What if it's still not enough? Achievement Addiction, Human Performance & Finding Meaning with Dr. Jack Groppel

0:00Welcome to Notes from the Edge, where we have the conversations we should have been having all along. We talk about the things that we're not talking about. I'm your host, Lisa Lacey, writer, trauma educator, executive advisor, and author of the upcoming memoir Notes from a certified madwoman. Welcome to the Edge. Hey, hey my friends, welcome back to another episode of Notes from the Edge. I am your host, Lisa Lacey, and this is the place we have the conversations we should have been having all along. Guess what? You're not talking about it. So today, we're gonna, with special guests, Jack Gropel. What happens when achievement becomes your identity? Success stops feeling like enough, and the person who spent a lifetime mastering human performance has to

1:03redefine what living well actually means. Our guest today has a PhD as an internationally recognized authority in sports science, human performance, and energy, per all energy, management, a Hall of Fame coach, scientist, and entrepreneur Jack co-founded the Human Performance Institute, later known as the Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute, where his work helped bring principles developed for world-class athletes into leadership, corporate performance, and everyday life. His pioneering research in biomechanics and performance training has influenced generations of athletes and organizations. He has worked with Olympic athletes tonight, Keith the Chicago White Sox, the US Tennis Association, where he served as founding chair. He has also spoken before United Nations, US Congress and audiences around the world, but his story now goes way beyond performance. Because after decades of helping other people achieve extraordinary levels, he began confronting

2:08his own relationship with achievement, approval, family, purpose, meaning, and thus, he wrote a memoir, mountains within a life of achievement, a quest for meaning, and the mountain that changed everything, which explores how fatherhood, adopting his son from China, and eventually climbing Mount Kilimanjaro together, transformed his understanding of what success actually looks like. Jack, welcome to Nino's from the Edge of My Friend. How are you today? Hey Lisa, great. I'm doing well. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm really looking forward to our conversation. Me too. I've been looking forward to it all day. Let me make sure I've got comments from non-acquisting anybody comes in with any questions. Well, Jack, this is notes from the edge. So we're just going to dive right into the combo and see what kind of rabbit holes we dig up. You spent decades studying what makes human beings perform at their highest level. When did you begin to realize that being able to perform exceptionally well and being fulfilled were two different things?

3:11Well, I mean, it's a tremendous question to start with because I think, like my story's not unusual because I think I was, I thought I was doing everything right. You know, I honestly thought I was doing things perfectly. Well, you know, I'm providing for my family. I'm in love. I'm traveling all over the world. I'm working with the greatest names in sport. And yet I didn't really, I don't think I understood what fulfillment was. You know, happy is a state to me. But I was just go, go, go. I was like that. Remember when we were kids, Lisa, when we were in the front of a body of water, a pond or a lake, and we tried to find the flattest rock, and then we tried to skip it across the water just as far as we could skip it. That's how we live our life right now. We're like that flat rock skimming across the surface. And that's how I was. I was just go, go, go, go, go like that flat rock. But I never slowed down. See, the flat rock slows down and then it goes to the water.

4:14I never slowed down. I just kept going, but at what cost? See, that's why my memoir was so significant in my life and, and, you know, just incredible for me, clinically almost to understand myself that, yeah, it was go, go, go, but at what cost? Yeah. Yeah. And we'll get to that because that's the, that's the way in here we like to ask better questions and that is the question at what cost. But you've talked about, I love this achievement addiction. Yeah. Because I was there for 20 years. I was like next goal, next goal, next goal, next goal. Yeah. How does someone know when healthy ambition has crossed over into needing the next accomplishment to prove worth to be, to feel safe, to feel like you're enough to, to finally be accepted. Yeah. So, and classical is a guest with us today right now. And he said what an outstanding intro that was for you. Oh, that's wonderful.

