Intentional Performers Brian Levenson

Dr. Bob Lefkowitz is currently the Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry at the Duke University Medical Center. He’s been an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1976, and he began his research career in the late 1960s and early 1970s when there was not a clear consensus that specific receptors for drugs and hormones even existed. He’s a trailblazer. He’s a ground breaker. He’s a Nobel Prize winner. He’s an author; his memoir, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Stockholm, recounts his early career as a cardiologist and his transition to biochemistry. He is a researcher, he’s a teacher, and he’s just very very wise. And sometimes you meet knowledgeable people, smart people, who lack wisdom and emotional intelligence; that’s not what you’re going to find in this conversation. We talk as much about philosophy as we do about his groundbreaking research. This conversation was inspiring, it made me think, and it made me question how I think, which is the sign of a great conversation. He has won numerous awards as well; he’s been acknowledged by his field in a multitude of ways and at Duke University. The work that he’s done finding these receptors and working on proteins has led to a discovery that impacts 30-50% of all medications that we take. He is someone who cares deeply about making an impact and influencing our society for the better.
Bob had several amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“Tell me your strongest asset and it will also be your biggest deficiency” (6:30).
“The most important characteristic necessary for success at anything is focus” (7:05).
“A totally fulfilling life needs to be one that embraces not just whatever your passion and obsession is, but a host of other things” (7:30).
“I’ll continue to be a work in progress” (9:00).
“I have found as I’m aging that friendships have become more and more important to me” (13:10).
“Life is so filled with surprises and twists and turns” (16:20).
“Nobody’s smart enough to make truly amazing discoveries because they’re so far outside the frame of how we currently understand things that nobody’s that smart” (19:50).
“What I loved the most when I was younger and was at the peak of my power was making discoveries” (25:50).
“The more you know, the less able you are to make discoveries” (29:30).
“Each of us has a unique personality which is shaped in varying extents by the nature and the nurture” (30:50).
“Education is a double-edged sword. On one hand we need education to get certain facts and ways of thinking, but also it constrains us” (31:25).
“This inherent skepticism I’ve always had led to burning curiosity” (34:10).
“What drives me the most and gives me the most satisfaction is mentoring young people” (34:50).
“It is an interesting and a life-changing experience to win the Nobel Prize” (40:55).
“Winning awards was not a factor. I was just driven because I was driven [to discover]” (41:15).
“The whole nature of science is that whatever it is, you have to do it first. You don’t get any credit for doing something second” (46:45).
“Questions are a reflection of curiosity” (56:35).
“Every experiment is a question. The better framed the experiment, the more likely you are to get an informative answer” (56:45).
“The best outcomes in medicine are when the patient and doctor form an alliance” (57:40).
“I thought [when I was younger] the most heroic thing you could do was become a physician because you could alleviate human suffering” (1:04:40).
“I’m so focused in what I’m doing or who I’m interacting with that the time just disappears” (1:16:45).
Additionally, you can learn more about Bob and his work here.
Thank you so much to Bob for coming on the podcast!
I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can

Dr. Emma Seppala is a bestselling author, she’s a Yale lecturer, and international keynote speaker. She teaches executives at the Yale School of Management and is Faculty Director of the Yale School of Management’s Women’s Leadership Program. She’s a psychologist, she’s a researcher, she is somebody who is constantly thinking and wondering about the science of happiness, emotional intelligence, and social connection. She is also an author, as I mentioned earlier, and her books are what we focus on in today’s conversation. The two we focus on are The Happiness Track, which has been translated into dozens of languages and was published in 2016, and her new book which we really dive into in today’s conversation which is called Sovereign. Dr. Seppala is also the Science Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. Emma has been featured in just about every publication you can imagine, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and NPR, and she also has done TED Talks all over the country. Her contributions and writings have been featured in places like The Harvard Business Review, The Washington Post, Psychology Today, and Time. She’s been fortunate to also consult and speak to organizations like Google and Facebook/Meta. Her research on breathing is also something that we talk about today. She has done amazing work with our military and their experience with trauma, so we bring that into today’s conversation.
Emma had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“It really doesn’t make any sense to sweat the small stuff” (7:10).
“There is an inner wealth that is more precious than any external wealth you can have and any material good you can have” (8:00).
“This idea of the ability that we have to have sovereignty over our mind; it is there, it is something we can have, but we forget about it” (10:20).
“Through the breath you can actually shift which emotions you’re experiencing” (11:25).
