The Exchanges

Q What are some of the best mental models for athletic performance?

A I think the ones that we organically talk about don't explicitly talk about our feedback loops, uh, systems thinking. And one in particular, I'll give you a specific example. We'll take, uh, arousal control. So an athlete has a certain arousal control reference point. They have their set points. It's probably at a higher level than your average person because of they're playing under the bright lights in front of fans. Like, Their heart rate's up all the time. A lot of pressure's going on. Now, they're used to that. They have a certain reference point, and we even call it a number of intensity. On a scale of one to 10, what, what's your, what's your reference level of, of, of where you play at your best? A lot of players will say, oh, I'm at my best from five to seven, from six to eight. They describe what it feels like and so forth. Anything higher is too much. Anything lower is too small. And then what they create are these balancing loops. If they're too low, Okay, what do you do to get your number up? And if you're too high, what do you do to slow it down? Now, what's often happens in the playoffs or in the World Series, uh, in high leverage, stressful situations, players will recognize that their heart rate is up. Oh, there's a signal. I need to activate a balancing loop. I need to bring my heart rate down because my, it is getting outside of my, my reference level. What d…

AI assessment note: “feedback loops, uh, systems thinking. And one in particular... arousal control.”

Q the physical stuff, training and working out and eating right. Rarely do we give much thought to sort of mental performance and yet you can't really train your body unless you train your mind. A strong body can't make a strong mind, but a strong mind can make a strong body. You're a mental performance coach. Let's explore that for a bit. Starting with what is a mental performance coach?

A That's such a great question. And depending on who I talk to, I will change my answer or articulate it in a different way. I think just for the sake of this podcast, I have a, uh, I could explore a little bit more and explain a little bit deeper. I think it's a very convoluted term. Sometimes you have these buzzwords, high performance, mental performance, mental skills. And I think one of the best ways to Explain mental performance is to look at physical performance. Like, like you said, you're a hundred percent right. And I think a very simple and in some. Circles and over oversimplifying physical performance is the activation of motor skills to achieve a task. Now, if we look at mental performance, it's the activation of mental skills to achieve a task. And then the second question is, okay, so what are mental skills? Now, mental skills are what your guests speak about on this podcast all the time. It's, it's what knowledge workers will learn. It's your ability to zoom in and to zoom out to gain better perspective, your ability to conduct a premortem, your ability to deploy gratitude in a difficult situation. It's your ability to talk to yourself instead of listen to yourself. And so my job is helping individuals and organizations or teams to How do you, how do you operationalize that? It's the application of mental models. It's the application of, of decision sciences and so…

AI assessment note: “my job is helping individuals and organizations or teams to How do you operationalize that”

Q is explained by pushing through good enough and going beyond what you think is possible beyond what other people, when other people give up. You need to find an extra gear. I think of this in terms of standards, the standards you have for yourself, the standards that come from the organizational culture, the standards that come from the people you're around. How do we go about raising that bar?

A I think in order to whatever bar you have or whatever norms you want to create or standards in your term, what you said that you want to create, it needs to be supported by the system you create. I think a lot of, and we've been talking a lot about systems and environments in this conversation. I have seen organizations, not necessarily a professional sports organization, but just different organizations where the leadership wants to have certain norms, certain standards. However, the, their modeling, they don't signal those norms themselves, and the system isn't built to satisfy those norms. How can you Say, we're going to, we're going to create the standard is going to be psychological safety where everyone feels safe to be creative and fail, but in a meeting when someone comes up with this idea that might not work, you cut their head off and say, that's a dumb idea. It's like, okay, we're the, what we're modeling and signaling is not in alignment with what the standards and the norms are. So I think number one is to, okay, What standards do you want? And what are the behaviors that will model or signal this standard? And then you look at the system. Where in our system does our system, can it support this? When you talk about the extra gear, when you talk about someone who wants to write a book, someone who wants to enter a fitness competition, someone who wants to start a b…

AI assessment note: “it needs to be supported by the system you create.”

Q One of the things I got out of that Chris Bosch, uh, conversation was that some people sort of accomplished their goals. They set for themselves, whether it's, you know, winning a championship or saving a million dollars or getting a promotion, and then something changes. They take their foot off their gas and they slow down. What's happening there?

A This is another part of that goal gradient effect. We tend, this is the problem with the 30 day, the 30 day weight loss programs. This is the problem with having finite destinations or finish lines to whatever you're trying to achieve. Because what happens a lot of times is you, once you achieve it, once you sprint past the finish line, What do we tend to do? We take our foot off the gas. And so, and a lot of times because you exert so much effort and so much power to sprint your way towards the end, like, oh, that's unsustainable. You can't sustain that amount of effort all the way through. And so what Chris mentions is, is so true is there is a time for rest and recovery. There is a time where you need to, okay, Work like a lion and attack and then rest, attack and then rest. How can you set your goal pursuits up just like that? It's not, I'm going to be happy when it's creating this longevity, these systems where you can keep going further and further and further, because as the Haitian proverb says, behind mountains are more mountains behind goals are more goals. And if you prime yourself for that and say, okay, I need to Be ready for the long haul. And a lot of times it's just a priming yourself, a mental, just mentally being ready for, to say, hey, this, I'm not just trying to win today. I'm trying to win for the long haul.