5:16Thank you very much. You know, it's, it's just fascinating when you start, let me give you a word picture. And that's professional speaking. You know, you do, let's say you do a great speech and you get a standing ovation. That's intoxicating. It is. You get a standing ovation. I mean, it's like, I'm worthy. I'm, I'm, oh my gosh, I'm, I'm valued. It's, it's, but then you see, that's very different than being truly valued. You're, what you did, you hit it out of the park in that moment and you may have touched a lot of people's lives. But that has really has nothing to do with your life unless it fulfills a purpose. See, what I was doing was just go, go, go. And I was just living for the standing ovation. So, you know, I never had a tennis lesson yet. I'm in three tennis coaches, Halls of Fame. And I never had a speech class yet. I've traveled all over the world. I'm not bragging, by the way. The whole point of this is at what cost? You know, the, I never had a speech

6:20class yet. I've spoken in front of millions in 52 countries. Never had a business class. Yet started a business with a good friend with our own money. And then 15 years later, we sold it to a fortune 50 company. I never was a father yet. In my 50s, I go to China by myself and they put a screaming four year old in my arms that doesn't want to be with me. So the idea, so there's two parts of this story. One is to have hope that you don't have to be stuck wherever you are. But then the second part is to make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. Yes. Make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. That's the key. Yes, not on autopilot, right? And I was. Yes. Talk to me on an autopilot versus conscious choices. Yeah. What are doing in terms of your goals? You know, you receive an award, you receive an honor and you enjoy that. But then it's very soon. It's like next. I heard a world class athlete talking and I forget who it was, but won the gold medal in one of the Olympics,

7:25won a gold medal in his sport. It was a male. But then he had to fly the next day, a 15 hour flight to another continent. And he had to perform three days later or two days later. He said he never got to relish the fact that he won a gold medal. He was the best. He was the best in the world. And didn't get a chance to really enjoy that moment. It was what's next. And I think a lot of us live our lives like that. You know, we make a sale. What's next? Oh, I made, I made good commission on that one. What's next? And then it's at what cost? You know, like there's a wonderful story that we've always told in our company, evolved leadership, which came out of HPI. You know, and it's a dad who came home at seven o'clock every night. He was in financial services. He came home at seven o'clock every night. And he was very strict on his boundaries. But the problem was he was still

8:25working on his phone. But one night he got held up and he didn't get home until nine. Called his wife on the way home. He could he he owned all this in our in our training called his wife on the way home. And he said sweetheart, when I come in the door tonight, I'm going to give you a quick kiss. But then I want to get with the boys. They had two boys ages six and nine. And I'll take care of the boys. I'll put them to bed. Jesus, great. I've been with them all day. So he comes in hugs, kisses, goes up to the boys, puts them in their pajamas, wrestles with them. They have a great time. They read a little bit, says their prayers. And he says goodnight as he goes out to turn the light off. The youngest one, the six year old goes, daddy, can you come home at nine o'clock every night? We call that the nine o'clock daddy because you see the dad thought he was doing everything right. He was coming home at seven o'clock. But he wasn't giving them energy. He wasn't he was there physically, but he wasn't there emotionally, mentally and spiritually. When the the six year old called him out because I'll take this for 20 minutes every night, other than three or four hours of

9:31no dad, just a little dad. I want the emotional mental and spiritual dad too. And I think that's what we I think that's a very good word picture. So where in your life do you have to be the nine o'clock daddy that you're available for the people that matter to you? And fully present. Yeah. And Pasco says, achieving addiction can be a work slave driver to be liked is great, but to live yourself and to have your soul smile when you have a noble heart with purpose, spiritually fueled. Yeah. Yeah. With purpose, with purpose. And I think you you brought up two things that I want to circle back to. And that's being fully present with the people that we love and care about. And Jack, I'm in a unique position in my own life because I live with a congenital blood disease. And so I have to face my mortality on the daily. And this last scare has really made me realize that when I'm in front of them, specifically my husband and my child, my daughter, who is a young

10:35adult now. But I want to be with them. Not be working in my head. You know, the working in your head when you're there, but you're not there. Talk to me about how important that is. Well, let's understand these have only been around since 2008. And for those just listening, I'm holding up a mobile phone, a smartphone. They've only been around since about 2008. So we're physically available, but we're not mentally, emotionally, and spiritually available when we're on our phone. And the idea, you have to be able to answer this question. We'll probably focus on this a few more times in our time together. But you have to be able to answer the question, what matters most to me right now? That is for me, that's one of the most important questions people can ask themselves at. And several times a day, because every day you have to make a choice about whether I'm going to be on this conference call or I'm going to go to my child's game or concert. I'm going to whether I'm going to work. I've got a call with Asia at nine o'clock tonight. Or can I make that call at 10 and

11:39tuck my child in? You see what I'm saying? We have choices. We have to make all the time. And I think if we just calibrated ourselves, what matters most right now? And yeah, there are times you have to take that trip or you have to make that call. But not all the time. I can tell you flat out, there's a whole bunch of plane trips I didn't have to get on. I didn't have to get on. I have to get on them. I've got to get on them. Because you were skipping. You were continuing to skip it. You didn't. I was skipping across the water. Next, next, next. Well, adopting your son seems to have fundamentally changed the trajectory of your life. I am so sure of what did becoming his father teach you that no amount of research or coaching or working with people or any achievement you ever had before. Do for you. Lisa, how much time do we have? We got about 30 more minutes.

