July 23, 2025 • 24 mins
Many self-help books and programs are overly complicated with dozens of steps or components. My guest, “Doc” Thom Mayer believes we can (and should) do simple things savagely well. We discuss how to do that in this episode.
Doc is the Medical Director for the NFL Players Association, as well as a prominent figure in the fields of emergency medicine, sports medicine and leading in times of crisis.
He has built a distinguished career focused on athlete and patient health, safety, emergency response, as well as the skills required to lead from the front lines, making significant contributions to clinical practice, medical education, and thought leadership.
Doc has always thought that we've made life more complicated than it really needs to be. It shouldn't be as complicated as we've made it. And he believes all of us who are in the business of trying to help others, that's his business, that's your business, should simplify, simplify. Einstein said, “Simplify, simplify, but not too much.”
Doc’s great friend, Mark Verstegen is the founder of Team Exos. Team Exos is the best athletes' performance company in the world. Had they been a country in the Paris Olympics, they would have finished sixth in the medal count. That's how elite the athletes are and how diverse the sports world is that he's involved with. And Mark is the one who said, “Do simple things done savagely well.” So, combining Einstein and Mark Verstegen, Doc has tried to do simple things done savagely well.
What Does “Too Simple” Mean?
An simple example of “too simple” is looking at the equation E equals MC squared. Energy equals mass times the square of the speed of light. When Doc learned that he thought, well, that's awfully simple. I Why didn't somebody come up with that before? The reason is that wasn't the equation. It turns out the real equation is not that simple. The real equation is E equals MC squared divided by one, divided by the square root of one minus V (velocity) divided by C squared. Well, that's a little more complicated.
So, some genius in marketing somewhere decided let's just do E equals MC squared. So yes, simplify, but not too much. To simplify too much is when people fail to make the connections that are simple but have failed to be made because there's all kinds of corollaries of logical consequences that come out of that.
How Do You Start to Simplify Something That's Complex?
Doc says to start by taking something that is considered to be the status quo, thinking about it, reflecting on it, and starting to think, well, how do I put it to work? For example, Doc’s most recent book is titled “Leadership is Worthless, but Leading is Priceless, what I learned from 9-11, the NFL, and Ukraine”. Doc was in all those places. So, the simple idea is, leadership is worthless. How can that be? There's 50,000 books on Amazon alone that have leadership in the title. The problem is that most leadership titles and advice include the 25 this, the 7 of this, the 14 things, and people can't remember them. So, it's not simplified enough.
So, to Doc, that contrarian idea is very simple. Leadership is worthless because it's what you say. And anybody can say anything. They often do say a lot, tediously and at length, and usually about themselves. So leading is priceless because it's what we do all day, every day. So, the simple thought is that leadership is worthless because it’s a noun, leading is priceless because it's a verb, what we do. So Doc always tells his audiences, or anybody who will sit and listen, you must change the noun to a verb. Once you change the noun to the verb, life becomes so much more simple.
And therefore, new ideas are born, including the answers that are not above us in life, in an organization, in our family. They're within and among us. The question that we should be asking ourselves is not am I, will I become a leader? You already are. You’ve got to say “Today I'm a leader.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to the Idea Climbing podcast. Many self
help books and programs are overly complicated with
dozens of steps or components.
My guest, Doc Tom Mayer, believes we can
and should do simple things savagely well. We
discuss how to do that in this episode.
Doc is the medical director for the NFL
Players Association,
as well as a prominent figure in the
(00:22):
fields of emergency medicine, sports medicine, and leading
in times of crisis.
He has built a distinguished career focused on
athlete and patient health, safety, emergency response,
as well as the skills required to lead
from the front lines, making significant contributions to
clinical practice, medical education, and thought leadership.
We dive into topics including where burnout comes
(00:43):
from and how simplifying your life can help
you avoid it, how to pull out of
downward cycles when you're having a bad day,
the one thing above all else that you
need to embrace to do simple things savagely
well, and other golden nuggets of advice. You're
gonna love this show.
(01:05):
Doc, thank you for being here. I appreciate
you making the time. This is gonna be
good. Oh, I'm delighted. The pleasure is entirely
mine. I've been looking forward to it. Always
love chatting with you. I love your ideas.
Love how you,
pull the best out of your subjects. So
I'm looking forward to you extracting the best
for me.
(01:25):
Well, we will definitely do that. We're gonna
talk about how to do simple things savagely
well. Before we get into the tips, the
tricks, the strategies, the tactics, and all that
good stuff, when it comes to doing simple
things savagely well,
why is that important to you? Where did
it come from? What's your story with that?
Well, it's a great story because it involves
one of my closest friends.
(01:46):
I I have always thought that we've made
life more complicated
than it really needs to be. It shouldn't
be as complicated as we've made it. And
I think all of us who are in
the business of trying to help others,
that's my business, that's your business, should simplify,
simplify. Einstein said,
simplify,
simplify,
(02:07):
but not too much.
So my great friend,
Mark Berstegen,
unusual name, is the founder of team Exos.
And team Exos is the best athlete's performance
company in the world. Had they been a
a country
in the Paris Olympics, they would have finished
sixth in the medal count. That's how elite
(02:27):
the athletes and how diverse
they the sports are that he's involved with.
And Marco is the one who said simple
things
done savagely well.
