[00:00] Mike Robbins: Even when I got back and rehabbed from all those surgeries, I was still in so much pain. And on my 25th birthday, I sat down with my mom and my dad, and my sister and my girlfriend at the time, and just tearfully told them, I gotta hang it up. I can’t keep doing this anymore. It’s too painful and I gotta figure out what the hell I’m gonna do with the rest of my life.

[00:19] Which I had no idea, but I knew baseball was over.

[00:23] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Welcome to another episode of Success for the Athletic Minded Man, real talk on harnessing your athletic drive for clarity, consistency, and focus in business in life. This is your host, Jim Harshaw, Jr. And today I bring you Mike Robbins. Mike is a former professional baseball player.

[00:41] Was drafted by both the Yankees in out of high school and the Royals, uh, coming outta college. Had a a, a great college career. Got into the pros, and I’m gonna let him share the rest of the story after that. And he’s gone on to an amazing speaking career. It’s written a bunch of great books. He’s been hired by Google and Wells Fargo, Microsoft, Walmart, you know, LinkedIn, Schwab, on and on Harvard to speak and to work with leaders at the highest level.

[01:08] And in today’s episode, he shares with us, like what does he share with those folks at that level? What are the challenges that they have? And he shares his own unique, maybe a little bit counterintuitive. Way to go about success and a way to go about life that you’re just not gonna hear from most men.

[01:27] And a really powerful conversation here with Mike. And after you listen to it, give it a share. Give it a share with somebody you know, you know who needs this, you know who would benefit from this? Just hit that share button wherever you’re at, whatever platform, whatever it’s on Apple Podcast or Spotify.

[01:41] Give it a share, of course. Give it a like and a rating and review if you can. If you haven’t done that already, if you have, thank you already for doing that. But sharing this, uh, whether it’s on social media or otherwise, is how this thing grows. So grateful for you, the listener. I appreciate you. Can’t believe it’s been over 10 years of this podcast, but here we go.

[01:59] My interview with Mike Robbins. So we were introduced by mutual friend Damon Lbe, who you met on the baseball field. You played at Stanford. He played at Arizona State. Tell us how you guys first met.

[02:12] Mike Robbins: Well, we didn’t know each other very well back in those days. You know, we were just opponents. But Damon was at Arizona State.

[02:19] He’s a couple years older than me. I think he went to Pepperdine first and then junior college, and he was at Arizona State and they were our rivals. I pitched to Stanford, Damon played first base and was a DH at Arizona State. And in 94, when I was a sophomore and Damon was a junior, we were battling with the Sun Devils down the stretch for the Pac 10 title.

[02:38] And we go down to Tempe to play him in a three game series, Jim. And all we gotta do is beat him one time and we win the conference. And they beat us Friday night and they beat us Saturday night. So we come back Sunday like winner take all. Whoever wins the Sunday game wins the conference. And they had this closer named Noah Perry, who had come in Friday night and Saturday night.

[02:58] And when they had been outta Stanford, he’d come in and whenever this guy would come in, we could not hit him. He was a side armor and he had kind of a funky delivery and he talked a lot of mess from the mound. Like he would strike guys out and point at guys and yell, and we, so we all hated him. Right.

[03:11] And it was bases loaded in like it was either the top. Of the seventh or the eighth, late in the game. And our cleanup hitter, dusty Allen was a big guy from Oklahoma and Noah strikes him out on a slider about two feet outside. I mean, it’s a terrible pitch. And Dusty swings at it and strikes out, and Noah comes running off the mound pointing at him.

[03:28] And Dusty just flicks his bat. I mean, Dusty’s like six foot 4, 2 35 from Oklahoma. He runs out to the Mount, he picks up Noah, slams him on the ground and just starts wailing on him. And next thing you know, we got this bench clearing brawl and it lasts for quite a while. ’cause the team we didn’t like each other.

[03:42] And then they break it up and they throw a bunch of guys out. Including obviously Dusty and Noah. Thank goodness. So thanks to that, even though Dusty didn’t hit a grand Slam to help us win the game, he got Noah outta the game and we ended up winning an extra innings. So we won. We won the Pac 10 in 94, but you know, Damon and I didn’t actually know each other except playing against each other.

[04:01] And then. Many years later, we’re both from the Bay Area and do similar kind of work. We just started bumping into each other and he did some work with the San Francisco Giants and referred me and then we got to know each other. And more recently, I was on his podcast and he introduced me to you. So that’s my long ramblely story of how I know Damon Libby and why you and I are talking right now.

[04:19] Jim Harshaw Jr.: That’s great. So I’ve been on Damon’s podcast as well, and when he mentioned your name and told me about you and how you guys figured out that you had both been in this same brawl years ago, I thought that was pretty, I thought that was funny. So

[04:30] Mike Robbins: I think I texted you that I’ll send you the video. I haven’t done that yet.

