I spoke with a priest, Father Alex Steinmiller, recently and we talked about human behavior. Most harmful behaviors, we already know are harmful. Yet why do we do them? Lack of information?

People know they should exercise…. But they don’t, even if they want to.
People know they should eat healthy… but they don’t, even if they have good intentions.

We have unlimited information on most subjects, so it’s not that. Are we just not disciplined enough to change our own behavior? My mom always says that most “people would rather die than change”…. Even when they want to.

Father Alex told me, that if we want to change our behavior we need to analyze and eliminate the lead-up actions that trigger the undesired behavior. What situation, people, events, or patterns trigger this undesired behavior? Eliminate the lead-up actions that trigger the undesired behavior.

Analogy: If you don’t want to eat junk food, don’t have it in the house.

This makes sense, as Dr. Robert Cooper says, “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” Relying on our own discipline to change our behavior is nearly impossible if we keep following the same routines and patterns. This might mean altering where we spend time and who we spend our time with, ect. But it gives us a significantly better chance of making the behavior change we desire.

When I graduated from college, I decided to go graduate school to get my MBA. I made this decision primarily because my friends from business school were doing this, so I thought this was the path I supposed to take as well.

After getting my MBA, the expectations of “What I Was Supposed to Do” continued. Because I had an MBA, I believed I should go into fields like banking, investment services, investment banking, even accounting roles. So guess what, I did all of them. I bounced from job to job, field to field, never staying very long. I learned a lot of skills but the path I was following was very narrow. I never really considered many of my options outside of “What I was supposed to do”.

Eventually I became the CFO of a publicly traded food company before purchasing my first company at 37 years old and becoming an entrepreneur. I’ve been that ever since.
Reflecting back, I never even considered being an entrepreneur. I believe that a big part of that was the pre-conceived beliefs about what I was “supposed to do”. My MBA and my college degree were great tools, but I believed that they limited my choices. Of course, the actual degree did not do this, but I limited my own choices and my own beliefs because of these things. My mindset about what was possible and what other options might exist.

I think many people go through life this way. As they get tools or have experiences, they limited their mindset about what is possible. They start in one career path and somehow their identity is tied to it. They don’t consider anything else. “I have a MBA, therefore I must work in this field forever.”

We should work to strip away these pre-set beliefs and stay open to possibilities, instead of doing “What You’re Supposed to Do.”

“The Disease of Me” is a term I first heard basketball player, coach, owner, and general manager, Pat Riley use.

Just like basketball, Life is a team sport. Families, work teams, friendships, and society are all made up of a collective group of individuals that function and work together. In a perfect world, everyone contributes and as the team does better, the individual does better as well.

“The Disease of Me” describes when a person becomes focused on their own success or difficulties. Their wants and their needs take precedent over the rest of their team. Selfishness, bad body language, assessing blame, making excuses, and overall negativity are symptoms generally associated with “the disease of me”.

Coach Tom Desotell used to say that in every environment there are “Energy givers or energy takers. Lifters or leaners.” Energy givers leave everyone around them better. They bring authentic excitement and care to their team. They lift up those around them and help make others the best versions of themselves. This is who we need to strive to be and who we want to surround ourselves with.

Energy takers are the complainers and negative nellies of the world. Their attitude sucks the excitement and enthusiasm out, like an energy vampire. We all know people like this. It can be exhausting to be around them.

The very best leaders that I’ve observed spend a lot of time with their teams and their families talking about these sort of concepts. Avoiding “The Disease of Me”, being an energy giver not an energy taker, focusing on great communication and body language, as well as creating an environment where we lift each other up. It would be a wise practice to ask ourselves these questions regularly:
1. Am I being a lifter or a leaner?
2. Am I being an energy giver or taker?
3. Am I avoiding the Disease of Me or have I become too focused on my own wants and needs?

No matter how brilliant or talented someone may be, if they are suffering from the “Disease of Me” they need to be cured or removed because they will hurt your team.

*This article was written by Brad Binversie from the Exclusivia team, using the insights and teachings of Thomas Desotell.

“Not seeing Your Eyes Doesn’t Whisper, It Shouts”-Thomas Desotell
How often do we discuss body language with team members at work or family members? Probably very little is my guess, but the best leaders make this a priority.

In my brief time with Coach Tom Desotell, I learned more about the importance of body language than anywhere else. One of his points of focus was the eyes of the people.
Coach would always say that a person needs to listen with “Hungry Eyes.” Listening and communication are active processes. Both the speaker and the listener must be active participants. “Hungry eyes” means that the listener is actively giving eye contact and responding to the conversation with their eyes and body language.

“Listen with your eyes.”

In a world of increasing distraction and noise, this is something that needs to be spoken about more often. In the professional world, work from home and remote teamwork is increasingly more common. Do we discuss the importance of all team members are practicing good body language and listening with their eyes on zoom calls? Or do we skirt around the issue and allow people to dial in passively?