12:40We got lessons. The lessons. Because you see, my father was a hard charger. My father alcohol was definitely in there. My father believes spare the rod spoiled the child. And he was, you know, he was why I got the achievement addiction. I thought the only way I would get his approval was to achieve. Well, when I got my son, and this is the most significant two weeks of my life, I tell people that God has a sense of humor because he's going to send this man in his 50s. My wife could not go with she had been injured and had to have surgery. She couldn't go. So I go to China by myself. And in God's infinite sense of humor says, we're going to put this screaming four-year-old in his arms that, you know, this is a four-year-old Chinese boy with an old white man. And they have nothing in common. The child can't speak English and the man can't speak Mandarin. All they've both got is tone of voice, touch, and facial expression. That's all they've got. And in

13:41two weeks, we're going to teach you to how to love someone else, how to love each other. Most significant two weeks of my life. Lisa, yeah, I mean, and you just want to repeat that. Because I think if we humans connect in that way, what did you say, touch? What else? We had touch, facial expression, and tone of voice. Yeah, it's our bodies, right? Yeah. We could not communicate. In fact, it's pretty funny. They taught us some phrases. And because I had a toddler one phrase, and I'll say the phrase in Mandarin so that everybody's really clear, but I'll give the interpretation, the phrase is bow yacht tsar yung. And what it means is stop doing what you're doing. They said, because you want a toddler, the toddlers are going to be energetic and you're going to need to say, stop that, stop doing what you're doing. So it's bow yacht tsar yung. Well, apparently the old man was saying it all the time. I was saying bow yacht tsar yung

14:42to wait too often. So here we are in the second week. My son, my little guy's jumping up and down on the bed. So I go, his name is Shen. That was his last name in Chinese. We made that his first name. I said Shen bow yacht tsar yung. This little scamp jumps off the bed, starts walking toward me with a swagger going bow yacht tsar yung. He's totally playing the old white man. Don't just want our youth. And I started laughing so hard. Because I'm going number one, the personality coming out of this child. And for two, the reality check, like, hey, dude, back off. You know, I was just an amazing moment in time where in his, I was trying to indicate in his language. And then he's mimicking me, making fun of me. Don't be so cock-shoot yourself, young man. You know, is it an amazing how our children just come out the way they are, the human beings that they are, they're there immediately. Yeah. So they are their own little individual human selves. So

15:47so you and your son climbed Mount Kilimanjaro together. Yes. What happened on that mountain that changed your definition of strength, success, and what really matters? Okay, let me just take 20 seconds to explain why we climbed it. Yeah. My father and I remember we were estranged. And when I was 20 years old in college and I was getting ready for my senior year, I was a junior in March of my junior year, he called me and he said, Jack, tell your tennis coach that you're not going to play many tournaments this summer because we have to, we're going to take a trip. And I'm going, okay, we're going to take a trip. I can still play some tennis tournaments. He goes, no, you're not going to be able to. And I said, why? And we lived outside of St. Louis, Missouri. He goes, we're going to drive to Fairbanks, Alaska. And I went, we're going to do what? And I said, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. He says, yeah, I've got the pickup truck. It's a pickup truck, Lisa. He says, I'm going to put a cover, not a camper, a cover on the back of the truck. We'll put two wooden

16:50slabs in with sleeping mattresses. That's where we'll sleep every night. You cook. I was in Eagle Scout. He says, you cook. I'll do the dishes. He said, this is going to be great. I said, how far is this? He goes, I think it's about 4,250 miles. I'm going, how long? He said, I think six weeks. I literally said this. I said, dad, somebody will commit homicide. And he says, I know it'll be tough, but I think we need to do it. Well, at my dad's funeral, the pastor who gave my dad's eulogy said that dad, all dad ever talked about was the Alaska trip. And yes, it was a hard trip, but that was the beginning of a year's long reconciliation path for he and I. So when I got Shen, my son, I'm an older father, obviously, and I wanted to have an adventure with him. I wanted to do something like Alaska. I'm sort of a go-bigger, go-home kind of guy, Lisa. So I'm going to church. I come to find that Kilimanjaro, and I'd always had an affinity for Africa. My undergraduate degree

