TOTO WOLFF | Inside The Mind Of A Five Time F1 World Champion | Beyond Victory #8

everyone can read this year it's a job and you have to do it I thought thank you very much for taking the

time

high name meet thanks for inviting me it's been a long

time

since it hasn't actually been a long time I've been We were in Monaco two weeks ago, but it's nice to be here in February on a warm day. We talk to you. At night we spent the morning with the children on the beach. Yes, with a t-shirt. I mean, amazing, it's really one of the qualities of being a molecule. and how come you're here so long then I'm here?

My role as a husband, as you know, my wife has become the team manager of Venturi, a Formula E team based in Monaco, and as life is always a compromise between family life and the business we are traveling between the UK, where our old operation is, and Monaco, so I tried to get her to at least be there one day a week, spend some time with the family, so it was great, she was observing a family. race and the title at the bottom of when they showed that you were Suzy Wolf's husband, the team manager or venturi, so that was pretty cool, pretty cool title at the bottom anyway, I just want to say for me that It's very, very, it's very It's exciting to do this podcast and, to make it clear also for you, the listener, today it's not about Formula One, it's about you as a person, because well, I've known you throughout of the years and you are definitely an extremely inspiring person, by no means.

You don't give me that, it's okay, it's just the truth, yes, so you are a very, very inspiring person and I think that's why I really hope that today we can draw some lessons for personal progress and for everyone to listen to me, even for me. I think that would be really cool and I want to state the obvious: you are now one of the most successful crew chiefs and team owners the sport has ever seen in such a short period, yes, which is phenomenal and a testament to your abilities. in that position,

five

-time

champion

now with the ability to extend that, obviously, that's very, very impressive, if you're listening for the first time, subscribe to the podcast, so I want to hit the ground running, you're more than a career. boss, you really are an entrepreneur at heart and that's your, also Toto's phone just disappeared, so if there are some quiet periods in this podcast, don't worry, it's check the total time back because the formal test is coming to its end and the lab, the iPad is right in front with the lifetime, so we'll give the total time to be either calabasa, okay, or it's a no.

I think it's okay, okay, if it had exploded, it would have. It's been a call, but not exactly, so I want to get started. We've talked a lot over the years and something I always love to hear is one of the most interesting business success stories when I was a teenager. I felt really very young right away. You're an amazing businessman, so I think it'll be great for listeners to be able to meet just one of them. I remember one was the one with the candles. I don't know if it would be the most fun to cover it not first.

Overall, I am very happy to do this with you because I saw your podcast and followed Flavio's. It was a lot of fun and also very interesting to me how Flavio ran the team 15 years ago, obviously in a very different way. atmosphere so I think it's great, it's a great channel that you've created and it's always good to talk to you because you were the racing driver and as a sportsman you have been equally inspiring to me in the beginning and I remember our first meeting when you just joined Williams and you, when you joined Mercedes, you really wanted to have your racing engineer, Tony Ross, who was still at Williams, where I just became a shareholder and I remember it was the DTM Christmas party and I didn't I knew, but you came closer.

Me and you said you're the guy who just joined Williams and I said yes and you said I need my engineer and he said no. I said, let me think about it, and I found that he actually gave me another clue as to why certain people are successful. and it's because they just concentrate and give it their all and you were looking forward to it and just having that guy and he approached me head on and that was impressive to me because you were still very young the first business story you refer to in the candles and maybe it's worse to say that you and I have spent a lot of time talking about business and psychology over the years and then it's been a good discussion, but the story of candles was interesting, it's a story about supply and demand. and many years ago in Austria I don't remember exactly what it was, I think it must have been, in fact in 1990 there was probably a political shift to the right in Austria, that was something that we as a young generation were not happy with and what has happened What was organized in the city of Vienna was a protest, it was a silent protest with the theme of the lit candle and walking at night, it was winter and walking with the candle and protesting against racism and I thought it was really a good initiative, so we went.

To see the dog, the organization said we would like to support him by selling candles and then we would give part of the profits to the organization. Let's see, you really thought it was cute, so you thought about making some money. Not about this, first of all you know that you need to be behind fashion things and I thought that it is very good, it is something that we should do and we should support and when I went to see the organization they told me that we do not have to support. They'll give you t-shirts and badges and if you give us a little bit of your winnings it'll be fine for us, so I thought there would be a few thousand people in the city of Vienna.

