If you track through a busy day of the highest performers in the world. They are making breakthroughs and succeeding at measurably higher levels than everyone else. They make it look easy, and everyone observes and questions how they do it.

A big part of it, is they move through every single day with this awareness and this curiosity about what is possible here. What is possible in this interaction? this choice? this moment? this day? this week? This type of curiosity in neuroscience is so powerful. We call it the need for cognition.

We need more of it every single day. So we can sense deeper to be able to see what other people don’t and see what might be possible uniquely for us to make more of a difference, to have a better life along the way. Yet, too often, we miss it.

So set that reminder to pause ahead of each decision and each interaction, to ask “What is possible and what truly matters?”

Physicality plays an important role for men in producing the best versions of themselves, so they can be better husbands, fathers, and friends. If you were to look at the average level of testosterone, of men in the early 1900’s compared to now, it has dropped significantly, Why is that? Lack of activity, lack of mobility, lack of getting up, going out, and doing something.

What can we do about it?
So first and foremost, get in the gym. I don’t care what that looks like for you. Different people like to work out in different ways. It doesn’t matter, we carry so much stress nowadays and it’s not just about the aesthetic, it’s about what’s happening neuro hormonally. You need to burn those stress hormones! cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine.
You’ve got to give your body an opportunity to release endorphins, which helps to create homeostasis. That’s number one.

Number two is to find something where you can have camaraderie with other men. I encourage a lot of the men I speak with to do combat sports. And it doesn’t mean that you need to become a UFC fighter.

But the main point is that they are doing something that exercises all 4 areas: Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Social. You want those four things to be satisfied with whatever your chosen activity is. I wrote my PHD dissertation on PTSD and ability to process stress. The importance of having physical camaraderie to process trauma and stress is by far the greatest solution that exists.

If you ask the average man, “are you lonely?” He’s gonna say, “No, I’ve got my people at work, I’ve got my people at home.ect..”

But who do you open up your heart to and who do you pour vulnerability into? Who do you feel comfortable enough and confident enough that no matter what, they’re not gonna judge me no matter what? Those are the questions men should be asking about who fits those definitions in their lives

From a hardcore, humanistic, evolutionary perspective, we are tribal. For thousands of years, humans were hunter gathers that lived in communal areas like tepee or caves with 4-10 families. The men would go out and hunt, The women were staying back with the children, taking care of things. But men were out there doing life and death stuff.
When you look at the military community, why is it the camaraderie is so tight between combat veterans? Because of what they have been through together.

It’s no different today, but thing is that the average male in a first world, country nowadays does not have those sorts of relationships. There’s no forging of a fire that required to build those relationships of trust and deeper understanding.
So when we have “acquaintances” and “friends”. But it doesn’t mean that we would sit in a foxhole with them. It doesn’t mean that we would go to war with them. It’s a convenient relationship at the time.
It checks a box. But it doesn’t mean I have that true brotherhood, that true connection. So that’s a huge thing that’s missing nowadays, camaraderie amongst men.

Everyone knows that men are from Mars or women are from Venus. There’s a reason why that book was so popular. Today there’s a very real need for this idea of reconnection because we live in a state of connected disconnection.

We are more connected now more than ever, no time in history. But we are more lonely. We have more mental health challenges, and divorce rates are higher than ever. Including mental health issues in our youth. This manifests in bullying, what’s going on with active shooters, what’s going on with kids, self-esteem, suicide as well, and then you see the same thing with husbands and wives.

How is it that they’re gonna get through tomorrow, when just getting through today is a battle? It’s a battle for everybody, but if we can just equip ourselves with the positive side of why did I choose my partner and why did they choose me? How do I honor that? How do I nurture that? How do I give back to that to make us the best version of us? We can be so we can be the best parents that we could be because they go hand in hand.

What does honoring my wife truly mean? Well, what work have you done to master yourself, so that in the process of honoring her, you’re also not putting her down with your own insecurities?

We all have our own blind spots and our own gaps and understanding that is just as important as the words that are coming out of your mouth towards her. What are the words that you’re telling yourself every day as an affirmation to understand the quality of human being and the quality of man that you are? Because if you don’t have a sound understanding of you of who you are, you’ll not be able to be the type of partner she needs.

Do you find your identity based off of a dollar amount that you make a year? Or off of social clout?

Most men do, but this is not going to be what the people who love the most would say about you if you weren’t there. This is big a problem. Most men have this challenge because we’re always grinding and hustling. We’re doing our thing right? And we get home and we just want to chill like it’s our sanctuary and place of peace. And this idea of got to do this, got to do that, starts the compound. And when it compounds, that stress builds.
It will affect your ability to communicate effectively in a way that honors your wife.
Instead put in the effort to work on yourself. Understand who you are as a man. And think about how you’re communicating with her. If you do this hopefully it will influence how you both respond to each other.

That’s leadership in the home.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the power of incentives and how they shape our behavior and the world around us. I’ve been asking myself, what is the incentive behind (person,system, decision) ect? Just asking this question let’s me think about things a bit more rationally and clearly if I have an understanding of what is shaping the behavior of those around.