[04:32] I will. And if anyone’s interested, it’s on YouTube. It’s kind of grainy, but we can, we can post it and people can check it out. I said it’s a pretty good brawl, I have to say. And by the way, for the next year, whenever recruit my, you know, my junior year, whenever recruits would come in. The game was on television, which back in 94, there weren’t a lot of college baseball games on tv, especially regular season, but it was on the local Arizona cable channel.

[04:53] So we had a VHS tape of it. And whenever recruits would come in, or whenever we’d be up late drinking, we’d always put in the brawl, put in the brawl, and we’d put it on. And we all, you know, we all had our various stories of what happened during the fight. So, you know.

[05:05] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure. And there’s, uh, and I’m sure the legend grows over time.

[05:09] I’m sure when you get better, get together with your buddies, there’s like, uh, you guys all talk about it. That’s great, man. So yes, definitely for the listener, we will have a link to the YouTube video. We’ll find it, or, or Mike will send me the link and, and we’ll get that, we’ll have that in action plan. So I.

[05:22] For the listener as always, JimHarshawJr.com/action. You can get the action plan. We send those anytime a podcast episode comes out. If you’re not on the email list, jump on it because it’ll, it’ll be, uh, that link will be rated in the email. So, um, that is awesome. I love that story. So we could talk about the bench clearing brawl for the rest of the interview, but I think there’s a, there’s probably more we could, we could cover here.

[05:41] So you, you get drafted outta high school by the Yankees, decided to play college baseball. You go to obviously a great school in Stanford. And, and then you have a great career there. You get drafted by the Royals and it’s like this Cinderella story, and this is like, you know, you start playing baseball at seven years old and here you are, you get drafted and you’re on your, you’re playing pro baseball.

[06:04] And tell us the story from there.

[06:06] Mike Robbins: Yeah, so I get drafted the following year in 95 after my junior at Stanford. The Royals draft me and I do sign at that point. And you know, I go into the minor leagues as you do in baseball. Left-handed pitcher working my way up to the big leagues. And you know, Jim, I mean, I wanted to pitch in the big leagues, playing the big leagues since I was, probably even before I started playing T-Ball at seven.

[06:24] But I go out to pitch one night. My third season I was actually, uh. I was in in your neck of the woods. I was. I was. We were playing against the Durham Bulls. Actually, the night I got hurt and I threw one pitch, I tore ligaments in my elbow, blew my arm out. This is the summer of 97.

[06:39] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Do you know instantly in that moment it’s over?

[06:41] Or are you just like, Ooh, this maybe is a, I’ll ice it up and be good next week?

[06:45] Mike Robbins: I mean, I’d had some injuries prior to this, so I was familiar with my arm and what, you know, what was just sore and what was pain. This one was different. I mean, I knew the season was over. I didn’t know for sure that my career was over, but I mean, the last pitch I threw was about 50 feet and I doubled over.

[07:02] I almost, I, I almost threw up. It was so painful. Right. And I was just like, oh, that’s not good. And I, and then instantaneously, like my arm locked up, I couldn’t move it. And I’d never had that happen before. So I figured I, I was gonna, the season be over, I was gonna have an operation. I didn’t know at the time that I had torn my ligament and I was gonna need Tommy John reconstructive elbow surgery.

[07:25] They thought maybe a bone spur had broken off and gotten lodged in my joint. That’s why it locked up. So. I end up having Tommy John’s surgery that summer in LA and you know, try to come back, not able to come back. I have another elbow surgery and a shoulder surgery ’cause I had torn my labrum in my shoulder the year before.

[07:43] But anyway, it was just a long process. And then eventually. Even when I got back and rehabbed from all those surgeries, I was still in so much pain. And on my 25th birthday, I sat down with my mom and my dad, and my sister and my girlfriend at the time, and just tearfully told them, I gotta hang it up. I can’t keep doing this anymore.

[08:01] It’s too painful. And. I gotta figure out what the hell I’m gonna do with the rest of my life, which I had no idea, but I knew baseball was over.

[08:09] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So for the listener, I want you to, I want you to think about, it’s this, this isn’t just another story. This is Mike’s story. In that moment, I mean, there are tears.

[08:18] I mean, he, he dedicated his life to something since he was seven years old. And for you, the listener, that moment may have happened for you in some other way. You know, during college, maybe earlier in your professional career of whatever you are doing in the world, or maybe it’s gonna happen tomorrow or maybe it happened last week and maybe it’s in a relationship, maybe it’s in a job, maybe you’re still an athlete at some level, and it’s happen.

[08:40] Like this stuff is real and you’re not alone. It’s happening to these world-class performers like Mike who has gone on to, to do. Even more amazing things and working with amazing companies, like there was a pivot point and this, this, for the listener, like, this might be your pivot point, or that might’ve been your pivot point, and that setback could be the catalyst for your next great thing.

