Latest / Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor / Attentional Control: The Secret Weapon for High Performance with Dr. Haley Perlus
Transcript
- 0:09Speaker 1: Doctor Haleley purlis welcome to the podcast.
- 0:12Speaker 2: Hi, thanks for having me, Thanks.
- 0:15Speaker 1: For having me again.
- 0:16Speaker 3: You should say I would say welcome back to the podcast,
- 0:19Speaker 3: but our listeners have not experienced you before, even though
- 0:22Speaker 3: I have.
- 0:23Speaker 1: Interviewed you last week. And I gotta fess up that
- 0:28Speaker 1: the tech.
- 0:30Speaker 3: Just had a little grenlin in it after seventeen minutes.
- 0:34Speaker 3: It's just there was no me and just you talking
- 0:36Speaker 3: to yourself.
- 0:38Speaker 2: That happens all the time, and I'm just talking to myself.
- 0:41Speaker 2: But we got a dry run, we got we got
- 0:44Speaker 2: simulation training.
- 0:47Speaker 1: We did.
- 0:47Speaker 3: We did get simulation training, which is very important in
- 0:51Speaker 3: peak performance, isn't it. And that's a little nice segue.
- 0:55Speaker 3: So you are a sports psychologists. Tell us first of all,
- 0:59Speaker 3: what brought you into that field?
- 1:02Speaker 2: A great story, if I can say so myself. I'm
- 1:05Speaker 2: so lucky. I grew up as a ski racer, and
- 1:08Speaker 2: a pretty good one. And when I was I peaked
- 1:11Speaker 2: at twelve, so I should say I was a pretty
- 1:13Speaker 2: good one at twelve.
- 1:15Speaker 1: Peaked at twelve.
- 1:17Speaker 2: But I was twelve years old and I was competing
- 1:20Speaker 2: in the World championship for my age group, and my coach,
- 1:23Speaker 2: oh wow, and my coach, right before I was about
- 1:26Speaker 2: to compete, pulls out one hundred I'm Canadian. So he
- 1:28Speaker 2: pulled out one hundred Canadian dollar bill, placed it in
- 1:31Speaker 2: front of my face and told me that he had
- 1:34Speaker 2: bet on me to win this Junior Junior Junior World championship.
- 1:41Speaker 1: Wow.
- 1:41Speaker 3: That's an interesting technique.
- 1:45Speaker 2: I don't recommend it, but it.
- 1:47Speaker 1: Worked really that Wow? So what was the motivation behind that?
- 1:56Speaker 2: Well, it can go two ways. Right on one hand, yeah,
- 1:59Speaker 2: handed can go to anger, frustration, worry, fear. How could
- 2:04Speaker 2: a coach bet on me and tell me? What if
- 2:08Speaker 2: he's wrong? What if I make a mistake and let
- 2:10Speaker 2: him down? Flip side? Are you kidding me? Can you
- 2:17Speaker 2: trust me? You believe in me? That's and I remember thinking, Wow,
- 2:22Speaker 2: if my coach has high expectations, doesn't that mean I'm
- 2:25Speaker 2: doing something right? And I went down and I did win.
- 2:29Speaker 2: This is funny. My coach came down, congratulated me, kept
- 2:32Speaker 2: all the money for himself, but he said something to
- 2:38Speaker 2: me that carved out my life. He said, it's amazing
- 2:41Speaker 2: what your performance can be like when you get your
- 2:44Speaker 2: head straight. Two weeks later, he brought a sports psychologist
- 2:50Speaker 2: to come and speak to my team and click click.
- 2:53Speaker 2: I went home and I told my parents at twelve
- 2:55Speaker 2: that I wanted to be a sports psy gal when
- 2:56Speaker 2: I grew up.
- 2:59Speaker 3: Oh wow, I wonder how many people have a story
- 3:03Speaker 3: of what they wanted to be when they were twelve
- 3:06Speaker 3: that they went on to actually do.
- 3:08Speaker 1: That's really interesting.
- 3:09Speaker 3: How did you so interesting at twelve years old being
- 3:13Speaker 3: at the World Championships. What was the pressure like for
- 3:19Speaker 3: you then? Did you feel the pressure or were you
- 3:22Speaker 3: just like this twelve year old going this is really
- 3:24Speaker 3: exciting and didn't really process the wit of what you
- 3:29Speaker 3: were doing.
- 3:30Speaker 2: Well. And remember it was the World Championships for my
- 3:32Speaker 2: age group, right, so it was this big event I was,
- 3:36Speaker 2: you know, I was chosen as Team Canada. There was
- 3:39Speaker 2: a lot of excitement, But I don't think. I don't
- 3:43Speaker 2: think I had like pressure other than the fact that
- 3:47Speaker 2: I was chosen. I'm good enough to be here and
- 3:51Speaker 2: to wear the Team Canada jacket, and I think I
- 3:55Speaker 2: embraced it. I have great parents, great parents, and I
- 3:59Speaker 2: have even though you put a pressure on me. He
- 4:01Speaker 2: also I believed coached me to embrace pressure. Pressure. Pressure
- 4:07Speaker 2: is a privilege. Pressure means you're doing well, and I
- 4:09Speaker 2: think he ingrained that inside of me, and there was
- 4:13Speaker 2: I don't think I felt a whole lot of anxiety,
- 4:16Speaker 2: nervousness and excitement absolutely, anxiety not so much.
- 4:22Speaker 1: Yeah, very cool.
- 4:23Speaker 3: I love that pressure is a privilege, and you know,
- 4:27Speaker 3: often pressure comes with mental blocks. And in your book
- 4:32Speaker 3: Personal Podium, you talk a lot about overcoming mental blocks.
- 4:36Speaker 3: And as a sports psychologist, I think that's kind of
- 4:39Speaker 3: bread and butter, isn't it helping people to overcome mental blocks?
- 4:43Speaker 3: So what are some of the biggest mental blocks that
- 4:47Speaker 3: you see with people and how can we address them?
- 4:50Speaker 3: And before you get into that, I think we do
- 4:52Speaker 3: need to let people know not only your sports psychologist,
- 4:54Speaker 3: but you also work with a lot of executives and
- 4:58Speaker 3: I know a number of sports psychologists and and the
- 5:00Speaker 3: techniques are very very applicable to the business world, anybody
- 5:07Speaker 3: who has to our military, anyone who has to perform
- 5:10Speaker 3: under pressure, Like sports psychology, that's where you want to
- 5:13Speaker 3: go to, right, So talk to us about some of
- 5:17Speaker 3: the biggest mental blocks you see in athletes and executives,
- 5:20Speaker 3: and what are some things that people can do to
- 5:23Speaker 3: overcome them and where do they come from as well?
- 5:27Speaker 3: Let's just dive into the word of mental blocks.
- 5:30Speaker 2: It's true, and you know and similar to you too,
- 5:33Speaker 2: using the techniques for health behavior change as well, so wellness, business,
- 5:38Speaker 2: and sport. Fear, fear of failure, fear of success, fear
- 5:44Speaker 2: of you know, if I do it once, then I'm
- 5:46Speaker 2: going to have the pressure to do it over and
- 5:47Speaker 2: over and over again. You know, there's the fear of
- 5:51Speaker 2: you know, living up to the reputation that I create
- 5:54Speaker 2: for myself. Competitive anxiety. If people don't know how to
- 5:58Speaker 2: embrace competition comes, they have a mental block around competition, injury,
- 6:06Speaker 2: you know, damaging themselves, discomfort, the sacrifices that you're going
- 6:11Speaker 2: to have to make. You know, with every health behavior change,
- 6:15Speaker 2: with every success, there are sacrifices and so that comes
- 6:18Speaker 2: with a whole lot of mental blocks as well.
- 6:23Speaker 3: And so what are some things that people actually before
- 6:26Speaker 3: we get into the things that people can do, do
- 6:29Speaker 3: you find there is a different motivator or a different
- 6:35Speaker 3: driver between fear of failure versus fear of success. Because
- 6:39Speaker 3: everybody will have heard a fear of failure, but not
- 6:41Speaker 3: a lot of people will probably have heard of fear
- 6:45Speaker 3: of success. Although there are big mental blocks around people,
- 6:49Speaker 3: you know, just don't do it because then you're going
- 6:53Speaker 3: to have to live up to it.
- 6:55Speaker 2: It's a big it's a big thing. And actually there
- 6:58Speaker 2: are a lot of people who you know, may may
- 7:02Speaker 2: be talented, may have the mental skill set, but they
- 7:07Speaker 2: don't want the responsibility of needing to win and stay
- 7:11Speaker 2: on top. That they won't ever let themselves get there
- 7:16Speaker 2: because the chase to be first is actually, in my
- 7:19Speaker 2: humble opinion, easier yeah than staying first. And so Tiger
- 7:27Speaker 2: Woods said it the best. The difference between the great
- 7:30Speaker 2: and just the very good is being able to do
- 7:33Speaker 2: it again and again and again. And the best athletes
- 7:37Speaker 2: out there, most of them that I can think of,
- 7:40Speaker 2: don't win all the time because that's not possible. Winning
- 7:43Speaker 2: isn't loyal to anybody, but they consistently, consistently stay ahead
- 7:49Speaker 2: of the game.
