The Performance Paradox: Embrace Mistakes, Master Performance & Learning, Eduardo Briceño

[00:00:10] Hello and welcome. My name is Gino Barbaro one of the co-founders of Jake and Gino and listen Jake's not here today Sucks to be him because I got this guest all to myself. I'm super excited. He wrote a book

[00:00:23] He put my story in there. I've got a little PTSD because my story years ago I wasn't really that good at what I was doing and I read back and I ponder and I think about it

[00:00:33] And I'm like wow, those were the good old days, but they were the bad old days Anyway, Eduardo Briceño is a global keynote speaker who guides world-leading companies in developing cultures of continuous improvement

[00:00:46] Innovation and high performance in his newest book the performance paradox turning the power of mindset into action Eduardo discusses how we can achieve more tomorrow than today with the belief that we can and the competence to know how to change Without further ado. Welcome to the show Eduardo

[00:01:04] Thank You Gina so great to be here with you This is a second time for you We were on our show probably three years ago Were you in the process of writing your book and you said Gina?

[00:01:14] Would you like to talk about your story and I really didn't know what I was getting myself into and now that it's in print What I would say to everybody the performance paradox go out and buy the book because if you're stuck in the rut

[00:01:25] If you're stuck in the grind and you're not getting better and you've been on 300 podcasts and you still not where you want to be If you read the book it will shed some light on what your next steps are and

[00:01:38] Eduardo talk to the listeners tell them it took you three years to write the book You have your heart your soul your passion the book What made you want to write this book and spend three years of your life talking to guys like Gino sharing their?

[00:01:52] Sometimes not so inspiring stories Well, I'm so inspired with your story, you know, I you know Remember you yeah You reach out to me to interview me for your podcast on growth mindset and I read your story Jake and Gino

[00:02:05] And then I learned about Julia too, and I was so inspired by this story You've gone through and now you know the work that you do So it's it's been really fun to learn from you and get your stories into the book

[00:02:17] But yeah, I gave everything to this book. This book is my life's work I like you said, I worked really hard on it for three years and it was because I You know in my journey I

[00:02:29] Learned learning from other people and and trying to support people who wanted to foster learning and and and growth I came to an insight that I realized I had gotten in the way of myself

[00:02:43] Which is that I was just working really hard at trying to succeed, you know in my work I was just trying to do everything as best as I could trying to minimize mistakes and

[00:02:52] What I had what I learned along the way is that that was not the way to grow and to improve and to succeed you know it we have this kind of simplified idea many of us and I did that

[00:03:04] We just working hard and and that's the path to succeed But what I learned is that there's two different forms of effort There's work to perform or execute do things as best as we know how you know go through our checklist get things done

[00:03:18] That's what I call the performance zone And then there's a different type of effort and strategies which I call the learning zone Which involves leaping beyond the known trying new things asking questions experimenting, you know examining mistakes to see what we can learn from them

[00:03:32] You know working with a mentor or a coach, you know reading a book listening to a podcast All those things are different than just getting things done. And so in our work and lives We need to alternate between these two zones and also integrate them

[00:03:45] But we need to be deliberate about improvement improvement doesn't work just Doesn't happen just from working hard at trying to get things done So I I wrote this book to first I did a TED talk on it and has like over 4 million views

[00:03:58] so so well first I I Developed this framework along with a lot of other frameworks in doing workshops with trying to support people Then I realized this was a really idea an idea that was leading to insights and great discussion

[00:04:11] So then I did a 10-minute TEDx talk on it and it resonated and the book was a way to go a lot deeper So for me to learn, you know interviewing people like you diving deeper into the research

[00:04:23] You know thinking more about my frameworks and developing them more and then you know writing a resource that would be useful to people It's interesting because in the book you talk about Serena and Venus Williams and I love this analogy

[00:04:35] Their father didn't have them going out and playing match after match after match and that's what you would think Can you discuss that story a little bit and how we can incorporate that into our lives?