So combining
Einstein and Mark Verstegen,
I've tried to
do simple things
made savagely well.
Well, I like what you said. You said
(02:48):
do simple things savagely well, and I I
forget if it was Einstein, but but not
too simple. What is too simple mean?
Well, too simple
a simple example
is I remember looking
at the equation e equals mc squared,
energy equals mass times the square of the
(03:08):
speed of light. And I thought, well,
that seemed that's awfully simple.
I mean, why didn't somebody come up with
that before?
And and the reason is that wasn't the
equation. It's not the equation.
I'll show you the equation,
which as you can see,
is not as simple.
And in case they couldn't see it, it
(03:28):
e e equals m c squared
divided by one
divided by the square root of one minus
v, velocity, divided by c
squared. Well, that's a little more complicated.
So,
some genius in marketing somewhere
decided let's just do e equals mc squared.
(03:49):
So, yes, simplify,
but not too much. And I find
the too much is when people fail to
make the connections
that that are simple but have failed to
be made because there's all kinds
of corollaries of logical consequences,
that come out of that. And I'm sure
we'll get into that as we talk.
(04:09):
Oh, yeah. Definitely. It's let's start at the
top. You you're in a situation in life.
You can pick which what which kind.
Where do you start to simplify when you
realize, oh my you know, like, the 25
step marketing process or the 30 steps to
better health and wellness?
Where do you better yet, how do you
start to simplify something that's complex?
(04:31):
I I think by taking
what is considered to be the status quo
anti,
thinking about it, reflecting on it, and starting
to think, well, how do I put it
to work? For example, as you know, my
most recent book is titled Leadership is Worthless,
but Leading is Priceless.
What I learned from nine eleven,
(04:52):
the NFL, and Ukraine because I I was
at all those places.
So the simple idea is,
wait. Leadership is worthless? How can that be?
There's 50,000 books on Amazon alone
on, that have leadership in the title.
And if I ask my audience, because I
do a lot of speaking as you know,
(05:13):
name one that you read and then say,
okay. What did it say? And you get,
as you said, the 25 this, the seven
other, the 14 things, and and they can't
remember them. So it's not been simplified
enough.
So to me, that contrarian idea
is very simple. Leadership is worthless
because it's what you say,
(05:34):
and anybody can say anything.
And as you know,
they often do
say a lot
tediously and at length, usually about themselves.
So leading is priceless because it's what we
do
all day, every day.
So the simple thought is leadership is worthless
because it's a noun.
(05:56):
Leading is priceless because it's a verb, what
we do. So I always tell my my
my friends, my audience, anybody who will sit
and listen, you gotta change the noun to
a verb. Once you change the noun to
the verb, life becomes so much more simple.
And therefore,
corollaries come off of that, including
the answers are not above us in life,
(06:17):
in an organization,
in our family.
They're within and among us. The question that
we should be asking ourselves is not, am
I, will I become a leader? You already
are.
You know, you swing your legs out. You
gotta say, today, I'm a leader.
So abandon the wistful, worthless word someday
(06:38):
and embrace the word today
because that's actionable.
So all simple, but
contrarian, if you will.
Well, with what you just said, especially with,
you know, today,
do you suggest breaking things down into steps,
or are you saying it should be so
simplified that it's a concept you focus on
(06:58):
as opposed to even five steps? Where do
you fall in
between the two? Yeah. I to me, it's
I'm okay with lists,
but only if they're three.
Any more than three, and most people aren't
gonna be able to remember them, number one.
No offense to everybody who's got lists.
I always say I don't have a to
do list. I have a to don't list.
(07:18):
And the reason is I take care of
it immediately
so I don't have to
worry about it or think about it or
put it on a list and come back
to it at some point.
You know, to me, if you say today,
I'm a leader,
the only thing you have to know, I,
told my boys when they were younger,
we have three boys. My beautiful and brilliant
(07:38):
wife, Maureen, and I have three boys. And
when I was they were younger, and I
used to drive them to school every day
when I was in town because I've always
had to travel a lot in my various
positions.
But when I was in town, I drove
them to school and I said, as they
got out of the truck,
one more step in the journey of discovering
where your deep joy
intersects
(07:59):
the world's deep needs.
I swear I said this to them.
They prefer to take the bus, as you
might guess.
They don't wanna hear that from their dad.
But my point was always
your deep joy.
What lights you up? What's your sense of
purpose? What's your true north?
(08:19):
If
you will. There's a lot of ways to
refer to it. Because if you start with
the world's deep needs, they're infinite.
They're unknowable.
There's no bottom to that well. But if
you start with your
deep joy, then and know that and embrace
it, then when you say today, I will
lead, you don't need five steps or seven
(08:39):
steps. It will be what's my deep joy.
And once you know that and stay true
to that,
burnout's a big issue these days. Well, burnout,
simple definition.
It's the inability to feel your deep joy.
And anything that gets in the way of
that
is what's causing the burnout and has to
be dealt with. So I think there's interconnections
(09:01):
that happen there so that, you know, we
got a meeting.
Yeah. You've got a work shift.
You got a very, very difficult problem to
deal with. The simplicity is today I will
lead
according to my deep joy.
And then, of course, we have values understood,
you know, integrity,
intelligence,
you know, alacrity. Everyone has their own list.
(09:23):
You know, what do I do in these
difficult circumstances,
doc? And the answer is follow your deep
joy,
understand that you're leading, and make it consistent
with your values.