- 7:52Speaker 3: And so then talk to talk us through some of
- 7:55Speaker 3: the things that we can do to address these various
- 7:59Speaker 3: mental blocks.
- 8:00Speaker 2: So I offer three suggestions, and we can talk about
- 8:03Speaker 2: them in general terms so that everyone who's who's watching
- 8:05Speaker 2: and listening can kind of relate it to them to
- 8:07Speaker 2: their life. So one way is actually nothing to do
- 8:11Speaker 2: with your mental and everything to do with your environment.
- 8:15Speaker 2: And often we will fear, we will have anxiety, fear, frustration, worry,
- 8:21Speaker 2: anger because of the environment, because the people we're keeping
- 8:24Speaker 2: around us, or this situation, the physical you know, environment,
- 8:29Speaker 2: our technique are sorry, not our technique, our equipment, the people,
- 8:34Speaker 2: the environment. So if we can manipulate the situation, and
- 8:38Speaker 2: I say that in a good way, we can manipulate
- 8:41Speaker 2: what's going on outside of our minds. Sometimes that automatically
- 8:46Speaker 2: relieves the mental block inside. So that's one situation. And
- 8:50Speaker 2: in the business world, I've had people, you know now
- 8:53Speaker 2: that many of us are working remotely, I've had people
- 8:55Speaker 2: just rearrange their office and you think it's you think
- 8:59Speaker 2: it's you know, maybe simple or insignificant. It can be
- 9:03Speaker 2: very significant, depending on which window you're looking at, or
- 9:07Speaker 2: the colors in your room, or the organization. So that
- 9:10Speaker 2: overwhelm and that frustration can sometimes be taken away with
- 9:14Speaker 2: just manipulating the environment. I've also had people change locations
- 9:18Speaker 2: of countries, right, so it can go from small to big.
- 9:21Speaker 2: If you can't manipulate the external, if you can't change
- 9:25Speaker 2: your situation, or you can but you don't want to
- 9:27Speaker 2: because that can bring other stressors. Then we want to
- 9:30Speaker 2: reframe things, and I'll share a story if I can,
- 9:34Speaker 2: and I'll use an athlete is a story that I
- 9:36Speaker 2: tell often because it's I think it will relate to everyone.
- 9:41Speaker 2: I had an athlete who was a junior athlete, so
- 9:43Speaker 2: he was nineteen, his last year being a junior athlete,
- 9:46Speaker 2: and he could practice really well, train wonderfully. He choked
- 9:51Speaker 2: in competition and the mental block was one of intimidation.
- 9:56Speaker 2: So in practice, right, it was all about what he's
- 9:59Speaker 2: going to do to his game, present moment, and in
- 10:02Speaker 2: competition he was intimidated by three specific opponents. What are
- 10:06Speaker 2: they going to do to beat me? Is what he
- 10:08Speaker 2: thought about. That was the mental block, how are they
- 10:10Speaker 2: going to beat me? The interesting thing was that those
- 10:13Speaker 2: three opponents were also his teammates. They were there in
- 10:17Speaker 2: practice when he was focusing on himself. They were there
- 10:21Speaker 2: in competition when he was focusing on them. So we
- 10:24Speaker 2: had to we can't change the situation because those three
- 10:27Speaker 2: opponents are there and everywhere he goes, they're not going
- 10:30Speaker 2: to quit. He's not going to quit, so we can't
- 10:32Speaker 2: change it. So I asked him to think about it differently,
- 10:36Speaker 2: and I asked him a very clear question, what level
- 10:39Speaker 2: of competition. Who do you want to be competing against?
- 10:43Speaker 2: People much weaker than you at your level or way
- 10:47Speaker 2: above you? Who do you want to be competing against?
- 10:50Speaker 2: You know when it matters most, And he said, I
- 10:52Speaker 2: want to be competing against my peers. I want to
- 10:54Speaker 2: be competing against somewhat at my level because then when
- 10:57Speaker 2: I win, it means something. I also have a chin
- 11:00Speaker 2: ants of winning because they're not much better. So aren't
- 11:03Speaker 2: you happy that these three opponents are there with you
- 11:05Speaker 2: in competition? Aren't you choosing them? And he said yes.
- 11:10Speaker 2: So instead of saying, oh no, what are they going
- 11:13Speaker 2: to do to beat me? Thank you opponents for showing
- 11:16Speaker 2: up today. I want you to bring your best because
- 11:19Speaker 2: I'm going to use your energy to motivate me to
- 11:22Speaker 2: bring my very best and beat you. And he reframed
- 11:27Speaker 2: that story. But then you have to rehearse it, you
- 11:30Speaker 2: have to train. So he journaled it, he visualized it,
- 11:34Speaker 2: he talked about it to me, and then he went
- 11:36Speaker 2: off to Sweden three months later to compete in the
- 11:39Speaker 2: Junior World Championships, and not only did he beat those
- 11:42Speaker 2: three opponents, he became the Junior World Champion.
- 11:46Speaker 1: I'm very cold, very cool, indeed.
- 11:48Speaker 3: So they we talked a little bit about stress and pressure.
- 11:53Speaker 3: So what role to Let's talk about how stress the
- 11:58Speaker 3: role that it plays and performance booths in the business
- 12:01Speaker 3: world and in the sports world, and how can people
- 12:06Speaker 3: harness it.
- 12:07Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a performance enhancer. We can harness it and
- 12:10Speaker 2: use it. So you have to remember what pressure is.
- 12:14Speaker 2: We feel pressure for things that we care about. We
- 12:18Speaker 2: feel pressure for things that we believe we can we
- 12:21Speaker 2: can have an impact on, we can do something, we
- 12:24Speaker 2: can be successful. So that's that's actually a sign of
- 12:27Speaker 2: self belief. And obviously we feel pressure when we're passionate
- 12:32Speaker 2: about something, when we're motivated to do something, when we're
- 12:35Speaker 2: in alignment. It's a value of ours. I don't feel
- 12:38Speaker 2: any pressure when I'm just learning something new and have
- 12:42Speaker 2: no expectations because I have no confidence. I don't feel
- 12:45Speaker 2: pressure about us that I don't care about. I feel
- 12:49Speaker 2: pressure about things that I do care about and that
- 12:51Speaker 2: I do believe in myself. So we have to remember
- 12:54Speaker 2: that pressure is a sign of desire and belief. So
- 12:59Speaker 2: that's the thing. And then what physiologically pressure is is energy.
- 13:06Speaker 2: Now a great example is you know those butterflies in
- 13:09Speaker 2: your stomach that we all can feel no matter what
- 13:12Speaker 2: you're doing. Yeah, those butterflies can be anxiety producing if
- 13:17Speaker 2: they're swarming all around us taking over our bodies and
- 13:21Speaker 2: our minds and taking over control. Or they can be
- 13:25Speaker 2: energy when we take control of them. A great symbolic
- 13:30Speaker 2: imagery technique that performers use is put those butterflies in
- 13:34Speaker 2: an inverted V in your stomach, just like birds fly above,
- 13:37Speaker 2: so that just like birds, we can be efficient. We
- 13:40Speaker 2: can be effective, We can be fast if we need
- 13:43Speaker 2: to be fast. So pressure is energy that's inside us
- 13:48Speaker 2: physiologically that we can then use to go out there
- 13:52Speaker 2: and make something happen with our strengths.
- 13:57Speaker 1: That is.
- 13:58Speaker 3: It actually reminds me of years ago with my kids
- 14:03Speaker 3: and they were competing in karate and doing kumite, which
- 14:07Speaker 3: is is combat, which is pretty full on right when
- 14:10Speaker 3: when when you're a kid, and actually when you're a
- 14:13Speaker 3: parent watching your kid do any type of sport, you know,
- 14:17Speaker 3: you kind of get into it and live a bit vicuriously.
- 14:20Speaker 3: But when you see your kids fight, it's completely different level.
- 14:25Speaker 1: Right.
- 14:25Speaker 3: But I remember and talking to my kids and and
- 14:30Speaker 3: Kira was at one stage talking about the how she
- 14:35Speaker 3: was feeling anxious and nervous, and I was saying to her,
- 14:39Speaker 3: that's just energy, that's all it is, and you need
- 14:42Speaker 3: to harness that energy. And we did this little process
- 14:47Speaker 3: around her creating this best self we called what she
- 14:53Speaker 3: called Shaka, which is a She came up with that word,
- 14:56Speaker 3: which is I think at Zulu for great warrior, right,
- 15:00Speaker 3: And she actually decided when she was competing, I think
- 15:04Speaker 3: was in the Victorian Championships, she said she actually said
- 15:07Speaker 3: to me, Dad, I'm going to use this energy to
- 15:11Speaker 3: transform me into shaka. And as soon as I step
- 15:17Speaker 3: onto the tatami, that energy is going to transform me
- 15:22Speaker 3: into Shaka, which I thought was really cool. So she
- 15:25Speaker 3: took a couple of little techniques and molded them together
- 15:29Speaker 3: and actually use that energy to actually give her that
- 15:34Speaker 3: lift or to transformer.
- 15:36Speaker 1: You know that.
- 15:37Speaker 3: And I don't know if you ever saw the kids
- 15:39Speaker 3: program the transformers where they would transform into something else.
- 15:45Speaker 1: And it is really about harnessing that.
