said it's like grammar you have to have a certain sequence of words, have to fit together to make sense, and right now you're both sending in all these words simultaneously and you're fighting with each other because you don't have the grammar right. I said why? And one of them said, okay, so I'll go first. He went no, let's use patterns. So I said so, they both have their pattern and I could see the meta pattern, the meta game of the pattern. And I said to Robert why? Robert, you look ahead and think about all the complex issues. I want you to do that and, graham, what I want you to do is to ask Robert all the questions and answer him in advance, as best as you can, so he can feel like, okay, we're thinking forward, so it's gonna happen, have some foresight, go ahead. And then, robert, when you say, okay, you've asked me all about the complexity that I'm thinking about, you understand it and we can strategy for it. When you say, okay, we've done that, you turn to Graham and Graham say we're ready to go, you take it, you lead, and Graham says deal and Robert says deal, and they've been great friends since. So these two guys were bucking heads because this was the game board of power. It wasn't about.
Speaker 2:A lot of people would have thought they're just playing political chess. This was not a political chess, it was another game board, another meta game that was played about the patterns that they were operating under. So the being able to. If you don't know the skill set to be able to understand the meta and to see these patterns of interaction, how they lead to things, then you may just default to saying they're just power players, they're just chess players, they're political beings. Now, both of them knew how to play the chess game and that's what they were doing. But there was this other game that couldn't be seen, but once they saw it they were like deal, and it wasn't like they needed to go through. A lot of people think change takes a long time. Your brain doesn't want to take a long time. Brains prefer speed and so you can change the speed. They'll go boom, let's go fast. So that's why a lot of execs like because I work really fast, solutions for them.
Speaker 1:This is what I like about what you do you allow collaboration from different aspects, but you're still empowering them with their own belief system. You're not trying to go in and change the psychology as such, but you're just getting to realize the strength that they individually have can also work together if you can step back and play a game with the opposing powers. Instead of working against each other, you're working in tandem, and then you're utilizing each skill to its maximum ability, which is what I love.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So in that case it was the speed and the weight, that was the collaboration of their patterns. So it had another client who was a director and his boss said why don't you go see Steven? So I went and talked to me and great guy liked him a lot.
Speaker 2:His name was Art and he began talking to me about the difficulties he was encountering and every fifth sentence he'd say so the problem is X, y and Z. So the problem he's an engineer. His task was to solve problems. So he's going to bring up the problem and then knock it down. His boss wanted to promote him become a vice president. The executive suite wanted to fire him.
Speaker 2:So how does this discrepancy happen? His boss knew who he was and appreciated what he did, but whenever he went to the executive staff meetings he'd start off with so the problem is. So they saw Art coming and he'd go here comes the problem maker, and who's? He always pointed to Us. So I said to him I said do you understand the meta message that you're sending to the executive suite? He said no, I'm just trying to solve problems. He's an engineer. What his intention was? Well designed, I'm just trying really wanted to solve the problems and he had some really good ideas.
Speaker 2:He's a smart guy, he's a competent people, and so I said you need your attempted solution is a clue. That's causing and maintaining the problem, if you will, the real issue here. And so we gave him some other language. We worked together to find out some other things he could say, to frame the language so we could influence them. Remember, I said there's three things there's pattern recognition, pattern busting and frame setting. A frame is a lens to which things? Which on every game board there's a frame to see the game. So once we got to see it, he was going oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:And he was like a sponge for learning.
Speaker 2:He went oh my goodness, I had no idea it was invisible. His pattern was invisible to him and it is to most of it. There's blindside. We get blindsided or get derailed or delayed by what the board game is, and sometimes this game board is internal. So once we switched that he got his promotion, they were going OK, let's go, so that's in this case. It's an internal change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that. So let's take it back a bit more personal to you. Who is your real-life rock star? Not a superstar but the person that you modeled, the person that you looked up to, other than your father, because I know he was a major inspiration in your life. Is there any way to outside, for I should go? Wow, I really find them inspiring.
Speaker 2:And this may sound surprising to you, but maybe not.
Speaker 1:To me no.