Not that hard.
Now I'm not saying it's easy in the
action,
but it's easy to know, okay. This is
my direction.
So with what you said, again, the contrast
(09:45):
here is that you every day is a
gift and you you lead with joy every
day and you do it day by day
and your life builds? Or is it you
lead with joy every day, but you still
have to plan a week out, a month
out, a year out? Where do you fall
between those two as far as making plans
and living day to day? Today is my
joy I'm gonna live with joy.
Yeah. I think it's a combination of both,
(10:07):
the dynamic tension between both. You know, the
proximal today, I will lead.
I certainly think, okay, in the broad scheme
of things,
how does this day
and each action
in that day fit in the broader picture
of, you know, what I do and how
I do? I founded a company of, emergency
(10:29):
physicians, a group of emergency physicians. We had
three rules. Rule number one, always do the
right thing for the patient.
Rule number two, always do the right thing
for the people who take care of the
patient,
the docs, the nurses, the other essential services
people. And rule number three, you know where
this is going, don't confuse rule number one
and rule number two. And we do that
(10:50):
all the time. So if I've got a
meeting today to talk about a specific issue,
question number one, is this good for the
patient?
If it's
not, don't do it. That was a short
meeting. That was a short idea. You know?
Then how is it good for the people
take care of the patient?
And once you have that kind of clarity,
(11:11):
you begin to see the connections that weren't
there before.
And you see how what I have to
do today and issues and problems that go
with that fit within that broader context of
this week, this month, this year, I have
these goals or and what occurs. And I
find that taking that approach
illuminates
(11:32):
the questions, answers, decisions, the leading of today
really helps illuminate that broader schedule that we're
talking about. Because you have these sort of
epiphanous moments
that you say, okay. I got it. Now
I see how this fits. Does that make
sense? That makes perfect sense. And that that
explains day by day and ongoing.
Once you get break it down, you you
(11:53):
know, living with joy, whatever your mantra might
be,
let's talk about doing simple things savagely well.
Once you know what to do on a
day to day basis, talk a little what
first of all, what do you mean by
savagely well?
Well, it's execution.
The other part of that business I was
talking about emergency physicians, but you can you
can put in, you know, car dealership,
(12:14):
banking,
private wealth management,
because I've spoken to all those kinds of
groups and tap out patients and tap on
customers,
partners, relationships, if you will. We'll talk about
relationships in a minute. But when you begin
to look at it that way and see
savagely well, it's figuring it out. And then,
you know, we talked about the science
(12:36):
of clinical excellence,
the art of customer service and the business
of execution.
That's what guided us. In addition to the
three rules I told you about, when you
begin to look at your business, your life,
your family, your relationships that way, it becomes
simpler. And it's about how do you execute
(12:56):
increasingly well?
My guys, I have 2,500 players, active players
in the NFL at any given time and
20,000 former players. You know, they go through
film study,
you know, and people talk about film study
like it's relaxing.
No. I mean, you're breaking down film.
You're what I call making failure your fuel
(13:16):
so that you're able to see what didn't
work, why it didn't work, do an analysis
of it,
an exegesis
as we'd say in theology.
I was not only a linebacker when I
was in college. Now what's the job of
a linebacker?
Blow stuff up.
I mean, my job is to
blow up the offense's plans, but I was
(13:38):
also a theology major. So a linebacker theology
major, that's probably some kind of demonic,
thing right there.
But, but what's the job of, in in
theology is to integrate, to pull things together,
to
see and discover meaning, which was not apparent
on the top layer at the veneer of
the surface.
(13:58):
So it's kind of a weird juxtaposition,
and we use the term exegesis all the
time in theology.
But the exegesis is, okay. How do I
take what I wanted to happen,
what did happen, look at the delta, the
difference,
and say, how can we do it better?
How can we make it easier over time?
How did we fail to meet the customer
(14:18):
patient, you know, client partner needs,
and how are we gonna do it differently
the next time by making failure our fuel?
When you start doing things savagely well, how
do you because you mentioned burnout.
How do you do things savagely well without
going completely overboard and just burning yourself out
from going too fast?
Well, I I find that burnout,
(14:40):
first of all, it's a ratio. It's a
ratio of job stressors because burnout is about
work, not about your family. Depression would be
life, you know, and there's some corollaries between
those two that aren't spoken about as much
as they should be, in my opinion. But
if you take a simple ratio,
if if the answer is burnout is the
inability to feel my deep joy at work
(15:01):
and then say, okay, give me an equation.
Give me an equation a fourth grader could
understand.
The numerator is job stressors.
And in our life, you know, from all
the guests wonderful guests you've had on, job
stressors are higher. In many respects, you could
say people listen to my podcast because job
stressors are higher, and I need help with
(15:22):
those job stressors.
So,
the denominator though, most people would call it
resilience or resiliency.
I don't love that term and here's why.
If I say, Mark,
the reason you're burned out
is you're not resilient enough.
Now I didn't say,
but you might well have heard,
(15:43):
I'm the problem.
I'm the problem. You know, I got job
stressors going out the roof, and you're telling
me I'm the problem. So I don't use
that term exclusively.
I use the term adaptive
capacity, and the reason is a football story
from college.
I was a middle linebacker. I started when
(16:04):
I was a freshman.