17:51was actually in wildlife biology. That's a whole different story. And I had an affinity for Africa. And I come to find out that Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in the world that you can actually trek. You don't need no technical climbing. It's just under 20,000 feet. And you can hike it. There's scramble. No, get me wrong. It's not that easy, but it's the altitude. That's the big issue. So I called his mom and I said, what do you think about this? We were no longer together. And I talked her into it. I called her back and said, I said, by the way, don't tell anybody. And she said, what am I going to do? Call my friends and say, you know what that idiot wants to do now. You're like, we want to do it first. I kind of like that square. I'm doing this weird stuff. So now we trained for a year. He was in karate. I played tennis just cardio. We couldn't train it out. So I took him to Rocky Mountain National Park to get the week before to sort of acclimatize.

18:51Now we're on the mountain Kilimanjaro. We get to day two. It's been cloudy for two. We haven't seen the mountain dinner finishes. We're at about 12,000 feet. So we're just about the same height we were climbing in Rocky Mountain National Park. We got another 7,000 vertical feet to go. The clouds cleared and we saw the peak of Kilimanjaro and I went no freaking way. Honestly, that was my first thought. Oh, no way, isn't we can't. It's too much. I mean, this is just sort of pretty much. I've got artificial knees. He's only, I see my brain. This is what all of our brains do. Our brain is not our best friend, Lisa. It's not our best friend. Our heart is pretty good, but our brain is never our best friend. And so my brain was telling me too far too high. He's 12. I've got artificial knees. Both knees are metal. I can't do it. And the whole set had hit me. I said, Jack, stop it. What I'd done with athletes, stop it. Don't do that self-talk. I said,

19:54and I got Shen and we looked at it. I mean, I'm tearing up like holy crow. And four nights, we're going to try to summit that at night. And I literally said this to him. I said, I can't promise you, we'll make it. But I can promise you that we can take the next step. Every step, we can take the next step. And I, and buddy, I promise you, if we keep taking steps, we're going to give ourselves the best chance to make it there. Everything was about the next step. Everything was the rest of that time. Just got to keep taking the next step. Just, I know it's hard. I got a headache. I'm feeling nauseous. I know. Just going to keep taking the next step. And sure enough, we, and on Summit Day, they do this briefing and they warn you how cold it's going to be in the wind and how it's going to be miserable, honestly. And they tell you to think about people that matter to you. We go back to the tent to rest before Summit night. You leave the camp at like 10, 30, 11 at night. And you, you hike all night to go 4,000 from 15,300 feet to 19,341. Wow, that's a big jump.

21:00On switchbacks. And we get back to the tent. And I'll never forget this. I said, Shen, how you doing, buddy? I'm just really, it goes, I just think you're crazy for bringing everybody here. It's limited my 12 year old. Meanwhile, the guides, they were betting against me. The porters were betting against me, mainly because of my age and the artificial needs. The guides were betting for me. They were betting pretty good sums of money. One group that I wouldn't make it, one that would. And the, the interesting one, the ones that thought I would make it, when I first got on the mountain, my nickname, I was the oldest man on the mountain. My son was the youngest person on the mountain at 12. And I was 65. And the mountain that week. And they called me Babu, which means grandpa. I'm going really, you know, I've been busting my butt for a year to train for this. And then they found out on day three that I had artificial needs. And this is how that goes down. The guide comes up, the head guide, and he says, is it true what they say about your needs? And I said, what do you mean? He says, is it true that you have metal needs? And I said, yeah, I do. There

22:02are artificial needs in their metal. He says, okay, we change your name. I go, what's my name now? He says, your name now is Chuma Matu. And I said, what's that mean? He goes, Iron Man. And I was, oh, so much. Yes. Wow. Now, now we're talking. Let's, let's go to the top of that dog on mountain. So the idea that Iron Man and my son just got connected with everybody. That's another story that's so incredible about the social connection too that happened on the mountain. Wow. Wow. Yeah. I understand what taking those adventures can do. It's interesting, Jack. And I love to have you circle back for around two next month. I myself drove the Alaska Highway. And I did, I did. And that's how I ended up with my daughter because I went with a friend. And there's a lot of tent time and lower behold. Yep. We came back with a kiddo. So that's what drove

