098: Resilience Training with Sean Douglas

Pete Mockaitis
Sean, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Sean Douglas
Thanks for having me. I’m honored.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, it’s so fun. It’s the first time we’ve had a drill instructor with us here on the show. I bet you must have so many amazing stories over the course of doing that. Can you maybe share one or two to set the scene for us?

Sean Douglas
Sure. So do you want funny ones or sad ones? What are you looking for?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh. I’d like funny and inspirational. Maybe a combo, if you could do both at one. That would be very impressive.

Sean Douglas
Okay. Let’s do a funny one first. So I forget what it is, but for some reason, when young men and women come to basic training, they leave common sense at home, I think. So I’m telling everybody, I’m like, “You need to shave the hair off your face. I’m telling you right now, you better shave that head.” And I’m screaming at them, and it’s like zero week. Zero week is the time that they come there. I’m at Wednesday. I’m screaming at them like “Get in! Get out! Let’s go! We’ve got things to do! Let’s go!” And this kid had shaved all the hair off his face, including his eyebrows.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh.

Sean Douglas
He’s like, “Sir, you said all the hair. Sir, you said.” I’m like, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I’m like screaming at this kid. I’m like, “Are you kidding me? When I said all of the hair…” And then another one came out, and then another one came out. I’m like, “No.”

Pete Mockaitis
Wow.

Sean Douglas
I mean, like three or four kids had shaved all of the hair off their face.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, boy. Those are some life lessons in there.

Sean Douglas
Yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. And then an inspirational one. So I had this one kid. He was about 23 years old at the time. So he was 23. He was living under one of the overpasses out on the freeway. And when he was 18, his parents said, “Okay, now get out of my house. You now have graduated high school. Get out of my house.” And so he didn’t go to college. He was into drugs and alcohol and all that, and he was on the brink of suicide and said, “You know what? I need to do something with my life, so I’m going to join the military.” And he walked a few miles over to the Air Force Base and pleaded with the guards, like “I want to join. How do I do this?”
So of course, we have recruiters on base and in different areas of the city. So they call him up and they say, “Hey, we got this kid. Can you come talk to him?” They take him over. I mean, this kid, I guess when he got there, was ratty clothes and whatever. So what they did was they got him a couple of pairs of clothes that he could wear. But they got him all the tests that he needed and checked him out and said, “Okay, well, this is what you want to do. These are the type of things that you need to do.” Maybe he got to take PT tests and all those other stuff.
So he passed all these tests, and they’re taking care of him, and he shows up in my flight. So he’s homeless a week ago, and then all of a sudden, he’s in my flight in basic training.
And at the end of the eight weeks, I mean, he was one of the best ones I had, because this was life or death for him. So at the end of the eight weeks of training, I was going to give him his clothes back, which he showed up in a black trash bag of clothes and nasty and dirty. And he said, “No. That’s a part of my life that I don’t want to remember. That’s a part of my life that is dead to me now. This is my family. This is my life. The uniform that I wear is now me.” And so we walked up to the dumpster and threw his clothes away.
And then he went on to tech school. I still talk to him, you know. Five years later, he’s doing really well. He’s still on the Air Force. And he’s like, “This is the best decision I’ve ever made.” And he’s pretty much cut off all contact to the people that pretty much wrote him off as “You’re not worth my time.” It inspired everybody in our flight. It was great.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it is inspiring. Thank you. Wow, you delivered on both. Two for two. So good. So funny. So inspiring. I’ve got great hopes for the rest of this conversation.

Sean Douglas
Okay.

Pete Mockaitis
So now I’m intrigued. I’m sure you’ve learned a thing or two as a drill instructor. And then shifting gears now, you do a lot of inspirational speaking.

Sean Douglas
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
So I guess I’m curious to hear. What lessons when it comes to learning and personal development kind of are the same and universal, versus what only works in the military versus civilian life?

Sean Douglas
When you’re in the military, every single minute of your day is pretty much planned out, at least in tech school basic training. But once you get into the operational air force, once you’re in the military, you pretty much need to be here at this time. You need to do this at this time. I mean, it is pretty much planned out for you, and you just kind of go along with things. In the civilian world, you plan your own stuff. So if you fail, it is your fault and it is solely on your shoulders.
In the military, I’m an aircraft mechanic and what I do is I inspect the aircraft before they take off. So if somebody messes up and doesn’t put panel on or they got a tire that’s bad because it’s all the way down to the cords, servicing is wrong, I can blame them and say, “You had this much time, this much time. How come you didn’t get it done?” or what have you. I can squarely put it on him, but I know the mission has to keep going, so I have to take a role in completing the mission while basically teaching him at the same exact time. Whereas in the civilian world, I have a set time to learn. I have a set time to do things. So you pretty much make your own schedule when you are doing your own self-development. Does that make sense?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Sean Douglas
Yeah. So I mean, we’re pretty much told, “You need to do this at this time, at this time, and this time. This is your work. You work from 8:00 in the morning to 5:00 p.m. This is your schedule. This is what we’re doing,” what have you. So everything is really planned out. “You need to be here for PT at this time. You need to report here for this time.” And that’s pretty much how it goes.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Okay. And so I guess I’m thinking about sort of the people, the learning, development, transformation side of that as well. I think it’s a different style. Well, you tell me how you do your inspiration speaking. The style and process by which folks do kind of learn, grow, change. What have you seen in those two worlds, with the drill instruction versus the speaking and working with folks that way?

