S6E4 John Coyle: Olympian on How to Slow Down Time, Live Longer, and the Dark Side of Winning Medals...

John K. Coyle is a globe-trotting adventurer, highly sought-after international innovation and design thinking keynote speaker(audiences of more than 500,000 in over 15 countries), 4-time TEDx speaker, award-winning author, professor, Olympic medalist (speed skating), multi-sport champion (elite cycling),  and former head of innovation for a Fortune 500 company. He has become a world-leading expert in the fields of Innovation, Design Thinking, Strengths, Flow, Resiliency, and “Chronoception” - the neuroscience and psychology of time-perception.

Website:
https://johnkcoyle.com

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Transcript

John Coyle: 0:00

Success is leveraging my time on this planet to create the most memorable moments possible, such that I slow stop and reverse the perceived acceleration of time that most adults feel, and experience the endless summers of my youth, again.

Michael Bauman: 0:56

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to success engineering. So for August, our topical focus will be on happiness and habits. And we'll dive into the research around those two things. To begin with, I do wanna apologize for not releasing an episode for last week for the health month in July. I was gonna lay out some of the strategies that I used to maintain my personal nutrition, exercise, things like morning routine, things like that. The reason I didn't get that episode out has more to do with this month's topic of happiness. So I really try to take the month of July off to travel with my family. We spent a lovely time, three weeks, exploring many different parts of China. Because for a number of reasons, we couldn't fly back to the us, so we decided to use the time here to explore the incredible, the beautiful, country that we live in. From being serenaded by the very unique singing of the Dong people, to catching fish with our bare hands in rice patties, to visiting the Tibetan regions of China. They're just stunning views, breathtaking snow mountains. They're just herds of yaks, just bopping along. And, you can even spot a couple marmots here and there, which is really fun, so amazing extraordinary trip. But as you can imagine, wifi internet was definitely not sufficient for me to do an episode. So that's the reason for that. And I gotta apologize for that and we'll have to cover come with some of those things further on down the road. So I also wanted to say the registration for my 12 week elite mindset training for entrepreneurs mastermind has begun. August 15th is when this launches and we're gonna cover everything from how we can overcome living beliefs and self sabotage to understanding the neuroscience behind fear and how we can break the cycle of that, to how we can feel enough, how we can know we're not alone. Along with optimizing our relationships, our health, our habits. We're gonna cover, the whole gamut, pretty much the whole thing. So if you're interested in that, you can go to https://successengineering.org/mastermind-application/. You can fill out the application for that. And for those of you that do that this week, I do have an early bird discount of$300 off the program or 2000 rmb. For those of you in China, for the people that sign up this week. So again, https://successengineering.org/mastermind-application/ to register. All right enough with the preamble. Let's get back to the show. I have the pleasure of having John Coyle on. He's a globetrotting adventurer. He's a highly sought after international innovation and design thinking keynote speaker. So audiences of more than 500,000 people in over 15 countries, probably more than that by now. He's a four time TEDx speaker. He's an award winning author, Olympic medalist for speed skating, a multisport champion for elite cycling, and then the former head of innovation for a fortune 500 company. He's become a world leading expert in tons of fields. So innovation, design thinking, strengths, flow, resiliency. I gotta take a nap just reading up your intro, But the one that's gonna be super fascinating is chronoception. So the neuroscience and the psychology of how we perceive time. So really excited for that. Welcome to the show here, John.

John Coyle: 4:27

Thank you Michael. Glad to be here.

Michael Bauman: 4:29

Absolutely. So let's start a little bit off the beaten track and let's start about, oh, I want to hear when you first had a Maruga scorpion pepper.

John Coyle: 4:37

Oh God, it was six, seven years ago. It was life changing. So I love habaneros. And my friend brings me this yellow, beautiful thing with this tail. Right. And we chop it up into small pieces and put it on. I think it was pizza at the time and the infusion of lemon, grass and citrus and heat blew my mind. And the flavor profile of this pepper. Beyond words and it's the best. It's literally my favorite flavor in the world.

Michael Bauman: 5:08

fantastic. And you invite lots of other people to participate in the spicy flavor for

John Coyle: 5:13

I torture my clients.

Michael Bauman: 5:16

There, you have it. So big fan of living the spicy life. Let's put it that way. So, I want to jump to, getting into your background a little bit. I wanna talk about basically saving your life by pulling yourself out of a hay mound in Germany.

John Coyle: 5:32

So yeah, that was one of those moments like, and we all have them, like, there's those moments from your childhood or your developing years where. The moment itself was terrible, but in memory you've rewritten it and repainted it enough times that now it's actually amazing and fun. Almost.

Michael Bauman: 5:51

Almost dying, right?