Speaker 2:You are inspiring to me, by the way, thank you, and I haven't thought about this a lot and I have a lot of different people who I find who have contributed to my insights. One of the people that really has that began changing the way I viewed, changed my frame initially, was a guy named Richard Bandler, one of the founders of and creators of Wista, and I was around in the early, early past life time when the program was first developed. And, richard, I was in graduate school at the time, 2007 or so, and I've been out working in the field for a while and I went back to graduate school to get an advanced degree and we were sitting. I was sitting in the audience, I had the cheap seats, I was a graduate student, I was way back, there were several hundred I must be four or five hundred people in here and I'm sitting way in the back and they tapped to have a couch in the back. So I sat up and I could sit on the back of the couch facing forward, and Richard Bandler was sitting there with his partner, john Grindel, and Richard John Grindel says there's no, he's talking about how there's a structure to subjective experience and to find that very intriguing and they begin to teach it. And then at one point John says everything is hypnosis and Richard turns to the group. He says there's no such thing as hypnosis. And then they both look at the group and they say now, close your eyes. Hopefully people are driving. They don't close their eyes, keep your eyes open. They say close your eyes and go into a deep trance and discover an inner reverie. They go on and I'm sitting back there and at that moment my brain goes. Both of them were telling the truth. Everything and not most people don't understand hypnosis I think it's some Spengali thing, it's not but they were able to get outcomes that other people don't get, and fast, really fast. Like.
Speaker 2:I used one of the methods. I had a client who came to me maybe 30 years ago and she had a snake phobia and she was terrified of snakes and spent thousands of thousands, tens of thousands, 10,000 dollars to try to get rid of the snake phobia and over 10 years to no avail. She came to me, she heard about my particular way of approaching things and she said do you think? And she was actually. She lived in Colorado, she was coming to the Bay Area. I was living in the Bay Area. At the time she said can I see you for any time? I said, sure, come in.
Speaker 2:We talked and in an hour I had changed her pattern in her brain Together. I switched to what's called submodalities in the brain, how she coded the experience, and I sent her out. I like to test my work. So I sent her to the reptilian center. At the time he was in the Golden Gate Park. So she goes there and there's all these snakes and I said call me, tell me how it is. She's laughing. She's hysterically laughing.
Speaker 2:She had what you did. It wasn't what I did, it was how her brain recoded the experience to a different bull set that was now giving her enormous amounts of freedom. Now the reason I know that it was not short lived is she called me five years later and she said hey, I'm coming into the Bay Area. Do you think you could see me up for this? I said sure, but by the way, how did that go? She said since I've been, it's gone. So in one session, in one hour, when you know how the brain codes experience is, you can really set the condition to be great. Because that's what it is. It's like for leaders, for anyone is to be bring your best self and also to see the game board. So it's an inner game and outer game.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's awesome. I love the analogy there this night because there's identifying what's going on. But there's a deeper level and many levels to that of reframing a we'll go for this word phobia and the scenario of where it's come from, going back, changing each changing the perception on that to then. But I know the methodology behind it. I'm not gonna share it on here, but it's fascinating that you can do that and then have the long lasting effect years later. Tony Robbins of him maybe you've met him used to be known as the. Originally he was known as the phobia man and everyone used to go to him to cure the phobias. And then obviously he's progressed since then into many different things.
Speaker 2:Great marketer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's phenomenal. You're a guy, yeah, but what he's done is made people like people. For a lot of people, that made him the reality, it was possible, and he's marketed it in a phenomenal way and build a brand and all the rest of it.
Speaker 2:This thing is. It's just not an inner game, it's also an outer game, Correct? So I had a guy who came to me. He was the top sales guy in the company and his CEO comes to him and says I'm changing your quota, we company needs you to add some quota. This was in the middle of the quarter, after the first month of the quarter. So he was like absolutely furious. The reason why his boss told me to come to him? He says he goes off the deep end, he just gets carried away. His CEO came in and changed his quota and he's telling me the story. He says I'm gonna lose my, I can't afford to take care of my, all the kids that I have and the extended family that I'm looking at, I won't get, I won't get me in the president's club this year. So it's all real stuff, right, it's all everyday kind of stuff. I'm in trouble. And he said and he must think I'm a zero here. So for him to do, I'm just gonna fail miserably. And so we had a conversation in effect on two levels One, his inner game, but also the outer game about how to get the quota. So the inner game.
Speaker 2:I asked him something to the effect of what do you think? He came to you. I said he's always doing it. He's trying to screw me. I said fight the opposite. He thinks you're the hero, the company this is a $4 billion company, they don't play around like that. He needs you to deliver to affect the EPS earnings per share. He needs you to get them, bring out and add to the bottom line so that they can really that he's covered, cause otherwise he's got the board and the street and all that, all those problems. I said so you are actually the hero. Now you have to deliver to be the hero. He said, yeah, so how am I gonna do that? Okay, okay, so his brain calmed down. Right, we had to first get his brain back online. His brain had shut down and most reactive. We all do this when we get reactive. So now his brain's back online.