Sean Douglas
So there’s an art to being a drill instructor. I mean, there absolutely is. So we need to break down every bad habit that you have because we want to build a military mindset. So when they first come in, you’d have to break them down to the lowest form because they already come in with those self-defeating behaviors. They already come in with bad habits, and their mind isn’t where we want it to be. So as a drill instructor, it is my job to pick out the strengths that they have, hone in on those, build those, and cultivate the strengths that they already possess, and at the same time, breaking away the other self-defeating behaviors that we don’t want. That negative thinking. Those negative habits.
And so through the process of the first two weeks, I am constantly breaking them down. “Why are you doing it that way? That is ridiculous. You are not supposed to be here in basic training. You suck at life so bad. You need to do it this way because you have a skill…” And then I tell them, and I build them up, utilizing those skills, because if you exploit your gifts and talents that you already have, I guarantee you, you will have a high success rate.

Whereas when I do inspirational speaking, I don’t solely focus on the negative. I only focus on positives, and I’ll pull the negative if I need to. “You see what you did here? You see how that didn’t work, right? You see how that didn’t work? Okay, good. Got it. Let’s do it this way.” You know what I mean? So when I’m coaching somebody or I’m building a personal development plan for somebody, I want to key in on the same things that I would as a drill instructor, but I’m not like “You’re a piece of crap. I don’t know why you’re here.” I won’t get any clients that way. You know what I mean? “You suck. Why are you here? Go away!”

Pete Mockaitis
“I’m responding to your ad. That’s why I’m here.”

Sean Douglas
Right? Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
So I want to hear then a little bit. So resilience is a key topic that you talk about in you work. You train. You are a master resilience trainer. That is a cool title. So why don’t you open up with that? So what does that title mean exactly? How does one become one? And what’s this resilience stuff about?

Sean Douglas
Yeah. So in 2009, the University of Pennsylvania stood up a resilience program, and it had a bunch of people that did research and conducted interviews and collected data from different researches that were done from around the world, like the London cab driver research that says that the London cab drivers, their GPS lobe in their brain, in the front of their brain, is significantly larger because they do it all the time, whereas other people who use a GPS, they don’t have as big an area.
And then other areas of the brain that they do all the time are larger than others that don’t utilize that area of the brain. It’s basically called the London cab driver research, and it basically states that everything is a learned behavior. And the more you do it, the more it becomes a habit, the bigger that area of the brain becomes. That’s all that says.
They did an Axe research where they sprayed 20 people with Axe and sprayed 20 people with water, and then they made a video about themselves. And the women had to pick out the people who wore Axe. And it was like a mind over matter thing, like “Well, I’ve got to spray with Axe. And I’m like the new hotness, like sliced bread.” And then the guys who sprayed with water were like, “I just got water.” And they could tell the guys… And these are women looking at a video screen. They can’t smell them. Nothing. But it’s called the Axe effect. I sprayed you with Axe; therefore, your confidence is bigger, is bolder.
But they did a lot of mental… because the resilience is mental, physical, spiritual, and social domains. So those are the areas that resilience really focuses on. Mental, physical, social, and spiritual. And social is also kind of emotional, but it’s all wrapped into one. And the skillsets that we teach, it’s basically what I teach is all based on positive psychology.
So when UPenn stood up this program, they came out to different military bases. They came out to different areas, and they taught us. And then we got certified as a resilience trainer. As you go through… like I’ve got close to 10,000 hours of teaching time, like classroom, academia teaching time. I’ve got almost 10,000 hours between drill instructor, between resilience training, between training in different conferences, and all that stuff. Close to 10,000 hours.
After a certain amount of time, they certify you as a master instructor to where I can go into any classroom, start teaching. So basically, I teach public speaking classes on the base. I teach people how to become public speakers and coaches and trainers. So I basically vet everybody that comes in contact with me and wants to teach this program.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great. Fun. Sounds like we got a lot to learn. You say resilience in these different categories. So what precisely is the definition of resilience like? What is resilient if x? Or resilience is the ability to y?

Sean Douglas
So resilience is your ability to withstand, recover, and grow in the face of every stressor and adversity you face in life.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, you’ve said that before.

Sean Douglas
Oh, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that sounds good. I want to get me some of that. So do share with us, what are some key ways to go about building and developing that? And I’m thinking particularly in the work setting. The ways that we need to withstand and recover from those kinds of stresses and challenges that happen there.