John Coyle: 5:52

Even, yeah. Like everybody has one. So mine was I got dropped off. I was hitchhiking through Europe and I got dropped off in this empty field of nothing. And it was freezing rain and I was freezing to death and I figured out the only way to survive was build a mound of hay, bury myself in it and sleep the night to protect myself from the freezing rain which I did. And I did so wearing the only dry clothes I had, which were speed skating skin suits. So the next morning as the farmer that was traversing his plot came upon this nest that I had built and I had just happened to be emerging at the time. I'm wearing a bright silver, pink, and purple skin suit. He thinks I'm an alien that's hatched in his field. There's no question. That's what he thought. Like he never moved. He just had his mouth open. So yeah, that was a night to remember

Michael Bauman: 6:44

Yes, that's for sure. It was crazy as you're literally hitchhiking around Europe to compete at a world class level in speed skating.

John Coyle: 6:52

Right. And I had no money. Yeah, no money. Right. Talk about, so, important thing just in life and what you share a lot too, is talking about focusing on strengths. And so for you that actually led to a world record breaking performance. Can you share that shift in how people can apply that into their own life? Yeah. It's something that, unfortunately we're programmed for as children in one direction. And then it has to change as adults. And this change doesn't tend to happen. So we're offering conditions as children to never quit. Never give up. Never give in. Quitters never prosper. This is good advice for kids cuz kids will quit anything. But you know, the prefrontal cortex does finally cement itself. Age 25 is about the last time it changes. And so the quote is if you're still trying to fix your weaknesses as an adult, that ship has sailed So now as a 25 ish and plus. Now is the time to double down all the things you do well, because you're not gonna fix those other things. You can't. You're hardwired now for the person you are. And so, the advice is to figure out what you do best, and it's gonna be very niche, very specialized usually. And just do that. And by the way, when you just do that, Everybody notices. The room fills in. People see what you're doing. And they love that because you love it. They love it. You love it. Everybody wins. Like, and it's this weird, like thing that we're unprogramming ourselves. And so, the short story from my past was, I didn't know my strengths as an athlete. And so I was trained to fix all my weaknesses, and I did it for years and years. And then I went to the Olympic training center and they found more weaknesses and I tried to fix those. And I went from 12th in the world, to 34th in the world, to not making the US team in two years of training with the Olympic program for the first time. This should not have happened. right. So I quit the team. Right. And I doubled down on my strengths, which are short term high intensity anaerobic, and I trained a different way. And a year to the day of not making the US team finishing 30th place. My first race back one year to the day later in the same exact event, I broke the US record by five and a half seconds. I broke the world record by over a second. I set every single US record back because I was doing what I do well. And by the way, it was fun.

Michael Bauman: 9:15

Yeah. I think that's another important aspect too. The aspect of play

John Coyle: 9:20

I mean, if you're not having fun doing it, it's not worth it.

Michael Bauman: 9:24

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I wanna talk about the juxtaposition and this is a, big thing I'm obviously in the podcast. So we have, you were that Olympic athlete, the top, like pretty much the top of your sport that you worked your whole life for. And we put people like that on a pedestal and like look at their amazing life. And you've done similar things in the corporate world too. I want to talk about the behind the scenes. For that, like the tough breakup, that you had basically with this sport. And I wanna use a quote from one of your blogs, it basically says I will never again, measure up. She took my livelihood, my funding, my rituals. She was my identity. Now I am nothing. So can you talk about that behind the scenes of elite level competition?

John Coyle: 10:05

And I think it's elite level competition. I think it's corporate life. It can be anything where your identity starts to line up. Your work, your tasks. I experienced it again when I left corporate life. When everything you give, all of your energy is put towards something like elite athletics. And then again, for me, fortune 500 career, that becomes who you are. And so for a long time, I was just the, and this is gonna sound terrible, but it's literally the way I thought of myself for 10 years, one timer first loser. Only one Olympics, second place. Now there's those of you out there that be like, dude, you went to the Olympics and you won a silver medal. But that's not the way I thought of it. Right. I was there to win gold and I was there to go back more than once. And so this was an incredible disappointment that devoured my life, same thing in corporate America. Like I wanted to be CEO, I was gonna climb the corporate ladder and I got to C level and then I stopped and then I left. And again, it was this like, wait, are you a failure? And the reality. You can't know what you're gonna be really good at until you find it. And this is really, this is the hard part, right? Like, I mean, it was a pretty damn good speed skater. Let's not that's right. And I was a pretty good executive, but now I didn't know this until five years ago. Like, the thing I'm designed to do is tell stories from both of those worlds and intertwine them together and create metaphors that help people to make the kind of changes that make sense in their lives. But, man it's tough. Switching gears, and your identity is tied up with that life. It's really difficult. And by the way, I think you probably know this, but elite athletes, professional athletes, almost all of them experience about a 10 year depression period. Yeah.