[00:04:47] Yeah, you know we might see somebody like Serena and Venus Williams were obviously, you know One of the best tennis players of all time and we might assume that the way they've become so good is that they've spent

[00:04:59] Countless hours playing tennis like if you just spend 10,000 hours playing tennis and you'll become a world-class tennis player But if you look at the research or you know, the world-class Athletes like Serena and Venus. That's not how you become great

[00:05:13] You know, they in what we see is their performance zone They are playing a match doing the things they know best trying to minimize mistakes if they're having trouble with a particular move

[00:05:26] They're going to avoid that move during the game because all they care about is winning, right? But then after the game, they'll go to their coach and say coach that move that I was trying to not do during the game

[00:05:36] That's what I need to work on right? And so let's let's do that. And that's a very different activity That's what we call the learning zone and that that work with the coach that deliberate practice that being

[00:05:46] Intentional about what we want to improve. That's how we get better so that we can perform better in the court. And so Venus and Serena's father Richard He took them out most, you know

[00:05:59] The best practice at the time was for young promising tennis players to play lots of tournaments every weekend To get a lot of experience to get a lot of and and what what Richard Williams understood is that that's the performance zone That's not the learning zone

[00:06:15] And so he took them out of the tournaments and he they didn't perform in tournaments instead they they moved from California to Florida to to work with a world-class coach there and They spent all the time training not going to tournaments and once they became

[00:06:33] Professional, you know for Venus. I think she was 14 She was a world-class player not having played Tournaments the last the previous few years because they had focus on improvement not on performance You know of course like performance is also You know

[00:06:47] It helps you like manage your nerves and it helps you understand how to manage the match in the crowd So you learn also? But but you know, you don't need a lot of that performance time in order to become a great performer

[00:07:01] Eduardo if I'm listening to this and I see my mistakes for myself. Let's say I've been doing hundreds of podcasts. I Didn't see the results that I wanted to see

[00:07:11] How do I tell my brain or what are the first couple of steps to say that? Okay, I'm performing I'm doing 10 shows a week. I'm not getting better. How do I get myself into the learning zone?

[00:07:21] How can I get my mind prepared for that? What are the next steps that do I need to do? Do I need to hire a coach do I need to watch video? What what do I need to do?

[00:07:29] Well, there there are lots of different strategies that you could engage in the learning zone One so most of us are really really busy and we need to get a lot of things done like in your case You might need to get a lot of podcasts recorded, right?

[00:07:42] And so one question that we can ask ourselves is how can I get things done while improving along the way? So doing both at the same time That's what I call learning while doing and so in the case of the podcast

[00:07:55] It could be recording the podcast and then after the podcast soliciting feedback to the guest and saying hey, you know What what worked for you? What didn't was there something that was confusing something you would suggest doing differently going forward or you know

[00:08:08] If you're interviewing somebody who's done lots of podcasts at the beginning of the podcast You could say hey What are some things that podcast hosts do that you think are effective or some things that podcast hosts do? That are not that effective right so soliciting feedback

[00:08:23] Is super helpful. You can do that of the guest You can also do that of the listeners right just just survey some of the listeners and say hey What do you appreciate about this podcast? What do you wish that I would do more of so?

[00:08:35] That's one strategy that is like a learning while doing strategy You mentioned a couple other ones that could be really helpful right like Working with a coach could be another idea or when you listen to other podcasts noticing, you know what the host is doing

[00:08:49] And an emulating and experimenting and thinking about what works and what doesn't work So so there's but those are deliberate strategies that are different from just recording recording recording Mm-hmm. It's interesting because I wrote those down because it's something so simple ask for feedback

[00:09:07] I'm gonna ask for Eduardo for feedback after this podcast. Hey Eduardo Did I suck on the show or would I do a good job? So I rarely do that I don't know why it's something that I mean sometimes the guests will say hey, this is a great show

[00:09:20] But what was great about it and that's the thing dig a little bit deeper because I think surface level answer great Well, what did you like about it?