Sean Douglas
Absolutely. So with resilience, people think, “Well, it’s your ability to bounce back.” Okay, you’re hitting it. It is your ability to bounce back or recover. But when we talk about recover, your ability to recover, because everybody is going to go through an adversity. Everybody. My grandfather died in 2013, and then I deployed two weeks later. Talk about being resilient. That was the worst deployment I was ever on. I didn’t even have time to really grieve.
Some of the adversity that I’ve gone through in life, you recover. But to withstand is not just to go through the adversity but to grow through it. And that’s why we say to withstand, recover, and grow, because a lot of times in life, with our self-defeating behaviors, we repeat the same process because we didn’t learn our lesson. So we’ve had to do those stupid things all over again, like “Oh, that didn’t work. Let me try again. I just did the same thing. Never mind. Let me try it again.”
So withstand, recover, and grow. Those are the three areas that we need to hone in on when we’re going through adversity and stress, and also changing demands. That’s the huge one. So when I talk about withstanding, recovering, and growing through the face of adversity and stress and changing demands, that’s huge because everything is always changing.

Pete Mockaitis
Right.

Sean Douglas
I mean, everything. I mean, think about when people buy out companies, when people move companies. I mean, there’s so many times that your job is going to change. I’m sure you’ve seen the podcast arena change. People use Skype. People use Hangout. People use Blab. There’s tons of ways that you can do this. But what if something changed? What if you can’t use Skype anymore? Do you just say “I’m not doing podcasts no more,” or do you adapt and find another way to accomplish your goals? And that’s where people fall short is they won’t find another way.
So when we say withstand, recover, and grow, “Okay, I’m in a terrible time right now. I’m withstanding the storm, like a hurricane.” And then recover. Shake it off. Shake off whatever just happened. Shake it off. “Let me figure out how to get moving again.” And then grow. “I went through this adversity. Here’s how I’m better prepared to handle that same adversity if it comes again. And I’ve grown through it.” Don’t just go through an adversity. Grow through it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So let’s do it. So adversity strikes. What are some key practices, mindsets, mantras, stuff to do to bolster our capacity for withstanding, recovering, and growing?

Sean Douglas
So there’s a theory called the broaden-and-build theory. And basically, what it does is it creates a buffer for challenges. Being resilient doesn’t mean that you won’t experience adversity. If you do, resilience can just buffer the adverse effects of stressful life events. So we use a broad range of coping strategies. Everybody has coping strategies.
There’s three ways that people deal with adversity. They either ignore it, pretend it doesn’t happen. “It’s going to go away. It’s not real. This isn’t happening.” Or they do what I did and they medicate it. They drink. They do drugs. Now, I drank and I was an alcoholic, and that led to my adversity. Oh, it was crazy. Or people will hit it head-on, figure out how to beat it, figure out how to take charge of their situation, their adversity, and they grow through it, and they’re better off.
So that’s what we want is for people to accept their adversity, which a lot of people don’t. We want them to accept it. And then we want them to change the dynamic of that situation somehow. Some things you can’t change, like you have a death in the family. Okay. You have to accept it. We got it. We accept it. Don’t just get down in the dumps like you would in a relationship. People break up and they’re like miserable for four days. We got it. Adversity time. Let’s be resilient. Let’s figure out a way to change this dynamic.
Because the broaden-and-build theory says that every negative emotion builds on itself. So think of it as bricks. Negative emotion, another negative emotion, another negative emotion, and then pretty soon you’ve got all these bricks. Every negative thought that we have in our mind is self-created. That’s a fact. Every negative thought we have is self-created. Now, on the other spectrum, you have positive emotions that build on each other. One positive thing, one positive thing, one positive thing, and they all build on each other. So the broaden-and-build theory basically is saying that… because I call it catastrophizing. You know what a catastrophizer is? Have you heard it before?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh yeah.

Sean Douglas
Yeah. So catastrophizer. One bad thing leads to another bad thing leads to another bad thing. And pretty soon your life is terrible because it’s all these negative, negative, negative. But to master any challenges, you need to have positive emotions. And we do that by hunting the good stuff in every situation, which I call counting blessings. So you have to count blessings every single day, three times a day.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Shawn Achor, I think, talks about that in “The Happiness Advantage.” So another fellow Penn positive psychology guy. All right. I’m intrigued. So we’re going to hunt for the good. We’re going to count blessings. So how does that work? I guess there are some perhaps daily regular gratitude practices. How do you do it, like in terms of establishing that habit up front?

Sean Douglas
Absolutely. So in order for you to form a habit, you have to do something 66 times. I heard something the other day. It was like 30 something. The other day, it was like 20 something. I just stick with what I know. What I know is that after 66 days of you doing something, it becomes a habit. So I could ask somebody, “Do you have 198 different blessings that you’re thankful for?” “Not really.” Awesome. So if you did it three times a day for 66 days, that’s 198 different blessings.