[09:03] And you have to open your mind to, to believing that that’s possible. And so, Mike, you have this, this setback ends your dream. Now what?

[09:14] Mike Robbins: Well, I didn’t know, you know, Jim, I mean, I, I grew up in Oakland. California, you know, San Francisco Bay Area, single mom. Baseball was my life, my passion. I mean, you know, I was fortunate that I got a chance to go to Stanford.

[09:25] Great school. Got an education there. You know, the truth is like there were, and, and I met a lot of really amazing people at Stanford, my teammates, but so many other people. Most of the students at Stanford that, not my baseball buddies, but everybody else, they were pretty focused on education in some sense of career.

[09:43] Most of the guys I played baseball with, we just all wanted to play pro baseball. I mean, we wanted to get our education, but I didn’t have any real sense of what else I could do or I wanted to do. I mean, people were like, maybe you should coach, or maybe you should go into broadcasting. You know, but I hadn’t gotten to the big leagues.

[09:58] I hadn’t made much money. I
[10:00] wasn’t known except, you know, my family and friends knew me and my teammates, but it wasn’t like, you know, I hadn’t pitched for the Yankees or the Red Sox for 10 years or 15 years and then got hurt, which you know, is its own challenge, I imagine, and have met a lot of guys who did play in the big leagues.

[10:14] But I got hurt. Before I made any money and before I had really, you know, made a name for myself, so then I was really stuck, like and scared. I was like, I, this might be my one shot to be someone to do something. You know, and, and had grown up in, you know, pretty significant poverty, quite frankly. And, and part of the motivation, I mean, I love the game.

[10:33] I love playing. I wanted to get to the big leagues. I wanted to take care of my mother. I wanted to be able to provide for, you know, my mom and, and, and my sister. And then ultimately if I ever got married and had children, I wanted to be able to do that. And so at that point, even though I was 25 years old, I was pretty scared and pretty lost.

[10:50] And, you know, it was the late nineties. the.com boom was happening here in the Bay Area. I get a job working for an internet company, which you know, was kind of interesting and allowed me to pay the bills and have an apartment in San Francisco and try to move on with my life. But I was. I was pretty lost, but thankfully, you know, I found a good therapist, which, you know, again, back in 19 98, 19 99, young men especially weren’t talking about going to therapy.

[11:17] But I had some good support in my life and I started reading books about, you know, life and personal growth and spirituality and overcoming. I mean, you know, I was doing that even while I was playing ball, but I always kind of did it on the down low and I didn’t want people to know or see ’cause I was afraid, you know, they’d think I was weird or make fun of me.

[11:35] That really helped me and it started to kinda, I didn’t, still didn’t know what the heck I wanted to do next with my life.

[11:41] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Any books stand out to you that, that you can remember from that time that were influential?

[11:46] Mike Robbins: Yeah. There were two books that had a huge impact on me back then. I, I read a book by a guy named Dan Millman called Way of the Peaceful Warrior.

[11:54] Phenomenal book and it’s really in line, Jim, with your work and what we’re talking about here. It’s a coming of age story of a young man. Dan was actually a gymnast at uc, Berkeley. Um, and it’s his story of kind of spiritual awakening. I mean it’s, you know, there’s some fictitious parts of it and some added, but it’s a really beautiful book.

[12:13] It was made into a movie actually about 20 years ago. Um, and then there was another book called Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff. And it’s all small stuff. And that book not only really impacted me personally, both books did, but as I read both of these books, I had this weird sense that I had had for a couple years even leading up to it.

[12:31] I was grateful for the books and the messages and the books and the inspiration, but I was like, I think I wanna do that. Who, who is this Dan Millman guy? Who is this Richard Carlson guy who wrote these books? Like how did they get qualified to write a book that could inspire other people? I also read a book by a former major league baseball player, left-handed pitcher named Dave Dki, who dramatically ended up getting cancer in his arm and then having his arm amputated, and he wrote a book called Comeback.

[12:57] That book while pretty intense and very poignant for me at that moment in my life. Dave was also very religious and then took his in the end of his career and what had happened to him as kind of a calling to go out and speak in churches and schools. And I just remember like having this sense of like, I think I wanna tell my story.

[13:16] I think I want to inspire people and motivate people. I just don’t really know who the heck would listen to me and how to do that. And again, this is 25, 26 years ago, like. There were no podcasts, there was no YouTube, there was no social media, there was none of that. So the idea of being, you know, an influencer or an inspirer of people was like, people did it, but it was a much smaller group of people and a much more niched.