That night they are not going to have lights or candles, so I found out that we are the only candle producers in Vienna and I went there and said I would like to buy all the candles you have in stock. I think so. It was twenty-

five

thousand candles or something like that dead and he said are you sure? I told him yes, what is the price and we calculated it to be a couple of shillings of what today was painfully 20 or 30 cents and it was more than 25 thousand. It was 125,000 hundred here, so I figured out how I can finance the purchase of those candles, so I presented the deal to a friend and said, "Let's do 5050." We put in all our pocket money and then we had a logistical problem.

This is how we got 125,000 candles from the factory in the center of Vienna to sell? So we organized a lot of cars. My mother helped me, we got a small minivan and drove the right sail to the apartment. That particular day, it all started. and we deployed our prettiest girls and most active anti-racism advocates to the Niraj ik places in Vienna, everyone received a candle box on the floor with a few hundred candles and we left, although the protest was supposed to start at 6 o'clock. clock and until 3 we sold a few hundred, so it was a terrible business.

I was running after the hot spots and asking how it was going and I said it wasn't going at all and then they continued and at 5 o'clock business started. to start a little bit and at 5:30 when everyone started getting to the city center to walk, it was incredible, we did it, it was a huge wave of demand that overwhelmed us and my friend and me. We were running because people said that we have a lot of coins and little money in our pockets. We are concerned about security. You have to come, so I was running. It was very cold.

He was in a T-shirt and was collecting the money. The pockets and bringing it back to the apartment wasn't much, it was a few shillings or euros and then by 6:30 or 6:45 we were exhausted, we had had the best businessman in the

world

and it was a success and it showed that if you can create demand for your product, say how much money you make, run. I don't remember, I think it was 20,000 shillings, which was a lot, like 1,500 euros or 2,000 years, but I was a I was at school and in the past I added a zero to that 25 or 30 years ago, how old was I?

Eighteen, seventeen or eighteen in total, and is that a turning point for you where you think, but damn, I got this, I know. how to do these things better than anyone else and I love this, no, no, not at all, but I remember the feeling in the department of having that money that was so much, I mean, it was two, three years, pocket money that we would earn . That night was a lot of fun too and I realized that it's a mix of enjoying what you do with a purpose because fundamentally it was about the protest and then we gave something, we contributed something to the organization and of course there was something.

It was a big win for us, um, you've said that all high-performing individuals come from severe trauma or have been severely humiliated and in others, and sometimes you even like to say more or less, they're all psychopaths because what's the point? another way? Would they have this extreme drive? Yes, I can tell it gets very personal then, but can you explain a little? In your case, where you believe for sure that a lot of it is genetic in all of us, that's clear, but where do we do it? If you think that in your case, then this momentum started and, yes, tell us about it.

I have a regular conversation with my wife about nature versus nurture, what is born, what your genes are, and what develops through the relationship of three. with your parents and you learned and I still think it's a combination of the two because you have a genetic predisposition that you can see in all our little children today, they had certain talents and you won't have them, the way they came from my son is great . a ball since he was a year old like a soccer ball, none of us play soccer in the family but he does it very well, you can see he has a talent for playing that ball so it's certainly something that was in him , but then also how your parents help you develop the love they give you or the love they give you, what environment you're growing up in, with the right friends, with the wrong friends, or no friends, and I think that's probably my view. of things when A while ago it was said that to be successful in your area, whether as an athlete, as a businessman or as an artist, you need to have that extra motivation and that extra energy because it comes with pain, it is difficult to achieve this.

Things and that extra energy need to have a source and for me the personality that sauce was a very difficult education. My father suffered from brain cancer very early when he was 30 years old and managed to fight it for ten years, but eventually died. when he was 40 and my mother raised us, she was a doctor at a hospital in Vienna and there wasn't really any financial background um and yet he still managed to get us into a you know, my sister and I into a private school of French in Vienna because she felt that languages ​​were important and that's why I was in an environment with kids who could afford private school but I really couldn't, so we had situations where we were kicked out of class because the school tuition was No They paid me, I think I was about 12 years old, my sister must have been nine or ten years old and they called me at the open door one afternoon during class and my secretary from the director came in and said: Anyway, can you come down and I went down to the office from the principal and there was my 9 year old sister sitting at the table and the principal told us: we have a problem, unfortunately your school fees have been paid for a long time.

Wow, please pack your bags and go home, so I needed to go back to class and pick up my bags. Some of them you know my friends in class, the stupid ones, said that you are so lucky that you can go home, but the humiliation of having to pack your bags because your school fee is I didn't pay and then I went down, I took my sister, we have that walking through a park to get to the tram and then the tram back home was a 45 minute tram ride to explain to a 9 or 10 year old girl why we had to leave class and why we had to go home early and these things are very deep in me, and and and and this is certainly something that I tried to overcompensate for, so a lot of it is also their recognition, yes, a recognition from others because it is humiliation.