23:07drove me into corporate work. But so yeah, Alaska has a life changing, life changing, the bags on people. And we drove it in the 1970s Bronco that had a hole in the gas tank. What an overall where we're thinking too. So, but you spent your career teaching athletes and executives. And I love this word. Jack, sorry, my dogs are barking. My husband is coming home and every time he does, they act like it's the first time they've ever seen him. So I want to talk about the word energy. Right. Because you studied energy management. Please talk to us about energy. Because you have talked to us about being present with our whole bodies, with our spirits, with all of us and our energy. What is this thing energy? In 1992, Dr. Jim Lair, one of the world's most renowned sports psychologists and I partnered and his doctors and psychology mind was in an exercise, mind is in exercise physiology. And we had been working with world class athletes together. And we

24:10decided we wanted to create a center. And what we had been working on. So it became the human performance institute. And what we determined what we started teaching was that there's four parts to the pyramid of who we are. There's a physical and emotional and mental and spiritual component to who we are. And this is all being done. If anybody's interested in this, we're doing this now with evolved leadership. They've taken it on since Johnson and Johnson decided not to be in the commercial business of what we did. So it's evolved leadership. That's who we're doing it with. But the idea that you have to build capacity physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually to meet the ever increasing demand in your life, the energy. But then you also, this is the key part now. This is where the time management industry, Lisa, didn't live up to its reputation. See time is finite. We run out of time. Energy is finite as well. But we can recapture energy. So physical recapture of

25:15energy, sleep, nutrition, exercise, emotional recapture of energy, not survival based emotions like chronic impatience, but challenge emotion, like opportunity based emotions like challenge and excited, positive anticipation. And then mental, we live in the world with these smartphones, scattered versus laser focused energy. And then the spiritual where we just beat, we're like the rocks skimming across the water, or we operate with a deep sense of purpose and mission. What we've always taught and what we're doing at evolve is the idea that there is this, we are biological beings. We can increase our capacity and we can recapture energy in all quadrants of who we are as human beings. Which or what remind us again, what are the four quadrants that we can recapture energy? Physical, the emotional, the mental, and the spiritual. I love it. We

26:19capture spiritual energy. We capture physical energy. Pastime is at the top. Now, this is key. If you want to change in your life, you have to change from the top down, from the spiritual down. Perfume will talk to us about that. Yes. Basically, hang with me, but you train from the bottom up. Okay. For you change from the top down, and then you train from the bottom up. That's why the physical part is so critical. Exercise, nutrition, hydration, sleep is the critical foundation of who we are. And then emotional, mental, and spiritual. But if you want to change, change is that has to happen and begin at the spiritual piece. So that you can change at the physical. You change at the spiritual so you can make those adaptations and have it changes at the physical home. Okay. And Pascal says, you are a brilliant storyteller. Magic. And then says, I am bearing a bearing torch of human connections. Who needs Marvel with us to

27:24hear? I love it. I love it. That's oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So talk to us about this, this center that Johnson and Johnson's no longer evolved, so how can people find you work with you? Find this information. This is, I think, vital in what we want to do in here is give people ways to really transform sustainably. So if they want to follow my work, let's do the personal piece first and then the organizational or the, so if they want to follow me, LinkedIn is probably the best place Instagram, but LinkedIn, my name, my memoir, as you just mentioned, came out. It's called Mountains with N. It's available anywhere. But the company that where if you really want to understand all that we've just been talking about around energy, it's called evolved leadership. And they are doing a magnificent job of following up on what we did. And they're even creating new content. It's the newest areas of energy management. I mean, they're doing a lot of team building now with