[13:39] Thing to do, but it was, that started to percolate in me at that time and, and I didn’t really know what that meant or if that was, it felt more like a fantasy. It was kind of like, I want to climb Mount Everest, or I want to become a neurosurgeon or something. Do you know what I mean? It was like completely out of my realm of anything that I understood, and I didn’t know anybody who was doing that, so.

[14:01] It seemed pretty foreign, but I was interested.

[14:04] Jim Harshaw Jr.: You know, I think there’s a lot of guys listening who are doing whatever they’re doing. I talk to a lot of guys who are, are unfulfilled at their job. They maybe are doing fine, you know, by the worldly standards and from the outside in, everything looks fine, but they’re like, they’re just not fulfilled.

[14:19] They’re not pursuing something they’re passionate about. They have this thing, this dream, and, and maybe that dream’s up on a shelf somewhere collecting dust, but it’s kind of, it’s back there. They know it’s there, they know they gave up on it. They know that they have limiting beliefs around it. Maybe they, they’ve even seen other people go on to do those things, whether it’s.

[14:38] Start a business or get that promotion or, or make a certain level of sales or find a happy marriage or, or run a marathon or whatever, whatever it might be, and they’ve just kind of given up on it because all those, all the reasons you just said, those things that were kind of percolating in the back of your mind are like, well, I don’t know even how to do this and who does this and how do you go about it, and who would listen to me?

[14:58] And all of those sort of limiting beliefs. How did you get through that and what lessons can you share from that? For the guy listening, who has that dream, has that hope, has that wish, has that goal, but it’s, it’s packed underneath a bunch of other limiting beliefs and he’s just going about life, checking the boxes.

[15:18] Mike Robbins: I mean, look, I can relate to that on so many levels, not just back when I was 25 years old and trying to figure out what I’m gonna do next. But now at 51, like that still comes up for me in different ways today. But back then I think I erroneously thought if something was wrong with me, I was weird, I was crazy, I was weak, I was insecure.

[15:41] I just didn’t get it. Like, you know I, so I had a lot of that. But what really helped me, Jim, in those days. Again, I start going to therapy. I start telling more of my story and sharing more of my own fears and doubts and insecurities out loud, if you will, and finding out like, oh, I’m not crazy. This isn’t completely weird.

[16:01] I’m just human. And getting more validation that like, right. And then I started taking some workshops in groups of people and I actually started at that time. I had some friends, I met some guys who were doing men’s work, which I didn’t really even know what that was, but I was like, I, I went and visited a couple men’s groups with some friends of mine and it was kind of weird and kind of scary.

[16:20] You know, I’m raised by a single mom with an older sister. Like yeah, I was around a lot of guys playing baseball, but I was always like, when I was growing up. I’d be like in the locker room and guys would start wrestling and messing around with each other and like, I didn’t have a brother, I didn’t grow up with my dad around that used to scare me.

[16:36] I’m like, what the hell are they doing right? And I’m like, don’t hurt me. And they’re like, Robins, what? Are you soft? No, I’m not soft. But I was like, I don’t, you know what I mean? So like my mentality, I was always more, I was always more comfortable around girls and I felt safer around girls. Females just because that was my life at home and my mom was a badass.

[16:55] Like she wasn’t the like softest, most nurturing. My mother had been a PE teacher and was like a pretty badass single mom that just, you know, so I say all of that because what happened for me when I started to get around other men especially, or I just started to hear people tell their stories or I met people who were older than me.

[17:12] I realized like, oh, wait a minute. Everybody feels insecure and lost at times. Like that’s just kind of part of the deal. And I was fortunate that I started to meet some people, meet some men, get some mentors. That really helped me, like seeing people, seeing other men in particular who were doing things they were interested in, who were raising families, who were, you know, living different lives and having different careers.

[17:37] But I started because I, my parents split up when I was three and I didn’t spend much time at all with my father. My dad was a, was a really amazing, charismatic human, but my dad was mentally ill. He suffered from very severe bipolar disorder and again, back. I’m born in 1974. My dad gets super depressed when I’m seven in 1981.

[17:59] Like nobody’s talking about bipolar disorder. There’s no awareness or empathy or compassion for that. It’s just like something’s wrong with your dad, but he’s got this weird disease that we’re not supposed to talk about. ’cause it’s, yeah,

[18:10] Jim Harshaw Jr.: suck it up. Be tougher. Why can’t he just get outta bed?

[18:14] Mike Robbins: Yeah. Exactly.

[18:15] Just go, just go to work, dude. How hard is it? You know? So anyway, so I had all of that going on, so I’m, I’m rambling around to your question, but like, to me it was like, even as, even when I was a kid and when I was a teenager, I always noticed, Jim, that when I would tell a bit of my own story, or I would share a little bit of my fear or my insecurity, even though it felt scary to do, whether I was sharing it with a girl or even sometimes a boy, like if I got really close to another guy and we became friends.