- 15:47Speaker 3: And when you when you talk to athletes and go,
- 15:50Speaker 3: it's exactly the same like nervousness, anxiety, it is energy
- 15:56Speaker 3: and all you gotta do is harness that energy. You know,
- 16:00Speaker 3: you're a kid's lion and just say it's not time yet,
- 16:03Speaker 3: not yet, right.
- 16:05Speaker 2: So I was going to say to say an additional
- 16:11Speaker 2: tool that your daughter used, which is, I know what
- 16:13Speaker 2: you teach people too, is that best self? Right? So
- 16:16Speaker 2: when I the difference, one way that we can distinguish
- 16:20Speaker 2: retain anxiety and arousal, nervousness and excitement is confidence. It's
- 16:26Speaker 2: really hard to be anxious and confident at the same
- 16:30Speaker 2: time with anxiety, trying self doubt, nervousness, like this is
- 16:35Speaker 2: a challenge. I care and you know, like there's a
- 16:37Speaker 2: lot of there's a lot of energy, and I can
- 16:40Speaker 2: maintain confidence. So you had the best strength. With everyone
- 16:44Speaker 2: that I work with, we always start with your top
- 16:46Speaker 2: three fundamental strengths. And so when when you're experiencing that pressure,
- 16:51Speaker 2: one way to harness it is to remind yourself that
- 16:53Speaker 2: this is energy. And I'm going to now choose one
- 16:57Speaker 2: of those top three fundamentalstal strengths and expose myself to
- 17:02Speaker 2: that stressor with my strength. And that is how you
- 17:06Speaker 2: kind of stay away from the anxiety zone and embrace
- 17:09Speaker 2: the arousal zone, which is where peak performance happens.
- 17:13Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's kind of like this Goldilocks effect isn't
- 17:17Speaker 3: it really when you're talking about pressure, it can't be
- 17:20Speaker 3: too much, it can't be too little. It's got to
- 17:23Speaker 3: be just right, because if there's not enough, your body's
- 17:26Speaker 3: not going to be aroused enough, right. So I think
- 17:31Speaker 3: having that frame.
- 17:32Speaker 1: About arousal under arousal, over arousal.
- 17:36Speaker 3: Optimal arousal, and forgetting about anxiety and what you're talking
- 17:41Speaker 3: about are those little techniques that just bring the level
- 17:44Speaker 3: of arousal down into the goldilocks zone where it's really ideal.
- 17:50Speaker 3: And I think that that's really key for people to understand,
- 17:53Speaker 3: isn't it is that without pressure, without stress, you cannot
- 17:58Speaker 3: perform at your best. I think everybody can relate to
- 18:02Speaker 3: a job that they did at some stage that was
- 18:05Speaker 3: as boring as batshit, and I think if they reflect
- 18:09Speaker 3: their performance wasn't great because we all need a level
- 18:12Speaker 3: of arizal to get ourselves interested in both our bodies
- 18:15Speaker 3: and our brains right right.
- 18:17Speaker 2: And I was just noticing your pen. I use the
- 18:19Speaker 2: same pen. I love it. The four colors.
- 18:22Speaker 1: Yes, No, it.
- 18:26Speaker 2: Heightens your attentions. That's what this energy does. That's what
- 18:30Speaker 2: the pressure of the stress. It heightens our attention. It
- 18:33Speaker 2: again increases blood flow and a certain level of you know,
- 18:37Speaker 2: chemicals flowing through your body that we need. But you're right,
- 18:42Speaker 2: when we go past the point of our ideal zone
- 18:45Speaker 2: of optimal functioning. When we go past that point, you
- 18:49Speaker 2: know it's too much muscle tension. Our focus either gets
- 18:53Speaker 2: too too narrow or sometimes it's too broad that you
- 18:56Speaker 2: can't focus on anything at all. So our concentration is
- 18:59Speaker 2: impacted or body is impacted. The mental blocks come flying
- 19:02Speaker 2: in when it's when you go past that goldilocks, when
- 19:05Speaker 2: you go past that point of your ideal zone. So
- 19:08Speaker 2: we need to first identify what our individual zone of
- 19:12Speaker 2: functioning is, and then you have to create I mean,
- 19:16Speaker 2: I'm a big believer in just it's not just about
- 19:19Speaker 2: knowing this, it's it's figuring out how to do it.
- 19:22Speaker 2: You know, how to get into that zone. And we
- 19:24Speaker 2: all have visual cues, attentional cues, verbal cues that we
- 19:29Speaker 2: can utilize to consistently give us our best shot at
- 19:34Speaker 2: getting into that ideal zone of functioning.
- 19:38Speaker 3: And so to get all of this right, like how
- 19:42Speaker 3: important are routines? So you will see anybody who watches
- 19:49Speaker 3: sport closely will see certain athletes that have certain routines.
- 19:56Speaker 3: You know, you think of a pretty famous one. Nadal
- 19:59Speaker 3: the tennis place before he serves, has this little routine
- 20:02Speaker 3: that he does that it involves picking his undise out
- 20:05Speaker 3: of his arse as well.
- 20:07Speaker 2: You actually mentioned that there first go around here. Yes, yes, yes.
- 20:13Speaker 3: Because it's the one that really sticks with me, right
- 20:16Speaker 3: because it's so noticeable.
- 20:18Speaker 1: But he does it all of the I did do
- 20:20Speaker 1: it all of the time. But but talk to us about.
- 20:24Speaker 3: The importance of those routines and gaining people into that
- 20:30Speaker 3: mindset or that zone of optimal performance. And and how
- 20:35Speaker 3: can you know, business people, moms, dads, how can they
- 20:39Speaker 3: they use some of those techniques to just make sure
- 20:43Speaker 3: that they're in that zone of optimal functioning because, as
- 20:47Speaker 3: we said, too little that can just there's no motivation,
- 20:50Speaker 3: too much and empowers everything from cognition to motor control,
- 20:55Speaker 3: to reaction time, all of that stuff.
- 20:57Speaker 2: It's essential, it's essential. And what it does is it's prime.
- 21:02Speaker 2: It primes your mind, it primes your emotions, and it
- 21:05Speaker 2: primes your body. And you know, routine, that's how we
- 21:10Speaker 2: get it into our subconscious. Right. We are creatures of habit.
- 21:14Speaker 2: But nothing started off as a habit. Everything started off
- 21:18Speaker 2: as a ritual. Everything started off as these consistent routines,
- 21:22Speaker 2: and the more we do them, the more they became
- 21:25Speaker 2: ingrained and then became habit setting usself, setting ourselves up
- 21:29Speaker 2: for success. And as we mentioned, yes it could be
- 21:33Speaker 2: you know, picking out your wedgie, but it could be
- 21:37Speaker 2: certain songs. They are athletes that hum to ourselves. There
- 21:42Speaker 2: are affirmations mantras there. You know, you'll see people kind
- 21:46Speaker 2: of lip maybe they're talking out loud, but on TV
- 21:48Speaker 2: you'll just see their lips moving music. You see top
- 21:52Speaker 2: performers listening to music all the time that is very
- 21:55Speaker 2: selective music that they are using to zone in once.
- 22:01Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not a random Spotify playlist, is it?
- 22:03Speaker 3: No?
- 22:03Speaker 2: No, no, no? I Oh her name escapes me. But
- 22:07Speaker 2: there's this female hurdler. This she dances like you can
- 22:15Speaker 2: just google the dancing hurdler. Just do an online search
- 22:17Speaker 2: for the dancing hurdler. And she's got her hands on
- 22:19Speaker 2: her hips and she's like swaying and happy and you
- 22:22Speaker 2: go down the line and everyone else is so serious
- 22:25Speaker 2: and she's just block you know, doing this to keep
- 22:28Speaker 2: herself enthusiastic and energized because obviously anger does not suit her.
- 22:33Speaker 2: Before it it does not cryme her. So we can
- 22:36Speaker 2: do so many different types again, visual cues, physical cues,
- 22:42Speaker 2: verbal cues. They're all attentional cues that we create a
- 22:47Speaker 2: routine around that we do consistently that aid us to
- 22:52Speaker 2: give us the best opportunity to get into that zone.
- 22:56Speaker 2: And then here's the other thing that I'd like to
- 22:58Speaker 2: just intervene here too, Not only just about the pre
- 23:02Speaker 2: performance routine. I'm also a really big fan of the
- 23:06Speaker 2: post performance routine, so that you can have closure at
- 23:11Speaker 2: the end. You can put a period at that end
- 23:14Speaker 2: of your performance, whether it's giving a presentation, whether it's
- 23:19Speaker 2: you know, having a difficult meeting, going for a five
- 23:23Speaker 2: k run, whatever it might be, having a post performance
- 23:26Speaker 2: routine so that whatever happened in that performance does not
- 23:31Speaker 2: automatically have to have anything to do with your next performance,
- 23:36Speaker 2: good or bad.