For a middle linebacker,
Mike linebacker,
that's unusual because he's the signal caller. He's
the captain of the defense on the field
and has to call the signals himself. So
they don't usually give that to a freshman,
but they did in my case.
And before the first game, the coach was
very nervous about I've never started a freshman
(16:24):
in the middle before. He walked out on
the field in front of the whole team,
and he said, mayor, my linebackers are agile,
mobile, and hostile.
What do you think of that? I said,
oh, coach. That's me. I'm agile, mobile, hostile.
I said, but I'm the mic. I'm the
middle linebacker. I gotta read and react. I
gotta have my head on a swivel. I
gotta adapt, adapt, adapt all game long. And
(16:46):
he thought for a second and said,
my linebackers are agile,
mobile,
hostile,
and adaptile.
True story. And and so but that's what
we have to be. We have to be
adaptile,
which goes over a little better than the
resiliency thing, if you if you will. So
if I wanna reduce burnout,
let's go to our fourth grade child.
(17:07):
What do you do? Well, dad, you decrease
the numerator,
job stressors, or you increase the denominator,
adaptive capacity,
preferably both, dad.
And so it becomes simple.
It becomes easy. I'm not saying it's easy
to decrease job stressors,
but if we don't have a simple way
in which to frame it,
(17:28):
to be able to say, okay, what are
the job stressors and what would I do
to be able to lower them? And the
people who are burned out will tell you
if you ask them.
So I love AdaptDile. That's just that's just
freaking awesome.
How do you stay AdaptDile?
Do things sound too well, stay adapt dial,
(17:49):
however you wanna phrase it.
How do you do that on down days?
What do you do to pull out of
a downward cycle to stay adapt dial, to
stay doing things savage to keep doing things
savagely well on those days where you're just
like, I might not even wanna get out
of bed?
So three things. Number one, remember I said
not four or five, gotta be three. So
three things is to always keep in mind
(18:11):
every day,
every team member is a leader.
Lead yourself,
lead your team.
Now corollary to that is everyone else
that you encounter in the course of the
day is a leader
doing the best they can
to be able to lead themselves, their team,
their family.
So not only do I see it in
(18:31):
myself and my own team, but I see
it in others.
Number two,
every person, every team member, every leader,
because every team
member is a leader,
is involved just like my athletes in the
National Football League in a cycle of performance,
rest, and recovery,
performance,
rest, and recovery.
(18:52):
We have neglected rest and recovery,
and that's what's hurting us on the adapt
dial front. The ability to heal, to reload,
to rethink
and be able to say, okay,
what? And I'll come back to that in
a minute in terms of two things I
do every day that I think everyone can
benefit from. But the third is, so first
(19:13):
every team member is a leader and every
person is a leader. Number two, they're a
performance athlete. Let's get serious about rest and
recovery to stay adaptile.
And number three, the work begins with them.
Because we want to reform the system
and processes in which we work no matter
where we work, a bank, a restaurant, you
know, football field, the emergency department, in my
(19:36):
case, then we have to be mindful about
how we're going to decrease job stressors That
has to start with us so that we
can then
think of how we're going to repair
the system. So the work begins within. And
the two things are very simple.
Today,
wake up, swing your legs out, put your
feet on the ground.
(19:56):
Today, I'm a leader. And that has an
exclamation
point behind it, not a question mark, not
someday
or if, it's today.
And the question is how if there's gonna
be a question mark. So I start my
day
as as many times as I can, which
is almost every day because I have to
plan it in,
spending about fifteen minutes, cup of coffee,
(20:19):
no weapons of mass distraction,
no computers.
And I think to myself,
who are three three people I'm grateful for
and why?
Why am I grateful for them? And I
try to reflect on that. And then by
the end of the day,
I try to ping them, you know, either
call them, text them, email, whatever's the easiest,
(20:41):
simplest way to to give the message. You
know, I was thinking about things I'm grateful
for and people, and I thought of you.
Just wanted to let you know.
You know, I can't tell you how many
people have said you have no idea how
much that meant to me. Not a long
missive,
not a five paragraph email, but just a
brief communication.
(21:02):
And then if you close your day, it's
called three good things, came out of the
sense of positive psychology.
Before you go to sleep at night, simply
think about three good things that happened that
day
and what role you had in helping them
happen.
And you know what? If you I call
it bracket your day, that way
(21:23):
tends to take on a different meaning than
it might have otherwise.
And I there might be people who say,
well, that's stupid. That's silly. That's too simple.
Try it. Just try it.
That is awesome. We have covered a lot
of ground in a relatively short period of
time. When it comes to doing simple things
savagely well, whether it's reiterating something you already
said, maybe something we haven't touched on yet.
(21:45):
If you were to if someone's listening or
watching and they get it, they love it.
If you were to say, if you wanna
do that
and do it well,
at least do this one thing. At least
do this above all. What would you tell
them to do?
Embrace the fact that you're a leader,
that in fact you are leading. And I'll
tell you why that's the most important.
(22:05):
Too many of us in our lives develop
a victim's mentality.
We think something is happening to us,
and
that's not the case. I mean,
when you say to yourself, today,
I am a leader.
How will I lead?
The the victim mentality goes away. It's not
there anymore.