AI assessment note: “This is the problem with having finite destinations or finish lines to whatever you're trying”

Q them. And then you have people who, who, you know, seek glory. We all have these different motivations. I'm curious as to what you see with athletes. Is there a difference in the motivation between Average athletes, which are, you know, way above average in the world. Um, but at your level, average sort of like baseball players and the elite baseball players, is there a different in that drive?

A You know, that's a, there, there is actually a book called drive out there that, that I think there are some physiological, uh, components that attributed to it. I, there could be some, some nature part, some nurture part too. I think it's very complex. However, uh, just some patterns that I've noticed. Is the Hall of Famers who I've talked to, or who I've seen, or the best of the best. There's, for a lot of them, there's this obsession. This, this point to where They are almost obsessed with whatever thing they are trying to pursue. Now, some of them are very process driven, and they're obsessed with the process, and the results are a byproduct of the process. There are some who are obsessed with results, and they're driven by results, and I will never, I've tried it a few times to nudge a professional athlete who are, who are results focused to be more process focused, I didn't work out with some of them. They're like, no, don't tell me how to shape and what, how I should view my goals that that won't work for me. So I learned very quickly that, okay, even though the research says that there, it'd probably be more ideal to focus on the process. It's the drive for the next contract to win the super bowl, to win the world series, to be a hall of famer. That is what lights their fire. Now, what I have also noticed is the goal gradient effect being very prevalent. In these athlet…

AI assessment note: “the Hall of Famers who I've talked to... there's this obsession.”

Q You said something that I thought was quite profound when you were talking there about talking to yourself, not listening to yourself. Can you dive in on that?

A Yeah, I think what happens to a lot of us is As humans, we have this constant chatter going in our, in our minds, constantly thinking, constantly ruminating. It's just, we're getting inputs from our own thoughts, from our interpretations, from what we're reading, from what we think other people are thinking, and it's easy to get caught into these traps, to get caught into believing some of these biases that we have, believing some of these thoughts, and we'll take these thoughts, and these thoughts are closely Coupled and tied to our emotions and which will, and our emotions will ultimately impact our body and our physiology, which will ultimately impact our behaviors. And so as humans, we need to learn how to look at our thoughts and to develop a relationship with them, understand what is signal and what is noise. And it will change from time to time, depending on what context, depending on what environment you're in. But basically what talk, what listening to yourself is, is Looking at your thoughts and attaching truth to all of them and saying, yep, that's true. That's true. That's true. As opposed to pausing and debating your thoughts. An example that we do quite often is I'll have a room full of people, let's say it's a team, and I will tell every player to pick a teammate. Ok, this is your teammate, and what you're going to do is you are going to do something that you do …

AI assessment note: “listening to yourself is, is Looking at your thoughts and attaching truth to all”

Q them to reflect upon themselves. And to do that, you, you, you hit on this earlier. You have to be open and you have to be honest with you and themselves in your company, uh, What are the ins and outs sort of like about how you go about connecting with people and earning their trust so that they can be open with you and open with themselves around you?

A I think that is the hallmark of the ability to build relationships. I think number one is organic. I think it, it wasn't from a book I read. It wasn't from a podcast. I think it's done from watching and copying My parents and how they were number one. And then number two, it's the double helix. It's in my DNA. It's just how it is. And so I think, uh, at first it was an unconscious competence that I had where it's like, oh, I just have an ability to make friends. And I think one of those reasons I can build connections is I first, let's talk about the, the population I work with. Everyone's clamoring for their attention. They're incredibly competent at what they do. And there. BS radar is very high. They, their media are like, what are you, what are you trying to put your fingerprints on me so you can put my face on a website and say, oh, you helped me with my mental toughness? Are you trying to sell something? Uh, you're going to use me. A lot of professional athletes, that's where it goes, and so at first, you can't shove anything. You are not shoving mental skills or tools down their throat, and so I can say all I want, but they're going to watch behavior. They're gonna see how I go around, what I do, and so I think number one, it starts by being there. Being, if it's hot outside, you're out there sweating with them. If it's cold outside, you're out there freezing cold with t…

AI assessment note: “it starts by being there. Being, if it's hot outside, you're out there sweating”

Q There's two things that you said in that answer that really stand out to me. And I want to explore a little deeper. What is the relationship between environment and our subconscious and performance? And what are the things that we can do to, to improve our environment, to improve our performance?