- 23:39Speaker 3: Yeah, that that's actually a really important point, and that
- 23:43Speaker 3: that transfer from sports psychology to the business world. And
- 23:48Speaker 3: I will actually I often talk to the leadership teams
- 23:52Speaker 3: around this that when I was in the military, every
- 23:56Speaker 3: every time we went on a flight, so I was
- 23:59Speaker 3: military air crew, we we did a brief for the
- 24:02Speaker 3: flight and always, without feel did a debrief right. And
- 24:08Speaker 3: there wasn't a single flight that I ever went on
- 24:11Speaker 3: that we didn't do a debrief, and and the debrief
- 24:14Speaker 3: was about, you know, what went well? Did it go
- 24:16Speaker 3: according to plant? Did it not go according to plan?
- 24:19Speaker 1: What?
- 24:19Speaker 3: What sort of stuff did we learn right? And that
- 24:22Speaker 3: debrief came came out of really the air crew world,
- 24:26Speaker 3: because it's a very dangerous game. I remember an old,
- 24:31Speaker 3: crusty pilot who was was was training us called NIGHTE.
- 24:35Speaker 3: Hennell told us that when he first got his wings
- 24:42Speaker 3: and went out onto on his first assignment, he went
- 24:47Speaker 3: on an aircraft carrier and sealed from Southampton in the
- 24:51Speaker 3: UK to the Far East, and he said, by the
- 24:54Speaker 3: time they got to the Far East, half of all
- 24:56Speaker 3: the air crew were dead. Because operating helicopters off ships
- 25:03Speaker 3: in the nineteen sixties was particularly dangerous. So they created
- 25:08Speaker 3: that culture of having a debrief all of the time,
- 25:13Speaker 3: and then any incidents that happened, everybody heard about those incidents.
- 25:18Speaker 3: And still to this day, you're not allowed as the
- 25:21Speaker 3: aircraft captain to sign out your aircraft unless you've read
- 25:26Speaker 3: all of the aircraft incidents and signed off on them.
- 25:29Speaker 3: And that whole idea was learning from ourselves, learning just
- 25:33Speaker 3: those little things that happened consistently that you might not notice,
- 25:38Speaker 3: but also learning from others.
- 25:41Speaker 1: So I love that idea of that closure.
- 25:45Speaker 3: As well and using it as a learning lesson because
- 25:50Speaker 3: it's really important that we do that right.
- 25:52Speaker 2: It's essential. And at the time of this recording, Lindsey
- 25:55Speaker 2: Vaughn just she retired downhill ski racer, retired and then
- 26:00Speaker 2: at forty came back into ski racing and she just
- 26:05Speaker 2: earned a silver medal and a World Cup in an interview,
- 26:09Speaker 2: and she's had so many crashes. She's actually has a
- 26:12Speaker 2: knee replacement, and I don't know any other athletes that
- 26:14Speaker 2: have come back after retirement with a knee replacement and
- 26:18Speaker 2: being away from for six years in her sport. But
- 26:21Speaker 2: the reason I bring her up is because I was
- 26:23Speaker 2: just listening to her give an interview and she talked
- 26:26Speaker 2: about all the past performances and she and I quote,
- 26:30Speaker 2: learn any race because you have to have and that's
- 26:34Speaker 2: that closure piece. Do you completely erase it from your memory?
- 26:38Speaker 2: Not possible, maybe, and you don't not always want to
- 26:40Speaker 2: do that either, But if you're going to go from
- 26:42Speaker 2: one performance to the next, you have to be present,
- 26:45Speaker 2: right the best performers are the ones that are in
- 26:47Speaker 2: the moment present. So you debrief, you learn, and then
- 26:51Speaker 2: you momentarily at least erase the performance so that you
- 26:56Speaker 2: can then move on to the next present performance.
- 27:00Speaker 1: Nice. I like that.
- 27:01Speaker 3: And and that idea of president actually leads me into
- 27:05Speaker 3: another question and around process versus outcome. So what talk
- 27:13Speaker 3: us through that? I'm just going to throw that art
- 27:16Speaker 3: process versus outcome.
- 27:18Speaker 2: It's all I care about the process, process, process. It's
- 27:21Speaker 2: all I care about. Athletes, whether you're sport, business, wellness,
- 27:27Speaker 2: you'll come to me, and in my private practice, you
- 27:30Speaker 2: might tell me what it is that you want to achieve.
- 27:33Speaker 2: I will you know. I'm not I'm not going to
- 27:34Speaker 2: actually ask that question, though. I want to know what
- 27:38Speaker 2: your best strengths are, and then I want to know
- 27:40Speaker 2: what your process is and see how we can improve
- 27:43Speaker 2: upon it, what's working, what's not working. Eventually I'll learn
- 27:47Speaker 2: what the you know, what the outcome is that you're
- 27:49Speaker 2: wanting and if you come to me and tell me,
- 27:51Speaker 2: and that's great too if you know it. But there
- 27:55Speaker 2: are people who actually don't know what their outcome goals are.
- 27:58Speaker 2: Yet there are people who don't really know what it
- 28:00Speaker 2: is that they that they are doing what they're doing
- 28:03Speaker 2: for and that's perfectly acceptable to me. Let's get into
- 28:06Speaker 2: the process and then you're going to see what you're
- 28:09Speaker 2: made of. And it's the only way to truly realize
- 28:13Speaker 2: your potential is to dive into the process and be
- 28:17Speaker 2: consistent with that and then let the outcome take care
- 28:19Speaker 2: of itself.
- 28:21Speaker 3: Yeah, and and I find I actually working with karate athletes,
- 28:27Speaker 3: so I've been doing a bit of mindset coaching for
- 28:29Speaker 3: the Karate Australia athletes who are wanting to get to
- 28:34Speaker 3: the Olympics, the World Championships and talking to these elite
- 28:38Speaker 3: guys when they are in competition and they're focused on
- 28:44Speaker 3: the outcome on winning, that's when they they say that
- 28:48Speaker 3: their performance goes to ratchet, right, And it's because it's
- 28:53Speaker 3: it's a distraction and it also tips you out of
- 28:57Speaker 3: that goldilock zone and puts that extra pressure on about
- 29:02Speaker 3: winning or who's in the audience watching me that sort
- 29:05Speaker 3: of stuff, and it does two things. I think One
- 29:09Speaker 3: is it distracts you from being present and you talked
- 29:13Speaker 3: about the importance of that. But secondly, you're then with
- 29:18Speaker 3: that attention going to the outcome, it actually adds pressure, well,
- 29:23Speaker 3: what if I lose, right, am I going to win this?
- 29:25Speaker 3: That sort of stuff that can tip you out of
- 29:27Speaker 3: that goldilock zone into over arisal that can then affect performance.
- 29:32Speaker 3: So it's kind of it's a little bit twofold, isn't it.
- 29:36Speaker 3: From both of those things, it.
- 29:37Speaker 2: Also changes the experience of the outcome in my in
- 29:40Speaker 2: my humble opinion, when you're so focused, like you said,
- 29:44Speaker 2: the necessity to win whatever winning means to you, right,
- 29:47Speaker 2: it doesn't necessarily have to be first place, whatever, whatever
- 29:50Speaker 2: winning means to you, whatever that goal is. If you're
- 29:52Speaker 2: so focused on it and not focused on the process,
- 29:56Speaker 2: if if you do happen to get that win, sometimes
- 29:59Speaker 2: it can be more of a relief than a celebration. Yes, yes,
- 30:06Speaker 2: it's unfortunate because you've worked so hard, let's celebrate this
- 30:09Speaker 2: instead of Okay, thank goodness, I did what I set
- 30:13Speaker 2: out to do and listen. I do believe, obviously, I
- 30:15Speaker 2: do believe in goals. I believe that they are very motivating.
- 30:19Speaker 2: They when you fall down, there are a reason to
- 30:22Speaker 2: get back up. They provide persistence and determination, and they
- 30:27Speaker 2: help you create strategy for the process. Because this is
- 30:31Speaker 2: what I want to achieve. Now, how am I going
- 30:33Speaker 2: to get to it?
- 30:33Speaker 1: Yes?
- 30:34Speaker 2: But if that is what we're focusing on in the moment,
- 30:38Speaker 2: it is a distraction, like you said, so let it
- 30:40Speaker 2: motivate you and then but you have to be very
- 30:44Speaker 2: aware of when it actually is hurting you to be
- 30:47Speaker 2: focusing on the outcome instead of helping you with that energy.
- 30:51Speaker 2: We were talking about the process is the present moment?
- 30:56Speaker 1: Yeah?
- 30:56Speaker 3: Absolutely, So you talked really are about You mentioned a
- 31:01Speaker 3: little bit about failure or bouncing back. How do you
- 31:05Speaker 3: help people to bounce back from setbacks? Because sometimes when
- 31:09Speaker 3: someone has a big setback, whether it's in the corporate
- 31:13Speaker 3: world or in the sports world, it can be absolutely
- 31:17Speaker 3: crushing for them, and that ability to bounce back is
- 31:21Speaker 3: really case.
- 31:22Speaker 1: So what are some of the techniques that.
- 31:24Speaker 3: You use that everyone can can use and to help
- 31:28Speaker 3: them just bounce back and get back on the truck.