Speaker 2:And now we thought, like how I said, why don't we use the CEO to build your, to set up meetings with all of your customer base, all the other, so that you can cause he can just make a phone call, he can talk to the captain's of industry and get you in there easier than you can? And he went okay, let's do that. So he went and he told the CEO you need to make. He said I'll do this, but you have to help. And he said, oh sure, he wanted to help, but it wasn't like an adversary, but he had this adversarial framework right. And so what he did was we figured out the bundles of how he go in and then he would present and we worked through what I call the strategic mass. So we gained out the situation for each of the different potential customers to help them move their purchases quarters earlier, bundle the packages for each one. The consequence was that he sold 40,000 more units and made 30,000 more units and made $40 million revenue. So this is not small stuff, big thing, but it's $40 million.
Speaker 1:But that's the thing. It's the distinction between playing there and getting in that mind, the frame of mind, the mindset, whatever you wanna call that into. It's possible remove, leverage other people in your networks and leverage the industry, leverage the experts, to create an outcome.
Speaker 2:So often times when you can see the patterns, you can predict behavior. When the patterns predict what's going to happen, yeah, but if you can't see the patterns, you're playing at a lower game. So initially he and you and me play at a lower game. But when we can see different patterns, we can play a big. We can play big. So a lot of times we play small. In my book I talk about the different, the game of threats. There's a bunch of patterns like playing small, conflict avoidant, good soldier, a lot of people wanting promotions right, I know, I want to advance their career but they go about it on a game board that's actually what I call the good soldier and they're waiting for people to spot them and they don't get it. They don't understand it and because they're playing partly, it's not a fair game board. And so we have to talk about how do you succeed in a game board that's not fair.
Speaker 1:No, I love that. Can you give five tips for Building resilience in a business setting? For what? For this? Again, building resilience to get seen in that business setting. So let's scenario this for a second. Someone's come up to you and they said, steven, I really don't feel comfortable in having this promotion. Can you give them five tips on? Like off the cuff I know this is complete. I love doing this because it puts people in that place of I don't that there isn't. This is people. Have the listeners here to understand this isn't rehearsed.
Speaker 2:This is done.
Speaker 1:This is literally done because of the reaction of people in these environments.
Speaker 2:This is gonna be fun.
Speaker 1:I find fun.
Speaker 2:Define fun. They find fun that I get some value to and have impact.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm just teasing it, but, if you can, five tips that could really support somebody listening to this now going hold a motion, but I don't know how to Help first thing I do is a first thing I do is spot the rules.
Speaker 2:Yeah, operating by See rules. Now I'm just rift a little bit about the rules rule. And so you want to look at both the inner game rules and the outer game rules, because rules Determine winners, loses and how you're going to respond to the challenges you encounter. So what are the rules that they're encountering, you know. So what are the rules that they're encountering? If they have a fear of rejection or fear of failure, that means it's a rule. Rule Determine how we're gonna respond to challenges, and so there's rules about how you deal with that Condition called failure or the condition called rejection.
Speaker 2:And so the first thing I do is go what's the rules and then look at how you applying. Second, I'm just numbers. The second is look at the if. Do you have a fear of rejection or do you have a fear of failure? And if so, then deconstruct that. What that's what's about.
Speaker 2:Usually the fear of failure is Driven by thinking it's over, that you don't have another chance at the apple and some situations. That may be true, but you're, if you're more, in most situations that we find ourselves. It's not like a sports game. This, the game is up or down. You can keep going and in those situations I always say we didn't get there yet, right? Which which implies you're gonna learn something or find some value, or you know.
Speaker 2:The other thing that I would do is, if it's a rejection, if they're concerned about in a promotion as you go, okay. So I made a request and they said no, that's all it means. Don't add so. Don't add more to the meaning than it actually is. See it for what it is. See it for what it did by said no, but I didn't. Sales people that got people said okay, move on to the next one. Doesn't make they rejected. I must not comb my hair right or something, or I got my means. I was Abandoned as a child. No, it means they just rejected the offer and so people add in stuff.