Rational decision making is vitally important, yet we are anything but rational. If we look deeply at human pyschology and behavior, we can see that the power of incentives is one of the largest driving forces shaping the world around us and even impacting our own thinking.
“The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.” – Warren Buffett

Incentives are incredibly powerful and potentially dangerous because of they shape systems or influence our own thinking in ways that not easily detected, difficult to predict, and almost impossible to change once the system is built. It can cause us to rationalize immoral behavior that in a stand along situation would thought to be grossly misguided.
The goal of this piece is to highlight how incentives are at work and by providing some examples. Perhaps by peeling back the layers and exposing incentives at work, we can understand how and why human behavior is how it is.

Corporate and Business Incentives
Incentive: Leaders of publically traded companies are judged by how well their stock performs. Stock performance is based upon the company’s ability to make money, which is reported in quarterly earnings. Seems like a logical incentive structure, encourage CEO’s to have their company do well on a regular basis. Good CEO’s and good company’s will be rewarded
Unintended Consequence: This can create the incentive for CEO’s to focus short term, neglecting long term investment necessary for the future of the business. It can also create intense short term pressure to “meet the numbers” quarterly, which might lead to questionable accounting practices or other immoral behavior… See Enron, GE, or any number of corporate cases where the numbers didn’t quite match reality.

Sales
Incentive: Salespeople are paid commission for the sale of products. They are motivated to make money and thus work hard.
Unintended Consequence: Can create the incentive for immoral behavior. Some examples: Wells Fargo employees opening fake accounts to meet their sales numbers. Countless cases of immoral Insurance salesmen on everything selling bad companies with higher commission to taking advantage of the elderly, ect.

Political System
Incentive: Politicians need to get re-elected repeatedly in the US or any democracy. This allows citizens to vote out bad politicians.
Unintended Consequence: It makes it difficult for politicians to make meaningful, difficult, long-term decisions because they are always involved in a popularity contest for their job. Would you do anything difficult or unpopular if your livelihood would end in 2, 4, or 6 years? This incentive creates lifelong politicians who do not accomplish much.
Politicians are also responsible for allocating tax dollars, if you had to win a popularity contest might you be tempted to allocate money to the causes that might help you win that popularity contest. Like a 6th grade class president candidate who promises unlimited recess and ice cream for lunch.

Investment and Finance Space
Incentive: Managers of Private Equity, Venture Capital, Mutual Funds are paid fees based on assets under management.
Unintended Consequence: Investment Managers are not incentivized to invest well, they are incentivized to “gather more assets”. More assets=more fees for the manager. This creates very average performance on the whole so customers don’t pull their funds and buy index funds to settle for averages. It can also encourage risky or reckless behavior because you get the money and are being paid to invest, whether you have a good investment idea or not.

Media
Incentive: Reporters need access to high profile people.
Unintended Consequence: Are they going to fair in their assessment? Or do they want to keep getting access to the high-profile people? They might not if they’re overly critical (even if it’s true).

Legal
Incentive: Attorneys are usually billed by the hour.
Unintended Consequence: Are they incentivized to conclude legal proceedings as quickly as possible? Or is the temptation to drag out billable hours?

We could exemplify any number of systems that horribly influenced by the power of incentives: Healthcare, Education, social services, …..Bottom line in systems is people show conscious or unconscious bias to those who employ, pay, or feed them. “Who’s bread I eat, his song I sing.”

On an Individual Basis
This also happens to us on the individual level. Incentives can influence our behavior and thoughts without knowing, or worse we rationalize it to ourselves. Examples:

-Instead of seeking truth. Most people spend the majority of their life, looking for information that rationalizes what they already believe to be true.

-The salesmen who sells a low-quality product, might justify it in his mind. Even believing that it’s a great product, when in truth it’s poor. “To the man with a Hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

– We look for reasons to justify the outlandish behavior of the candidate of our aligned political party. “He’s only doing that because the other party is so evil….”

-We talk ourselves into foolish financial, professional, or business decisions because we simply want them to be true. “Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true.”- Demosthenes

-The person who behaves slightly immorally, will justify it to themselves to reach their incentive. “I’m entitled to the money, I embezzled.” “Everyone does this in corporate accounting.” “Everyone cheats on their homework and tests.” “All men behave this way….”

We should all take a step back and analyze what is the incentive behind this person, or system? Not all incentives are bad, but it’s incredibly important that we take the time to analyze them so we can approach decisions as rationally as possible.

When I was with the Imagineers at Disney, we used all kinds of different ways to stimulate creativity. These were incredibly important to the culture of the organization.

I believe all of the problems that we face require an interdisciplinary approach to solving. No one skill or idea tackles the complexity of life. We need to encourage the development of individual unique talents in individuals and even our children. Let them find what they are good at and then bring those skills together across different disciplines.

The hardest part of creativity is overcoming the status quo and saying “What if We? How Could We? How Might We?”

This requires immense courage. The willingness to stick our necks out and potentially look foolish or make mistakes. In a group setting like with the Imagineers, there had to a culture of trust so they could have this courage to take chances.

I tell my short story about going from a college graduate, to art management, to moving into leadership at Disney. You’ll see it wasn’t a direct path, as I worked at the Disney restaurants as a hostess to just get my foot in the door.