- 31:32Speaker 2: It's kind of similar to the acceptance of pressure. We
- 31:36Speaker 2: have to accept that that failure is an option. I
- 31:40Speaker 2: am not a big fan when I hear people say
- 31:42Speaker 2: failure isn't an option. It is an option. It happens
- 31:45Speaker 2: to every single person. There is not one top performer
- 31:50Speaker 2: in business or sport that has you know, won every
- 31:53Speaker 2: single step of the way. So failure is an option. Phew,
- 31:58Speaker 2: like relief. It can happen, and so now I don't
- 32:00Speaker 2: have to focus on it, and now let me focus
- 32:02Speaker 2: on the process. So that's one one thing. But even
- 32:05Speaker 2: in addition to that acceptance, we talk about striving for
- 32:12Speaker 2: perfection demanding perfection. I think those are two different things.
- 32:17Speaker 2: I personally strive for perfection. I want to be perfect
- 32:22Speaker 2: every single moment of my life, but I do not
- 32:26Speaker 2: demand it of myself because that is unnecessary, negative anxiety.
- 32:33Speaker 2: So I strive for perfection with the understanding. This is
- 32:36Speaker 2: why I'm going to bring in the acceptance of failure,
- 32:38Speaker 2: with the understanding that I will at some point fail,
- 32:42Speaker 2: I will fall down. So the then goal, if you will,
- 32:47Speaker 2: is to not just strive for perfection, but I also
- 32:50Speaker 2: have a secondary goal to be the best recover I
- 32:55Speaker 2: can be. So if I make a mistake, I'm not
- 32:58Speaker 2: going to harp on that mistake because I'm not done yet.
- 33:01Speaker 2: The work is not done. My work is now how
- 33:03Speaker 2: am I going to best recover? If I'm giving a
- 33:06Speaker 2: keynote and I forget my next line, right, I'm not
- 33:09Speaker 2: just going to walk off the stage. No, I'm going
- 33:11Speaker 2: to be the best recoverer I can be. How am
- 33:13Speaker 2: I going to immediately get myself back up? Team sports
- 33:17Speaker 2: do this all the time, or athletes do this all
- 33:20Speaker 2: the time. If they have a failure, they're not done yet.
- 33:22Speaker 2: It's not over. They have to best recover. And often
- 33:27Speaker 2: the athlete who wins at the end of the day
- 33:30Speaker 2: is not the perfect athlete. It's the athlete that best recovered.
- 33:34Speaker 2: So we have to change our mindset strive for perfection.
- 33:38Speaker 2: But failure happens. Okay, accept that, and now my focus
- 33:42Speaker 2: is when I fail, how am I going to best recover?
- 33:45Speaker 2: And often that's going to lead me to the optimal success?
- 33:50Speaker 3: And how important in recovery is learning from failures?
- 33:56Speaker 1: Is that?
- 33:57Speaker 3: Is that always an important part of the process or
- 34:00Speaker 3: are there times when you can still recover really well
- 34:04Speaker 3: without actually going through and going what can I actually
- 34:08Speaker 3: learn from this?
- 34:08Speaker 2: I think it depends on the situation. So if you're
- 34:11Speaker 2: now in a meeting and you stumble, or someone you
- 34:15Speaker 2: know throws a question at you that you can't answer,
- 34:18Speaker 2: you don't really have a moment to go off. Take
- 34:21Speaker 2: five minutes, take ten minutes and recover and then come back.
- 34:23Speaker 2: You have to bounce back. A figure skater falls in
- 34:26Speaker 2: their routine, they don't get to just sit and learn
- 34:29Speaker 2: and recover. They need to bounce right back. So you
- 34:31Speaker 2: have to really understand the situation in which you're in.
- 34:34Speaker 2: Other times there is an opportunity to recover, to renew
- 34:40Speaker 2: some energy, to let the emotions kind of work their
- 34:44Speaker 2: way in and out. If you're doing recovery properly, the
- 34:47Speaker 2: emotions will come in and then you'll let them go,
- 34:50Speaker 2: and then you can bring the logical mind back in
- 34:52Speaker 2: to say, okay, how could I you know, how can
- 34:55Speaker 2: I then move forward from here? So it really depends.
- 35:00Speaker 2: Some times you're not going to have a lot of opportunity,
- 35:02Speaker 2: so you'll have to get to it when you do
- 35:03Speaker 2: have the moment.
- 35:04Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
- 35:06Speaker 3: Is that that you can use the learning during the
- 35:12Speaker 3: debrief right when there's time to debrief when it's over.
- 35:15Speaker 3: But as you say, sometimes you're in the thick of
- 35:18Speaker 3: it and you've just made a mistake and you need
- 35:20Speaker 3: to just get back on the horse super super quick, right.
- 35:23Speaker 2: So you'll have to shelflirting from later.
- 35:25Speaker 3: Yea, yes, And is that where some of these cues
- 35:29Speaker 3: come in, you know, whether that's like a little mantra
- 35:34Speaker 3: that you say to yourself, or what are some of
- 35:36Speaker 3: the techniques that people can use in that moment right
- 35:40Speaker 3: right when they're in the thick of it and they
- 35:42Speaker 3: screw up and they realize they screw up hard?
- 35:45Speaker 1: Do they really.
- 35:46Speaker 3: Quickly get themselves back into that performance zone and not
- 35:50Speaker 3: overthink or what what I just bloody did?
- 35:53Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's a really shortened version of that post
- 35:56Speaker 2: performance routine we were talking about closure, or another word
- 35:59Speaker 2: is recent, you know, so it's reset. So maybe your
- 36:03Speaker 2: mantra is right left, right left, you know, that's that's
- 36:06Speaker 2: my mantra, right left, right left, what's next? What's next?
- 36:09Speaker 2: I know that tennis players will like look at stair,
- 36:11Speaker 2: at the strings of their racket, or you know, throw
- 36:15Speaker 2: their if they're right handed, throw it into their left hand.
- 36:17Speaker 2: Little change. I love for all industries, business, health and sport.
- 36:23Speaker 2: Progressive muscular relaxation that you can do very quickly, which
- 36:27Speaker 2: because when you make a mistake, you tend to get
- 36:29Speaker 2: a your body tends to be tense and it's really
- 36:33Speaker 2: hard to just relax. But you can go from that
- 36:35Speaker 2: tense to even more tense for five seconds, and then
- 36:39Speaker 2: you've got somewhere to go progressive muscular relaxation. So you
- 36:42Speaker 2: can just take a body part, just tense it even
- 36:45Speaker 2: more than you already are tense for five seconds and
- 36:48Speaker 2: then let it out and that can be you know,
- 36:51Speaker 2: a physical reset, and.
- 36:54Speaker 3: That physical reset plays into the psychology. I mean, this
- 36:58Speaker 3: is really important for people to understand, isn't it That
- 37:00Speaker 3: there's this two way interaction that and most people get
- 37:05Speaker 3: that your psychology really affects your sip of your physiology. Right,
- 37:09Speaker 3: somebody who's really stressed feels it in their stomach, feels
- 37:12Speaker 3: at tension, all of those things. But your physiology massively
- 37:17Speaker 3: influences your psychology, doesn't. And just that little extra squeeze
- 37:23Speaker 3: can not only relax your muscles, but relax your mind.
- 37:26Speaker 2: It's like it's also an emotional event, so it relaxes
- 37:29Speaker 2: your mind, it vents your emotions. In performance psychology, when
- 37:33Speaker 2: we're talking about like techniques tool strategies, we're often either
- 37:38Speaker 2: teaching mind body techniques, which means something you do to
- 37:42Speaker 2: your mind helps both your mind and your body. But
- 37:46Speaker 2: then there's body to mind techniques, something you do to
- 37:48Speaker 2: your body helps your body.
- 37:50Speaker 1: Interesting. Interesting, talk to us.
- 37:54Speaker 3: A little bit more about those body mind techniques because
- 37:59Speaker 3: it's not self and that a lot of people will
- 38:01Speaker 3: have heard of.
- 38:02Speaker 2: So the body to mind would be an example that
- 38:05Speaker 2: progressive muscular relaxation, taking a body part and tensing it
- 38:10Speaker 2: for ten seconds, hold and then you relax and like
- 38:13Speaker 2: as you said, which you're completely right upon, that not
- 38:16Speaker 2: only relaxes your body, it also then automatically calm your mind. Breathing.
- 38:23Speaker 2: Breathing is a physiological technique, so that's also a body
- 38:26Speaker 2: technique that goes to your mind. Tapping, not that I
- 38:31Speaker 2: not that I know, I'm not an expert in tapping,
- 38:33Speaker 2: but tapping is like when you literally, you.
- 38:34Speaker 1: Know, you like, ah, yes, yes, yes you tap.
- 38:38Speaker 3: You tap emotional free and becolor emotional freedom technique. I
- 38:41Speaker 3: think it's okay, And there's there's there is a there's
- 38:45Speaker 3: an emotional freedom technique that I believe involves tapping. And
- 38:49Speaker 3: somebody will put me up if I'm wrong about that,
- 38:52Speaker 3: but yeah, because because that's big, and it's it's mediated
- 38:56Speaker 3: all of this through the nervous system, that's what it's.
- 38:59Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, just going out there, you know, I was
- 39:03Speaker 2: just actually this last week on a call with an
- 39:06Speaker 2: athlete who was experiencing some she needed to reset quick,
- 39:10Speaker 2: like she was triggered and the reframing the mind to
- 39:16Speaker 2: body techniques that we were talking about weren't really working.