[18:41] I would know if I could tell him some of my fears and he didn’t judge me or make fun of me, then I could trust him and we could be friends. But if he did judge me or make fun of me, I was like, okay, then I can’t be close to that person. But that’s what started over the years and even to this day where it’s like that’s how I deal with my own fear and doubt and insecurities, is I just share it.

[19:02] And I find that when I do that, it liberates me and then most people go. Yeah, me too.

[19:07] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Right? Yeah. I, I, I find that when people share their vulnerabilities and are really truly authentic, I, I, interestingly, I find that I, I have more respect for them, not less. And that, that’s something I’ve noticed over the years.

[19:20] And, and I’ll be honest, I have trouble sharing and being vulnerable. I, I, I, I, you know, I’ve, I’ve gotten better at it over the years, but, um, you know, I grew up in a home where, you know, dad was a construction worker and mom was a secretary and blue collar family. You know, you just be tough and you, you go and bear it and you don’t share soft stuff.

[19:40] You, and, and I grew up in the, in wrestling right? Another sort of masculine sport where you just don’t talk about that crap. You know what I mean? And a bunch of really hard people were my coaches, you know? And, but I, I do find that, and I, and I think back in my life when, when I. Met people who I respected and then they shared something that was like, whoa.

[19:58] They just shared something deep and
[20:00] powerful and scary and vulnerable. Like actually respect them more. It’s not less, you know? So you invested in yourself, you started going to workshops, worked with a therapist, found a men’s group like you were paying money for this stuff, investing in yourself, you know?

[20:16] And I find it fascinating. So I was actually talking to another, a friend of mine who is an amazing entrepreneur. And he shared, and you kinda think these people are like, oh, they’re just, they just get it and they just have the thing, they have the knack for it. And it’s like he shared like all these coaching groups, all these coaches, he hired all these programs.

[20:33] He’s done all these seminars and workshops. He’s gone to. And that’s why he’s done so well. And, and I look at a guy like you, you’re like, it’s like you, you’re a guy who, who dedicated your life to something. Worked really hard, had it taken away from you through an injury. You were lost, didn’t know where to go, how to figure this out.

[20:53] You started investing in yourself. And now here you are, you know, speaking to Fortune 500 companies, the best and brightest in the world. And these companies trust you and bring you in to speak. And so what are the kind of things that you, you share and that you talk about to those audiences?

[21:13] Mike Robbins: Well, I mean, one thing, thank you for that.

[21:15] I appreciate the kind words. I mean the, the, the bridge point though, just to what happened ultimately, you know, I’m working. I’m young. I don’t really know exactly what I have these fantasies like I was saying about writing books and things, but I had a mentor ask me a question, Jim. This is like the summer of 2000.

[21:34] If you could do anything, what would you, and this is the time I’m still working for an internet company. I had just gotten a job with a startup who was supposed to go public. They gave us a bunch of stock options. We were supposed to make a lot of money, you know, and I’m in, you know, I’m 26 years old now at the time, been working for about a year and a half in the internet world.

[21:52] I still don’t really know what I want to do. I’m still kind of freaked out, but I’m like, Hey, if I can make a little money for the first time in my life, that would be awesome. I’m taking these workshops, I’m doing therapy. I’m right. But the question of if you could do anything, what would you do if you didn’t have to worry about paying the rent?

[22:05] And I’m living in San Francisco. I’m a single guy, right? And I said anything. I was like, well, I would start speaking and writing and coaching and inspiring people. Like I would do that. And he’s like, great, you should do that now. And I’m like, now, no. I was like, what? Are you nuts? I was like, that’s not even a job.

[22:22] Is that a job? Like how am I supposed to. And I, and I was very resistant. And you know, the universe is so interesting in how it works. Like literally a couple weeks later I get laid off ’cause the.com bubble had burst a few months earlier. I, we didn’t totally understand the NASDAQ had crashed and we, it was like, I get laid off now I’m outta work and I don’t really know exactly what to do.

[22:45] I’m scared. They give me a little bit of severance so I don’t have to go get a job the next week. But I’m trying to find a job. I can’t find a job. I’m kind of bumbling around. But I’m, I can’t get that question outta my mind. And then I meet this amazing woman who is now my wife, Michelle, and we start dating and immediately she looks at me and goes, you have a dream.

[23:07] You have a passion, like. You should do that. And I’m like, what are you talking about? I don’t know how to start a business. I don’t know how to do any of this. My wife had started a staffing company a few years earlier and she’s like, look, I didn’t know anything about starting a business. I just figured it out.

[23:24] And with her encouragement. With my mentor asking me that question a few months earlier with me getting laid off and being out of work and not being able to find a job. ’cause the job market sucked at the time and everybody was getting laid off who was my age, who lived in the area where I lived. I decided at the beginning of 2001, I’m going to start my business as a motivational speaker and a coach having no idea how to do that, having no idea if I can make any money at it.