28:30energy. I mean, it's just so cool what they're doing, right? What made you go into energy management so long ago when nobody was talking about it? Well, we had to because remember we started our careers with we were the first sports scientists in the United States, especially with tennis. We were the first ones basically doing tennis. And what we started doing, I was the founding chairman of the sports science committee for the United States tennis association. But I was starting to do sport research in 1974. And in fact, this is way before video, Lisa, you know, today these sports teams have mega million dollar video budgets. Video didn't exist when I'm using high speed 16 millimeter film. Oh, wow. And I'm happy and I have to sell this. I have to sell people on even even if they're looking at how what an athlete is doing, they're going, well, that's not how you do it. I'm going, what are you talking about? There it is in high speed film. I mean, I'm doing frame by frame. I have evidence. Yeah, I mean,

29:31it's a funny story in your viewers. They'll see I tell this story in my memoir, but I was giving a tennis conference in the early 80s. I was showing high speed films that I'd take in a Madison Square garden of Borg and Mackinro and Lendle and Connors and in high speed. And I'm showing these orthopedic surgeons what happens and what's causing injury when they're not when the average player isn't performing correctly. And I finished every it was received really well and it's very tall gentleman greets me in the eye away and he says, can you do this in baseball? Now, then remember video doesn't exist. And I go, well, I don't know, I'm sure you can, but what do you want to study? He said, now, I don't know who this man is. He says, I'm very concerned about the head first versus the feet first slide in baseball. And I said, we have, if you want to study that, I would get behind third base. I set my camera up and I turn it on when the runner is on first. And then when the runner takes off, I would turn the camera on, let it get up to speed. And then I'd pan and then I'd block it so that it's at 90 degrees. So I can digitize the athlete when the slide happens, whether it's head

30:33first or feet first. Well, I'm getting set up on the first day and the managing the coaching staff comes out there, what is this? It's a high speed camera. What are you going to do? And I'm telling that I'm working with the team physician for the Chicago White Sox. That's who it was that stopped me in the eye. Wow. Wow. And this is eye tech at the time. Like, oh, this is yarn. They even said to me, do not let the players see these films. Can you imagine that in today's world? Today's world, they say, I can't, I've got to look at the film before I answer your question. Today, it's all about the film, almost too much, by the way. They almost get to a point paralysis by analysis. But so then we published this, by the way, your, your listeners could look this up. My last name, it was in the American Journalist Sports Medicine. We published an analysis of the head first, versus the feet first slide in a world-class baseball. So, and we did this in the 80s. So the idea that this had never been done before and you had to sell it, that's how I got involved in energy

31:34management. We were working with the greatest athletes in the world and you got to understand is it, is it technique that's going to make them better? Is it fitness? No, they're already fit. They're already the best. So what's going to separate them? We come to find out it's energy. It's all they approach their each competition physically, emotionally, mentally, why are you competing? That's the spiritual piece. And we started working with, and then in 1983, I coined a term and I trademarked it called the corporate athlete. And what, and then I wrote a book in 1999, the corporate athlete, and the idea that you can live your life like a world-class athlete. You don't not, not about sprinting or performing, but living your life to be that performer, whether it's in an organization and be that good person with your family. But it's all about management. That's how we got involved in the field. It became the, the, the smallest little thing that helped the best of the best get better. The best of the best get better through energy

32:40management, you guys. Yeah. So, I got another little tidbit about me. I'm a martial artist and I train in three different disciplines. And one of the disciplines is Filipino Kusho. And it does a lot of energy work. So, I believe wholeheartedly in how energy management can revolutionize anything and everything that you're doing. But what I love, yeah, what you're doing, bringing it back to your family, you're bringing it back to the people you love, care about, and are in service to in your home, right? Talk to us about that. What kind of energy do we want to be bringing to our friends, family, loved ones, people we're in service to? Well, what you want to be thinking about is the word we talked about earlier, being present. Yeah. When you're there, you're there physically, but are you there emotionally, mentally, and spiritually? Are you really there? And then what's preventing you from being there? I mean, I've worked with clients that when they pull in the driveway at home, pardon me, they might leave their phone in the

33:45car for 30 minutes. They leave it in the car. So it's not even present. So some people have just silenced it. No, you'll still pay attention to it. Leave it. Just leave it in the car for 30 minutes so that the people that you say I love you to, you really demonstrate that love for at least 30 minutes. And if you can feel that, right? Yeah. Daddy, if you come home at 9 o'clock every night, that's great. Yeah. And what I love about what you're pointing out is guys, it doesn't take six hours out of our day. So the fact that we don't have time is not a good excuse. So is it is it is it quality? Are you present? Are you aware? Are you making conscious choices? Or are you running everything on complete auto pilot? So yeah. You don't have to do this. You don't have time not to do this. Yeah. That's the key thing. You've