“Suppression [of our emotions] actually makes them stronger” (12:25).
“Emotion is energy in motion. You need to learn how to move it” (14:35).
“Vulnerability and authority can coexist. Vulnerability and strength can coexist” (21:50).
“When you suppress the negative, you’re also suppressing the positive” (26:15).
“We’ve bought into this idea of high stress all the time, and all it’s doing is burning us out” (31:00).
“It’s good to question how we always do things, even if everyone’s doing it, because it may not always be the best thing we can be doing with ourselves” (33:25).
“Self-criticism is different from self-awareness” (37:00).
“It doesn’t make sense to have an antagonistic relationship with yourself” (38:10).
“Our mind is like a mirror; it’s going to reflect whatever we put in it” (40:15).
“For sovereignty, the key is discernment” (42:35).
“Having the attitude of kindness is one of the greatest secrets to happiness and fulfillment over the length of your life” (46:20).
“The happiest people, who also live the longest most fulfilled lives, are the ones who live lives characterized by compassion, balanced with compassion for themselves” (47:40).
“The most successful leaders out there are leaders that are compassionate” (50:35).
“Happiness is a very individual experience” (52:20).
“Everybody, to some extent, has an addiction” (56:50).
“We can get stronger and better at everything if we just force ourselves to do it over and over” (1:07:25).
Additionally, you can purchase Emma’s new book Sovereign anywhere you buy books. You can also check out her website and connect with her on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  
Thank you so much to Emma for coming on the podcast!
I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have

Simon Mundie is on a mission to have discussions that reveal something important about life and how best to live it. He’s the host of the Life Lessons Podcast, and that’s where he uses that vehicle to learn from some of the best performers in the world about how they are not just successful at their craft, but what they’ve learned along the way, and even some of the dark sides that come with high achievement. And he really is someone who has used sport as a metaphor for life. His podcast doesn’t just interview some of the best athletes in the world, but it also is a platform where he gets to sit with some of the best thinkers, philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists to try to unpack and discover what living a truly meaningful, successful life is all about. He has spent time in the sports world as a journalist. He worked for BBC Radio, where he covered sporting events like the World Cup and the Olympics. So, he’s been around some of the highest achievers in the world, and he often found that our obsession and focus on results was actually quite shallow. His interest in sport as he became older was actually around the metaphors that exist within the games. So, this conversation gets into a lot of wisdom, a lot of ideas around enlightenment, a lot of ideas around meaning and purpose and what will cause us to truly feel like we’re living our best lives. So, it’s a deep conversation, it’s a rich conversation.
Simon had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“I am actually not a big fan of the word [champion]” (4:55).
“I think it becomes problematic when we look at people who are described as champions and consider them to be special or different, and therefore consider ourselves or others to be less than” (6:10).
“We are all unique with our own skills and value” (6:45).
“We are not better or no worse than anyone else” (7:00).
“So often people are incredibly identified with their thoughts, the voice in their head, they think that’s who they are” (9:30).
“Thoughts and thinking are coming and going, but this ‘aware’ mind is always there and is aware of any thoughts that come and go” (10:10).
“A thought… has a beginning and an end” (10:35).
“I’ve always been interested in the deeper questions” (18:10).
“There’s nothing that anyone needs to fix. It’s just the belief that there is” (19:15).
“Sport is a metaphor for life” (21:00).
“Sport is just a way to illustrate these deeper truths and deeper implications” (21:40).
“We are not separate. We are connected” (22:45).
“On the human level we are individual, unique, and discrete, but on the being level we are one and the same” (24:50).
“We are different expressions of one life” (25:40).
“Spirituality is the recognition that at the deepest level we are not actually separate” (25:45).
“Anytime [“problematic”] feelings come up, it’s an opportunity to allow them to be there and then they lose their strength” (31:30).
“A lot of trauma can stay in the body” (41:20).
“That capacity to be able to cry is a really important way of actually releasing stress and tension from the body” (42:55).
“Attention is like the stretching of awareness towards an object” (45:55).
“What we all really want is peace of mind, is contentment, is fulfillment” (49:25).
“Peace and fulfillment and contentment are not things that come from outside ourselves; they are already at our source and then they can be revealed by, for example, being in flow when your sense of self disappears” (49:40).
“Culturally, we tend to think of success as achievement” (50:15).
“Don’t be too quick to judge other people” (1:02:45).
“We have to take responsibility for ourselves and our actions” (1:07:40).