[23:50] But I just decided I’m gonna do this. And I gave myself a year and I, people were like, go back to school, get a degree, get a master’s in psychology, or a PhD in organizational whatever. And I like to learn. I just never particularly liked school, although I did decently well in school. I just figured out how to play the game, but I just found school to be really tedious and boring, and I did not want to go back to school.

[24:12] So I decided. I will give myself a year. I’m going to what I call design my own curriculum, which meant I was gonna meet anyone and everyone I could who was doing the kind of work that I wanted to be doing. And by the way, both Dan Millman, who wrote Way of the Peaceful Warrior and Richard Carlson, who wrote Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff.

[24:31] Were both local authors living here in the Bay Area. I reached out to each of them and had already done so, but then reached out to them again. I met with Dan Millman in 2001, and in 2003 I met Richard Carlson and he became my mentor. Wow.

[24:49] Jim Harshaw Jr.: You did the thing that most people wouldn’t do. You reached out.

[24:52] Mike Robbins: Yeah, and it was persistent without being annoying, I think, I don’t know, maybe I was a little annoying, but I was like, I did. I just wanted both of those men to know. Thank you. You inspired me. I wanna do what you do. If there’s anything I could do to support you and your work, I’m happy to do it. And if there’s anything you can share with me that might inspire me on the path so I could move in that direction, I would be so grateful and humbled.

[25:15] And you know, Dan and I are still connected all these years later. Richard sadly passed away many years ago, but he was an incredible mentor to me and without Richard. I started speaking in 2001. I met Richard in 2003. Richard helped me get my first literary agent and my second literary agent. ’cause we kept getting rejected and ultimately helped me get my first book deal and wrote the forward to my first book, focus on the Good Stuff three weeks before he very suddenly and tragically passed away.

[25:44] Yeah. So I say all of that because again, it’s like as we think about this and the people listening to us, watching us, like wherever you are in your journey, I. Look, it’s weird. It’s scary. It’s up. It’s down. We think we know what we’re doing, then we think we have no idea what we’re doing. I mean, it’s just like, and I find myself, you know, Jim, 51 years old.

[26:04] I’ve been doing this for almost 25 years. I love it. I’m grateful for it. I’m proud of what I do. I still have moments where I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, or I’m trying to do something different or new, or I’m trying to reinvent or change or keep pace with the craziness of life and technology and all the things.

[26:22] And sometimes I look at my wife and I’m like, what the, you know, I have no idea what’s going on. But I try to just come back to those core principles of like, okay, I’m not crazy. I’m not weird, I’m just human. I’m just having a human experience. How can I reach out and get some support for whatever craziness might be going on in my brain right now?

[26:43] ’cause I’m probably not alone in this.

[26:45] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And that, that, I think that’s a key lesson here. I don’t think it is. I know it is, is reach out and get support. Like, you don’t have to figure this out on your own. I don’t care what it, like, you know, you had a therapist, you read books, you were going to workshops, you reached out to these two guys who were, were sort of heroes in your mind.

[27:02] Like you didn’t have to figure this out on your own and. It’s the same for, for the listener. It’s the same for me. Like I’m, I’m constantly reaching out to people saying, how do you do this? And like, it’s, and I can do it more. It’s a great reminder for me. Like, there are people out there who have figured this out, who can help you get there faster and, and go further.

[27:23] Like, so a friend of mine, Ruben Gonzalez, have had him on the podcast a few times. He’s a speaker and, um, wrote a book code. Are you familiar with Ruben at all? So he’s a, he wrote a book called The Shortcut four time Olympian in the Luge. But the book, the shortcut is about, there is a shortcut to success.

[27:39] It’s like, oh, there’s no shortcuts to success. Well, there kind of is if you get somebody, if you get the right people or person in your corner. Then you can, you can get there, you can go further faster. And, and, and so you, you were reaching out and I also say to people like, you can’t stumble into something unless you’re moving forward.

[27:53] You stumbled into, to some extent this path. You know, you were moving forward, you were reaching out to people, you were thinking about it and taking action on it, and reaching out to people and. Kicking the tires and testing things and trying things, and you stumbled into it and, and here you are, you know, several books deep and you know, world renowned and speaking in front of these Audi great audiences and in front of the, some of the biggest name companies in the, in the world.

[28:18] Mike Robbins: Yeah. Well, and I appreciate you saying that. And the funny thing about the stumbling part, like a lot of my career in this business, look, I would say on the one hand I’m pretty intentional and I do credit. Some of it’s personality and how I was raised. Some of it’s, quite frankly, playing sports all those years and look, I, I feel like sports, it’s a blessing and a curse.