- 39:19Speaker 2: So I told her to go and do some sprints
- 39:21Speaker 2: or some pushups or some jumping jacks, high intensity, not
- 39:25Speaker 2: to blow your physical energy, but very quick, just do
- 39:28Speaker 2: something to get the blood circulating through your body, which
- 39:33Speaker 2: automatically will change the energy in your mind, you know,
- 39:38Speaker 2: because now you're kind of your heart rates up, a
- 39:40Speaker 2: little bit of blood circulating, You're gonna have a different mental, psychological,
- 39:45Speaker 2: and emotional experience just by going and getting your body,
- 39:50Speaker 2: you know, all that blood circulating through your body through
- 39:54Speaker 2: some high intensity movement.
- 39:56Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember.
- 39:57Speaker 3: I see one thing about like pinching your your thumb
- 40:01Speaker 3: and your forefinger, you know those There's there's just so
- 40:05Speaker 3: many things that people can do to just give them
- 40:09Speaker 3: the salves that reset. And I love the idea, this
- 40:11Speaker 3: this concept of reset, and it's just something that you
- 40:15Speaker 3: can do super quick, whether it's a word, whether it's
- 40:18Speaker 3: squeezing your thumb and your forefinger, whether it's squeezing your
- 40:21Speaker 3: leg muscles or whatever.
- 40:23Speaker 1: And I think our listeners should practice that, right.
- 40:27Speaker 3: And and and then it's about repetition, isn't it. Because
- 40:31Speaker 3: what it's doing then is it's setting up a loop
- 40:35Speaker 3: of Pavlovian learning loop in your brain.
- 40:38Speaker 2: I was just about to say, we're all Pavlov's dogs.
- 40:40Speaker 2: So yes, absolutely, yes, But you nailed at the practice,
- 40:44Speaker 2: the training. This is the best lesson we can learn
- 40:48Speaker 2: from athletes. Actually, probably what you did to flying planes
- 40:53Speaker 2: in the military the best lessons. There's a lot of
- 40:56Speaker 2: training that goes on in military, Harry, There's a lot
- 41:00Speaker 2: of training that goes on in sports. Athletes train much
- 41:05Speaker 2: more than they compete. We have to train in our lives.
- 41:10Speaker 2: We have to train and do these tools when we
- 41:13Speaker 2: don't need them so that when we do need them
- 41:16Speaker 2: they're accessible.
- 41:19Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, not training.
- 41:21Speaker 3: There is a shitload of hard work that is in
- 41:25Speaker 3: behind effortless performance.
- 41:28Speaker 2: I love that effortless well well, and for sure with
- 41:32Speaker 2: the mind, I mean the whole the whole purpose in
- 41:35Speaker 2: my mind, the whole purpose of mental training is to
- 41:39Speaker 2: quiet the mind and the emotions so that our bodies
- 41:42Speaker 2: can do what we've been training it to do. Yes,
- 41:46Speaker 2: and that's the whole you know, so, and that would
- 41:48Speaker 2: be effortless movement, right, Like, we don't have to have
- 41:51Speaker 2: our bodies to do what we've been training it to do,
- 41:53Speaker 2: and but our mind and our emotions get in the way,
- 41:56Speaker 2: so we have to train it to kind of show
- 42:00Speaker 2: it or work for us, and then it becomes so
- 42:04Speaker 2: much more free, free movement, effortless.
- 42:09Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, And let's not because you've mentioned attention a
- 42:13Speaker 3: couple of times, and and attention and focus are two
- 42:18Speaker 3: words that are intimately related and attentional control. I've been
- 42:23Speaker 3: thinking more and more about attention. I was involved in
- 42:28Speaker 3: this Dealthie study which was identifying the trainable cognitive drivers
- 42:36Speaker 3: of performance under pressure. And in this Dealthi study was
- 42:41Speaker 3: a whole heap of experts. There was sports psychologists, business psychologists,
- 42:45Speaker 3: military psychologists. We all had to reate these trainable cognitive primaries,
- 42:51Speaker 3: as they were called.
- 42:52Speaker 1: But the one thing.
- 42:54Speaker 3: That everybody put at the top of the list was
- 42:58Speaker 3: attentional control. And I think number three was arousal control, right,
- 43:04Speaker 3: I think number two was performance monitoring. I'll actually flicky
- 43:08Speaker 3: the paper, you'd love the paper, right, But but that
- 43:11Speaker 3: and and I've been thinking more and more about attention
- 43:16Speaker 3: because whatever you pay attention to, your brand, commits sales
- 43:22Speaker 3: to and your your body is oriented towards right. So
- 43:28Speaker 3: give us some practical tips, because with athletes, it's all
- 43:31Speaker 3: about training that focus, which is essentially training their attention.
- 43:36Speaker 3: So what are some tips that you use in in
- 43:39Speaker 3: sports psychology that that anybody, whether they're an amateur sports
- 43:44Speaker 3: person or will have professional sports people listening to this,
- 43:46Speaker 3: or business people are even just normal people.
- 43:51Speaker 1: How can they train their focus? What are some practical
- 43:54Speaker 1: things they can do?
- 43:55Speaker 2: That's such a great question, and I actually think it
- 43:57Speaker 2: is I would agree that it is the number one,
- 43:59Speaker 2: because aout attention. I don't I don't I don't know
- 44:04Speaker 2: how you. I don't know how you follow the right, left, right, left,
- 44:06Speaker 2: because I don't know where you're going. You'll let up
- 44:10Speaker 2: someplace else. Right? Who is that? Is that Yogi Berrah?
- 44:17Speaker 2: Which therefore I believe in goals, but a where attention?
- 44:21Speaker 2: To me? The first thing that we have to understand
- 44:25Speaker 2: is what's relevant and what's irrelevant. And we have to
- 44:28Speaker 2: have the awareness of what's relevant and irrelevant. So in
- 44:32Speaker 2: any moment, business, sport, fitness, and any moment, you can
- 44:37Speaker 2: stop and you train yourself. So take inventory three times
- 44:40Speaker 2: a day. Just stop and look at what you're doing
- 44:42Speaker 2: and say, you know, what is what is relevant in
- 44:45Speaker 2: this moment, and what are kind of distractions that are irrelevant?
- 44:49Speaker 2: So you and I are talking to each other, right,
- 44:51Speaker 2: if I see, because there's a window in front of me,
- 44:53Speaker 2: if I see somebody walking irrelevant, I have to assign
- 44:57Speaker 2: them the irrelevant tag. You are the only relevant person
- 45:02Speaker 2: in my life right now, Paul. Right, So we have
- 45:05Speaker 2: to do and it's really important to have that because
- 45:09Speaker 2: if you make everything a priority, then nothing is a priority.
- 45:12Speaker 2: So the first way to train intention is to understand
- 45:16Speaker 2: what is relevant and what is irrelevant, with also the
- 45:18Speaker 2: understanding that it can change. What was once irrelevant then
- 45:22Speaker 2: becomes relevant. And in sport we have this amazing ability
- 45:26Speaker 2: to train, Like if you're a golfer, you you know,
- 45:29Speaker 2: first things first is you have to kind of scan
- 45:32Speaker 2: the environment, have a broad external focus, and then you
- 45:38Speaker 2: bring it internal to strategize. So you're no longer looking
- 45:43Speaker 2: out now I'm actually assessing what I just saw outside
- 45:46Speaker 2: and bring it into my brain. So I'm going internal,
- 45:49Speaker 2: narrowing it down, coming up with one strategy, and then
- 45:54Speaker 2: you know, then I'm going to again go external but narrow.
- 45:57Speaker 2: Am I focusing on the ball, or am I focusing
- 45:59Speaker 2: on wearing hit the ball? Or am I just gonna
- 46:02Speaker 2: keep it internal and focus on my breath to calm
- 46:04Speaker 2: myself down. So you have to be able to train
- 46:07Speaker 2: your ability. In performance psychology, there are four different types
- 46:12Speaker 2: of concentration there, and it's not a spectrum, right, there's
- 46:17Speaker 2: kind of look like like a quadrant. You have the
- 46:20Speaker 2: broad and narrow, and then you have the external and internal.
- 46:26Speaker 2: So you either are looking broad external scanning the environment,
- 46:32Speaker 2: or you know, looking at one thing that would be
- 46:36Speaker 2: broad narrow or internal broad kind of just you know,
- 46:41Speaker 2: you can like scan your body for any tension. You know,
- 46:45Speaker 2: you can do a broad scan but it's internal or
- 46:48Speaker 2: maybe I'm just focusing on my breath. Maybe I'm just
- 46:51Speaker 2: focusing on my stomach expanding and contracting. Internal narrow. So
- 46:57Speaker 2: we have to practice those those things, and you ask
- 47:00Speaker 2: me for tactical tools. We one exercise which I like
- 47:05Speaker 2: that anybody can do any for any purpose. It's also
- 47:09Speaker 2: in mindfulness technique. But just go outside and if you're
- 47:14Speaker 2: on you know, a seventeenth floor, just stick your head
- 47:16Speaker 2: outside and if you can't really go outside, it's okay,
- 47:19Speaker 2: just look around you in house, but just for a moment,
- 47:23Speaker 2: tune into your vision what do you see, and then
- 47:27Speaker 2: and block out everything else, Everything else is irrelevant. Just
- 47:30Speaker 2: your what you see is relevant ten seconds, and then
- 47:34Speaker 2: for another moment ten seconds, only focus on what you hear,
- 47:39Speaker 2: then only on what you taste, then only on what
- 47:43Speaker 2: you feel can esthetically underneath you, and then only what
- 47:46Speaker 2: you feel on your skin, you know, for example. So
- 47:48Speaker 2: you move from one sense to another sense, and that's
- 47:51Speaker 2: training you to tune into what you're deeming irrelevance. That's
- 47:58Speaker 2: one way to do it. Another Oh sorry, no, I was.