Michael Bauman: 11:52

Yeah, which is crazy again, cuz you have a perception, then you have the lived reality, the lived experience. And that's what you talk about. Like almost a decade, you didn't go to the Olympics. You didn't watch'em. You didn't think about'em. It was like humiliation, the embarrassment of yeah, I wasn't number one, but the percentage out of the world is like, I don't even know the top, like half, like quarter in percent. I don't even know what it would be, but in the world, and even the research around that shows, with the silver medalist, it's almost more difficult than getting the bronze because of a mental contrasting, like a bronze is like you're a made the podium and silvers, like I wasn't first

John Coyle: 12:29

it was a great, there's a great Seinfeld joke, which. I'll try to play it out on the camera here, but it's I'm sticking my nose up for those who don't can't see. Gold, silver, bronze. Never heard of you. exactly. And it's so true. Like fourth place is a disaster in the games.

Michael Bauman: 12:46

Yeah. And I had the NFL performance director on Mark Verstegen on the show as well. And he talked about that in, in terms of the NFL, like. The three big things that a lot of the players will struggle with after leaving is, they're bankrupts typically within, couple years in three years. Yep. And then they have relation like massive relationship challenges or some type of addiction. Yeah. Which is crazy. And so I wanna talk, so you have that aspect on the elite, level and you experienced it. And then like you said, I mean, you got into the corporate world, you performed, really well working. I mean just all the time. Working with Enron, ranked number one in the company for just four years working 108, like basically 108 hours out of your week, away from your family. I want to talk about your daughter basically going like, wait, Papa, where are you going? I wanna talk about that moment.

John Coyle: 13:34

I had a daughter, but I was consulting and I was traveling away from home and I was leaving again, which was normal. She was about a year and a half. They don't know what's going on, but at some point they start to figure it out. She comes toddling out at like six in the morning and she's got tears in her eyes. And she's like where are you going? And I'm like, I'm going to work. And that was the moment it all changed. I'm like, I'm not doing anymore. I got quit. It took me a couple months to unwind myself from consulting. But that's when I took my first corporate job. And, there's just things in life that are more important than work

Michael Bauman: 14:06

yeah. So let's start talking about time. And it being the ultimate currency and how we perceive time, how we form our memories around it, and essentially what we can do to optimize our life relative to time, rather than relative to other things.

John Coyle: 14:23

Yeah. So time and money are fungible. You trade one for the other, we're trained to trade our time for money and we do that. And then it's important to do cuz you know, money is important to some extent. But you can take any study and somewhere between 75 and 85 K happiness does not rise with more money. And in fact it declines, when you get over two, 300 K. So there's a sweet spot in the middle class area because rich people by and large, and I've definitely experienced this in the people I've met are chasing money all the time. To what point? To what reason? They can't take it with you. So, my obsession with time though, started with skating, with speed skating, cycling, where tiny increments of time determined first from second from third from fourth. And we already talked about that, right? So a hundredth of a second can literally change your life. In fact, it does again and again in Olympic sport. The thing that I realized there here's the insight. Oh, that's true in real life. You said hello to the girl or you didn't. You got off of the exit or you didn't. You missed the accident or you didn't. You turned left or you didn't. You went to that meeting or you didn't. Every day, we're making decisive life changing trajectory, changing decisions in the moment. And if you think about the way your life is constructed, and this is the way the brain constructs time, this is where we get back to brain science. The brain constructs time and moments. You can't store more than seven seconds. Normally you're storing about two seconds worth of data. That's what you and I are doing right now in a comfortable setting. But when things get crazy, anxious, risky, the brain fires up and it starts storing memories at 10 to 20 times per second. This is why things seem to slow down in a car crash. When you're about to ask that girl out, this is when your brain is on fire, and these are the moments that change the trajectory of your life. And the Greeks figured this out 2000 years ago. They had a word for it. So we have just time. And it's the most common word in the English language we've got just time, but they had kairos and Chronos. Two words for time. Chronos is clock time is the word that we typically use. Trains, planes, auto wheels running on time. The thing on the wall. Kairos is human time, which is what they use about 67% of the time in Greek texts. So they're using it vastly more often. The definition of kairos is when everything happens at once and the trajectory is changed. Which gets back to the way the brain science actually works. And then the etymology comes from the archer releasing the arrow. So, this is how life is constructive. There's long periods of quiet essence. And then there's this moment where you have a decision, you have to make it and you turn left to right? You say yes or no, you ask her out, you don't. And this is when life is made in literally seconds. And again, in our lives, we construct these moments that matter that change our trajectory. And so missing those is the death of you. And so that's the whole point of this next book I'm working on is how do you design and create and find and live into those moments?

Michael Bauman: 17:37

Yeah. So let's, I mean, let's get into it. how do you design create, find and live into those moments?