[28:38] The blessing part is, I think I learned a lot about grit. I learned a lot about focus. I learned a lot about winning and losing and failing and succeeding and committing to people and, you know, keeping going when all the, all the things, all the lessons. Sometimes though, I find as athletes, whether it was a long time ago when we competed or we’re still competing.

[28:57] You know, the dark side can be that we get so obsessed with the outcome. We get so obsessed with like winning at all costs. And if I don’t win, I’m a loser and all. I mean, so I think we all have to be, you know, being an athletic minded man as we talk, as you talk about here, is like a beautiful thing. And we gotta be careful ’cause there’s a dark side to it if we’re not careful.

[29:15] Right. But I will say that like there’s also been a lot of stumbling and a lot of serendipity involved in my career as a speaker. When I started, again, it was 25 years ago, it was a very different world. I really wanted Jim to be someone again, like Dan, like Richard, who more speak about life, speak to the masses, if you will.

[29:36] I mean, in the in business vernacular, we’d say B2C, reaching consumers, reaching right. What ended up happening for me at 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 years old, I was getting hired by Chevron and Wells Fargo and Kaiser, all these Bay Area based local companies, because they had a bunch of Gen Xers like me who were young, who were getting hired to work for their companies, and mostly baby boomers were running the companies at
[30:00] that point.

[30:00] And they were having culture challenges and they were having a hard time teaming and collaborating and my story of baseball and learning what I learned from my injury, which was many things, not the least of, which was like, oops, I forgot to appreciate what I was doing while I was doing it. ’cause I was so focused on trying to make it to the big leagues.

[30:19] But there were also a lot of lessons I learned about teamwork and collaboration from all those years of playing on all these different teams. That message was resonating. I didn’t think I had much to share. Like I’m this young guy who worked for two different internet companies. What the hell do I have to tell people who are managing people at Chevron or Kaiser or Wells Fargo?

[30:38] You know what I mean? I was grateful they wanted to hear my story, but kind of like, okay, I. I was literally 10 years in to doing this, two books in, and I’m still like trying to get on Oprah and I’m trying to do this thing and like not having much success sort of B2C, but having a lot of success B2B. And then it was another five years.

[30:59] I mean, we’re talking now 20 14, 20 15 when I finally sat down with my wife and someone who was working for me at the time, and we all looked at each other and went, maybe we’ve been barking up the wrong tree here. What is it really? I had written a third book, very personal, and the book hadn’t done that well, but I was speaking more and I kept, I’m getting invited to speak at bigger and higher, and what is it I’m really doing?

[31:23] Oh, I’m really talking to people about bringing their whole selves to work. So I wrote a book on that and I gave a TED talk on that, and it was kind of, I say all of this because even with the best of intention. Sometimes I believe in business too. If we start our own business, yeah, you can have an idea.

[31:39] You can have a product or a service you wanna sell or share, but sometimes the tribe kind of has to elect you. You know what I mean? You have to listen to the marketplace, like what are people wanting from you? And that’s not to say that we need to sell out, but I stumbled into a lot of things. I am now in rooms all the time, Jim, with.

[31:55] CEOs and senior leaders at these big companies, and I’ll be the first to say to them, I don’t lead with this, but it’s like, I don’t know what the hell it’s like to be you and do what you do. I’ve never done that. I’ve never been the CEO of some big company. I’ve never been the chief revenue officer. I’ve never, I don’t know what that’s like, but I have sat in these rooms for many years now and I’ve learned some things.

[32:16] I’m gonna share with you what I’ve learned in a way that hopefully might be able to help you. And you know, sometimes we fall over ourselves and then realize, oh, I actually have a skill or an expertise or something of value to share that I didn’t even realize I had to share.

[32:30] Jim Harshaw Jr.: What are the struggles that you see when you’re in that room with the C-suite of these large corporations?

[32:36] You know, we think of these folks as, as people, you know, a lot of folks climbing the corporate ladder aspire to get there. What are the struggles that they have?

[32:44] Mike Robbins: You know, all the same struggles we all have. You know, one of, one of the exercise I was with, I was with a leadership team yesterday, pretty senior leadership team at a company in Silicon Valley.

[32:52] Spent half the day with them. They had a, you know, multi-day meeting. I came in at the end, the last morning of before they all left to go their separate ways. And what I do, Jim, when I work with senior leadership teams. I talk to ’em beforehand, find out what’s going on, and there’s issues and there’s challenges, and there’s stresses, and there’s reorgs and there’s this, and we’re up, we’re down.

[33:11] We’re this, the AI’s changing the world and we don’t know, and we’re having gen. I mean, it’s like, you know, and I’m not trying to minimize any, there’s real stresses and challenges, but there’s an exercise that I do that I’ve written about for years and I talk about, but it’s a very simple exercise. It’s, it’s really encouraging people to be authentic, ultimately to be vulnerable as you and I were talking about earlier, and the framing of the exercise.