[00:09:26] Well, you know, I like the temple or I like the energy or I like the questions and then the hard question What could I have done better? That's a hard one because we're all tend to I'm sorry. I tend to be sensitive. Yes, Julia

[00:09:39] I'm sensitive. It's part of my humanity and sometimes I don't like to hear negative feedback or criticism But I need to understand that's part of the learning zone and part of mindset. Let's shift into mindset

[00:09:50] How does mindset work with learning zone because I'm really good at taking feedback from Eduardo I love taking feedback from somebody in the business world

[00:09:58] But if my wife or my kids tell me I go off the rails and thank God they're not gonna listen to this part of The show I promise they will not hear that that that that that answer from me. So Well, I so appreciate this podcast

[00:10:12] But also a podcast you have with Julia on how to improve our relationships and family and and you both model learning so well But you bring it growth mindset Which is growth mindset is the belief that we can change and that we can improve and so for example

[00:10:27] Serena Williams, you know, she was number one in the world But a growth mindset means the belief that she can continue to improve even if she's the best in the world She can continue to improve and so when she solicits feedback from her coach or anybody else

[00:10:42] She can better take in that feedback because the assumption That that people in a growth mindset have and when we're in a growth mindset is that we can always improve and so There's always opportunity for improvement and that's not a sign of weakness

[00:10:56] Sometimes we feel like if we receive critical feedback, it means that we're not competent or we are not confident. We're not capable But in a growth mindset

[00:11:05] We understand we all can improve and and the people who become best in the world were class like like you are Gino And we all know that who observe you We we we seek those opportunities for improvement because we know that that's what makes people great

[00:11:20] and so a growth mindset I would say is is the belief that we can improve is necessary but not sufficient in order to be a motivated and effective learner in addition to

[00:11:31] Believing that we can improve we need to understand how what are effective strategies and that's where the learning zone comes in Six minutes you wrote six common misconceptions about learning

[00:11:42] Can you go over a couple of those because I think those are important because you had growth mindset in there as well Because we do have misconceptions about learning we think hey learn this memorize this go to work

[00:11:52] Grind it out and I'm gonna get better just because of that Yeah, you know so one big misconception about learning is that if we just do the activity a lot will get better with we've talked about that a

[00:12:05] Growth mindset is something that's often distorted into other things like working hard or having high expectations but when we We're not clear that a growth mindset to believe we can change then we might Like we might for example encourage other people to work hard

[00:12:25] But then tell them you're such a genius or such a natural and those those messages Put people in a fixed mindset because if people believe that they're good because they are geniuses then they're going they shift into proving that they're geniuses and that they're naturally talented and

[00:12:44] Therefore they shy away from challenges. They don't they react defensively to feedback They they don't kind of look at their opportunities for improvement. So that's another misconception about learning I would say in the age of AI and kind of internet

[00:13:01] Those tools like internet searches or AI are super super helpful. But sometimes we get the impression that Therefore we don't need to know anything We don't have to expand our knowledge because we can always look it up

[00:13:13] But actually like having knowledge in our head is really helpful, you know when when we are whether it's in multi, you know multifamily investing your You're evaluating an investment

[00:13:22] You know is much more you're much more effective if you have that knowledge in your head and you can observe things and notice things And ask the right questions rather than you know, rely on like artificial intelligence. So there's there's a lot about

[00:13:35] How to learn and what's was what effective learning strategies? And that involves going into a learning zone and being curious and investigating it in this part of the show I'm gonna get a little Transparent. I'm gonna get a little vulnerable for the listeners because I shared with Eduardo

[00:13:51] what I've been going through in my learning zone over the last couple of years and It's I've been singing opera for the last two and a half to three years

[00:13:59] And the reason why I started was one of my coaches at one of my events said Gino you have a soft voice I don't really hear you sometimes and you're not next to the mic and that's all it took

[00:14:09] It pissed me off and my kids were already singing. So they said dad start singing so For those of you that don't know opera is very challenging to sing First of all, you need that you need to know how to read music. You need to know how to

[00:14:24] I guess project your voice You need to know the rhythm of music and it's something where you're up there and it's your voice and you're really Self-conscious about it. So I had so many things working against me and I had never sung before

[00:14:37] But my opera coach was a Russian guy and he thought all Italians knew how to sing So he told me to sing the very first day and as I told Eduardo the first song that popped up into my mind

[00:14:48] Was Guns N' Roses. Welcome to the jungle. I obviously couldn't sing that for him So he took out Santa Lucia, so and I'm singing soul mod Lou and I felt really awkward I felt really uncomfortable

[00:15:00] but that's where the learning zone started and it took months and months and months to sit there and to learn the technique and now, I mean I can share some I guess what I've