“I’m going to take risks. I’m going to put myself in situations that are uncomfortable. I’m going to ask people for stuff until they say no” (1:12:20).
“I

Dr. Gloria Mark is Chancellor’s Professor Emerita at the University of California, Irvine, and has spent ten years as a visiting senior researcher at Microsoft Research. She received her PhD from Columbia University in psychology. For over two decades, she has researched the impact of digital media on people's lives, studying how using our devices affects our multitasking, distractions, mood, and behavior.
She has published over 200 papers in the top journals and conferences in the field of human-computer interaction, has received numerous paper awards, and was inducted into the ACM SIGCHI Academy in 2017 in recognition of her contribution to the field. She has also been a Fulbright scholar and has received the prestigious NSF Career Grant.
Her work has been widely recognized outside of academia: she has appeared on The Ezra Klein show, NPR’s Hidden Brain, Sanjay Gupta’s CNN Chasing Life, CBS Sunday Morning, Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert, among many others. Her work has been featured in the popular media, e.g. New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, The Atlantic, BBC, and others. She has been invited to present her work at SXSW and the Aspen Ideas Festival.
Her recent book Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity, was named by The Globe and Mail as the #1 Best Business and Management book of 2023, and chosen as the Season 20 selection of the Next Big Idea Book Club.
Gloria had several amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“You have to be agile to put your attention to where it’s important” (6:50).
“Multitasking is not possible for us humans unless one of those tasks is automatic” (7:50).
“It’s not humanly possible to do 2 challenging, difficult things in parallel” (8:25).
“It takes longer to do 2 or more tasks when we multitask compared to if we do the tasks sequentially one after the other” (11:20).
“[Multitasking] creates stress” (12:35).
“There’s a myth that when people multitask, they’ll be more productive” (14:15).
“There’s a blurriness between our work and personal lives” (18:20).
“Our motivation changes when we work from home” (19:30).
“So often we might be with other people, but we have this lure of the internet still there” (25:30).
“When something becomes a habit, it really prevents us from using our conscious attention” (28:30).
“It’s really about becoming more intentional and conscious about what we’re doing when we’re on our devices” (32:15).
“Distractions are natural. It’s part of our human experience” (33:30).
“People mind-wander about 47% of the time” (33:40).
“Attention spans have declined [over the last 20 years]” (39:05).
“[New technology] has created a lot of pressure to think about performance at the expense of our wellbeing” (43:00).
“60% of global respondents reported some symptoms of burnout” (44:15).
“When people have positive wellbeing, they actually perform better” (44:55).
“Being an artist taught me that I could think out of the box” (46:30).
“The way I talk with scientists is very different from the way I talk with artists” (48:05).
“Boredom is associated with negative affect. When people are bored, they tend to be in a bad mood” (56:45).
“20 minutes in nature can help people destress” (58:40).
“We can practice forethought” (1:04:00).
“Goals are very powerful but they’re very slippery” (1:05:00).
Additionally, you can connect with Gloria on Twitter and LinkedIn, check out her website (where you can purchase her book, Attention Span, and find much more), and also subscribe to her Substack.
Thank you so much to Gloria for coming on the podcast!
I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills

Steve Clagett is the Director of Learning and Development with the Baltimore Ravens. Prior to arriving with the Ravens, he’s had quite a journey and quite an experience and a pretty incredible resume, which includes serving as a White House Fellow, where he got to interact with the President of the United States and a lot of other dignitaries and people that are making decisions that influence our daily lives. He also worked within the US Navy, rising to becoming a Lieutenant Commander where he also worked with the Navy SEAL Teams. We talk about mission, we talk about values in today’s conversation, and we talk about what is applicable and what may not be when it comes from the military to the sports world. We also talk about politics in today’s conversation. He also was a Pat Tillman Scholar. He is someone who cares about the work that he’s doing and is looking to make an impact certainly within the NFL, but beyond the NFL and in the community that he helps serve in Baltimore as well. So, this is a rich conversation where we really zoom in and think about character and how you assess for character and how you think about putting together the best possible team to compete, to contend, and ultimately to win.
Steve had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“The power of the year [2020] means more now than it did then” (8:00).
“We don’t say he’s a [Navy} SEAL. We say he’s a team guy” (11:50).
“Part of the competition is who you are as a teammate” (12:20).
“I believe in having a hypercompetitive organization” (12:30).
“You have to make sure that competition reinforces selflessness” (12:40).
“For me, accountability comes in phases” (14:15).