It's not receiving recognition from others, yes, I think it was more about meeting my own expectations. When I was a child I felt disappointed in some ways because you depend on your parents, one was working very hard, the other was no longer there and I was. I had no power when I was 10, 11 or 12 to make a living and solve my problems, but I was dependent and by the time I grew up as a teenager I felt like I needed to take control of my life and and and and give myself and myself better opportunities. family and my children and this is the impulse, it is not so much the recognition, nor the external recognition, which I do not care so much about, it is actually the fact of meeting my own expectations, but I think I can realistically achieve it, that is Good point, actually, I wouldn't ask you anything because you are an example that doesn't really fit my model.

I see that I have an atypical case. No, I think my mental coach tells me that too. You don't fit their models, coach, I mean, you have your complexities and I have to know my complexities, what are your complexities? I think you try very hard to achieve your goals, nothing or two about that, yes I know. One or two things about that and I think it's important and I often hear people say that or it's flashy. The general opinion is that if you come from a difficult background you have more and I felt thata moment when they really believe they are authentic and you, if you are not able to look in the mirror at night while brushing your teeth and say: "I was a bit of an idiot today and you punish yourself, eventually the fatal day will be" .See, I'm 100% sure we hear a lot of success stories of highly motivated people who have a big ego and a long road ahead, but the ones who are successful in the long run and who are not a flash in the pan, grow slowly. and they are very self-aware and I think that is a very important personality trait to have today.

I'm not so sure because if you look to stop long enough, for example, yeah, he's like daffodil, you write it and how you would write. It's in the dictionary, I think, because how can you not question yourself if you make the same mistake six times and on the seventh you keep doing the same thing, but then it works because you have a lot of talent and that turns it around. on a great streak of success, so oh, I'm not so convinced you're right about that. He is an extreme narcissist when you have the right special talent, he can be an extremely powerful force and maybe even the most powerful I think, with Para, miss, it is different because there is a part of his life that we do not see and that is the relationship with his father and I think Yas is giving his son direct feedback.

I don't think he's holding back and Max's behavior is self-confident in a way that would even seem overconfident at times, but you shouldn't forget that he's very young when he collided with the Vytorin monster last year, it was pretty obvious that he wasn't. there was enough space and even if you look at the commentators, I think I think I just happened to see that I was in my motorhome in Barcelona two days ago and I saw a replay of the monster Grand Prix, it wasn't like that, I was in heaven and Martin Brundle, who knows everything, says there wasn't enough room, so he was clear, but I think there's a certain degree of super confidence that that gives you that helps bond your ability to drive, but I think the older you get ago, the more he matures and that anger grows, he will have that angle under control and I think if you remember how we were 19 or 20 years old, I know what I was like, I mean, I wouldn't have been able to cross the street here without risking an accident, I think it's a different story, you have to consider the age, yes? but I, for example, am very different, I do not have that maximum confidence in myself that I never had and will never have in that sense, but I did have it, but for me that was also a sensitivity, it is not even a sensitivity that I have. see if you are able to channel it properly and learning to channel it took me a long time we can be a great strength because it is what allows you to question yourself most of the time I think I am to blame and that means I question myself, that means I try and push to improve, learn and progress because I always, I don't always think, oh I'm the guy anyway, it must be the other guy's fault, but I think if that's the case. also a character trait among highly successful doubters who greatly doubt their own achievements.

I'm not so sure that someone who says a lot that he's right doesn't stay in the belt of dozens in the background, I think without pouting. It won't comfort him, it's one thing how you behave in front of a camera and in action in a car and what your discussions are at home looking at things and doubts are part of that, but maybe not showing it openly, the important thing is to have people around you who help you grow, who are not people who say yes, who are not people who inflame your overconfidence, who are critical, but who do it in a loving, neutral and objective way, and I think this is important to be able to become someone who can surpass others, so an important ingredient of your success is to surround yourself with people who dare to say absolutely no to you.

It's a critical part of our team culture that we are brutally honest with each other. to have this one, yeah, he's around me all the time, I wouldn't be and they wouldn't point out my flaws, which anyway, most of them know for myself, but you know some of the guys, I have a lot rejection from James Ellison and Bradley about communications and them and and that's an important part of my growth because it's annoying to have criticism and to hear that and especially more annoying if you know that they have a part How do you learn to accept that well when principle?