[00:15:14] Come from from two and a half to three years ago till now and it's really When you go into the learning zone It's very challenging because you need to work on it and what I've done at award over the last six months

[00:15:25] I was singing easy songs like the Italian Neapolitan songs and now the last six months my coaches stretched me to sing arias like I see be mio and These really hard with nessun dorma which are very very challenging and it takes me a lot longer

[00:15:41] I get a lot more frustrated, but I'm in the learning zone and I could go back and Do the easier songs make myself feel good, but I won't grow with them Have you come into that into that idea where I'm gonna be comfortable

[00:15:55] I'm really good at these songs but if I go any better like you said that fixed mindset I'm not gonna do good with these newer songs and I was stuck at that point and I wasn't progressing I was sitting at an a-flat. I could not hit a b-flat

[00:16:07] It took me six months of going into the heart of songs to finally stretch myself make those mistakes Sound terrible look not so great, but then ultimately I did it

[00:16:18] I mean, that's probably the same path that most people take in the business world and even in the sports world, correct? That's so so cool. Do you know it's so inspiring? Yeah, you know I when it comes to music I

[00:16:30] Remember when I when I was a teenager I would Practice guitar and I wanted to become a great I was in a band and we played and but when I practiced

[00:16:41] I just played the songs that I liked and that I knew how to play and I play I played the song over and over Again, and I thought if I just spend time playing songs, I would get better

[00:16:51] I didn't I had no idea what the learning zone looked like And so tell me when it comes to and and so I think it's also voice is something that a lot of people

[00:17:03] Have a fixed mindset about like, you know, your voice is your voice. You can't improve it So it's inspiring that you couldn't hit that note and you worked on it for six months until you could

[00:17:12] And so one question I have for you is in the learning zone when you're working on your opera singing Are you just singing songs and singing more and more challenging songs? Are you doing specific exercises for a particular purpose?

[00:17:27] Can you give us a sense of what some of those things that you do in the learning zone are? That's a great question What I would say is voice like anything else is really unique to the individual if you want to get better

[00:17:37] You need to get feedback. That's why every Friday. I was going at 5 p.m Now my lessons are Wednesday at 12 p.m. I'll go. I don't really need to warm up I used to warm up for a little bit the voice, but now I'm doing another technique

[00:17:50] I keep changing the techniques to see what works better. So I'll warm up for a few minutes I may do a scale or two, but not really I'll jump into it

[00:17:58] But what we did is we progressed slowly. So I'm a dramatic tenor. I've got a really heavy voice So I need to protect my voice So I do a technique called bracing where I brace I use the back my muscles to create what they call this kind of

[00:18:13] Tunnel where you create this opening in your throat to let the air out So when you push a lot of air out and you hit those high notes you protect it

[00:18:19] It took me eight months like I told you to learn that I would have quit if it wasn't for my children Telling me you need to go and singing a church. I would have said this is this is not for me

[00:18:30] But once I learned that then the next step was okay Let's start pushing up and let's start going up to a higher note and then a higher note and a harder piece

[00:18:39] And then I'm going back to pieces that I sung two years ago, which I didn't sing very well And the irony is I have the mistakes

[00:18:48] That I made two years ago, and I'm trying to correct those mistakes that I made two years ago because I learned those incorrectly So now I'm relearning those pieces. So the transition has been don't rush take your time

[00:19:00] But you need feedback every Wednesday I go there and I sing with him for an hour during the week I'll sing with my son probably two or three times a week

[00:19:08] I'll let him play for me and it's embarrassing because I'm really loud in the house. The kids don't want to hear me My wife is like would you stop singing and then Sundays? It's performance time because we go sing a church

[00:19:19] So you need to have I think a blend of all of that You need to be humble those will be should be those who are exalted shall be humbled and those are humble She'll be exalted because it's really a learning experience and I'm not a master

[00:19:31] I'm a 52 year old at the time who never sang before so I have to give myself a little bit of leeway I mean, he's actually pretty impressed at how I progressed because I started as such an old age to sing So don't beat yourself up

[00:19:45] If you're not where you are just take a look back where you were two and a half years ago I couldn't sing now I got up on stage in front of a thousand people at multi-family mastery six and I let a couple of songs rip and I