John Coyle: 17:43

so I've been studying it for a long time and I think there's really six things that sort of layer up to the kind of moment. And this is the kind of moment I'm talking about. There's a before and after. You'll always remember it. Number one is risk. A safe, comfortable life, which we're all programmed for is the death of you. I'm sorry to have to say that. It's just true. So the hippocampus back here. Oh, I have a prop back here is what writes memories and it's writing it to your paral, glows all over your brain. It's writing about every two seconds. That's normal sitting next to it is the Amy. The amygdala only wakes up when there's a stimulus that involves risks or opportunities. When it wakes up, it writes memories at 20 to third time, 30 times faster. That's what you want. Eight year olds have this all day, every day, modern adults. If they're in a corporate life where they commute to the same place and do the same thing every day, have none of it. And so this is where this thing happens, where you drove to work and you don't know how you got there. Right. It's a safe, comfortable routine. I've had clients tell me, I don't remember the two thousands, like they missed a decade cuz it's too safe, too comfortable. Cuz the brain is 28% of your caloric burn, but only 3% of your mass. So it's giant light bulb and the hardest thing the brain does is rate memories. So it doesn't want. And so if there's nothing new to write down, it's just not gonna do it. So if everything is safe and comfortable, it just won't write it down. And this is the thing that we're all clinging to. It's like, oh, if everything could be just great all the time, but that's the death of you. That's not light. This is why that quote is so right. Like life begins at the edge of your comfort zone is totally true when it comes to memory and your storage of your memories. All right. So the six ways: risk, emotional intensity associated with risk, physical intensity is not required, but usually is helpful, beauty, beautiful things, by the way, we're not trying to store negative memories. They work the same way. Sadly. Right. Uniqueness is just new. And then the sixth and the like the multiplying factor here is the flow state. So if you are in the flow state, which is the peak performance zone, the zone, in your best self, then that multiplies your 30 X amygdala driven memory writing by five X. So now you're got 150 times a normal, boring day writing. And so you're literally, and this is no joke. You're literally living 150 times longer. So if you're gonna live 50 more years, you could live 50 more years or you could live like 10 because time is slowing down. Or if you're like me, you're literally gonna live 2000 more years. I'm 20 years into 2022. It's no joke. Because I'm living all the way up. I'm stacking these six things all the time when I can

Michael Bauman: 20:44

Yeah. So talk about how you go about doing that, right? So let's say you have your typical kind of corporate job and whatever, and you talk about the risk and things like that. Where do people start to start putting these pieces?

John Coyle: 20:55

I think vacations are the best place. Look, you've got your investment time. You've gotta put in the time at work. It's fine. This is the amazing thing. If you can multiply time by 1500. You only need a couple of moments a year to create the kind of things where there's before and after and where you know, where you were and what you did and that sort of thing. So design three, five, I shoot for 10 moments a year that are. Truly compellingly different. And the easiest way, I think is international travel. Like, you're gonna have uniqueness. You're gonna have struggle. You're gonna have some risk. You're gonna have some emotional intensity, probably gonna get some physical intensity. It's gonna be beautiful. And hopefully you'll get into the flow state at some point. And when you do that, You've just created a moment that you'll never forget. You'll be like, oh, I know where I was in 2019. I know where I was in 2022. I know where I was in June of 2022. Like the, if you can't remember, if you don't know where you were in certain years, you're starting to lose grip over your slow slide of loss of time. But if you know where you were in certain months of certain years, and I can do this now, like for the last six years, seven years, since I've been practicing, I know where I was pretty much every month, sometimes weeks for the last six, seven years.

Michael Bauman: 22:14

Yeah, it's really interesting. I had her name's Marilu Henner so she's an actor and I know she, okay, great. I had her on the show. Oh, she, yeah, the highly superior autobiographical memory. So she, you can give her a date. Oh, anytime. Right. And she could

John Coyle: 22:28

say, I was here doing this she's on happy day. Is the redhead.

Michael Bauman: 22:31

Right? Right. Yep. Now you're exactly right. And that may be. That? Well, that's a one, like, that's literally like there's a hundred people in the world. Right. But her tips on the memories are a similar kind of thing. Like at the end of your day, basically replay your day. Right. And think about the moments that actually made up your day, because you're trying to store that in your long term memory. Right. And it's like, what you're talking about,

John Coyle: 22:55

But here's the trick, Michael is. If you have enough risk and intensity in your day. Oh, you don't need to. It's kinda, it's just gonna happen. Right? Right. Like, like this is today, like today. I got stopped by the police in Mexico. and I know the shakedown. I know how this is gonna go, right? He's like your tags are expired. I'm like, actually they're not. He's like, I think they are. And I said, okay, I want money and he's like, I want 30,000 pesos. And I said, how about a hundred? And we went and I paid him 20 bucks and I was on my way, but I'm not gonna forget today because I was running late for the airport. Like. I was up against it, right. And I barely made that flight. I barely, and we're talking now because I was late. So sorry about that.

Michael Bauman: 23:42

no, that's no problem, but you're exactly right. So I'm curious, you're talking like, okay, how can you make sure you remember the year? How can you make sure you remember the month? So you're putting in those activities month by month. I'm curious, what can people do on a daily basis as well? So you have a macro level and then a micro level as well. What are your tips for the micro level? The day to day?