(22:26):
You know, you don't wanna have a tombstone
that says, I I would have done great
things, but my boss wouldn't let me. You
know, don't the boss is someone
who thinks that he's the most important person
in the room, but the leader is someone
who knows
that her job is to make everyone else
in the room feel that they're the most
(22:46):
important person in the room.
So that takes us to a different dimension,
takes us from a noun to a verb,
from the passive voice to the active voice,
and it helps us understand that we're not
a victim, we're an actor.
This has been amazing. I appreciate you. And
if people love what they hear and see,
(23:06):
and or see,
where's the best place or places to find
you online?
Well, I I'm gonna give you, and and
your audience my personal email, which is just
thommayermd@gmail.com.
Now there's also a website, but I got
nothing to sell you. Everything on my website's
(23:26):
free. That's just tom mayer m d,
at,
dot com.
My point is if your if your listeners
wanna give me questions,
need help,
have,
feedback,
or even better pushback on why I'm wrong
and why I should rethink things. Reach out
if I can help you, I will. The
only reason to ever talk or write or
(23:48):
write a book is to try to help
people, and that's my goal. So I'll tell
you what my deep joy is because somebody
always asks that and I know you will.
My deep joy is helping others
find and fully express
their deep joy.
That is awesome. Thank you again, doc. I
(24:08):
appreciate you.
Oh, I appreciate you, brother. Thanks for having
me on. Let's do it again sometime.
And scene.
Thank you for joining us today. I hope
you enjoyed the episode. I also hope that
you'll subscribe to the Idea Climbing podcast and
rate us on iTunes.
Visit ideaclimbing.com
(24:29):
to learn more about Idea Climbing and hear
more episodes about mentoring,
marketing, and big ideas.
Welcome to the Idea Climbing podcast. Many self
help books and programs are overly complicated with
dozens of steps or components.
My guest, Doc Tom Mayer, believes we can
and should do simple things savagely well. We
discuss how to do that in this episode.
Doc is the medical director for the NFL
Players Association,
as well as a prominent figure in the
(00:22):
fields of emergency medicine, sports medicine, and leading
in times of crisis.
He has built a distinguished career focused on
athlete and patient health, safety, emergency response,
as well as the skills required to lead
from the front lines, making significant contributions to
clinical practice, medical education, and thought leadership.
We dive into topics including where burnout comes
(00:43):
from and how simplifying your life can help
you avoid it, how to pull out of
downward cycles when you're having a bad day,
the one thing above all else that you
need to embrace to do simple things savagely
well, and other golden nuggets of advice. You're
gonna love this show.
(01:05):
Doc, thank you for being here. I appreciate
you making the time. This is gonna be
good. Oh, I'm delighted. The pleasure is entirely
mine. I've been looking forward to it. Always
love chatting with you. I love your ideas.
Love how you,
pull the best out of your subjects. So
I'm looking forward to you extracting the best
for me.
(01:25):
Well, we will definitely do that. We're gonna
talk about how to do simple things savagely
well. Before we get into the tips, the
tricks, the strategies, the tactics, and all that
good stuff, when it comes to doing simple
things savagely well,
why is that important to you? Where did
it come from? What's your story with that?
Well, it's a great story because it involves
one of my closest friends.
(01:46):
I I have always thought that we've made
life more complicated
than it really needs to be. It shouldn't
be as complicated as we've made it. And
I think all of us who are in
the business of trying to help others,
that's my business, that's your business, should simplify,
simplify. Einstein said,
simplify,
simplify,
(02:07):
but not too much.
So my great friend,
Mark Berstegen,
unusual name, is the founder of team Exos.
And team Exos is the best athlete's performance
company in the world. Had they been a
a country
in the Paris Olympics, they would have finished
sixth in the medal count. That's how elite
(02:27):
the athletes and how diverse
they the sports are that he's involved with.
And Marco is the one who said simple
things
done savagely well.
So combining
Einstein and Mark Verstegen,
I've tried to
do simple things
made savagely well.
Well, I like what you said. You said
(02:48):
do simple things savagely well, and I I
forget if it was Einstein, but but not
too simple. What is too simple mean?
Well, too simple
a simple example
is I remember looking
at the equation e equals mc squared,
energy equals mass times the square of the
(03:08):
speed of light. And I thought, well,
that seemed that's awfully simple.
I mean, why didn't somebody come up with
that before?
And and the reason is that wasn't the
equation. It's not the equation.
I'll show you the equation,
which as you can see,
is not as simple.
And in case they couldn't see it, it
(03:28):
e e equals m c squared
divided by one
divided by the square root of one minus
v, velocity, divided by c
squared. Well, that's a little more complicated.
So,
some genius in marketing somewhere
decided let's just do e equals mc squared.
(03:49):
So, yes, simplify,
but not too much. And I find
the too much is when people fail to
make the connections
that that are simple but have failed to
be made because there's all kinds
of corollaries of logical consequences,
that come out of that. And I'm sure
we'll get into that as we talk.
(04:09):
Oh, yeah. Definitely. It's let's start at the
top. You you're in a situation in life.
You can pick which what which kind.
Where do you start to simplify when you
realize, oh my you know, like, the 25
step marketing process or the 30 steps to
better health and wellness?
Where do you better yet, how do you
start to simplify something that's complex?
(04:31):
I I think by taking
what is considered to be the status quo
anti,
thinking about it, reflecting on it, and starting
to think, well, how do I put it
to work? For example, as you know, my
most recent book is titled Leadership is Worthless,
but Leading is Priceless.