[00:19:57] Did a pretty good job. I think that's the journey Did I answer your question because it's been a long progressing going back in my mind and thinking about different pieces and segments of that Whole journey. Yeah, that is so cool

[00:20:07] And you you you pointed out a great technique for all of us to get into a growth mindset Which is to focus on our progress our own growth rather than compare ourselves to other people who might have been

[00:20:18] you know singing since they were young and we just see their performance zone and that tends to put in something into a fixed mindset, so Congratulations and the growth that you've done. You know, it reminds me of when I was getting ready to do the audiobook

[00:20:33] We had a professional audiobook narrator Narrated because you know, they have developed their expertise for many years This is what they do and they he did a fantastic job But I Recorded the Dedication and the afterword for the book

[00:20:52] And so I I worked with two different voice coaches for an hour each just to take the opportunity to learn a little bit about using my voice and how to

[00:21:01] How to do the narration in a way that was more engaging for people and I learned some really interesting techniques That are also helpful for me if I'm gonna be in podcasts or I'm gonna be a lot of doing a lot of speaking in

[00:21:12] a day one of them involves that taking a glass like I have right here that is has a little bit of water and it has a straw and Like blowing on the straw doing something with my throat. I'm gonna model it here. It's like

[00:21:34] I'm doing that for like ten times and that like that Relaxes the the vocal cords and it kind of helps me take care of them and sound a little bit better So I learned techniques like that, which are very different from you know performing

[00:21:48] And it's interesting because i'll give an example for those of you who are probably my age. You probably remember margaret thatcher Margaret thatcher was the prime minister if you go to her in her early years. Her voice was very whiny Very squealy very pitchy

[00:22:04] When you hear her later, she'd be sounds like a statesman. She sounds like an orator She is amazing and that is all in the learning zone I have to say I don't know how or what she did but she improved her voice and it made such an amazing

[00:22:20] Dramatic difference go back in the beginning She sounded like a little whiny But then she learned how to round her voice and project it and ironically enough those who do really well in sales Have really great voices. They they they protrude confidence strength

[00:22:37] Assurance in their voice and they learn how to use it as a tool They're not born with it. I didn't know at the age of 52 that I was a dramatic tenor

[00:22:46] I I just fixed saw it but it was dormant in me if I didn't go out and try to learn it And it's the same if you're a real estate investor, you don't know how to underwrite a deal You don't know how to do a property tour

[00:22:59] These are things that you're not born with But if you want to do them you learn and as you're learning you go out and you perform on a property tour You get feedback from the broker

[00:23:09] Then you go back and you practice it at home or with a coach and you continue to integrate it within your life I think you should do some more vocals. I think eduardo you would enjoy doing a little more vocal

[00:23:21] I can definitely benefit from that. It's definitely on my kind of list I have other things that I also want to get better at like for example when i'm doing virtual speaking

[00:23:31] I want to be able to use tools better to use visuals and like integrate visuals with the video So there's lots of things that I want to improve at that's one of them and the

[00:23:41] There's also something which is that you can't improve at everything at the same time at least like You know, I need to prioritize and think about what is what is it? That is most important for me to work on right now and and be deliberate about that

[00:23:51] But I definitely think I can benefit from working on my voice and I will at some point Eduardo, how do you bring this to an organization as far as working with companies because a lot of companies

[00:24:01] Don't have growth mindset a lot of companies want to be in the performance zone all the time as you eloquently stated in your book They burn out after a while like microsoft i'm not making any mistakes. I need to be perfect. How do you talk to corporations?

[00:24:14] Yeah, so that's what most of my work is and and so for for companies that want to Develop a culture of learning right where people are sharing what they want to improve with each other. They're soliciting feedback. They're experimenting

[00:24:28] um and they're they're creating systems for improvement like for example, um In weekly meetings are they only talking about kind of deadlines and due dates which are important

[00:24:38] But are they also talking about what we're looking to improve and how and what we're learning along the way and what questions we have For each other. So are there systems for both performance, but also learning? and often it starts at the top, you know where with the

[00:24:51] Uh, the executives of the company saying, you know being deliberate about how does our culture need to evolve? What what are the attributes of our culture that we want to build?