Pete Mockaitis
Right.

Sean Douglas
So the goal of counting blessings is to cultivate gratitude and build your optimism and positive thinking, and cope with the daily hassles and stress of life. But what you have to do is you have to set aside a regular basis, regular time. Like before you go to bed, what was great about today? What my family does is we have no phones at the dinner table. The TV is off. It is just us. And we do our three blessings. What three things happened wonderful today? What three things are you grateful for today? And we do that every day for dinner as a family.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Lovely. Cool. All right. So that’s a fine place to insert them.

Sean Douglas
Absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
And so how do you go about doing the hunting for the good in real-time? Stuff pops up. You don’t like it. What are you saying to yourself to find that good real-time?

Sean Douglas
So let’s say you’re going through a huge adversity. “Okay, I’m hunting for the good stuff. Holy crap. What good can come out of this?” So when my grandfather died in 2013, I was like, “This is like the worst timing ever. Oh my gosh, I’m about to deploy.” So I went home. He had the funeral and everything. And by the time I got back to North Carolina where I’m at now, I only had like a week to prepare everything that was going on, and I was gone.
But the whole time I was home, my grandfather’s death brought our family closer together. We saw a family that we haven’t seen in a long time. We got to remember the funny things that my grandfather said or did. So out of this tragedy, we were remembering the funny things, the good things. We were telling stories. We were reliving our childhood, which then made it happy. And then I thought about it, and I was like, “Man, this is it right here. Man, I’m hunting the good stuff.”
My grandfather passed away. One of my biggest supporters of my life. How am I going to recover from this? Well, I’m only going to remember the amazing things that ever happened. When he told me this. When we were at my mother’s house and this happened, and he was there. So we really literally hunted the good stuff and shared funny memories that we had as children about my grandfather.

Pete Mockaitis
Very cool. All right. So you’re sort of asking yourself those questions and even doing some group things together after that.

Sean Douglas
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
And so then you talked about by doing so, you were building an optimism, a positive kind of outlook and mindset. And so could you share with us, what are some of the ways you start reaping those benefits and the advantages once you kind of have that built?

Sean Douglas
Man, when you have an attitude of gratitude, positive mindset, by far, you’ll be so much more successful because we always do hunt the bad stuff. I mean, we literally do. Out of every situation, that’s what we do. For some reason, we just find bad things about everything. “Oh, there’s too much traffic. I’m not going anywhere. No, I can’t do that.” I mean, if I wanted to be an inspirational speaker, which I am, and I turned around and said, “You know what? It’s too hard. I don’t know what to speak about,” that self-talk, that negative behavior kills all dreams. I mean, it just kills people’s dreams.
But the gratitude is a sense of wonder, a sense of thankfulness, appreciation for life. There’s a researcher. His name is Robert Emmons. So Robert Emmons is one of the prominent researchers on gratitude. And this guy has tons and tons and tons of work, and years of research on how to cultivate gratitude. And he said that once you have an attitude of gratitude, once you are thankful for every single thing in life, once you are content where you are now in life, you will be much more satisfied with your life in the future.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That sounds handy.

Sean Douglas
Yeah. Well, sometimes, we count everybody else’s blessings. Have you ever seen that? “This guy’s got a car. I want his house. I want this.” And everybody says, “My grass is going to be greener over there,” but we forget to water our own grass. That’s the thing. We want what everybody else has. So by counting everybody else’s blessings, you are missing your own blessings in your own life. So we need to start with us.
You can’t fix what’s going on around you until you fix what’s going on inside you. In order to do that, you have to have gratitude. “I’m thankful that I woke up this morning. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that I am awake, I am blessed, and I’m alive, and I’m living on purpose.” And then you appreciate. You want to appreciate somebody? Write a gratitude letter. Just write to somebody that says “Thank you for everything that you’ve ever done for me,” and then mail it off. And tell me if that doesn’t put a smile on somebody’s face.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s so good. And we had Michelle Gielan earlier talking about that concept and how that makes a world of difference.

Sean Douglas
Absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
That was back in Episode 49. So good. So I’d love to hear, when you’re counting these blessings, you gave a couple of specific examples. That was really nifty. It’s like it doesn’t have to be something big or major. You just sort of said your life today and things are kicking. Can you just maybe give us a couple other examples? Because I think maybe the overachiever listening might sort of demand that the blessing they count be a really good one. But it sounds like they can be kind of mundane. So could you maybe just rattle some blessings off for us?

Sean Douglas
Absolutely. I am thankful to be alive. My self-esteem is rising right now because of my attitude of gratitude. I’m thankful for my positive self-esteem. When you come out of the gym, you’re like, “I’m thankful for the opportunity to be able to go to the gym.” I’m thankful for the opportunity to worship Jesus Christ, because in some countries, you’re not allowed to do that. I’m thankful for my wife, my kids, my grandparents, my family. I’m thankful for you for letting me be on this podcast. I mean, this is a blessing right now.