What I learned from nine eleven,
(04:52):
the NFL, and Ukraine because I I was
at all those places.
So the simple idea is,
wait. Leadership is worthless? How can that be?
There's 50,000 books on Amazon alone
on, that have leadership in the title.
And if I ask my audience, because I
do a lot of speaking as you know,
(05:13):
name one that you read and then say,
okay. What did it say? And you get,
as you said, the 25 this, the seven
other, the 14 things, and and they can't
remember them. So it's not been simplified
enough.
So to me, that contrarian idea
is very simple. Leadership is worthless
because it's what you say,
(05:34):
and anybody can say anything.
And as you know,
they often do
say a lot
tediously and at length, usually about themselves.
So leading is priceless because it's what we
do
all day, every day.
So the simple thought is leadership is worthless
because it's a noun.
(05:56):
Leading is priceless because it's a verb, what
we do. So I always tell my my
my friends, my audience, anybody who will sit
and listen, you gotta change the noun to
a verb. Once you change the noun to
the verb, life becomes so much more simple.
And therefore,
corollaries come off of that, including
the answers are not above us in life,
(06:17):
in an organization,
in our family.
They're within and among us. The question that
we should be asking ourselves is not, am
I, will I become a leader? You already
are.
You know, you swing your legs out. You
gotta say, today, I'm a leader.
So abandon the wistful, worthless word someday
(06:38):
and embrace the word today
because that's actionable.
So all simple, but
contrarian, if you will.
Well, with what you just said, especially with,
you know, today,
do you suggest breaking things down into steps,
or are you saying it should be so
simplified that it's a concept you focus on
(06:58):
as opposed to even five steps? Where do
you fall in
between the two? Yeah. I to me, it's
I'm okay with lists,
but only if they're three.
Any more than three, and most people aren't
gonna be able to remember them, number one.
No offense to everybody who's got lists.
I always say I don't have a to
do list. I have a to don't list.
(07:18):
And the reason is I take care of
it immediately
so I don't have to
worry about it or think about it or
put it on a list and come back
to it at some point.
You know, to me, if you say today,
I'm a leader,
the only thing you have to know, I,
told my boys when they were younger,
we have three boys. My beautiful and brilliant
(07:38):
wife, Maureen, and I have three boys. And
when I was they were younger, and I
used to drive them to school every day
when I was in town because I've always
had to travel a lot in my various
positions.
But when I was in town, I drove
them to school and I said, as they
got out of the truck,
one more step in the journey of discovering
where your deep joy
intersects
(07:59):
the world's deep needs.
I swear I said this to them.
They prefer to take the bus, as you
might guess.
They don't wanna hear that from their dad.
But my point was always
your deep joy.
What lights you up? What's your sense of
purpose? What's your true north?
(08:19):
If
you will. There's a lot of ways to
refer to it. Because if you start with
the world's deep needs, they're infinite.
They're unknowable.
There's no bottom to that well. But if
you start with your
deep joy, then and know that and embrace
it, then when you say today, I will
lead, you don't need five steps or seven
(08:39):
steps. It will be what's my deep joy.
And once you know that and stay true
to that,
burnout's a big issue these days. Well, burnout,
simple definition.
It's the inability to feel your deep joy.
And anything that gets in the way of
that
is what's causing the burnout and has to
be dealt with. So I think there's interconnections
(09:01):
that happen there so that, you know, we
got a meeting.
Yeah. You've got a work shift.
You got a very, very difficult problem to
deal with. The simplicity is today I will
lead
according to my deep joy.
And then, of course, we have values understood,
you know, integrity,
intelligence,
you know, alacrity. Everyone has their own list.
(09:23):
You know, what do I do in these
difficult circumstances,
doc? And the answer is follow your deep
joy,
understand that you're leading, and make it consistent
with your values.
Not that hard.
Now I'm not saying it's easy in the
action,
but it's easy to know, okay. This is
my direction.
So with what you said, again, the contrast
(09:45):
here is that you every day is a
gift and you you lead with joy every
day and you do it day by day
and your life builds? Or is it you
lead with joy every day, but you still
have to plan a week out, a month
out, a year out? Where do you fall
between those two as far as making plans
and living day to day? Today is my
joy I'm gonna live with joy.
Yeah. I think it's a combination of both,
(10:07):
the dynamic tension between both. You know, the
proximal today, I will lead.
I certainly think, okay, in the broad scheme
of things,
how does this day
and each action
in that day fit in the broader picture
of, you know, what I do and how
I do? I founded a company of, emergency
(10:29):
physicians, a group of emergency physicians. We had
three rules. Rule number one, always do the
right thing for the patient.
Rule number two, always do the right thing
for the people who take care of the
patient,
the docs, the nurses, the other essential services
people. And rule number three, you know where
this is going, don't confuse rule number one
and rule number two. And we do that
(10:50):
all the time. So if I've got a
meeting today to talk about a specific issue,
question number one, is this good for the
patient?
If it's
not, don't do it. That was a short
meeting. That was a short idea. You know?
Then how is it good for the people
take care of the patient?
And once you have that kind of clarity,
(11:11):
you begin to see the connections that weren't
there before.