[00:25:01] And and they identify kind of learning or growth mindset being part of that or that, you know agility or adaptability um and And then they say okay like how how can we foster this and often they bring somebody like me

[00:25:14] Um, which who's part of the puzzle right? They have people inside who are going to develop Um learning and development programs or talent management coaching. They have kind of systems to support that but they also often find Somebody who's an external speaker

[00:25:28] for example, I come in and I do keynotes to to introduce these ideas and to support the ideas to to to answer questions, uh to do activities for for the executives to first kind of reflect and really rapple with these ideas because

[00:25:43] often what what is involved of senior leaders or any leader is first to Set the stage to frame, you know, what what do we want our culture to be? How do we want to work with each other?

[00:25:55] Um, you know how how do we want to perform and learn for example, you know Do we want to be in a growth mindset? What does that mean for us? So that's kind of setting the stage or framing

[00:26:04] Second what systems and habits do we want to foster in the way we work? but then the third is super important is to model learning visibly and explicitly because often We have the idea that once we get promoted we're supposed to know, you know

[00:26:16] we're supposed to be fully sure of ourselves and to um, And and and so sometimes we engage in learning in private, you know, we might listen to podcasts We might work with an executive coach, but in front of the people that we lead or our colleagues

[00:26:31] We we try to pretend that we're know-it-alls. And so what they observe Is a know-it-all so that's what they emulate, you know Because they get the message of oh the people who get promoted in these companies the people who now

[00:26:43] Have figured everything out and they don't have any more questions So they're not trying to improve any further because they they think they already are the best in the world And so that's what they try to emulate. So in order to create a learning culture. We have to

[00:26:55] To to send the message that no, you know, I might be really good at what I do But i'm continuing to get even better and so you can you can support me in these ways by sharing feedback with me

[00:27:06] By having conversations about how we can work better, etc I love that. Let's take a quick timeout to hear from our sponsors Now we have had a great run in multifamily going from zero units to over 250 million in assets

[00:27:19] That's over 2000 apartment deals that we've been able to purchase through our framework buy right manage right and finance right now Jake and I we created the jake and gino community back in 2015

[00:27:30] We launched our first book we have our profits and since then our students have closed over 60 000 units That's over 4 billion dollars and that's they've been able to close over the last six years And that's why this community has been so successful

[00:27:43] We call it results-based education and we pour back into the community everything that we've learned on our journey from zero to 2000 units And all our systems and scale that we use on our very own property management and investing company. Jake

[00:27:55] I love that. It's not just education. It's implementation So what I want you to do click on that link down below apply to work with our team See how we can help you on your journey in multifamily

[00:28:09] Eduardo now if you had known me about 15 years ago, and i'm listening to this i'd say This is bs. This does not work. I just gotta keep work

[00:28:17] Have you heard that have you heard a lot of pushback from people because I would have been one of those people 15 years ago Saying no The only way I get better is by doing if I gotta get on a podcast and get better

[00:28:27] Or singing I just gotta keep singing and singing and singing. Have you heard a lot of pushback from people? Who were what the word skeptical and you know, what do you say to those people? You know often I I don't hear a lot of pushback I do. Um

[00:28:42] So once people learn these ideas they They really want them. I don't know if it's because it's a biased set Uh of companies are coming to me that are that want to develop a culture of learning

[00:28:53] But even in those companies there's you know, there might be hundreds and hundreds of people And I make I do a poll I do live polling and usually

[00:29:02] Be you know two percent or fewer of the people in the room say I don't want to learn the performance zone or or sorry I don't want the learning zone or the learning zones wouldn't be useful for us 98% of them feel

[00:29:13] You know, we're either already doing it really well That's usually less than 10 or you know, we can get a lot better at this. That's usually more than 90 and and and but but they also say Because I ask like in a poll again

[00:29:28] I asked like what makes it challenging to engage in the learning zone And there are real challenges in that like the the two biggest ones are first time You know, we have so much to do in so little time

[00:29:39] When are we going to find time to engage in the learning zone? And the other one has to do with fear or ego right of like, you know Or or safety like if I if I am vulnerable if I share

