Balancing Success and Well Being | AMA Vol. 22 Live From NYC

Michael Gervais (0:01)

Welcome back, or welcome to another Ask Me Anything on Finding Mastery. I am your host, Dr. Michael gervais, by trade and training, a high-performance psychologist. This week, we have a really fun one for you. A few months back, we recorded our first ever AMA in front of a live audience in New York City. The energy in the room was incredible, and it brought a whole new level of depth and spontaneity to the conversation. Your favorite co-host, O'Neil Sespedes, and I dove headfirst into some questions that mattered most to you. And this time, it wasn't just us talking. Our audience had a chance to steer the conversation in real time. So we ended up digging into some fascinating topics, including the delicate balance between striving for success and maintaining mental health, how to rewire your brain to change habits, the difference between high performance and mastery, navigating the pitfalls of the self-help industry complex, revolutions in the workplace that are shaping the future of success, and so much more. These AMAs are always a highlight for us, and this live session took it to another level. The questions were sharp, the dialogue was rich, it was honest, the energy was palpable, and I think you're going to love this one as much as we did. So with that, let's dive right into our first ever live AMA from New York City. Hi, everybody.

SPEAKER_3 (1:38)

Hi.

Michael Gervais (1:39)

It's great to be here. This is an honor for us to do this with you. And the hope, as I think you probably explained, is that this is going to be intimate and thoughtful, and hopefully we can answer your questions. Just have an experience together that only we could have tonight. And so, I'm an open book.

O'Neil Cespedes (2:02)

They already know I'm an open book.

Michael Gervais (2:03)

Okay, O'Neil's an open book. And then hopefully what we do is we just unpack is useful and we'll work from the truth and we'll work from honesty, we'll work from science, and we'll also work from best practices that work out in the field. And so, thank you for being here with us, for making this. The two of us hanging out is fun, but this is way better with you guys. Yeah, cool. All right, let's do it.

Let's start, so hopefully what we'll get is a little bit, you'll get the behind the scenes, but you're in it with us. So this isn't like be quiet and sit on your hands and be a listener, like let's do this together. Any question that we're gonna wrestle with, and feel free to double click, open it up, respond to it, make it truthful for you, because what a waste of time if we're just kind of planning something. Let's make this a real experience for all of us. Okay? And then hopefully you've got questions as well. Okay, here we go.

O'Neil Cespedes (3:00)

This question here is my favorite question. Off the rip. Mike, I've been following you since I first read your article in the Harvard Business Review four years ago. I just recently signed up on your website to start sharing your insight with my kids. So the question is essentially this.

In our society, we value individuals who focus on the high performance, and then turn to well-being once they've hit a ceiling. We forgive the entrepreneur or the star athlete who put their mental health or personal life on hold to become great at something. When we applaud them, when they shift to focusing on developing a lot of practices you talk about. What about the individual who chooses to focus on their well-being first? A person who spends their teens and 20s or 20s and 30s focusing on developing their personal philosophy and then hits a professional ceiling because society doesn't view them as being an expert in any given field. Isn't it better to put all your effort into becoming Simone Biles or Naomi Osaka or Kevin Love or Mark Zuckerberg first and focus on mental health second? Terms like meaning and purpose and embracing discomfort don't mean much on a resume when you're searching for a new job or a new career.

Michael Gervais (4:17)

That's a good question.

O'Neil Cespedes (4:18)

That's a great question.

Michael Gervais (4:19)

Yeah. When you hear that, what part of that question do you attach to?

O'Neil Cespedes (4:25)

The part that society doesn't embrace a person who's trying to become better. We embrace the success part.

Michael Gervais (4:31)

Yeah. That's the same with me. This is a question about ordering. What comes first, well-being or the commitment to excellence? Then the part 2 of that is, am I okay if I go about it that way? There's going to be some ceiling maybe. What was the last part of the question?