John Coyle: 24:01

I don't think the days matter. That's okay. Part of this sort of hypothesis, cuz again, it's not completely proven, but I think it's pretty well proven. If you go through a boring week, that's fine. It's I call that investment time. Like you, you gotta earn the money, you gotta do the job. You gotta take care of your kids. You gotta do whatever. Like that's okay. It's fine. That's just, you're building your investment time and then you're gonna plan something for your family. I'll give you an example, client of mine. This is one of my favorites. And, but there's hundreds of them. He heard my talk wealthy executive BP oil. It's got more money to burn than, than anybody. And he's like, shoot, I'm spending all my week at the office every week, every year, his son is turning 12. His son lives in Australia where they, he grew up. He has never even been to the UK, but his dad's from UK and his dad is a huge fan of a certain UK soccer club, which I couldn't name, but, they love their football. Right, right. And his son's a huge fan as well. He's got all the Jersey he's been watching him since age five. So his dad's like, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna fly him to London. He's never even been. I'm not gonna tell him, and we're gonna go to the game. So this is what it is. Buys a ticket son gets on the plane. Doesn't know where they're going. They land in London. He's like, we're in London. This is interesting. And he's like, yep. And then they get on the bus and they go to the stadium and he is like, I know this stadium and this is the cool part. This is where money can buy time. His dad paid for him to meet the mascot. So as they walked off the bus, the entire team came out, greeted his son, put him in the Jersey, brought him out on the field where he kicked the ball with him for warmup, sat in the dugout or whatever they call it for the entire game. Had every player sign his Jersey. His dad can't tell the story without crying. I don't know who got more of it than the kid or the dad, but the point being, he created the kind of moment that kid will never forget. And these are the things we can do,

Michael Bauman: 26:00

yeah, absolutely. And that's, I mean, that's the, when you look at the happiness research and stuff too, like if you get$10,000, is it better to spend it on, one thing or to distribute it like in smaller chunks throughout like the year? And there can be benefits said to both, but looking at like going, okay, how can I get this distributed? In a month, where you remember those, you slice it finer. Right? You're getting those memories sliced finer. And so you could recall more of it. No, that's really fascinating. What about like on the flip side, because you talked about the negative memories and this is where, trauma happens and all of that

John Coyle: 26:32

it's splicing in,

Michael Bauman: 26:34

right. What are your thoughts and advice on in terms of that? Like how can you minimize the effect of those negative memories?

John Coyle: 26:41

Great question. And that means I have an answer. So, two of my main sources for my material are a two neuroscientists Moran Cerf and David Eagleman. And between the two of them, I've really been able to parse out an answer to this that I think needs to be broadcast worldwide. So memories come in through your eyeballs, through your nose, through your ears, through all of your senses, right? And if they're traumatic, they're gonna be written. They're gonna be deep, wide and highly recallable because the amygdala is writing it down to say, never do that again. So this is gonna happen. And so they're gonna be right there. They're gonna be right at the surface all the time, really good ones and really bad ones. And if you have a lot of really bad ones, they're all gonna be simmering there. Like this cesspool.. The part I knew was this, and you probably know this, but when you recall a memory. You assemble it. Okay. You put it together. So you're taking the bits and pieces of things that, you know, and you're reassembling this narrative. It's more of a painting than a photograph. Like you're painting it. It's imperfect, but it's pretty close. Right? The part I, and by the way, if you take an MRI of a memory creation and imagination, same thing. So if I ask you to imagine Skydiving off of the top of your building. If you're in tall building, you could do that easily. Like I know what a parachute looks like. I know what jumping off looks like. I know what fear looks like. You could recreate that, but you've never done it. Memory creation is the exact same function. It is taking pieces of data that, you know, and assembling them into a narrative in this case. It's true now where it gets interesting is when you put the painting. You put it away wet, like the paint is not dry, so you've put it away different. If you put that painting away, worse, darker, then you literally have PTSD. That's what PTSD is. I'm a terrible person. I should never have done that. I can't believe I've done that. I'm. I'm terrible. Like that's PTSD. However, if you put it away better even slightly. While I learned from that. I'm not doing that anymore. I'm helping other people with this problem. That's post-traumatic growth. It's the only difference is how you put it away. This is why it's pretty risky to do the kinds of psychiatric consultations that are common today. If the consultant is good enough to help you put it away better. You're better, but if you pull it up and put it away worse, you're actually worse. You're actually better letting that thing simmer down there because you're just gonna make your life even terrible, more terrible. So this is the tricky part. So that's how memory works. And so the trick is how do I pull it up and put it away better? And for a lot of memories, I don't think it's that hard. So I'll give you the contrast of two identical scenarios. One of somebody I vaguely know. And one of'em I know, well, both of them lost a child to pool drownings in their own pool. One of them had four other children and he is the main spokesperson now for pool safety in the world. Famous skier. Bode Miller. And so he's made due with that. The other was actually my high school prom date married, her love and their sole child drowned in their pool on his third birthday. And they're both now incarcerated on drugs. They're complete disasters. They couldn't recover those parents. So that's the contrast, right? How do you put it way better? How do I make some sort of lemonade out of this thing? And one of the best ways is to help others that have this struggled through it.