The opportunity that we even have podcast, the Internet. I mean, it’s endless. Things that we take for granted every single day are blessings. But a lot of people will say all material blessings, like “I’m thankful for shoes.” My kids do it, so I’m like, “No, no, no. Give me something huge that you’re thankful for.” My son, the other day, he was telling me. He’s like, “I’m thankful for you that you have a positive impact on people because if you didn’t, then who’s going to do it?” I’m like, “Oh, wow.”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s nice.

Sean Douglas
Okay. I’ve got people in my life. And this is another resilient skill I teach. It’s called board of directors. I have a lot of people on my board of directors that I can turn to for help in case I get overwhelmed. But the counting blessings part, it helps build your social relationships. And it decreases depression, anxiety, loneliness. It improves sleep. I mean, there’s so many psychological advantages to having an attitude of gratitude. Appreciation of beauty for life. Oh, man. By far, most important skill.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That’s so good. All right. So powerful, most important skill. So in addition, could you share… You talk a lot about self-defeating behaviors. And so attitude of gratitude, it sounds like this crushes many of those.

Sean Douglas
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
But tell me, what are some other kind of commonly occurring self-defeating behaviors particularly that show up in the workplace and a means of tackling or counteracting them?

Sean Douglas
So the ones that we see a lot. Like when I go into an office, someone in there is like, “Man, we need to look at our team. We need to develop some better practices. How can we develop a better team camaraderie?” All that stuff. And it seems like besides negative thinking, self-talk like “I’m not good enough. I can’t do this. This is too hard.” It seems like they feel like they’ve overworked. “I can’t do it. I don’t where to start.” And they don’t prioritize their day, or they don’t have a growth plan at all. People are waking up every day going to jobs that they don’t like.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you.

Sean Douglas
People are getting massive amounts of debt, college student loans, debt, and then getting bachelor’s degrees that they can’t even use. In order for you to be successful, you have to exploit your gifts and talents because that’s what we have. Everybody has a gift. Everybody has a talent. And if you are not exploiting that, then you are already failing.
If you are living out your passion, you will never work a day in your life. I have not worked in, like, I don’t know, 10 years. Since 2009, I was a drill instructor. I ended that in 2013. I became a resilience trainer. I became an inspirational speaker. And now, I just wrote my first book, which is by far not even in my goal setting. I don’t like writing, but somehow I wrote it. So there’s a blessing.
But a lot of people, they’re not living out their passions. They don’t have a purpose for what they do. They just wake up and they go to work. Why? Because they need to pay the bills, and they need to feed their wives and kids.
So the hardest part is to find someone’s purpose and prioritize their day in case they get too overwhelmed, because we have what I call an energy tank. And you’re pouring out and pouring out and pouring out. But who’s pouring into you? We pour out to people all the time. We want to motivate people. We want to help people. But if we’re not receiving that back, we’re screwed. I mean, we’re already toast. So I always tell people, “Manage your energy, not your time.”

Pete Mockaitis
Right. That is a great mantra. And I’ve heard that from “The Power of Full Engagement” from Tony Schwartz and some other places.

Sean Douglas
Oh yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
So one means is by kind of doing some regular prioritization. What are some of the key ways that you do a smart job of managing your energy as opposed to your time?

Sean Douglas
So to manage your energy tank, if you will, most effectively, there’s two very important key principles that I talk about, right? So the number of days and the number of hours, number of months, number of weeks, it’s all fixed. It’s never going to change, unless it’s like a leap year. But I mean, it’s never going to change, right? But the quantity and quality of energy available to us is infinite.
Some people use energy drinks. Some people, what they do is just fire off energy. Some people go to the gym after they wake up. Some people go to the gym before they go to bed. It just depends on what they want to do. But think of your day in terms of a fuel tank rather than a clock. And that’s where they’re like, “Huh. Okay.”
So here’s what we do, right? We manage our energy, not our time. So being aware of when your energy is at its peak, when you are peaking energy, and when you’re at your lowest energy, when you know what those two realms are, you will improve your own resilience, but you’re going to improve your performance. So if you manage your energy like a sprinter, not a marathoner, you’re going to end up exerting energy when needed, and then you can recover. Does that make sense?

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you. Yeah.

Sean Douglas
So I’m a night owl. I get a ton of stuff done in the evening because that’s when I peak out. I peak my energy right around 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00. I’m peaking. I’m rolling. Kids are getting ready for bed, and I’m like running through the house getting everything I’ve got to get done. But if you ask me to do something at like 8:00 in the morning, it’s going to take me a minute. I am not a morning person. I am absolutely not a morning person. So think about your natural biorhythms based on your energy. Are you more of a morning person or an afternoon person, or are you an evening person? What do you think?

Pete Mockaitis
So I have been thinking about that, and I’d say I think it may have even shifted over the last couple of years. I mean, I think that the peak time is right around 10:00 a.m.