“Both [the military and the NFL] exist in some ways to inspire others” (16:40).
“When I look back at my career, I think of times I could have been more of a glue guy” (19:15).
“As a leader, there’s that constant balance between the mission and the man” (19:25).
“You need people [on the team] who get people out of their comfort zones and push the team in different directions” (21:05).
“I really enjoyed leading teams and solving complex problems” (22:10).
“I would define effective leadership as working with the team on establishing a vision, giving them clear roles and responsibilities, the resources they need to get the job done, and then getting out of the way” (27:50).
“Ideally you want a culture of disagree and commit” (30:50).
“What I’ve learned over the years is the value of diverse perspectives” (36:20).
“When you can improve the morale, when you can improve the culture of an organization, it just makes coming to work every day better” (39:05).
“The toughest decision I ever made was leaving the SEAL teams” (41:35).
“Sometimes loyalty is just [to] your teammates” (44:35).
“I think intrinsic motivation isn’t as important as external motivation” (52:50).
“I wonder sometimes if we’re too hard on people for their honesty” (53:20).
“One of our biggest reasons for success is we know who we are” (58:50).
Additionally, I’d encourage you to check out Farming 4 Hunger and The Taylor Anne Foundation. You can also connect with Steve on LinkedIn.
Thank you so much to Steve for coming on the podcast!
I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.
Thanks for listening.

Dr. Ruth Gotian has studied extensively what it takes to be successful. That is, at the end of the day, what she’s obsessed with, interested in, and curious about. She also has spent a lot of time thinking about mentorship and mentoring. She is currently the Chief Learning Officer, Associate Professor of Education in Anesthesiology, and former Assistant Dean of Mentoring and Executive Director of The Mentoring Academy at Cornell Medicine. And so, today we focus more on her focus on success and less on mentoring. She has a book coming up in the future about mentoring, but today this conversation is really about her research and dedication and, to be honest, an obsession with success. In 2021, she was one of 30 people worldwide to be named to the Thinkers50 Radar List, which is dubbed the Oscars of Management Thinking, and is a semi-finalist for the Forbes 50 over 50 list. During her extensive career, she’s personally coached and mentored thousands of people, ranging from faculty members to undergraduates, and as an Assistant Dean for mentoring, she oversaw the success of nearly 1800 faculty members at Cornell.
Currently, she researches the most successful people of our generation, including Nobel Laureates, astronauts, CEOs, Olympic champions, and more. We get into that in today’s conversation. Dr. Gotian received her BS and an MS in Business Management from The University at Stony Brook in New York, and certificates in Executive Leadership and Managing for Execution from Cornell. She earned her doctorate at teacher’s college at Columbia University. So, she’s well educated, she plays in the lab, but she also plays in the field. She works with athletes, she works as an executive coach, and she regularly publishes in journals such as Nature, Scientific American, Academic Medicines, Psychology Today, Forbes, and The Harvard Business Review. So, this conversation really focuses on her book, The Success Factor, which is all about developing the mindset and skillset for peak performance, and if you know anything about me you know that is a topic I am quite interested in.
Ruth had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“If I want to be better, I need to know what the best of the best are doing and then I reverse engineer their path” (7:50).
“I knew if I leverage my peak performance hours I will write better and I will be more effective” (12:40).
“I need to be able to rest” (15:25).
“I work really hard to be around people who jazz me up and don’t drain me” (15:30).
“Very often people get overlooked, misunderstood, because they’re different” (20:00).
“Sometimes it’s the people who carve out a different path that have the greatest learning journey” (20:15).
“[Success] is very personal” (21:55).
“I have interviewed hundreds of people who are at the top of their game. Not one has gotten there alone” (25:15).
“Any person who has achieved anything has done it with the support of other people” (25:50).
“The extrinsic motivation is fleeting” (28:55).
“If you really want to maximize everything that’s going forward, take a break” (34:00).
“Having a positive impact and leaving this world better than I found it, to me, that’s my way of doing something important and not just interesting” (39:15).
“Do something important and not just interesting” (42:05).
“When our situations change, our passions can change” (43:25).
“Mindsets trump habits because we can take the idea of the habit but customize it to our life” (46:10).
“Just because you’re moving up doesn’t mean you know more. You actually know less” (53:25).
“A leader is someone who can inspire other people to be the best versions of themselves” (55:00).
Additionally, you can find all of Ruth’s information and connect with her via her website.
Thank you so much to Ruth for coming on the podcast!
I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October