Michael Bauman: 30:44

No I appreciate that. And obviously, especially in situations like that it's way easier to talk about than it is to do. Right. But I like, you know what you're talking about first off, you need somebody that's really good at being able to put that memory back, more in a more positive light to get help with that. Finding that inspiration, finding that growth, finding that meaning through it. Even if you go through a large period of time where there isn't anything, right. And you allow the grief and you process through that in a dramatically oversimplified way, but. I think, you're exactly right. In terms of how it works. And it's interesting, and this can be a tool used on a lot less of those traumatic things. Right. Cuz that's definitely get

John Coyle: 31:24

right. Help with that. It gave you the extreme you can get to, I think that's the worst you can get to honestly, right.

Michael Bauman: 31:29

But even in terms of like what you ruminate on, it's fascinating. Cuz like you talk about if you're in control of this movie and it's similar, with the research around visualization where your brain it's doing the same thing as if you were actually doing it. What would look like if you just made that image smaller? You can actually just manipulate the image in your mind. Like you can make it smaller, take up like less space or like just like you do your little filters on Instagram. Like what if you actually brightened up the right? What if you brightened up the picture? Like it's interesting how you can go in and go. Can I actually control this memory that I have, that it usually has ton of power, ton of strength, even if it's a mistake that I made yesterday. Can I actually manipulate that to make it smaller, not take up as much space to make it brighter. And then when you put it back, you're like, eh, it's not as dark and it's not as strong as it was before.

John Coyle: 32:15

Exactly right.

Michael Bauman: 32:16

Yeah, no I really appreciate I appreciate the simple things or it's like these simple things you can go, like, can I put it back lighter than it was before? And how would I go about essentially doing that? So I'm curious too, cuz this is right along those lines. What does it look like? For two, two different aspects for visualization, right? So if these memories that we can create there, isn't a lot of difference between us visualizing it. Can we. Visualize and create that same storage of memories in terms of making our life rich and, having that aspect and then also like, meditation, what does that do? In terms of those different things.

John Coyle: 32:53

So it's great. Great question. Which means I have an answer. Meditation is I think. Potentially super important tool for a lot of people. Yeah. There's like some great quotes out there. Like it's the cheapest pill you ever have to take that will make your life better. Right? Like it's just proven, right? When it comes to time storage the big advantage of meditation in mindfulness is if you miss the moment, it doesn't matter that it happened. Right. So you gotta be present for that moment. Right. And I'll make the analogy here. You could be doing, stay at home teaching with your, let's say five year old, all week, five hours a day, and then watching TV with them three more hours or whatever I'm making this up. Or you walk through the door after getting groceries. And your five year old is in tears for some reason. And you're not really sure of, and you go give her a big hug and just listen for a minute. That minute is vastly more important than the five days. This is this weird fungibility of time, and this is the entire premise of my book, by the way. I'll tell it to you to twice, cuz it's actually really hard to understand. The value of an increment of time is not related to its duration. The value of an increment of time is not related to its duration means that sometimes two seconds is vastly more important than a year. And being able to recognize that two seconds when it comes up, when you see that woman that you're going to marry and. Walk across the room, which takes two seconds. Right? And you say those words of, Hey, what's your name or whatever. Like, this is the way life is built is out of moments. And so, the tricky part is pardoning yourself for the time that's wasted. It's not really wasted. I mean, it's okay if 95% of your time is investment time. It's totally okay. We all have to do the things like gotta clean the kitchen, gotta load the dishwasher. These things happen. You can't make a moment out of that. I mean, it's very unusual if you do, but being present using mindfulness meditation to be present when it's necessary, that's the, really the tricky. Right. Be present when it's important and go on autopilot for the stuff that doesn't matter. I don't know how to put it more clear than that cuz it's, I'm still trying to figure that part out. Like I go into autopilot a lot cuz it's easy. And am I missing something? Probably. Can I tell you a story? yeah. All right. So. Here's a story of a time where I, and another human didn't go on autopilot when we could have, so I'm at the Olympics. It's eight years after I retired, I've been invited to be the NBC analyst and I had not watched for seven years. Like it had nothing to do with it, but there I am back I'm interviewing the coaches' parents and skaters is my job now. So I'm back integrated and they knew me and I knew them like wasn't that long. And it's the night before the gold medal round for my event, short track speed skatings final event. And a parent who I talked to yesterday actually pulls me aside and he's like, I need to tell you something it's really important. And he told me later, by the way that he was one beer away from not telling me anything

Michael Bauman: 36:27

So it was his moment and he chose to walk across the room.