The initial reaction is to say that they are very explosive, you like to explode quite quickly, that is one of the reasons why it is probably a weakness, it is a massive weakness and it has gotten me in trouble several times, literally, but I have witnessed how he approached. The way no, but yes, everything is fine. I think we knew the situation. It was a good moment, but the point is that today I am trying to channel it in a better way and I have my Health Alliance, my assistants around me, Bradley, who directs. our communications department sees when I am, when I am, when I get close to the cliff and drags me away and tells me you should have some tea now before you talk to the media, so sometimes we do it after the races and it's important to have an environment that puts a mirror in front of you and tells you that what you are doing right now is not very good and now I have learned to accept that I am still very impulsive and it is not always great, but that, on the other hand, the passion is important, so getting it, getting it right between passion and and and explosiveness is a trick that I'm still on the way to learning.

You mentioned spy, if I may say so, I wasn't very impulsive, it was more, very subtle, it was more like sliding on a piece of paper with a lot of zeros, but anyway, let's cover that, let's not cover that you also surround yourself with a wife who likes to tell you no because I experienced that in a pretty funny story, so I was flying with her somewhere, I think to delete I was flying with Suzy to delete and her phone rings and it's you, it's you and you say on the phone, oh, we were, the whole team was running. on bikes in a polluting place, yeah, so we were all next to each other in a big group racing on the bikes at full speed and the guy in front crashed, so the whole team was wiped out, we have broken arms , broken legs, broken ribs and I'm done with you. on the other side it was like Toto knew you could and how you could do that.

Toto knows, yeah, so I definitely witnessed that Suzy is very, very strong in his opinion, although IRA has never been in that he is very strong and before we talked about it. I remember your reaction too because we were a group of people and you were with her at a promotional event and your first question was that this didn't escalate much with Luis, Luis was behind her, it was Luis, the fact is your question. She thought that the

champion

ship was in the bag, he was in the bag, if he was in the peloton, he couldn't handle you before going up, yes, she is very strong as a woman, but she still strikes the right balance because we are sensitive, without doubt, that need. the comments from people we trust and our loved ones and she rings the bell nicely between telling me how great I am and how well I've been doing things.

I receive text messages from her lovely children with regular updates on our children and that support is something I need very much, but on the other hand, she has that side as a wife and mother that he sees as the two most important roles in his life , but then she is my biggest critic and she, she, she. She has her own career and she will tell me no and that happens every day and it is something that I really enjoy and you see, we are here in Monaco, it is where she works. I'm here, so I've followed her and that balance.

In a relationship it is so important that you give your wife love and also the possibility to grow and fulfill her own dreams. Do you have much of a mental coach? Mental health is still a very taboo topic and I think all of us struggle with it. in a certain way, but if you look at it beyond a certain pain threshold, you need to seek help and consult people and I've always done that when you think you're going to the dentist and if you're having mental difficulties and that can be at very low levels. heartache because you use, you separated from your girlfriend when she was young or pressure at work, not sleeping well.

I have always consulted more deeply with those I thought were smarter than me and more competent, and I still turn to someone a lot. who I met 20 years ago and who helped me through difficult periods and I have, I would say, an arsenal of weapons and I have taken it beyond just the talk with

mind

fulness and a management coach who is working in the team like Well, we have implemented the company-wide

mind

fulness meditation, really yeah, that's amazing. Remember that it is still there, but with the mental space too, but it helped us overcome burnout-like syndromes. After three, four or five years of success, you will suffer from fatigue or lack of motivation and that helped me and I am very interested in psychology and I love talking to people who can help me overcome my pain and my struggles and make me a better man.

I have a question for you because Sportsman. I've seen that in a normal

world

, mental health is someone that no one really wants to talk to, but especially among professional athletes, and they start to relax a little, but you were one of the first to do it when you want. your championship you came out and said that you had used someone, you have worked with someone and you told me on the flight back from that dead flight from Singapore to Frankfurt before I forget that you were a defining moment that I want to talk about is your how you said the enthusiasm to learn, yes, I think that is very important for success and to progress in life, the enthusiasm to learn, which you also do, a lot of that is a very, very important lesson every day, learn, learn, learn from people, from books. super important and valuable, I think then, so you just talked, it means that I, a formal one, it's an amateur world, yes, so brain doctors for the losers of one, yes, it's a shame, where is one of the latest sports?

I think it's still so taboo to have mental problems. doctor my brain brain whatever you call it that psychologist is wrong he uses them that's the only guy who talks publicly about it I had one in my entire career I never talked about it again for that reason and I started because my first year was very difficult mentally because It's It was a big shock to enter that world and it was very difficult with Williams because we were nowhere and then you start to be criticized, not only by the drivers' team, it was really a shock to enter F1 and that's where I said that I arrived.