I’ve given training and mentoring sessions where the participants did not even turn on their camera. Reflecting back, I have no idea if the content they received was valuable, if they were buying in, or if their attention was focused elsewhere. This is not something I will not let happen anymore.

“You either coach it, or you allow it to happen.”
Body language and actively listening are crucial to building trust and effective communication. In the busyness and blur of today’s world making this a priority might feel “unimportant” or like a small detail, but I believe it’s never been more important to a business, family, or any group that needs to work together in a meaningful way.

*This wisdom was written by Brad Binversie from the Exclusivia Team in coordination with the teachings of Coach Thomas Desotell.

Practice does not make perfect, practice makes PERMANENT. “In a crisis, we all revert back to our dominants habits.”

Neuroscientist Dr. Robert Cooper always that neurons that fire together, wire together. Practice and repetition build our hard-wired habits. Whenever we are in situations of stress, anxiety, or high pressure our subconscious will take over and our dominant habits will emerge.

This highlights the importance of ensuring that whatever daily habits we are practicing, need to be the right ones. If not, when those difficult times emerge, we will be powerless against our own bad habits. Effectively sabotaging something of importance to us.

Behavior and skills are not something that we can turn on and off as humans, particularly when challenges emerge. They require intentional observation and adjustments that are perfectly practiced daily.

Just because we are “working hard” and putting in time to practice does not mean that we are reinforcing the right habits. A good example is an athlete such as a tennis player. The player can hit shots all day, every day but if they are sloppy and practice with poor technique, this will not make them the best player they can be. During difficult and high-stress matches, they will revert to those bad habits that they’ve developed during their training.

Imperfect practice can result in a lot of “activity without achievement.” Feeling busy, without accomplishing anything meaningful or purposeful. In basketball practices, Coach Tom Desotell used to tell his players, “Do you want to base your game on hope or on habit?” This lesson is applicable to everyone as we live our lives. “Do you want to base building your best life on hope or on habit?”

Practice Does Not Make Perfect. Practice Makes Permanent. Perfect Practice Makes Perfect.

*This article was written by the Exclusivia team, using the insights and teachings of Coach Thomas Desotell.

“I am not what I ought to be,
Not what I want to be,
Not what I am going to be,
But I am Thankful that I am better than I used to be.”

I first read these lines in the book Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflection On and Off the Court. The more I’ve learned about Coach Wooden, the more I admire him. Among his many teachings, the core central theme that I always take away is that the focus needs to be on doing your best and committing to becoming the best version of yourself that you can be.

“Make each day your masterpiece.”

“Don’t worry about being better than somebody else, but never cease trying to be the best you can be. You have control over that, not the other.”

“Success is the peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best you are capable of becoming.”

Nowhere in his teachings does he ever equate success with the results that follow. Winning championships, making money, becoming powerful or famous are not the definition of success. It’s nice to be rewarded for efforts, but these were just by-products doing your very best.
How many people in life feel like they are on treadmill chasing these things? “If I make more money, get a bigger house, close this next business deal, become powerful, ect….. then I will be successful (or happy).”

Coach Wooden’s teachings tell us to focus on the process of doing our very best to be better each day. There is no perfect destination or version of ourselves. Doing our very best, is success.

“I am not who I ought to be”- I know I should be better
“Not who I want to be”- I want to be better
“Not what I am going to be”- I am going to be better
“But I am Thankful that I am better than I used to be.”

*This piece was written by the Exclusivia team, in coordination with the guidance of Coach Thomas Desotell who was a longtime friend of Coach Wooden’s.

“No Man Choose Evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.”
-Mary Wollstonecraft

When I first read this quote, it made me think deeply about empathy and the perspective of others. I see the innocence and joy in the faces of my children. There is no malice or hurt, but something pure and untouched yet by the world around them. It makes me sad to think that some day they might lose this through their encounters with the world. Yet this is what happens to all. I have never seen any baby that had evil in its heart.

People are influenced by the world around them and every single person will have a different perspective of the world depending upon their unique set of circumstances and experiences. We tend to think of the world as black and white, good and evil. Yet it’s many shades of gray and those shades often depend upon the lens of the viewer.

When you ask someone who has committed a crime. They usually do not see themselves as an evil person. They did not choose their actions because they wanted to be evil. They chose it because they believed their actions would bring their life meaning or happiness.

The person who embezzles money from their company, justifies their actions by saying, “I worked hard all these years, I deserved that money.” They truly all believed that money would bring them happiness and that they were entitled to it.
An extreme example would be Hitler. If you ask anyone who might be evil, Hitler would most likely be the first they would say. But if you asked Hitler, he most likely saw himself a crusader and hero for the German people. So from his point of view, he could rationalize his actions (terrible as they were) because this made his life meaningful to him.