And you see how what I have to
do today and issues and problems that go
with that fit within that broader context of
this week, this month, this year, I have
these goals or and what occurs. And I
find that taking that approach
illuminates
(11:32):
the questions, answers, decisions, the leading of today
really helps illuminate that broader schedule that we're
talking about. Because you have these sort of
epiphanous moments
that you say, okay. I got it. Now
I see how this fits. Does that make
sense? That makes perfect sense. And that that
explains day by day and ongoing.
Once you get break it down, you you
(11:53):
know, living with joy, whatever your mantra might
be,
let's talk about doing simple things savagely well.
Once you know what to do on a
day to day basis, talk a little what
first of all, what do you mean by
savagely well?
Well, it's execution.
The other part of that business I was
talking about emergency physicians, but you can you
can put in, you know, car dealership,
(12:14):
banking,
private wealth management,
because I've spoken to all those kinds of
groups and tap out patients and tap on
customers,
partners, relationships, if you will. We'll talk about
relationships in a minute. But when you begin
to look at it that way and see
savagely well, it's figuring it out. And then,
you know, we talked about the science
(12:36):
of clinical excellence,
the art of customer service and the business
of execution.
That's what guided us. In addition to the
three rules I told you about, when you
begin to look at your business, your life,
your family, your relationships that way, it becomes
simpler. And it's about how do you execute
(12:56):
increasingly well?
My guys, I have 2,500 players, active players
in the NFL at any given time and
20,000 former players. You know, they go through
film study,
you know, and people talk about film study
like it's relaxing.
No. I mean, you're breaking down film.
You're what I call making failure your fuel
(13:16):
so that you're able to see what didn't
work, why it didn't work, do an analysis
of it,
an exegesis
as we'd say in theology.
I was not only a linebacker when I
was in college. Now what's the job of
a linebacker?
Blow stuff up.
I mean, my job is to
blow up the offense's plans, but I was
(13:38):
also a theology major. So a linebacker theology
major, that's probably some kind of demonic,
thing right there.
But, but what's the job of, in in
theology is to integrate, to pull things together,
to
see and discover meaning, which was not apparent
on the top layer at the veneer of
the surface.
(13:58):
So it's kind of a weird juxtaposition,
and we use the term exegesis all the
time in theology.
But the exegesis is, okay. How do I
take what I wanted to happen,
what did happen, look at the delta, the
difference,
and say, how can we do it better?
How can we make it easier over time?
How did we fail to meet the customer
(14:18):
patient, you know, client partner needs,
and how are we gonna do it differently
the next time by making failure our fuel?
When you start doing things savagely well, how
do you because you mentioned burnout.
How do you do things savagely well without
going completely overboard and just burning yourself out
from going too fast?
Well, I I find that burnout,
(14:40):
first of all, it's a ratio. It's a
ratio of job stressors because burnout is about
work, not about your family. Depression would be
life, you know, and there's some corollaries between
those two that aren't spoken about as much
as they should be, in my opinion. But
if you take a simple ratio,
if if the answer is burnout is the
inability to feel my deep joy at work
(15:01):
and then say, okay, give me an equation.
Give me an equation a fourth grader could
understand.
The numerator is job stressors.
And in our life, you know, from all
the guests wonderful guests you've had on, job
stressors are higher. In many respects, you could
say people listen to my podcast because job
stressors are higher, and I need help with
(15:22):
those job stressors.
So,
the denominator though, most people would call it
resilience or resiliency.
I don't love that term and here's why.
If I say, Mark,
the reason you're burned out
is you're not resilient enough.
Now I didn't say,
but you might well have heard,
(15:43):
I'm the problem.
I'm the problem. You know, I got job
stressors going out the roof, and you're telling
me I'm the problem. So I don't use
that term exclusively.
I use the term adaptive
capacity, and the reason is a football story
from college.
I was a middle linebacker. I started when
(16:04):
I was a freshman.
For a middle linebacker,
Mike linebacker,
that's unusual because he's the signal caller. He's
the captain of the defense on the field
and has to call the signals himself. So
they don't usually give that to a freshman,
but they did in my case.
And before the first game, the coach was
very nervous about I've never started a freshman
(16:24):
in the middle before. He walked out on
the field in front of the whole team,
and he said, mayor, my linebackers are agile,
mobile, and hostile.
What do you think of that? I said,
oh, coach. That's me. I'm agile, mobile, hostile.
I said, but I'm the mic. I'm the
middle linebacker. I gotta read and react. I
gotta have my head on a swivel. I
gotta adapt, adapt, adapt all game long. And
(16:46):
he thought for a second and said,
my linebackers are agile,
mobile,
hostile,
and adaptile.
True story. And and so but that's what
we have to be. We have to be
adaptile,
which goes over a little better than the
resiliency thing, if you if you will. So
if I wanna reduce burnout,
let's go to our fourth grade child.
(17:07):
What do you do? Well, dad, you decrease
the numerator,
job stressors, or you increase the denominator,
adaptive capacity,
preferably both, dad.
And so it becomes simple.
It becomes easy. I'm not saying it's easy
to decrease job stressors,
but if we don't have a simple way
in which to frame it,
(17:28):
to be able to say, okay, what are
the job stressors and what would I do
to be able to lower them? And the
people who are burned out will tell you
if you ask them.
So I love AdaptDile. That's just that's just
freaking awesome.
How do you stay AdaptDile?
Do things sound too well, stay adapt dial,
(17:49):
however you wanna phrase it.