There has to be a way to improve mentally as well and be more resilient and find ways to progress. Yes, this was my starting point and it is the most amazing experience I have ever had in my life and I can't believe you don't do it. You don't learn these things in school, yes, because there is an ocean of opportunities out there. Every single thing you experience has already been experienced by a genius over the last thousand years who is able to write it down in a way for all of us to understand and for all of us to learn and use for ourselves, it all exists out there and it's amazing, so I can just encourage everyone, just like you do, everyone listening as well to really look at that space and have them find their way. find your own way read and learned I learned a lot I learned we studied philosophy yes, so why are we the way we are?

Why are we afraid of failure? What is the next point? I wanted to cover Why Are We Jealous? We get scared why all these things and if you understand yourself so powerful to understand why who you are, yeah it's amazing I think we should take advantage of it and it's a good opportunity for you and I to talk about mental health because people who struggle will think of Nico. Rosberg and thought evolved, they don't suffer for Matlin, you know, why should they know how we do? I think breaking that taboo is very important. It is a topic that is very close to my heart.

I've even started a startup called InStyle where, instead of continuing with dr. On Google and by asking for help or searching on Google for anxiety or depression, you come to a professional environment and online you search for help and you get an answer in two minutes to help people who are suffering, very importantly, the more successful people are , more They suffer is an experience I have had. I haven't thought about some of the people I've met and been lucky enough to have throughout my career, you look at him and he's looking at a façade and you think that's that guy. the happiest because he is the most successful and then you look around him and see how much he struggles so success doesn't necessarily mean happiness although you know it's a very very hard lesson my mother used to tell me when we had the adverse circumstances that It's easier to cry in a Rolls Royce than enough people shaking people.

I realized the opposite, actually when you suffer and have everything, you realize that having does not mean happiness, it is much more about purpose and passion and doing something that you really enjoy doing and eventually also having a goal that you want to achieve, but that everything and the suffering that you are giving robs you of your dreams in some way, so that was a very hard lesson that I had in my life. man, I'm not, this is my ninth podcast, it's a very interesting time and it's very difficult for me to find it to keep the flow because I thinkThese are amazing and very interesting ideas.

Can we repeat your application please? I think it's very valuable, yeah, it's called insta hell and it's launching in Austria, Germany, I think Switzerland, the UK, in France and there's instant feedback in two minutes, you get a response from a doctor and you can do it. The doctor will assess where there is a big problem in severe weather conditions or if you need training and psychological support and that is the b2c side, so we offer it to everyone and equally we offer the opportunity for companies to have that separate HR tool. HH so the hiring manager wouldn't know that there's someone in the system and I think we just need to open up and break down the walls, the mental health blue barriers, that's great, that's very powerful and I didn't know that.

One thing I read was that you've learned to really focus on life and get rid of distractions, for example, on 20/20 on our flight back from Melbourne, you sat there for 20 hours and reflected and then we did it. You don't read a book or listen to music or a movie, nothing is that, I didn't know that about you, but that's something you've really learned for yourself and I learned that on my way to the World Championships. Of my biggest ingredients, simplicity, focus and really having these moments of self-reflection, I would journal and because it's so different, the intensity and maintaining some balance is so powerful and I brought meditation into that, yes, his presence and all that you can talk about, yes, I imagine everyone talks about the impact of social media on our mental health or distraction.

There is no longer a moment where you sit to yourself or your life to yourself and you stay outside the window and just enjoy. be and you think that the moment we have a free minute we go back to our mobile phones and look for email or browse the Internet or look at social media channels because it's immediate gratification, yes, but actually for me it puts your The brain on standby flickers, but yes, and there are many of them. I guess there's a system behind it because it creates a huge trading machine in the background, but I've figured it out for myself and I'm not completely immune to it.

Sitting in an airport and having a free moment and grabbing the phone, but it's there, I have to discipline myself now to put it back and what you mentioned in the fly is that these are for me the quietest moments because I don't log in, I hope. I use the wifi if there is one but I can not read not watch a movie just eat for myself reflect on the things that happen that happened and those that I think will happen and and and I give myself time to think and, often, I am very surprised and you sit in the highlands and you look at this whole forum in the Amman community and everyone is staring at the screen and watching the stupidest movies you can ever see and I really enjoy looking into space.

This I look at the ceiling and I can do this for hours. I think it's really powerful. I didn't know that that discipline, that discipline, I think is very, very, very valuable for all of us to learn and really push the work forward, but you, us. Seeing the gratification is huge because in the long run, even though it's not instantaneous, it's infinitely easier to pick up the phone and look at an Instagram photo, which is why we're all addicted to that, it's harder to go down the path of just doing nothing for a while. time. and have self-reflection because it's also boring and all that, but in the long run so far it's so powerful and even in an office environment I encourage people to put their feet on the table, literally, feet on the table and stay in the space instead of staring at a screen and pretending we're working.