[33:33] I talk about the iceberg as a metaphor, and if we can lower the water line on the iceberg, just express a little more of how we’re thinking and how we’re feeling and what’s going on, it can liberate us and it connect us with each other. And I always go first, and once I’ve talked about it for a while and I create a bit of a safety and I say, look, I’m gonna go first, then I usually go to the leader of the whatever group we’re with.

[33:53] And then we go around and I just invite everybody to repeat the phrase, if you really knew me, you’d know this about me. And I start and I just, I don’t plan it. And I, if you really knew me in this moment, whatever the hell is going on with me right then, you know, I’m feeling excited about this and nervous about that, or I’m, you know.

[34:12] I’m working on this project and it’s not going so well, and I’m frustrated with myself or whatever. You know, I’m, you know, the things that are going on in my real life, like the struggles maybe that I’m having with my wife or with our 19 and 17-year-old daughters, like the real life stuff, I’m not. And then what ends up happening, Jim, is like, then we go to the leader and usually again, it’s a little scary for people and they look around the room like, what am I supposed to say and how do I do this?

[34:34] But like, inevitably what’ll happen, like what happened in that room yesterday is. People start talking about their lives for real, and there’s tears and there’s struggles. It’s simple, but it’s powerful, right? It’s profound. And it’s like, oh my gosh. And you realize sitting around that table, like the leader of this group yesterday, who’s an amazing smart ca, like you were saying earlier, when they share their vulnerabilities, it doesn’t make everyone go, oh my God, they’re crazy or they’re weak.

[34:58] It go. They go, oh my God, he feels like that too. Or he’s worried about that. Whatever, and it’s just like simple but eye-opening where they realize, oh wow, we have more shared humanity than we realize. And, and in a lot of the rooms, like when I’m with the senior, senior leaders like the, the CEO and his or her team, what I find at that level is there’s so much pressure, there’s so much fear, there’s so much like, I don’t wanna screw this up.

[35:23] And, and what most people when they’re really honest will say some version of like, I don’t know how the hell I got into this room. It’s the, it’s the classic imposter syndrome that most of us experience in life. And when you’re, if you’re feeling any imposter syndrome in your life right now, I wanna say to you, number one, you’re not alone.

[35:37] And number two. Congratulations. ’cause that means you’ve put yourself out there into a situation where if you feel imposter syndrome, that means you’re doing something that matters to you. And that’s a bit of a stretch. That’s something to be celebrated, not to be ashamed of. I get fired up. I should have told you my answers aren’t, aren’t short.

[35:55] So, you know.

[35:58] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So for the listener who wants to take what you’re sharing here today, take some lessons and actually implement them, like go forward in the next 24 to 48 hours with actionable, tangible, something they can do. What’s one or two or three things you, you would recommend?

[36:14] Mike Robbins: One thing that you can do right away is.

[36:18] Either in your journal, if you’re a journaler like I am, or however you capture thoughts or ideas, write down a couple things right now that you’re feeling excited about and scared about, or capture them in some way. It can be a voice note, it can be a note on your phone. It can be a physical journal, and then.

[36:34] Share it with someone that you trust, someone who supports you. So that’s one thing. That’s a way of practicing more vulnerability in a real world way. The second thing to do, and this is a question, Jim, I often ask people when I’m speaking, I’ll say, how many of you like helping other people? Everybody in almost every room I’ve ever been in raises their hand.

[36:51] ’cause even if they don’t, most people do, but they don’t wanna look that right? But then I then I have a follow up question, which is, how many of you love asking other people for help? And maybe five to 10% of the hands go up when I ask that question. And so my invitation to everyone listening, watching is like, go ask for help in the next 24 hours.

[37:11] Where could you use some help? Where could you use some support? And it’s not coming from a needy place, or there’s something wrong with you. It’s coming from a place of when we ask for help, A, we get more help. B, we model it for other people and see, we not only get help, but we give other people the opportunity to do something that most people love to do, which is what help.

[37:32] There’s so much resource around most of us, even if it doesn’t seem like it, we’re just not tapping into it. ’cause we’re being stubborn or we’re being stoic, or we’re being, I got it together. I’m the athletic minded man. I can do it myself. It’s like, okay. Or you could have it be a lot easier and do it in collaboration with others, which is always more fun.

[37:50] Anyway. Better for everybody.

[37:52] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yep. Mike, where can people find you? Read your books, find your books, follow you, et cetera.

[37:58] Mike Robbins: Yeah, I mean, the best place to connect with me is at our website, which is mike robbins.com, and you can connect me with me on all the socials and find the podcast, which is, we’re all in this together.

[38:08] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yeah. Excellent. For the listener, I will have all those links in the action plan. Of course, Mike, grateful for your message here today. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it.

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