[00:29:52] That I want to improve at something or I solicit feedback Am I going to lose influence or am I going to get a bad review or am I not going to be considered for opportunities? And those are usually the biggest challenges around time

[00:30:06] The the biggest opportunity is to change the way we do things so that we Do and learn at the same time. It doesn't have to take more time, right? So that means we have to

[00:30:17] At least tweak but you know change make some change to the way we do things if we're always doing the same thing in The same way there's no way we are going to improve right? So we have to

[00:30:26] Develop hypotheses and get ideas about what to tweak what to try differently See if it works or it doesn't work like you said, you know in your work in opera singing like you might

[00:30:38] Warm up or not warm up or use a different technique to see what works better. So you're experimenting Um soliciting feedback is another is another way and also like developing quick but frequent learning zone habits like a very powerful one for me

[00:30:53] Is every morning reminding myself of what i'm looking to improve just that doesn't that only takes less than a minute And it primes the growth mindset it primes the learning zone and it helps me notice opportunities to work on that during the day

[00:31:05] Um, that's so so rather than try to block, you know, two hours every friday, which can be super valuable if you can do it You know first prioritize something that's quick but very frequently something that you can do every day and regarding fear is about creating that

[00:31:19] culture that of of Where everybody is a learner? Learning is valued. We are sharing with each other what we're working to improve soliciting ideas, you know Giving and receiving feedback doing debriefs right of like what was a great success? What went well, you know

[00:31:37] Why did this go so well and also like what did we fail or what could we have done differently? What are we going to try differently next time? So those those again like a system a process

[00:31:46] That we can use either at the end of each project or in the middle of projects And so being deliberate about what that looks like I can give a tip As far as what eduardo said in the morning being intentional i'm trying to become a better speaker

[00:32:00] So my speaker coach has an exercise called the random word exercise So I have one of my children every morning pick out five random words And i'll do a one minute speech on the random word working on the five levels of speech whether i'm either smiling my pace

[00:32:16] my pausing Uh, i'm trying to work on those levels of speech And like I said when i'm in the performance zone right now It's very difficult to be cognizant and to try to do that because I may not want to make a mistake but if you're able to

[00:32:29] Number one, what are you trying to work on which is really important eduardo said that you can't try to learn 15 different things What's the most important thing for this quarter?

[00:32:38] Number two what he just said try to be intentional start today with what are you trying to work on? You don't have to block off two hours on a friday If you could spend a few minutes every day, maybe it's 30 minutes on a friday

[00:32:48] But being intentional and trying to do some exercises I think will really truly help out now habits one of the habits that I think we've been discussing is Is the learning zone is to really create a habit of of a culture of learning?

[00:33:02] What other habits have you incorporated in your life to become successful? so, I mean that the most treasured habit for me is the the morning habit the first thing that I do every day because

[00:33:15] Um at that point we haven't been distracted. We haven't been derailed into something else So that way we can live life proactively and we can remind ourselves of what's most important So the very first thing that I do on a daily basis is just you know

[00:33:29] I'm still in bed and decided to to get out of bed I I just express gratitude for the things that I deem to be most important, you know Which is life health love and peace that's that's what's for me and then noticing

[00:33:41] the the presence of those things because that There is hate and conflict but there's also like peace and love right? And so I want to make like notice that

[00:33:51] So that I get in a positive emotional state and so that i'm i'm i'm appreciating those things and it helps me Put into perspective All those kind of daily challenges that come which at the end of the day are not as important as those things

[00:34:04] So that I think is is the most important habit that I have um, and then like you're saying each morning, so I have a like a Whether it's a short or longer meditation or mindfulness Moment that I do every morning, you know every morning. I I

[00:34:23] drink kind of vegetable and fruit smoothies so taking care of our our bodies right our our whether it's like sleep and physics and physical movement or nutrition Um and then reminding myself every morning of What what do I care most about? What are my missions?