I think we're not giving ourselves time to sync anymore and I think we need that when you look at old photographs. I always say that within the team when old portraits of Churchill or very intelligent men appear. from the past, sitting in a footer and looking out, they're thinking, when are we sitting in a chair and looking up at a man behind the utilization and thinking no one does that anymore and I think that's super powerful and my kids Are you tired of that? I tell them the story every minute and I tell them to think about their life, but that will be a big difference from the future because we are all victims of the social media giants that suck us into the system, literally, that dragazine and I think that if we can resist. that we will be more competitive in a world where everyone will become carrots or vegetables, so I totally agree, well I guess we would say no, again that story is something I think about a lot, how can I teach that to my children?

You say they're so like they don't take you seriously when you say that, like stop that crap, yeah, something like that, and I think the only way is to leave, but continue by example and one day, one day, when they have their first real experience. mental suffering due to too much social media, what they will think of you and then click, that is the only way, but lead by example if you as a parent are sitting in front of your phone and even if you don't look at social media but you read the emails they would watch that damn don't do that at the table my two year old sees me and doesn't understand if I don't let him watch a movie and it's already starting yeah you talked about them you talked about them .

Desire to learn I think this is also a very important topic to realize that we are on a path of development, we are not frozen in what we are today and in our skills we can develop them even further. Every day is a learning opportunity, an opportunity to learn by talking to smarter people, simply different people embrace diversity and different opinions, and this is for me every day, I go out into the world with big eyes and eager to learn in an incredible way. progress, so learning is one of the most powerful things also for happiness because it gives you, you are proud of yourself, yes, it gives you a purpose if you see that you are growing as a human being, that equals happiness and intent of learning equals happiness that I have experienced, I think it is very, very valuable, especially if you can, if you can merge it with an objective or a goal that you want to place in the region, even if it is just to learn something about a certain topic, believe. progression and a certain degree of pain equates to how can you say it equates to growing as a human being, well I mean yeah that's another point, it's very important to strive towards pain because that's where you grow if you're always avoiding it. exactly not growing when you need to reflect on it, yes, not just racing against the world, so what is success for you in F1?

To make it simpler, well, the philosophical part is achieving my own expectations and not falling short of them. in F1, you know what happens in a force that's winning, it's winning the next race, yeah, yeah, that's actually me, so it's not even winning the championship, it's winning the next race, yeah, like that which I think that's really what you are extremely. in that sense and I mean, we all have that fear of failure, yes, but if you put if that's what, if that's what winning means, it's winning the next race every time, how can you deal with that, like the fear to fail? the pressure must be so gigantic and also where you are now you are on the top of Everest, you probably even understand it standing on the pole on the top of Everest, yeah, I mean there's almost no way there's no place at the top.

It's just now how to deal with it without that fear of failure of some at some point coming down from there or because we all have it yes, we don't have fear of failure in our lives. I'm just thinking yours is probably your position is extreme because you have billions of people watching you while you're at the top of Everest, the king of the king of Formula One, how do you deal with that yourself, how do you find a way to keep some calm in that situation? continue enjoying in that situation it is a very good topic because the pain of failure lasts much longer and is much more intense than the joy of winning I know I think about that I think I do that and the pressure every year The pressure has been growing with me and we see that within the team that exists towards the end of the season there are stages in which it is no longer enjoyable because you put a lot of pressure on yourself, it is not just me, it is many, many of my teammates. the team and it is something that you just need, you just need to accept and deploy all the strategies that we have talked about before.

Do mindfulness meditation. Find time for yourself from exercise. Eat well. Sleep well. Be disciplined but still have realistic goals. I think this. It is the most important thing to win all the races. It is not a realistic goal, although no, it is not realistic. What you need is that there is no sports team in the world nor any coach or athlete who has won all the games or all the races or all the championships every time. year and I am in the process of understanding that this is quite normal and that losing is part of the sport in which even within Formula One people applaud the underdog and we have been there five times. years and people would want to see someone else being competitive and I think for the sport it would be great if there were more of us fighting and for me personally, as much as I hate losing, I have embraced the idea of ​​not having a right to win, everyone can win this year.

I take it as a new challenge, but you are absolutely right, that could be a point where the pressures are no longer sustainable and I remember a conversation with your idiot, who I read a lot. He has been the most successful team manager so far and he told me that in his last year there was a moment in his career when he was on the grid at Monza and the feeling of failure was so enormous that he decided to call it a team manager day that I haven't gotten to that point yet. I've been there at times but I haven't gotten to the point where my pain threshold was so high that I told myself I need to do something else, but that time may come, but today I still really enjoy the ride and that could It means losing a championship.