John Coyle: 36:30

So we leave the dinner table and he says, I just want you to know that we wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't for you. And I said, I don't, I'm not sure. I know what you mean. He said you don't remember, but 12 years ago after you won your silver medal, He brought up to a little reception in Bay City, Michigan. I brought my son, Alex, who was 11 years old at the time. He'd never skated before in his whole life. You sign an autograph, you put your medal around my son's neck. The next day he joined the Bay City speed skating club. And tomorrow he's skating in the gold medal fight. Wow. I mean talk about yeah. 10 seconds that blow your cranium off, right. And so Alex won a bronze medal the next day, his whole life changed. My whole life changed. Like I started coaching and I got my daughter skating and I've been involved heavily ever since, like it changed and I never talked about it. Now, this is what I do for a living. So talk about one moment, changing the entire trajectory of my life. Like a Kairos moment straight outta the Greeks, like that change my entire life hinged on that conversation, which lasted 15 seconds. And so we all have that capacity. To change other people's lives in those moments where it matters. And sometimes we forget, or we don't say anything. I read him a long letter. He wrote me back. And in the summary that this short conclusion to a rather long letter was, I guess you'll never know what you'll do or say or not do or say that could change somebody's life forever. And we can do that every day. Yeah.

Michael Bauman: 38:05

So, I mean, with that, there's, you have these moments, right. And there are these little moments that can define your life that can change your life. Let's talk about the fear that potentially keeps you from seizing the moment, like from walking across the room, like what is your advice on that? Like how do you recognize that? How do you make sure to make the decision that you feel is best in that moment?

John Coyle: 38:28

Such a great question. Honestly, it may be my favorite question ever, because I don't know the answer, so I'm gonna invent one I mean, my highest value was courage. And so, Al the father, it took him courage to come talk to me. Right. Well, what is courage based off of? I don't know exactly. But, if we have an intuition that something we have to say is important to somebody, something we can do is important to somebody something we can affect is going to encourage positive change and we have to do it. We have to do it. And I wonder how many times I've missed that moment. It's literally in the thousands, right? I've missed a thousand moments. But every day there's a new opportunity, and so I try to be mindful, aware, awake to the moments that could be the trajectory, train, changing Kairos moment. I'm missing'em all the time. I'm sure I am, but I'm vastly better than I used to be. And so. I'm trying.

Michael Bauman: 39:39

Yeah. And I think, I mean, I think you're absolutely right. Like I think that is where the mindfulness and stuff actually plays into it because just like, I mean, as a, as an athlete, an elite athlete, like you train over and over for that moment, like that gold metal moment that like world final moment, right? Like you've trained for four years plus, right. Specifically for that moment. And I think that's the key around the mindfulness is like, you're actually training yourself to be aware enough so when that moment happens, you can be like, oh, I actually didn't miss it. Right. That's the first step. Like I didn't miss it first off. And then the aspect around fear is that like fear inoculation thing. Like how can you give yourself little bit extra fear, like bits of fear in your day to day life, where you're a little bit more inoculated to it, right? You're a little bit better at actually choosing the decision that you think would be in your best interests. And then that is your training for those moments like you talk about where it's like, this is the big one, but I trained for it,

John Coyle: 40:44

I got a little story for you. So this is so perfect. So I was in the Olympics a long time ago. You were probably barely born, maybe not even one. And we finished our race and then literally five minutes later or less, we walked up to the podium and they gave us the medals wow. And people always ask, what was it like? And I used to lie and say it was amazing. It was awesome. But the reality was I wasn't there at all. I was not present. Totally not present. Literally my thoughts were, oh crap. What if I have to get drug tested? I'll have to pee. I don't have to pee. I'm get stuck here. Should I keep skating? It's another four more years. I'm making money. Oh, here's the metal. It's only a silver. Like you could like, if you watch the video, you can see my eyes. Like I'm not even looking up. I'm not present at all. They fixed this and it's so cool. And it's one of my favorite things about modern Olympics is they realize that you can't possibly process a lifetime of training in five minutes. So they don't give you the medal that night, these days. I dunno if you know that. So if you watch, they get a flower ceremony, so you're there you win. You get a flowers. 24 hours minimum before you can get your medal. And then it's in front of a huge audience cuz all the medalists come. So now you're in front of 10,000 people. You've had literally 24 hours for everybody to tell you how great you are. Right. So you get that processing of this is an achievement that's that matters. It's significant. And then you go up there and you get your medal. Okay. Now you would think this is the height of the Olympic program, but it's not we're only at the beginning now because the other thing that's so cool is within 90 minutes, you must give an award. You give a medal to the person that helped you most 90 minutes later at the USA house. Oh wow. So now you've gone from the height of like, I'm great to I'm so humbled that so many people help me and now I have to pick one out of them. So you just gonna be a parent or coach. Wow. And when you go into the ceremony, nobody doesn't cry. Never once. In the 18 years I've witnessed it. Has anybody not cried? Like it's the most emotional moment ever. Because you didn't get there by yourself. And so you give this medal to the person that helped you most. Everybody cries, cry now. Yeah. And I didn't get to do that. I would've given it to my dad, but, but this is again, this, like this contrast between achievement, humility, like. And they do it right now because that's how the moments are made. Like you, you are not by there by yourself, but you gotta give yourself some credit too, like, so they do it right.