Sean Douglas
Aha. So if you’ve got a huge, let’s say, project, if you had a huge undertaking, and you’re looking at your schedule and you’re like, “Man, I really don’t want to do it at 8:00 a.m. or maybe even at like 1:00. I’ve come back from lunch.” When you schedule things, do you schedule them right around the time that you know you’re going to peak?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I do, I’d say, when possible. I’d say in terms of the importance of that thing, I try to schedule—

Sean Douglas
Absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
Things that are tricky or very critical around that time. So yeah, I think I’m right on board with that.

Sean Douglas
Yeah. So a lot of people don’t. A lot of people just say, “You know what? I’ve got an opening here. Let’s schedule it here.” And then they get super busy, and they’re like, “Oh, I’ve got this meeting. I forgot. Oh, man.” You know what I mean? And now they’re trying to scramble, but they’re like, “Man, I should have eaten lunch,” or “Oh, man.” So they’re not prioritizing. So what I tell them is you need to manage your energy. Schedule things when you know you are peaking.
So if you need a lot of brainpower to… Let’s say you’re a college student and you’ve got to pass a test. You know what I mean? Then you need to figure out where to exert certain amount of energies, so that you have all of it saved up for that test.
Let’s say you’re a business owner and you know you’ve got this huge thing coming up. I mean, try to schedule it right around the time that you know you’re going to be at your maximum potential, and you nail it, because if you don’t…
So we have the old paradigm, right? Like the full engagement. We’re supposed to manage our time, and you want to avoid stress. And if you have downtime, it’s wasted. Life is a marathon. Don’t try to do everything all at once. You need self-discipline. And invest your time and energy into what you’re doing. But it’s changing. Everything is changing. We need to manage our energy.
I know I’m a night owl, so I get all my stuff… Most of my book was written at night because I was awake and I was ready. I was working afternoons. It helps, but in the morning, when I’m waking up, I’m like, “Okay. Leave me alone. Let me get some coffee. Oh, man.” You know what I mean? That’s what we do. But seeking stress now grows you as a person. And having routine, rather than saying “You’ve got to be disciplined.” But how?
I mean, how are we disciplined? Because I have a routine. Because I have a prioritization of my life. It says that I’m going to schedule this here. I’m going to be intentional about doing it here. And people, right after January 1^st, what do they do? “I’m going to do all this stuff.” And then January 4^th, they’re like, “Nah. Never mind.”

Pete Mockaitis
Right.

Sean Douglas
You know? Get on a routine. Schedule things. Boom!

Pete Mockaitis
And so I guess I’m intrigued here that you mentioned the marathon point and the notion that downtime is wasted. Can you speak a little bit about taking breaks, and what is sort of an ideal kind of cadence or rhythm if you’re doing a series of sprints as opposed to a marathon?

Sean Douglas
Absolutely. Do you take naps?

Pete Mockaitis
I am a napper. Yes.

Sean Douglas
Awesome. So have you ever heard that kids need to take a nap? Do you know why they need to take naps?

Pete Mockaitis
Tell me.

Sean Douglas
Have you ever seen a kid not taking a nap, and they’re just like totally tired, and they’re just like falling off? Because they haven’t learned to bank sleep. Do you bank sleep? I bank sleep. So what I do is I take like a 20-minute nap. Boom, I’m banking my sleep. So I take a 20-minute nap, I get rested, and I’m like, “All right. Let’s do this,” because at some point, you are going to get very, very busy and you’re going to exert a ton of energy onto something, and it’s going to wipe you out.
Let’s say that you need six hours of sleep Monday through Friday. To operate, you need six hours of sleep every night. Then let’s say you get 10 hours of sleep. You’re like, “Wow, I got 10 hours of sleep. I can’t believe that.” Your body will take away those extra four hours somewhere in that week. I guarantee it.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, take it away? What do you mean? How? What does that mean?

Sean Douglas
Let’s say that you’re doing your podcast and everything. And let’s say that you’ve got this massive like, I don’t know, Simon Sinek, John Maxwell, Les Brown, Zig Ziglar. Somebody huge is coming on your podcast. This is like the break that you’ve been waiting for. Oh my gosh. This is all you can think about, right? And you want to put all the energy you can into having the best episode ever.
But last night was a Sunday and you were out at like a wedding reception or something, and you’re like totally tired. It’s probably not going to make for a really good podcast if it’s at 9:00 in the morning and you’re completely tired.
But if you schedule it for at your peak. Let’s say you schedule at your peak performance. It’s at 11:00 a.m. You’re like, “Okay, I need to sleep this many hours. I’m going to bank it, let’s say, the night before. Let’s say on Saturday, I’m going to bank my sleep. I’ll do what I got to do on Sunday. And then on Monday, I’m ready to go.” You see what I’m saying?

Pete Mockaitis
Mm-hm.