Enjoying the trip could mean losing out overall if you really keep it all at home. The pain, yes, with this one, so when we used to negotiate, yes, one. The way to reduce your fear of failure is to make the worst case scenario seem good, yeah, and repeat it in your head, yeah, when we used to negotiate, you even told me the worst case scenario, yeah, so it's like you were searching in your head. and tell me at the same time, so yeah, if it doesn't work out well for you, then I have to take Ilan's or whatever and then you do it right in front of me, yeah, so I always thought. maybe you are very good at making the worst case scenario seem good so that there is not a big risk for you because in the worst case it is not that bad, that is a way for athletes to reduce their pressure and fear of failure.

Is this something you've considered or worked on or yes, negotiations aside, first of all, we're living in our own little bubble, there are much more important things than the next best contract or, come on, I want you to say it. , but you don't. you know yeah, we actually had an external site, we just didn't do it in your brain, you know, I said it's a lot worse, they're not winning a championship, so it wasn't like it worked for me, it kind of doesn't work. I saw your face after losing Monaco last year, which was just a race and not a championship, so it wasn't bad enough, but still know that this is working, progress with me, eventually I think I will eventually get there and I could accept , but what was your question.

I forgot the question. Well, Mount Everest knows if you work to create the worst case scenario, which is not losing, you won't win the championship, so Ferrari wins your second or even third. and Red Bull comes second, you work on it and repeatedly make it look good in your mind because then the worst case scenario isn't so bad. I think you have to plan ahead and you have to analyze all the scenarios, whether in the business you are launching into. In my opinion, in a project only if you can deal with the worst case scenario, exactly this is what I was trying to get at, yes, and in our negotiations, I remember in the past, I think being transparent is Soak, it is very important because designing the options that were there was not a question of pressure or that is just my thought of where we are, where we are as a team and today, as a team, all the points return to zero, we have a super group of individuals and the amount correct. of resources, but it is not a fact that we are winning this championship and that releases pressure it also releases pressure within the team, you can start to believe that for yourself too, yes, I always have, I mean, I know you.

I'm not sure about that, no, no, but that's the way to go. I think you should do this. I think then, first of all, you avoid the feeling of entitlement and we have seen in the past that some people thought they had the right to win every game. championship and they became arrogant and finally failed, that's one thing and another is a pressure release valve, because finishing second or third in a given race or in a championship is not the end of the world, as long as you can tell yourself same as "I've done the best job possible and then we come back and the narrative is needed anyway.

The underdog becomes the hero. The hero wins. The euro fails. The hero comes back and there everyone lovesto the hero. They try to get married in that penultimate piece. The topic would be leadership because I know that is your absolute specialty. Put people. I think a very important thing at Mercedes before you arrived, everyone was afraid to speak and you managed to change that. Yes, can you say it? I always said it's a way to make people feel safe, yes, just talk, that's the key ingredient. Can you talk a little bit about how you've managed to do that in the Mercedes team to grow that culture?

I think, first of all, it's important to establish an organization with the people who report to you and who you interact with and believe in them. You believe in a personality that you can recognize pretty quickly if someone likes you or not, and I think it's that first. It's an instinctive sense of whether someone is doing a decent job and knows what they're talking about, and once you've built the team, that's a process that took me a year to figure out who I thought was competent and had the right values, so you need to empower and trust, and we have a motto in the team which is "see it, say it, fix it", and that means you have to be able to speak up, you have to be able to tell your boss that we have made a mistake and only then, if you have a culture of complete transparency and honesty, only then can you improve as a team, you are no longer hiding anything, you are not playing conservatively to simply not make mistakes.

I think we need to take risks and we need to incentivize people to take risks and come up with innovations, scrutinize it, talk about it, make a joint decision about whether we think it's right or wrong, but that brutal transparency is absolutely crucial in any organization and how can? lead How do you encourage people to recognize their mistakes? I do it, I do that. I give a lot. People relate a lot to stories and images. It is much easier to understand and I go with it with the SAP. the scientific side and what I am saying is that when I see conflict or fear of speaking, what would be the typical example of an argument between two departments of Formula One, which one or a different difference of opinion and the human brain is wired in a De This way, if I tell you something you don't like or agree with, you're the very emotional side of your brain, the amygdala will take over and say "I don't like it" and switch into combat mode. at that point you're not listening to me anymore, you're just lifting, you're just thinking about your response, you're just thinking about how to retaliate, how to come back and strengthen your point of view and what you need to do is be aware of that reaction in your brain. and try to be rational, this doesn't sound so closed now you can be very scientific or Buddhist, it presents its presence and is present, but there is another rational in our brain which is the prefrontal cortex and that is the side of the brain that will say okay, why he has a different opinion and I tried to approach it in a way that I approach a different opinion with curiosity and not combat to see why Nico has a different opinion than mine and then I will.