- 48:04Speaker 3: Just going to say, I actually think people should rewind
- 48:09Speaker 3: and re listen to this little section, listen to it
- 48:13Speaker 3: over and over again, and get it into their heads,
- 48:15Speaker 3: because I think that the big problem today is is
- 48:20Speaker 3: just our loss of attentional control and the attention thieves
- 48:25Speaker 3: around us, from mobile phones to emails to you know,
- 48:30Speaker 3: people double screening as well, and they're just their attention
- 48:34Speaker 3: goes all over the place. So that attentional control the
- 48:37Speaker 3: stuff that you just talked about using the different senses
- 48:40Speaker 3: or you know, another meditation technique is bring your attention
- 48:44Speaker 3: inside your body. Now bring it outside your body to
- 48:47Speaker 3: the art of world, and then bring it inside. And
- 48:50Speaker 3: that ability to control or to be in control of
- 48:55Speaker 3: your attention. I think it's just so critical. But you
- 49:00Speaker 3: we're about to just give another technique.
- 49:02Speaker 2: Yeah, there's it's actually a fun game. I do it
- 49:04Speaker 2: with At'll say, so whoever is watching listening. If you
- 49:06Speaker 2: have kids, you can do it with your kids. It's
- 49:08Speaker 2: called the concentration grid, and you can just go online
- 49:13Speaker 2: and type in concentration grid, and it gives you a
- 49:15Speaker 2: grid of numbers scattered. The ones that I use has
- 49:20Speaker 2: start at zero zero, so maybe the one that you
- 49:22Speaker 2: find will start at zero one and it goes to
- 49:23Speaker 2: either nine to nine or one hundred. And you time
- 49:26Speaker 2: yourself for a minute, let's say, and you have to
- 49:29Speaker 2: go and find zero one, then zero two, then zero
- 49:32Speaker 2: three and zero four, and you go as fast as
- 49:34Speaker 2: you can and see how many numbers you get, how
- 49:36Speaker 2: high you can get in order in that minute. So
- 49:39Speaker 2: that kind of is your baseline, and then through that
- 49:43Speaker 2: you ought normally you kind of find a strategy that
- 49:47Speaker 2: you'd like. Maybe is just going you know, horizontal up
- 49:50Speaker 2: and down, or you just I don't know if you're
- 49:52Speaker 2: just going to kind of steer at it and see
- 49:53Speaker 2: if the number pops out at you. But you come
- 49:55Speaker 2: up with a strategy, and then the second time you
- 49:58Speaker 2: do it, your intention your process is to see if
- 50:03Speaker 2: you can beat or match. So there's a game, there's competition,
- 50:06Speaker 2: see if you can beat or match the numbers. But
- 50:08Speaker 2: here's the catch. You have to stay with the strategy
- 50:11Speaker 2: that you chose. That is you training your brain and
- 50:16Speaker 2: you know to be to stay, to have focus, to
- 50:19Speaker 2: have that attention and commit to a strategy, and that
- 50:25Speaker 2: is also training your attention. You can also start to
- 50:28Speaker 2: play music or have people try to distract you while
- 50:31Speaker 2: you're then focusingers. That's also fun too, right, so that
- 50:36Speaker 2: also trains your attention. But I'll tell you what the
- 50:40Speaker 2: coolest thing is. So I've done this training for myself,
- 50:44Speaker 2: there's always room for improvement that I have done this
- 50:46Speaker 2: training for myself, and I will tell you what's super cool.
- 50:48Speaker 2: In my business, I can be working on an email,
- 50:52Speaker 2: for example, and then I get a text message or
- 50:55Speaker 2: my phone rings, and I have the ability, I have
- 50:59Speaker 2: the skill set to stop in the moment or not
- 51:03Speaker 2: stop if I've deemed everything like right now, everything's off,
- 51:06Speaker 2: so I don't have to focus on anything but you.
- 51:08Speaker 2: But in other times of my life there are going
- 51:11Speaker 2: to be distractions. But I have the skill set now
- 51:13Speaker 2: to stop, look at that text briefly, and then I
- 51:17Speaker 2: have the discernment to say irrelevant, relevant, and then I
- 51:21Speaker 2: can go back because I also have the muscle of
- 51:23Speaker 2: concentration to just shut it out it goes on mute,
- 51:28Speaker 2: and go back to what I was doing. And I
- 51:30Speaker 2: think people don't have that skill. We get lost, we
- 51:33Speaker 2: get distracted, and it's really hard to get back into
- 51:36Speaker 2: the project that we were working on.
- 51:39Speaker 3: That that's a super part being able to just go
- 51:42Speaker 3: irrelevant and then get back on task really quickly, because
- 51:45Speaker 3: the research shows that it often takes people a minute
- 51:49Speaker 3: are more to get back on task. And actually I
- 51:53Speaker 3: present research in my talks. There's a famous study called
- 51:56Speaker 3: Brian dream Whether. They actually showed that if your mobile
- 52:01Speaker 3: phone is sitting on the table upside down on silence,
- 52:07Speaker 3: it actually reduces your working memory capacity and your fluid
- 52:11Speaker 3: intelligence by about ten percent. And those people that's the average,
- 52:16Speaker 3: but those people who are more addicted to their smartphones,
- 52:21Speaker 3: it actually has a bigger impact on their working memory
- 52:25Speaker 3: and their fluid intelligence, and it's just there's just these
- 52:29Speaker 3: things are attention thieves, right, and they.
- 52:31Speaker 1: Are productivity killers.
- 52:34Speaker 3: I can tell you how many meetings that I have
- 52:38Speaker 3: witnessed or or talks where people are just on their
- 52:43Speaker 3: mobile phones and thinking that they're listening, and you just
- 52:47Speaker 3: know that they're not listening. What we do is we chunk, right,
- 52:51Speaker 3: so we fill in the gaps. And people think you
- 52:54Speaker 3: can multitask, that's bullshit. What we do is we very
- 52:57Speaker 3: quickly shift our attention and we're actually filling in the
- 53:01Speaker 3: gaps right, And actually says if you could just make
- 53:05Speaker 3: people really understand one thing in terms of their productivity,
- 53:10Speaker 3: and I think they're overall well being, it would be
- 53:13Speaker 3: to just minimize these bloody distractions because they're they're just
- 53:18Speaker 3: a productivity killer and a concentration killer. And then it
- 53:24Speaker 3: just goes on to then having scattered attentional control.
- 53:29Speaker 2: So obviously that's the first step to remove. I mean, listen,
- 53:32Speaker 2: if we're really going to get the easiest way to
- 53:36Speaker 2: improve your attention is to get rid of distractions, like.
- 53:38Speaker 3: To real but actually, heally, I think with your attention,
- 53:44Speaker 3: you're training it in one way or another, so you're
- 53:48Speaker 3: either through your daily behaviors. You're either training your attention
- 53:53Speaker 3: to be focused on in your control, or you're training
- 53:57Speaker 3: your attention like if you're not doing something.
- 54:00Speaker 1: Deliberate, that world is.
- 54:02Speaker 3: Actually training your attention to be completely scattered.
- 54:06Speaker 2: I love that. So you're yeah, I mean you're training
- 54:08Speaker 2: either way. You're either training yourself to.
- 54:10Speaker 3: Be con There is no not training there. Yeah, there
- 54:13Speaker 3: is no not training, right, It's just kind of come
- 54:16Speaker 3: to me. You are training one way or another.
- 54:18Speaker 1: Whether you like it or not. So choose the way
- 54:20Speaker 1: you bloody well trained.
- 54:22Speaker 2: Right. No, I love that too. Yeah, thanks for sharing that.
- 54:26Speaker 2: That is It's true. You're either it's like motivation. I
- 54:29Speaker 2: don't believe in being not motivated. You're either just motivated
- 54:32Speaker 2: to get off the couch. You're motivated to stay on
- 54:34Speaker 2: the couch. So and I know you're a big can
- 54:37Speaker 2: of getting off the couch.
- 54:39Speaker 3: Yeah, but but that but that that is to people say,
- 54:43Speaker 3: I'm I'm I'm not motive.
- 54:45Speaker 1: Yeah you are. You're motivated to do fuck all?
- 54:50Speaker 2: No, you're right, it is is it is training and
- 54:54Speaker 2: uh and so we get to choose and it's super cool.
- 54:58Speaker 2: I actually really like when I have the ability to
- 55:03Speaker 2: just tune things out even though they don't need to go.
- 55:06Speaker 2: They don't need to go anywhere. I'm at that level now,
- 55:09Speaker 2: but I get paged in the training where I can
- 55:13Speaker 2: just look and Nope, that's not relevant, and then get
- 55:16Speaker 2: back to what is.