Sean Douglas
So what I do is I know I got a big thing coming up. I got a huge deadline, like with my book. I would take naps every so often, and I would try to get as much sleep as I could because I knew in a couple days, I’m going to be up for like 18, 19 hours trying to get this thing done, because I’ve banked all my sleep, so to speak. I’ve banked it all. My body was ready to go. I wasn’t tired at the 12-hour mark or 14-hour mark like I normally would because I banked a lot of sleep. I took a couple of naps. I was getting well-rested, getting my 6, 7 hours of sleep, what have you. So any other sleep other than what you need to operate, it’s called banking sleep. Those naps you take.

Pete Mockaitis
And so when you bank, I’m curious, what does the research out of UPenn or whatever suggest about kind of how long that works? Because I imagine if I slept, for example, 10 hours, which is even hard for me to do (I can’t manage to stay out that long), if I were to sleep 10 hours three months ago, does that still count? Can I access what I deposited?

Sean Douglas
No, no. Short term.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m sure it probably varies person by person and biorhythm to biorhythm. But could you give a rough sense for kind of how long? How long do I have it at the bank before it expires, and then the bank collects fees off of it?

Sean Douglas
So one week of sleep extension will improve your resilience. It’s measured by performance, alertness. So back in 2009, they did this technique. What they did was they took this technique where they deprived people of sleep, and then everybody else got about the regular seven or eight hours or whatever it is. You know what I mean?
And then because they deprived this X group, they deprived them of sleep, and then gave them tasks, the next couple of days, they let them sleep. Just sleep. Just do what you go to do, and then do the same tasks. The other group, they let them get their sleep, and then in one day, they deprived them of all sleep. And they found out that sleep restriction, because “I can’t go to sleep. I’ve got to get this done,” you are losing performance. Does that make sense?

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you. Yeah.

Sean Douglas
Yeah. You’re losing it. Let’s say six hours a night, six hours a night, six hours a night. “Okay, I’m just not going to sleep. I’m going to get this done. I’m just going to get like three hours of sleep.” Yeah, that’s not going to work. You need to take naps every so often so that you’re banking that sleep, so that when things come up, you’ve got it in the bank. And it’s about one week. So this technique is not on a regular basis to compensate for the lack of sleep, but it’s fine for a short time, about a week or two.

Pete Mockaitis
Mm-hm. Okay.

Sean Douglas
But our naps improve alertness. You know what I mean? They absolutely do, right? You feel great. After about a 20-minute nap, you’re like, “Wow, this is amazing.” But what will happen is to allow for a full REM cycle, the rapid eye movement cycle, if you sleep for, let’s say, an hour and a half, you haven’t hit that full REM cycle. To hit the full REM cycle, it’s about two hours.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Sean Douglas
Sleep is very, very, very important to our bodies and all that. I think they call it sleep inertia.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh yeah.

Sean Douglas
When you take a nap, it’s called sleep inertia.

Pete Mockaitis
Like the first moments after you wake up, and you’re not quite there.

Sean Douglas
Right.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m with you.

Sean Douglas
Did you know that Google has nap pods where people take naps?

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I’ve heard of this. I want to get inside one.

Sean Douglas
I know, right? Some of the biggest companies are doing this. They’re like, “Hey, man, go take a 20-minute nap.” And then you feel rejuvenated, like “Let’s do this!” So I would love to see what their nap pods are like. You know what I mean?

Pete Mockaitis
Indeed. That would be cool.

Sean Douglas
But if companies are telling their people to take naps, why are we not all doing this? You know what I mean? I want to take a nap at work.

Pete Mockaitis
That makes sense. Yeah. I actually was kind of a weirdo back when I was at work in the day, and I would take some naps under a desk. And so I got a bit of a reputation, like “That’s the weird guy who takes naps.” But I’m just like, “Well, the science is on my side, so I’m fine with that.”

Sean Douglas
Yeah. I know, right? Who’s laughing now?

Pete Mockaitis
Right. Well, so you tell me, is there anything else you want to make sure we get to cover off before we shift gears and talk about a few of your favorite things here?

Sean Douglas
I think we’re doing well, man. I mean, besides the book. So my book is based on self-defeating behaviors about alcoholism, about negative self-talk, which is your self-esteem and things that I grew up with as a child, from a broken home and divorce and alcoholism and stuff in the home. And then I fell into that type of thing when I joined the military. I became an alcoholic, which led to thoughts of suicide. And I almost went through with it because my self-defeating behaviors got so bad I just felt like I couldn’t do anything. I was always wrong. I could never do anything right. Everything I did was wrong. When we do have the absolute talk, “I always do wrong. Never. Everything is messed up,” when we include those absolutes, it leads to nothing good. And that’s what my book is about, is overcoming those self-defeating behaviors using these resilient skillsets.

Pete Mockaitis
I see. Cool. Well, that sounds helpful, absolutely.