We always had the same opinion, maybe most of the time it was just that the contract negotiation was different, so why does he have a different starter? Well, of course, it's your career, you want to have the best contract possible, make sure you're in the best car, which is your that's your goal and maybe my goal isn't aligned, but I can respect yours because I would do the same. and the moment you can respect someone else's position because of a different agenda, that's absolutely fine, then you can put it all on the table and I say: I know what you want to say, but my opinion is different and we need to find a compromise and This is something that I really enjoy creating and helping to co-create that culture in the team, it is very powerful also very often. you start a meeting by admitting a known mistake, yes I think when you don't think it's powerful when the stand, first of all, knowing the culture is very important and there are many books on knowing cultures, but as a man, how many of you read a many of them are written many of them yes, but some of them are not realistic there is a meeting cut that should not have more than five people in the room and since there will be no one at the time some of you will think about what to eat about him about dinner, others will check emails or think about email and two will be present if you never have everyone present except Flavio Flavio Flavio Briatore, any previous guests.

His way of doing it was strict, limit fifteen minutes, but that's there is a history to learn and maybe he was a little old Jesus Christ, but he has a role, there is a reason why he was successful and he wasn't. It forced everyone to get to the point in 15 minutes and I think it's a good strategy to get the culture of the meeting to have the boss come to the meeting and maybe if there's tension, release some of the tension with a stupid joke or admitting own mistake, let everyone else admit the mistake and I see that in our Monday morning reports if it's me or some of the leaders of the organizing organization would say, "Okay, agenda item number one." .

I made a mistake. That's why I could have made a different decision and that's so powerful because all the rest of us, younger ones, looked up and said, wait. One minute if you can admit that I can do that and then we will progress as an organization and one of the most important ingredients for success, right? Because then that's the only way people learn from mistakes made absolutely if you're sorry. getting fired or losing your position or your extension because of a mistake, that's a big deal, thank you very much just to finish, then your lifelong goal because you're having success, we have it, is to win the next race, but what about with the life? for happiness because I think in terms of success and from there it is still only half the way, you want to achieve much, much more, but where is the goal of life?

What do you wear? How do you see your legacy in the big picture? I think let's stop, which I'm sure your path too right now, yes I am, but even if it's that crazy, it's crazy and it's a journey and it won't last forever and I'm not even sure that you. I can win all the races, all the championships, you join in and this is something I am aware of and I can accept the challenge for me, the point for me is to enjoy the journey as long as I can contribute to the success of the team and make Mercedes and help to the Mercedes brand.

I'll continue doing what I do if Derek. I will honestly evaluate if there is a time when I no longer enjoy it or can't contribute the way I think I do at that time. I'll call it a day and change my role maybe within the team or do something else, but the most important thing for me is that my marriage is the biggest thing that I'm trying to protect to have good, really good relationships within the team. The family is the best possible debt for my children, even if they are teenagers, they do not always think that I am what I am, but I try to give them a basis for a happy life for themselves and then I think that things will be fixed and I would like to return to be an investor one day and look at the world and observe macroeconomic trends and then implement them.

I'm talking about investment strategies that will come back one day and make you billionaires, as you know today. We are counting a time back, so I mean a lot, including all of life. Keep you Northern molecules well. Thank you very much for your time. I hope, I really hope that you, dear listener, enjoyed it too to see this different side, the personal side. I really enjoyed it, I thought it was very, very inspiring and subscribe to the podcast, yes, if it's your first time listening to it, and that is, yes, and watch you do it again this year, informally.

I'm sure it's going to be an exciting season, you know Nico? thank you thank you for inviting me to the podcast I am very excited to follow your second career you have been as successful as possible informal we have become world champions we have checked the box you surprised me on a plane trip that ended that it is very clear that there was no no It makes sense to agree with you about that. I couldn't tell you at that famous dinner on the plane because I would have started crying. I didn't want to. I didn't want to cry, so no, but you said we had to have dinner on the plane, we had dinner and I was there for two hours, you said in front of me and there was something essential that you didn't do, it was only when landing. that you said no, but I have no doubts about your second career and the things to come, you will be trying as hard as you did before the race driver, the podcast is like it's just one of the many things that you do and it's really sharp o How are they doing it?

Thank you bye everyone.