- 55:18Speaker 3: And so you and your brik you talk about pressing
- 55:21Speaker 3: mute on distractions. Is that what you mean about pressing mute?
- 55:25Speaker 3: Talk to us through that a little bit, because obviously
- 55:27Speaker 3: I think what you have now is a bit of
- 55:29Speaker 3: a super par and it's come through training. It's not genetics.
- 55:34Speaker 3: But talk to us about this idea of pressing mute.
- 55:37Speaker 2: You know. A great example that I've had to teach
- 55:40Speaker 2: myself is so I've always been some type of teacher
- 55:44Speaker 2: where I was teaching at the university or being a
- 55:46Speaker 2: group fitness instructor and then keynote speaker, and inevitably there
- 55:51Speaker 2: are people who are going to come in late, leave early,
- 55:55Speaker 2: get on their phones. You know, very seldom, maybe you
- 55:59Speaker 2: know go top, but I do believe I've probably seen
- 56:02Speaker 2: that once or twice in my day. People closer to
- 56:06Speaker 2: me very irrelevant. But I had to train myself. I
- 56:09Speaker 2: had to remind myself they are not the ones that
- 56:12Speaker 2: I'm talking to right now, maybe once they get sit
- 56:15Speaker 2: and settled and they like, Am I really going to
- 56:17Speaker 2: devote my attention to them and focus on them, which
- 56:20Speaker 2: is going to hurt me and to the people who
- 56:22Speaker 2: are listening? Or Am I going to focus on the
- 56:24Speaker 2: people who are who showed up on time, who's with me,
- 56:27Speaker 2: who's asking questions? And so that is a great for
- 56:32Speaker 2: me example of training that I have had to endure
- 56:35Speaker 2: in addition to when I was a you know, well,
- 56:38Speaker 2: I continue to be an athlete in addition to going
- 56:41Speaker 2: you know, I'm a mountain biker. It's a new sport
- 56:43Speaker 2: for me. I'll just go to sports. It's I'm four
- 56:45Speaker 2: years into this thing. It is by far my most
- 56:47Speaker 2: feared sport. Am I going to focus on the just yesterday?
- 56:51Speaker 2: Am I going to focus on the fact that I
- 56:53Speaker 2: could fall down this cliff and roll? Or Am I
- 56:55Speaker 2: going to focus on getting my butt back hand and
- 56:57Speaker 2: lay on my handlebars? Have to train myself but butt
- 57:02Speaker 2: back light up on my handle on my handlebars.
- 57:05Speaker 3: And I tell you what I think, mountain biking, especially
- 57:08Speaker 3: going down hill, is one of the best intentional focus
- 57:13Speaker 3: exercises that you can do because you cannot ride down
- 57:17Speaker 3: a mountain distracted about ship and thinking about.
- 57:21Speaker 1: And the party tomorrow.
- 57:23Speaker 2: It is oh my goodness, Yes, the intensity.
- 57:28Speaker 1: Of it is mindful. This personify, Yes.
- 57:31Speaker 2: But listen, when you use it, right, it heightens your
- 57:36Speaker 2: attention on It heightens your intention again, and what's relevant.
- 57:43Speaker 2: You have to be able to decide for yourself what
- 57:46Speaker 2: it is that's going to help you and what it
- 57:48Speaker 2: is that's going to hurt you if you focus on it,
- 57:50Speaker 2: and then have the skill set to go and focus
- 57:54Speaker 2: on what you've deemed relevant.
- 57:56Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 57:57Speaker 3: That the example you gave about how doing a keynote talk,
- 58:01Speaker 3: I can really resonate with that.
- 58:04Speaker 2: Right.
- 58:04Speaker 3: So you're doing a keynote talk and you see somebody
- 58:06Speaker 3: putting a mobile phone out or a few people having
- 58:09Speaker 3: a conversation while you're giving a talk, and there's a
- 58:12Speaker 3: part of my brain that just wants to go.
- 58:15Speaker 1: Okay, sorry, you two over there.
- 58:17Speaker 3: I'll just wait until you finished and then I'll continue
- 58:20Speaker 3: with the talk. Right, But you have to Well you
- 58:24Speaker 3: can either you could do that or it's about shutting
- 58:26Speaker 3: it art.
- 58:27Speaker 1: Isn't it that that? Really?
- 58:29Speaker 3: Because it can it can start to eat away at
- 58:31Speaker 3: you and then you lose track.
- 58:33Speaker 1: Of words and all of that sort of stuff, And yeah,
- 58:36Speaker 1: I totally resonate with that one.
- 58:38Speaker 2: Yeah, it's distraction. I used to when I used to
- 58:41Speaker 2: teach like group fitness into recycle classes and there was like,
- 58:45Speaker 2: you know, maybe there's two people chatting. I just would
- 58:48Speaker 2: actually get off my bike and go stand right beside them.
- 58:51Speaker 2: I wouldn't talk to them, I would just stand right
- 58:52Speaker 2: beside them.
- 58:56Speaker 3: I've actually done that, where I'll sort of walk over
- 58:59Speaker 3: and linger the table and sometimes just kind of look
- 59:05Speaker 3: at them while I'm talking.
- 59:07Speaker 2: But that's even a strategy. But to me, that's a
- 59:10Speaker 2: strategy to still stay on purpose, right it is for
- 59:13Speaker 2: me to stay yeah, but almost use them as as
- 59:16Speaker 2: a tool to help me and also tell them to
- 59:19Speaker 2: you know, zip it at the same time without Yeah, that's.
- 59:21Speaker 3: Right, that's right, implied intimidation, that's what it is.
- 59:27Speaker 1: So that we we we do have to wrap up
- 59:30Speaker 1: in a minute. But but you you talk about.
- 59:33Speaker 3: A mental toolbox and for for people, and I love
- 59:37Speaker 3: that concept.
- 59:38Speaker 1: So, so what sort of.
- 59:40Speaker 3: Things tools do you include or shoot people think about
- 59:44Speaker 3: including in their mental toolbox.
- 59:47Speaker 2: So in the book Personal Podium, what I really what
- 59:49Speaker 2: I really pride myself on is strategies. So if you
- 59:53Speaker 2: want tools, if you want techniques, if you want you know,
- 59:56Speaker 2: the screwdriver, the wrench, the hammer for your for your
- 1:00:00Speaker 2: set and performance, this is where you go to get it.
- 1:00:03Speaker 2: And I talk about well, even though we briefly mentioned,
- 1:00:06Speaker 2: you know, outcome, I don't necessarily think outcome is just goals.
- 1:00:10Speaker 2: But I look at goals and I look at just
- 1:00:13Speaker 2: the three goals that you need visualization. This is the
- 1:00:15Speaker 2: way to visualize recovery. This is the way to recover performance, preparation.
- 1:00:22Speaker 2: These are the tools that you need. Do you need
- 1:00:25Speaker 2: them all the time, every day, all day, No, But
- 1:00:29Speaker 2: you want to have them accessible. You want to train
- 1:00:32Speaker 2: them when you don't need them, and then stick them
- 1:00:35Speaker 2: in your mental toolbox so that when you do need them,
- 1:00:39Speaker 2: your mental toolbox is there and you can pull out
- 1:00:41Speaker 2: the hammer of productive self talk, the wrench of symbolic imagery,
- 1:00:48Speaker 2: the you know, the screwdriver of music for reset. So
- 1:00:54Speaker 2: that's what I mean, I say, mental toolbox.
- 1:00:57Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that idea.
- 1:00:58Speaker 3: Okay, so people, if you if you would like to
- 1:01:01Speaker 3: have a mental toolbox, get yourself on Amazon and google
- 1:01:06Speaker 3: Personal Podium by Hailey Perlis. So where can we send people, Haley,
- 1:01:13Speaker 3: if they want to want to know more.
- 1:01:15Speaker 1: About you, get the book.
- 1:01:17Speaker 3: Or any other courses, because I know you've got some
- 1:01:19Speaker 3: courses and and do you also do coaching distance learning?
- 1:01:26Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and yes I do have master classes on
- 1:01:29Speaker 2: my website how to beat defeat self belief you are injured,
- 1:01:33Speaker 2: the injury mindset. Definitely coaching in person and virtual keynote.
- 1:01:39Speaker 2: I am on social media Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, but the
- 1:01:43Speaker 2: best place to really connect with me is my website
- 1:01:46Speaker 2: at doctor just Dr haileypurlis dot com. You can opt
- 1:01:51Speaker 2: in and get weekly mental toughness moments, a video of
- 1:01:54Speaker 2: me talking about these tools that we have in our
- 1:01:56Speaker 2: mental toolbox. And if you have a question and you
- 1:01:59Speaker 2: write me a note, I'm the one that gets it,
- 1:02:02Speaker 2: so I will respond.
- 1:02:03Speaker 1: Oh wow, very cool, excellent, good stuff. Taaley.
- 1:02:07Speaker 3: Thank you for your time and your wisdom and and
- 1:02:11Speaker 3: helping to translate the techniques from sports performance for everyday people,
- 1:02:16Speaker 3: because I think there's so much excuse me, in sports
- 1:02:21Speaker 3: performance psychology that that everybody can use just to improve
- 1:02:25Speaker 3: their lives and.
- 1:02:27Speaker 1: Get up that podium, the personal podium.
- 1:02:30Speaker 2: All that you do