Sean Douglas
Oh yeah. I’ll send you a copy.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. Appreciate it. So now, could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Sean Douglas
Oh, man. So there’s a quote that I use and I call it “living your brand.” So when you live out your values, it’s living your brand. So like if you say honesty is your number one value but you’re lying to people, then you’re not living your brand. When you say family is important, but “I’m doing other things with friends,” or “I’m doing other things with work,” or whatever, and you’re not actually spending time with your family, you’re not living your brand.
But there is one quote that I absolutely love, and it’s by Sun Tzu. And it’s in his book called “The Art of War.” And he says, “Look on your soldiers as your only sons, and they will follow you into the deepest valley. Look on them as your one and only [like your sons], and they will follow you even unto death.” It’s huge to be in the military. It’s huge when you’re a speaker, because if you’re up here, “Blah blah blah,” and everybody is like, “What is he talking about? This doesn’t make any sense,” your credibility is key.
But if you’re not treating people with respect, and you’re not looking at them like “I treat everybody with love and respect,” but if you’re not doing that, then you’ve already lost your audience. You’ve already lost your crowd, and no one is going to follow you. So that really hits home. “Look upon your soldiers as your only sons, and they will follow you into the deepest valley.” It’s like that’s what we need, you know?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. That’s good. Thank you. And how about a favorite book?

Sean Douglas
“Miracle Morning” by Hal Elrod.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, cool. Thank you.

Sean Douglas
And you know, another one is “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.

Pete Mockaitis
That is fun. Yeah.

Sean Douglas
Love that one.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite tool or something that you use often?

Sean Douglas
Tool, like a wrench?

Pete Mockaitis
Like a wrench, but it could be hardware, software, framework for thought.

Sean Douglas
Man. I mean, I use LinkedIn a lot. I love LinkedIn. Nobody puts on there like “I ate a cheeseburger at Walmart today.” Nobody puts that stuff on there. You know what I mean? I mean, that’s one of my biggest tools, and a calendar. When you schedule things, a calendar is huge.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. And how about a favorite habit, something that you’ve done that’s really boosted your effectiveness?

Sean Douglas
Blessings three times a day.

Pete Mockaitis
Perfect.

Sean Douglas
Count blessings three times a day.

Pete Mockaitis
And would you say that you already have kind of a resonant nugget or some key sort of gems or retweetable tidbits that you say and share that really gets people kind of nodding their heads, taking notes, and sharing?

Sean Douglas
Yeah. So the effect that we have on people is the greatest currency that we own as human beings. Are you positively affecting somebody or are you negatively infecting somebody? There’s two types of people in this world: thermostats and thermometers. Thermometers take the temperature and say, “Yeah. That’s it. That’s how things are. Can’t change it. This is what we are.” But the thermostat people have the ability to establish the temperature, have the ability to maintain the temperature, and if they don’t like it, have the ability to change everything around them. Does that make sense?

Pete Mockaitis
Mm-hm. Got you.

Sean Douglas
So I am a thermostat. I like to change people’s mindsets. I don’t want to change a person, just her mindset. I mean, you’ve got to figure out if you’re a thermostat or if you’re a thermometer.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And what would you say is the best way to find you? If folks want to learn more and see what you’re up to, where would you put them?

Sean Douglas
So I’m always on Facebook. I have my page. Sean Douglas, Motivational and Public Speaker. I have a website, sdsmotivates.wix.com/seandouglasspeaks. I also have a LinkedIn profile. Any one of those. I always post stuff on my Facebook page. I could be reached fairly easily. Love to talk to people. Love to see what people are up to.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there sort of a final challenge or a call to action that you’d like to leave folks with who are seeking to be more awesome at their jobs?

Sean Douglas
Yes. So here’s what I want you to do. I want you to look back 30 days in your calendar. And then I want you to look 30 days back in your bank account. I want you to pick a value. Family. Job. Not money. Not like that, but like I value people. I value relationships. I value family, my wife. I love my job. Whatever you value. Look back 30 days in your bank account and in your calendar, and you tell me if you’re living your brand, because time and money are the two things that people never willingly give up, unless it benefits them in some way. Is that fair to assess?

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you.

Sean Douglas
So my family is number one. If you look at my bank account, I constantly spend money on them, all the time. And we schedule things as a family. So time and money, I’m hitting it. You know what I mean?

Pete Mockaitis
Right.

Sean Douglas
Some people, they’re like, “I value my wife, but I’m over here with my buddies, and then I’m at my job 24/7.” Well, where does your wife come in? Where do your kids come in? And by doing this exercise, you can pick a value, you can pick a goal, and see “Did I spend time on this goal? Did I spend money on this goal? Where are my family?” It’s a pretty good self-assessment.

Pete Mockaitis
That is good. Thank you. All right. Well, Sean, this has been so much fun. I thank you for this, and I’m looking forward to incorporate some more regular gratitude practices. I kind of forgot about that one. So that’s appreciated.

Sean Douglas
No problem.

Pete Mockaitis
And I wish you tons of luck going forward here.

Sean Douglas
You too, man. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you.