To do evil things requires a person to rationalize that the evil actions will bring them happiness and meaning. Usually, it’s a combination of being lost, confused, and fooling themselves.
I’ve listed pretty serious examples, but this could also apply to our daily lives on a smaller scale as well. How we treat people around us, when we eat things that are bad for us, drinking alcohol, speaking harshly to our friends and family, when we are tempted to cut corners, and even the pursuit of material items could all be examples in our daily lives of us mistaking something bad as something that would bring us the happiness we seek.

I think it’s important to practice empathy when we encounter people or situations that hurt us or appear difficult to understand. It’s very difficult to do, but ask yourself, “Why is this person behaving this way? What is their background, unique circumstances, or point of view that would let them rationalize this? There are so many behaviors in this world that I have a very difficult time understanding, but it’s most likely that all of those behaviors are somehow tied to a person trying to find the meaning that they seek in their lives from their own, unique point of view.

The most peaceful moments in life are while experiencing the feeling of gratitude. I challenge anyone to try to feel angry, hatred, depression or any negative thoughts while at the same time feeling gratitude. You can not. It is impossible. Have you ever had an experience where you noticed yourself smiling while expressing gratitude? How was the other person’s reaction when you gave them gratitude? Ten times out of ten you both were smiling.

Gratitude is not hard to find or experience. We simply have to “train” or “exercise” our mind to be constantly looking for those opportunities. Start with positive habits like a morning ritual. Make it yours, own it and share it with others. Make thinking about gratitude a part of your daily habit. I choose to start my day with prayer or gratitude for god allowing me to experience another day. You will be amazed how much better you feel, how others around you feel and how much easier and peaceful your days will become.

Next up- put your self in a position of saying “you are welcome” to others. Think about it

When you first declutter your life, there’s still stuff coming at you. You may go into your day all excited with good intentions and the right mentality but then we collide. The spirit collides with real life and it’s like we get hijacked along the way. We may take a downturn that kind of takes the wind out of our sails. Now we’re down a peg. And then we collide with something else and we go down another peg, then again, and again… and pretty soon you can’t wait for a happy hour.
But if we go about this a little bit differently we may be able to avoid this. What I do is use 3 cards that each have a different word on them: Anticipation, Adaptation, and Reflection.
I need a better way to anticipate my day. I can imagine those things that I’m going to collide with that are going to take the wind out of my sails. Then if I can, I will arrange things a little bit differently to be prepared or avoid those items. There are some things I have the power to arrange.
However, I don’t have the power to change and control everything, but I do have the power to shape. And with that little power to shape, things can start changing. When I do collide with something. I need to adapt. I can turn toward what matters most, or I can turn away and have the wind taken out of my sails.
The other card is reflection. You know, how are things going? Even something as simple as. if you experience something, did I like it? What didn’t I like? And then you can go, okay, going forward. I want more of the stuff that I liked and less of the stuff I didn’t.
I use these cards to help with my own breathing space and mentality instead of getting the wind knocked out of me and having it be another average, boring date where we get to the end of, gasping for breath, wondering what happened.

What is breathing space? I always ask people, when’s the last time that you created more of it? And with more of it, what difference would it make in your life and work.

Imagine the things that are weighing on you or wasting your time, energy, and heart, and if we could get rid of 25% or 50% of those things. Now could we do with that space that we have that we didn’t have before. How that might feel?

So start by stepping back to get some space from the things that are railroading us. De-clutter some of the things that are wasting our time, energy, and heart.

I often say we need a heart monitor because our heart can intuitively feel what is right. I call it the breathing space meter. Imagine the meter goes from 1-10 and if you hold this up, when it feels really good, it’s a 10, right?

Ask yourself what would a 10 feel like? 9? 8? 7? Ect?

If you take the time to register these measurements, you can hold this up to everything in your life and give it a score. If it’s a 10, nine or eight, that’s good. If it’s something less than a 8, maybe we should delete it. Or if we have to keep it, then it’s something that we need to figure out how to disentangle.
But there’s a lot of stuff you could just get rid of.

Unfortunately it’s the stuff in the middle that people accumulate. The 1’s and 2’s are easy to recognize because we often hate them or they are painful. But it’s 3-7’s that will add more to your life that don’t matter and take time and energy from the 8, 9, and 10’s.

Imagine if you were playing a card game but you don’t pick up every card. Instead you just pick up the cards that are going to make your hand better. But in life, we don’t do that. We accumulate crap, you know, we accumulate a noise and garbage and load. And we spend all day with the, energy that we have just taking care of all the stuff and a lot of it doesn’t matter.

Shed the load that doesn’t matter and keep the stuff that matters by giving it your energy and time.