34:47got to do this. And it's small a bit. See, the biological system of a human being, you can, if you learn to do it, you can recapture energy very quickly. Very quickly. And I mean, this is what my partner Jim Lair, he just recently passed away, but he's renowned. And I think it was one of the biggest contributions to sport in the last half of the last century. He created the 16-second cure in tennis by studying the greatest players in the world and what they did in between points. Because what he found was that only that they've only got 20 seconds in between points. And by having structure in your behavior, you recover much more quickly. So you can get you can recapture energy in seconds if you practice it. See, and then then you have the people that say, well, my organization, they won't let us get recovery. Okay. If you live in that organization, here's what I, here's what invite you to do this. I want you to say to the manager who pushes you so hard that you have to go to the bathroom. I've never heard of this. No, I'm sorry, not at this

35:52organization. You cannot go to the bathroom. No, but here's, but here's the deal. Maybe you don't have to go to the bathroom, but that's what you're going to say. And then here's what I want you to do. As soon as you walk out of that room, I want you to forget about the meeting. And I want you to think about maybe what you're doing that weekend and go up, go up a flight of stairs to another floor. Don't take the elevator. Walk. Walk maybe buddy. So you change your heart rate going up the the stairs. And then if you don't have to go to the bathroom, just walk down the hallway and go down. If you do then use the bathroom on that other floor and then go down to another stairwell and go down. And then as you get to the bottom of that stairwell, now re-engage and prepare mentally for the meeting you're getting ready to go into. I love it re-engage. In that short time period of disengage and then re-engage, you get a little bit of recovery. That I love that. I will tell you it works. And this is what we're doing at Evolve Leadership. This is what I think is so cool. Very cool. It is beyond cool, my friend. And I think it's

36:56something we all need to remember. So, you know, some of the highlights of what you have said and brought forth for us today is hope. Hope is a big word. Purpose. Know your purpose, right? You've brought that to our attention and manage your energy in a way that is, that brings you and you said happiness is a state. I like words like satisfaction and contentment and because those are easier places to be, right? Satisfaction and contentment. And surround yourself with other people. Yes, you were in connection. We're not intended to do life alone and this could be my closing story for you. Okay, what you got? On Kilimanjaro, my son was only 12 years old. He knew no one. The next oldest person was around 25. Wow. My son knew no one. At the end of dinner every night, he could have gone back to the tent to read or play games on his phone. He didn't have Wi-Fi, but he had games stored that my son chose to play cards with everybody. So here's my 12-year-old son

38:01and they didn't, nobody knew that he and I played cards all the time. No one could beat my son. Was he getting everybody? I'll be at all. Hearts and Kings corners and just all over. Hearts are so fun. And nobody can beat him. So his nickname became the big dog. My name became Chuma Mitu. His became the big dog. So the reason I'm telling you this story is that every night my son was playing cards. Now we get to Summit Night, which is terrible. We're, we get to the daylight. It's sunrise. We're at almost at about 18,500 feet. We're close to the crater room. We're not doing the summit, but we're close to the crater. And it was awful. I mean, it's like, chuck your poles, take a step. Chuck your poles, take a step. And I heard this loud noise. I look up and the Rangers were skiing down the scree of the mountain with sick climbers. People were throwing up. They've got altitude sickness. And it's scared. And I turned around and said, I said, Chen, are you okay? He didn't answer me. And I said, buddy, you've got to answer me. And this is my 12 year old son. He's got his head down and he just shakes it. He just nods his

39:05head up and down. He can't talk. And the guy had heard me get firm with him. And he came back and he said, Chen, do you want to go back? And I'm going, we're done as soon as he said that. And my 12 year old son, do you want to go back? Shakes his head. No. And in that moment, here it is. Here it comes. The people that he'd been playing cards with, all of our fellow climbers were just above us at the crater rim. And they saw my son stuck and they started screaming and cheering from Chen. And I said, and I'm starting to tear up and I said, buddy, do you want to go? And I don't know if that meant go up or go down. And I said, buddy, and he holds his hand up. He says, Dad, I got this. 12 years old. And he starts walking and he made it to the summit of Kilimanjaro. Wow. I told you. Wow. What is that? With his dad. That was a moment. That was a moment. And for those watching us, we're re-holding our hands up high and trying to fit the summit of