Speaker 2:So don't add in stuff into the request and just say what it is. The other thing is I really focus on what's the game board there? Is it a fair game? So is the game board? So I give the story of I had this one guy come to me, executive senior vice president, one become an executive vice president and he couldn't get any further. He kept saying what's going on and he was big company, was a lot there and I we kept looking and I said this is an unfair game board.
Speaker 2:You're just a good dimension earlier. You're just you're acting like a good soldier. I said good soldier, congratulations, we appreciate it, it's good. So it's not like you're doing anything wrong. But you want something different, right, and they, the criteria that they have for Establishing or getting to the next level is Different than what you have. I had what a 01 said. He only gives people promotions if they're already acting like they are in that position a lot of times. We want to promotion, start, act, take on roles of Jobs that you need to act at that level that you're acting like at level. So it's basically you have to understand the politics also, the political environment, the context, the chessboard and then build alliances If you're not building alliances. A lot of times people just make it on themselves. But the game board is designed maybe to require someone else says something.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:The in which they go, okay, let's promote them. Yeah, and if you ask the record yourself, it's not gonna happen. You also have to look at your pedigree. What's your brand in the minds of the people there? Right, what have you done? Do? Have you raised your status in the right by status, and our brains make decisions based upon is there a status gain or status loss? So have you Establish your brand in the minds of the people who are making their decisions, and then you have to deliver the performance. So these three things the politics, the, your performance has to be at a higher level and your, your pedigree has to be those three things, with understood and understanding the game board and being able to look at the rules. That's what I would say.
Speaker 1:That's nice before we, before we part ways today it's just at the end of the episode coming into, other than your book, which everything will be in the discrepancy below the links for your book and your website. Is there any way else? You want to send somebody, some to take a survey or a Document that you can provide them? So get in touch with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what I talked about, about game boarding the people who master game boarding are first adapters. They not early adopters who you usually find Early adopters. Someone use technology soon, service soon, earlier, right, and usually find them outside Apple stores and sleeping bags. I had a first adapter someone who spots High level, high leverage patterns and makes game changing, game winning decisions, my. I have an assessment instrument, free assessment instrument that I developed over the years and evaluated all these executives, all these people were first adapters and it's there's nine questions, it takes about three minutes and then it will spit out a report about how you compare To the best of these first adapters, these world-class people who are able to achieve at a higher level.
Speaker 2:It's like the. Some of the people I've modeled or worked with us are astronauts, right, yeah, the Apple. See it from Apple CEO, from the super high Ambassadors and super people who have achieved a great deal, because it's all about how can you be great and have a bigger impact? And if you're not using these patterns, it will. You can get blindsided, you can get the railed or you can get delayed and the on the game board of power from thanks for me, so you go to my website Steven fine bird calm and spell STB in fine burgers, f as in family E I and as an NCB as a boy.
Speaker 1:Erg, stephen fine bird calm, you can go there and takes, like I said, three minutes and We'll shoot you the report as I said, these and links will be in the comments below, in the description and also, if you've just go over the blog, it'll be there as well. Before we go, is any parting words you'd like to leave with the audience, steven, because I've?
Speaker 2:Jeff, haven't grilled you enough because passing it's not your fault, it's the game board you're playing on.
Speaker 1:I love that. Thank you very much for your time and your energy here. I pretty appreciate you and your time and your love and dedication to what you do in your art. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 2:Feel free to contact me. I'm glad to talk to people about this and I do what others say can't be done. I interviewed world-class leaders, including the forward is written by an astronaut who flew to the International Space Station twice and he was also climb, and so he, greg, wrote it the forward to the book and Talks about some of the patterns, some how to see things and question things and be able to pair yourself Advance a lot.
Speaker 1:That was I said. All the links will be in there and clean that, but you want to think.
Speaker 2:I just realized. I'm sorry, I know you want to close it. Someone asked me the other day, said what is it that you want in the world? I said I want to advance civilization one liter at a time. So that's really. My Intent is to advance civilization one liter at a time, to give them the foresight to be one step ahead.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Steve very much. Just a sign that I'm gonna actually go and take the test over that good, just to see what, just for the hell of it. Yeah, stephen, thank you very much from if you listen to this, please share this message. Download it. It helps me to continue to make more content like this, and sharing it is free. Change someone's life, that's all I ask. And inspire the next generation. Thanks for listening. Thank you for taking part. From myself, I'm bass porter and my fabulous guest today, stephen Feinberg. Research him, look him up and say hello to him. Thank you very much. Have a great day, be blessed, be safe and always be well. Thank you.