A I think James clear in his book, atomic habits says it best for me. And I, and I always talk about it. The environment is the invisible hand that shapes behavior. If you want to take a look at someone's behavior, take a look at the system in which they function in, take a look at their morning routine, take a look at their home, take a look at everything. I here's a, here's a simple little example about the power of environment is systems thinking, uh, applying the model of systems thinking, uh, I got a text one time. I got a, I got a call. It was a call from a player one time, and he said, oh, I lack confidence. I'm lacking confidence right now, and, and we had been talking about confidence. He's like, it was interesting how you, I, for some reason, I, I don't have confidence right now, and early in my career, I would have said, okay, let's do self-talk. Okay, let's talk about, um, uh, talking yourself instead of thinking yourself, whatever it may be, And instead of going there, environment design popped into my mind. Systems thinking popped into my mind. I thought, who did you talk to today? And he goes, oh, I went to visit my old school. I ran into an old coach. I had a conversation with my dad, and then as he was describing his day, it dawned on him. Oh my goodness. I hadn't been to that school until since some of my worst days, and that was a terrible experience for me. Oh…

AI assessment note: “The environment is the invisible hand that shapes behavior.”

Q that sounds a bit hocus pocus. And, uh, I ran your name by two major league baseball GMs and they both came back saying you're entirely legit, but how do you overcome? And maybe it's just my stereotype, but like the, the notion that a lot of people in the trade are sort of snake oils people, or it's really hard to differentiate between good and great Mental performance coaches.

A Uh, first of all, I don't know who you asked, and I'm so grateful for, for them saying what they said. Um, my follow-up question to them would be, how do you know? What evidence do you have? And so that's how, that's my initial knee-jerk reaction to be quite honest. I think to your point, A mental performance coach, when you say that, a lot of people say, oh, so you're a motivational speaker. Oh, so you're an inspirational speaker. Oh, so you're a life coach. No offense to any of those things. Um, however, With the circles that I, I, I work with, there is a, there's rigor that's involved. There are processes. There's complexities. I, the athletes that I work with, they don't need a motivational speaker. They don't need an inspirational speaker. It comes from within. Um, another part of this is just naturally, I'm an excitable person. Naturally, I have a lot of energy that flows through me. And, um, Naturally, from what I have been told, just my personality, um, I, in some circles, can be likable. I could be, my, my friendliness, and, and, let's say, charisma, or whatever it may be, can be perceived as, oh, this guy knows what he's, he knows what he's talking about. Now, as, and there's studies to show that, there's studies to show that. Now, it's my job to be a true professional and If people are going to get trapped in those biases and think, okay, this person knows what he's …

AI assessment note: “there is a, there's rigor that's involved. There are processes. There's complexities.”

Q check, everybody's running around trying to make it look like they're doing a whole bunch of stuff, and, and they probably are doing a whole bunch of cool stuff, but they're working harder in that three months, and they probably worked in the other nine, and why can't we just do that monthly? Like, why can't we, we set up that, the short-term goals are even weekly in some companies.

A That's a great, that's a great Question. And to answer the initial question, are, are contracts set up like that? I have not, I don't, I don't know. I don't know. Um, that's, that's a, a circle of competence that I have. I don't have. Um, and so with that, but to your point, your apps, that's so true because a lot of times with incentives and bonuses like that in the professional sports world, there are so many uncontrollable factors. And when you are trying to control something that's uncontrollable, you There are some unintended things that pop up. You may be perceived as more selfish. You may be perceived as a little more panic when the things that you try to control but can't end up controlling you, and I have seen firsthand where I see players a little bit more stressed out than normal. Their, their, their, their reference level or their set points, a little bit, their mood, a little more agitated, a little bit more chippy, and then you say, hey, what's going on? Oh, I'm one stolen base away. I'm 10 hits away. I'm, and I'm like, oh, ok, alright, and so it's, ok, how do I keep things in perspective, just trust my ability, and so these are conversations that are had, not just with professional athletes, but even with people who are about to, professionals about to close a quarter or whatever it may be as they're getting closer, it's like, ok, let me keep doing what I've been…

AI assessment note: “I don't know. Um, that's, that's a, a circle of competence that I have. I don't have.”

Q The world is full of talented people who never seem to succeed. What's the difference between success and talent?

A Everyone needs to find their own definition of success. What does death? What does success look like to you? I think people struggle when they allow the world or society to dictate what success looks like. That's where I have seen people, including myself, Become the worst version of themselves, pursuing a goal, pursuing a definition of success that really doesn't matter to you. I can think in my own life, my definition of success has been, has evolved over time, completely different now than, than it used to be. And I think another thing is one of the reasons for that is Is how we view people in organizations that we perceive as successful. The books are written about the best in the world. The documentaries are made about, uh, world champions. The movies are made about these amazing, incredible stories. But what we learn from survivorship bias is that a lot of these people who didn't win, a lot of them were doing the exact same thing. A lot of these guys and these men and women who were came in second place and third place Had the same process, and in some cases, an even better process. What I have learned in pro sports is that winning masks so many things. You could win, but what's talked about is how great your culture is in your winning, but it over, it just overshadows all of the, the deficiencies and the, the, the, the problems in the system, and then you look at a losin…

AI assessment note: “Everyone needs to find their own definition of success.”