[00:34:41] What are my kind of strategic priorities and what am I going to be focused on today? What are my biggest priorities for today? um, and as I said before kind of what what am I looking to improve so

[00:34:51] That before I get distracted with email or social media or other things so that i'm kind of you know living Proactively rather than reactively I also have other habits like I meet, you know

[00:35:03] Once every four to six weeks with a couple of different kind of what I call friend tours They're friends, but they're we're also mentors to each other and we share, you know

[00:35:14] Things that are going on in our lives. We ask questions we ask for ideas. Uh, so we support each other in that way Uh i've worked kind of with coaches like you do you've you've mentioned your your your singing coach and your speaking coach

[00:35:26] So coaches are super helpful And i've kind of had different coaches for different purposes at different points in my life Whether it's a book coach or a speaking coach I i'm a public speaker. So I like to solicit feedback after my keynotes and I also like to

[00:35:43] Experiment so, you know in the performance and I want to do a great job I want to do what I have learned that works very well, but I also usually

[00:35:53] Tweak something that I think will work well for that particular group like, you know next week i'm i'm speaking at universal studios in orlando Like i'm going to show some pictures of me at the parks and a video and that's in a roller coaster

[00:36:06] And like talk about some things that I don't talk in other organizations I haven't done those things before but I think they'll work really well with this group and and I learn By tweaking and and getting new experiences and reflecting on how those things go So

[00:36:19] It may be obvious, but I need to state it a lot of the habits that eduardo does supports The learning zone if you're in a state of gratitude if you're in a positive mind state

[00:36:31] If your physiology is one of happiness one of joy, it's going to be a lot easier to learn I mean the no no can do book written by ken blanchard, you know negative thinking stinking thinking as he says if you're in that

[00:36:43] Type of zone it's going to be a lot harder to learn so becoming aware of your state if you're really depressed down I mean, I we should mention that I mean It's going to be a lot harder to learn a subject at that point because first of all

[00:36:55] You don't think you can do it. So you're probably not going to do your behaviors or belief driven But also in that state of negativity, it's a lot harder to consume knowledge and to be able to learn. Isn't that correct?

[00:37:05] I absolutely correct and that is a big lesson that i've learned in my life is that you know, I used to believe that Like happiness was not something that I was trying to do. I just assumed that

[00:37:17] what I was supposed to do in life was just to get promotions get high paying jobs and once like I got promotions and I got paid then I would be happy, you know as opposed to Happiness being something that really I can create within myself

[00:37:31] It's an emotion that I can that I can create deliberately And then like you're saying that positive emotion helps us better connect with people and and better learn because we're less fearful So we can experiment more we can listen better And we can perform better. So absolutely

[00:37:48] I love that before we I guess sign off where can the listeners get a hold you eduardo? Where can they buy the book? Sure. Well, uh, the book is called performance paradox is available wherever books are sold amazon audible wherever

[00:38:02] Um, i'm active on linkedin so I like to connect with people there and I share Ideas there regularly and my website is my last name is briseño.com I have a monthly newsletter there and some free resources on kind of tips to promote a growth mindset

[00:38:19] I'd like to share part of eduardo's story as we wrap up. I know when he first started out he was in corporate america He thought working 80 hours a week being perfect not making any mistakes was the way to go

[00:38:30] And I think it was soul-sucking for him because he didn't feel as if he could make any mistakes He wasn't living his true purpose his true self And I think when he started working with carol duwek when he was the test subject for mindset

[00:38:40] I think everything sort of changed and it was this new world where I've been living in a fixed mindset for all these years I've been working and not trying to grow and that's not who I want to become. I don't want to just Like you said make money

[00:38:53] and continue to work And not really get any better but be worried of having that fixed mindset meeting carol duwek I think changed everything and then I think the second step is when he met jake and gino and say well

[00:39:04] I'm, not the only one who has this fixed mindset I think i'm gonna write a book called the performance paradox And i'm gonna have these guys in the book and a couple other people in the book as well

[00:39:14] And share their journeys and the idea that working hard and thinking you're gonna get it better without Implementing a culture of learning. It's just not going to happen and the book

[00:39:24] Three years it took to write and as you read it, you're gonna say wow three years to write a book It seems like a long time, but when you read it, you'll see the work that's gone into the book

[00:39:34] The stories are amazing. The frameworks are amazing. There's a lot of actionable content and if you want To continue to have the growth mindset and continue to learn the craft go out And pick up the performance paradox Thanks eduardo for being on the show. I really appreciate it

[00:39:52] Thank you. Gina great to be with you