Michael Bauman: 43:30

Wow. That is amazing. Yeah. That's amazing.

John Coyle: 43:35

I've seen so many of these and they're so good and they're just life changing for everybody in the room.

Michael Bauman: 43:41

Wow. I wonder how that changes that, 10 years afterwards

John Coyle: 43:45

of the, I think that's the thing. I think it probably helps a lot. Yeah. Cause you and Apollo Ohno, who's a speed skater, he asked me in his recent book you've been successful post competition. Most athletes have not like, what would you say your secret success was? And I didn't know the answer when he asked me and it took me a minute and I'm like, you know what I was willing to ask for help. I knew, I didn't know anything. I knew nothing of the business world zero. I mean, I've gone to college, but I didn't know anything of how it worked. And I had two guys that trained me in interviewing and resumes and all that stuff that I didn't know nothing about. But I asked. And if you're not willing to ask, you're not gonna get the help.

Michael Bauman: 44:28

Yeah that's tremendous.

John Coyle: 44:30

And people ask me all the time now and I'm totally willing, right? Like, just like you I'm sure. Like. Somebody comes to you with a legitimate request that they need help about something that I know stuff about. You're never gonna say no, right? I'll say no to stuff I don't know anything about

Michael Bauman: 44:45

and that's, I mean, that's what you're talking about. Like that is the moments that change your life. Like you,

John Coyle: 44:49

you asking now or somebody else's or both. Right. Like you ask

Michael Bauman: 44:53

that one person and then it puts you on that different direction for you, like business or, any one of these other things like you, you seize that moment and you go, I'm gonna actually be willing to ask and come in with that, beginner's mindset. Right. And it changes your life. Changes your life. Yeah, absolutely. Well, this is just fantastic. I'm loving every second of this a question that I like asking, and this is everything that we've talked about, but I'm curious to hear your concise answer to it. For you, I'm curious, how would you go about defining success?

John Coyle: 45:25

To me is that's pretty easy. Success is leveraging my time on this planet to create the most memorable moments possible, such that I slow stop and reverse the perceived acceleration of time that most adults feel, and experience the endless summers of my youth, again.

Michael Bauman: 45:43

There it is. And it's amazing. And that's, what's so incredible about, your life and your story is like, you are actually living it, right? Like, oh, I

John Coyle: 45:52

definitely,

Michael Bauman: 45:54

we talked before the conversation, you have your RV down and back. Like you literally just came back from Mexico, like right before this conversation and you are putting those moments in to a hundred, 150 times the quality of your life and the memory of your life and the impact. And you could take any of those things and insert, like, how can I take advantage of these moments? Take advantage of this time, put this in a way that will actually be able to be recalled. I mean, that's what fullness of life is like how many moments that you can put in there.

John Coyle: 46:26

You're exactly right. So the three things. Broad deep and highly recallable memories, broad meaning there's a lot of information, deep meaning it's intense and highly recallable meaning that you can find it. Those three things. That's a success in life as far as I'm concerned.

Michael Bauman: 46:45

Yeah. I love it. Is there anything else that as we wrap up here, is there anything else that you wanna leave with the audience that you haven't already? Cause it's been, Amazing.

John Coyle: 46:53

I mean, I'll just repeat something I said, which is that time and money are fungible if you're successful, which probably most of audience is, and you've got the money. Start thinking of ways to trade your money for time for you, your family, your loved ones, your friends, and create those moments that you and they will never forget. That's what life is made of. It's definitely not made of things. I have no things. And maybe you start getting rid of things.

Michael Bauman: 47:25

I love that. And I mean, like you talked about there's those aspects, like, can I take more risk? Can I be more present with beauty? Put more beautiful moments in there, have more of like that edge of the physical exertion, the flow. Yeah. Can I do more of those things to insert those moments in my life? Amazing. Love it. Awesome. So where can people go to. I mean connect with you, connect with the incredible stuff that you're doing

John Coyle: 47:52

easy. That's just johnkcoyle.com. Everything's there, I've got all my videos, my blog. And if you log in, you can get a free copy of my book and you get on my newsletter and I'm constantly pushing the boundaries here to try to find new ways to expand time. And sometimes I fail, but more often than not. I'm figuring it out as I go. Yeah. Awesome.

Michael Bauman: 48:17

I love it. Thanks. Thank you so much for your time and for making this moment. I really appreciate it. It was a fun conversation.

John Coyle: 48:24

Super fun. You're good at what you do.

Michael Bauman: 48:26

Thank you. I enjoy it.

48:29

For those of you who are interested in joining a group of entrepreneurs who don't want sacrifice their life for their business, and really want to feel like a success in every area of their life, through doing a deep dive into what sabotages them, their limiting beliefs. How they can truly feel like they're enough in every area of their life, along with not feeling like they're alone, you can go ahead and fill out the mastermind application. It's in the link in the show notes. I look forward to talking with you, hearing where you're coming from and how we can potentially work together to help you reach your goals till next time, keep engineering your success.