40:06Kilimanjaro for those watching. I love that. I love that. I love the adventure you took. I love to have you back. Oh, I'd love to be back. I'd love to have enjoyed this. Where can we find the memoir? Anywhere books are sold. Amazon is really easy to get it. And by the way, for those that like audiobooks, I narrated the audiobook. Okay. So the person in Pascal liked my storytelling. I'm the one that narrated the audiobook. So if you like audios, but it's in workback paper, ebook, and audiobook. All right, my friend. We're going to put those links down there, guys. You don't have to write anything down. We're going to make sure you have access to Jack. If you want to work with him, if you have any questions for him, we're going to make sure you have a link to access the memoir. But Jack, before we let any of our guests go, we always ask two questions to close out. Okay. The first question is, in your own life, what have you performed in order to survive? And what to dropping that role,

41:10master performance, do for your life? So the first question, what have I done to perform? What have you performed in order to survive? Wow. There's so many different ways I could explain this. There was one where I was put in an audience in front of an audience of 30,000 people. And I had no idea what I was doing. I was petrified. There was another moment where I'm preceding Muhammad Ali on stage in front of 20,000. And I can't find the props. And nobody knows who I am. And the sweat start, I'm just giving you examples. There's other moments I'm on an airplane and we lost an engine. There's other moments. I mean, honestly, there's so many moments that I've had to do something to survive. The biggest probably is going to China and getting my son. Because that felt like survival instead of thriving. See, but in a matter of two weeks, I went from survival

42:16where that night in the hotel room, the translator said, I have to leave. And I said, I'll pay you $1,000 to stay two more hours. And he said, I can't take your money. He said, but whatever you do, don't give him a bath tonight because he's filthy. And I said, he said, it'll push him further away. So here I am. My poor son's grieving. He's crying. We've pulled him from everything. He knows it's safe. He's on the edge of the bed watching cartoons. I'm sitting in a chair just a hotel room. And I prayed and I said, God, what do you want me to do? Because I got nothing. I mean, this is survival. I got nothing. I cannot help this child. And I felt on my heart, give him a bath. And I'm going and I said in English, I looked up at the ceiling and said, did you hear what the translator said? What do you want me to do? I'm going to be quiet. I'm going to ask you one more time, what do you want me to do? And I felt you've got to give him a bath. And I said, okay. And I know this is not going to go be pretty. So I take him in and he starts screaming. He's scared. I make a very conscious decision. I'm not going to wash his nose, no soap in the eyes. I'm not

43:18going to wash his hair. I'm not going to wash any private parts. Wash his shoulders and his feet. That's all. Get him out, towel him off, put him in a pair of pajamas, giving a sippy cup. Not another tear and he slept right next to me the entire night. That was probably the moment. You know what I also love about that story, Jack, is you listened to that still small voice that told you what to do next? Correct. Yeah. It didn't listen to what humans told me to do. Exactly. Exactly. And sometimes that voice is very quiet. Yes. Yeah. And sometimes we have to ask twice. Now again, right? I mean, I'm going to ask you one more time. You heard what the translator said. Really? Really? I love it. Well, Jack, listen, the last question is this. What do you want us to be talking more about? What should we be having more conversations about as human beings? Connection. Connection. We've lost connection. These smartphones were being pulled by things that are not connecting us. If there's one thing that I want us to talk about is improving human to

44:25human connection. Not through, you know, we're blessed that we have this technology, you and I, but it'll never replace the actual human connection. Well, that's where you can feel each other's energy more. Yes. You can see body movements more. You can touch. If it's comfortable, all the things that you opened up with, you can do. Yes. Exactly. If you have a human in front of you. That's what I want to dialogue to be about. Yeah. And there is loneliness epidemic. So beautiful answer, my friend. Well, friends out there, I'm going to ask you the same thing. And we'll see, Jack, here next month, what are you performing in order to survive? And what might dropping that role, massacre performance do to lighten your load just a little bit? I'm your host, Lisa Lacey. Here with our guest, Jack Gropel. And when you find the answer to that, we will both see you at the edge. Thank you so much, Jack. Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure. Thank you, Lisa. It really has. Pasco, thanks for staying on. And he says, Jack is on the ball with everything that

45:31you said. Great show. Appreciate it.