How do you do that on down days?
What do you do to pull out of
a downward cycle to stay adapt dial, to
stay doing things savage to keep doing things
savagely well on those days where you're just
like, I might not even wanna get out
of bed?
So three things. Number one, remember I said
not four or five, gotta be three. So
three things is to always keep in mind
(18:11):
every day,
every team member is a leader.
Lead yourself,
lead your team.
Now corollary to that is everyone else
that you encounter in the course of the
day is a leader
doing the best they can
to be able to lead themselves, their team,
their family.
So not only do I see it in
(18:31):
myself and my own team, but I see
it in others.
Number two,
every person, every team member, every leader,
because every team
member is a leader,
is involved just like my athletes in the
National Football League in a cycle of performance,
rest, and recovery,
performance,
rest, and recovery.
(18:52):
We have neglected rest and recovery,
and that's what's hurting us on the adapt
dial front. The ability to heal, to reload,
to rethink
and be able to say, okay,
what? And I'll come back to that in
a minute in terms of two things I
do every day that I think everyone can
benefit from. But the third is, so first
(19:13):
every team member is a leader and every
person is a leader. Number two, they're a
performance athlete. Let's get serious about rest and
recovery to stay adaptile.
And number three, the work begins with them.
Because we want to reform the system
and processes in which we work no matter
where we work, a bank, a restaurant, you
know, football field, the emergency department, in my
(19:36):
case, then we have to be mindful about
how we're going to decrease job stressors That
has to start with us so that we
can then
think of how we're going to repair
the system. So the work begins within. And
the two things are very simple.
Today,
wake up, swing your legs out, put your
feet on the ground.
(19:56):
Today, I'm a leader. And that has an
exclamation
point behind it, not a question mark, not
someday
or if, it's today.
And the question is how if there's gonna
be a question mark. So I start my
day
as as many times as I can, which
is almost every day because I have to
plan it in,
spending about fifteen minutes, cup of coffee,
(20:19):
no weapons of mass distraction,
no computers.
And I think to myself,
who are three three people I'm grateful for
and why?
Why am I grateful for them? And I
try to reflect on that. And then by
the end of the day,
I try to ping them, you know, either
call them, text them, email, whatever's the easiest,
(20:41):
simplest way to to give the message. You
know, I was thinking about things I'm grateful
for and people, and I thought of you.
Just wanted to let you know.
You know, I can't tell you how many
people have said you have no idea how
much that meant to me. Not a long
missive,
not a five paragraph email, but just a
brief communication.
(21:02):
And then if you close your day, it's
called three good things, came out of the
sense of positive psychology.
Before you go to sleep at night, simply
think about three good things that happened that
day
and what role you had in helping them
happen.
And you know what? If you I call
it bracket your day, that way
(21:23):
tends to take on a different meaning than
it might have otherwise.
And I there might be people who say,
well, that's stupid. That's silly. That's too simple.
Try it. Just try it.
That is awesome. We have covered a lot
of ground in a relatively short period of
time. When it comes to doing simple things
savagely well, whether it's reiterating something you already
said, maybe something we haven't touched on yet.
(21:45):
If you were to if someone's listening or
watching and they get it, they love it.
If you were to say, if you wanna
do that
and do it well,
at least do this one thing. At least
do this above all. What would you tell
them to do?
Embrace the fact that you're a leader,
that in fact you are leading. And I'll
tell you why that's the most important.
(22:05):
Too many of us in our lives develop
a victim's mentality.
We think something is happening to us,
and
that's not the case. I mean,
when you say to yourself, today,
I am a leader.
How will I lead?
The the victim mentality goes away. It's not
there anymore.
(22:26):
You know, you don't wanna have a tombstone
that says, I I would have done great
things, but my boss wouldn't let me. You
know, don't the boss is someone
who thinks that he's the most important person
in the room, but the leader is someone
who knows
that her job is to make everyone else
in the room feel that they're the most
(22:46):
important person in the room.
So that takes us to a different dimension,
takes us from a noun to a verb,
from the passive voice to the active voice,
and it helps us understand that we're not
a victim, we're an actor.
This has been amazing. I appreciate you. And
if people love what they hear and see,
(23:06):
and or see,
where's the best place or places to find
you online?
Well, I I'm gonna give you, and and
your audience my personal email, which is just
thommayermd@gmail.com.
Now there's also a website, but I got
nothing to sell you. Everything on my website's
(23:26):
free. That's just tom mayer m d,
at,
dot com.
My point is if your if your listeners
wanna give me questions,
need help,
have,
feedback,
or even better pushback on why I'm wrong
and why I should rethink things. Reach out
if I can help you, I will. The
only reason to ever talk or write or
(23:48):
write a book is to try to help
people, and that's my goal. So I'll tell
you what my deep joy is because somebody
always asks that and I know you will.
My deep joy is helping others
find and fully express
their deep joy.
That is awesome. Thank you again, doc. I
(24:08):
appreciate you.
Oh, I appreciate you, brother. Thanks for having
me on. Let's do it again sometime.
And scene.
Thank you for joining us today. I hope
you enjoyed the episode. I also hope that
you'll subscribe to the Idea Climbing podcast and
rate us on iTunes.
Visit ideaclimbing.com
(24:29):
to learn more about Idea Climbing and hear
more episodes about mentoring,
marketing, and big ideas.
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