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The Favorites - The "Toughest" Part of Betting · The Favorites Sports Betting Podcast

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1:26
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Favorites the Podcast from the Volume and
1:29
Speaker 1: Podcast Network. I am Shad Mellman, Chief Content Officer of
1:33
Speaker 1: the Action Network. I am joined as always by my bff,
1:39
Speaker 1: my companion, my compadre professional better from the Fighting City
1:43
Speaker 1: of Philadelphia, South Jersey's finest, Simon Hunter. How did I
1:51
Speaker 1: not ask you about your vacation? I took a couple
1:53
Speaker 1: of a couple of people, reached out to He said,
1:55
Speaker 1: how did you not ask Chad about Italy? So real quick?
1:59
Speaker 1: Well what was Italy? Brother? Simon? Let me tell you something.
2:02
Speaker 1: I don't expect anybody to ask me questions about myself.
2:07
Speaker 1: That is the burden I've placed on myself as a leader.
2:11
Speaker 1: All I can do is show interest in the people
2:16
Speaker 1: that I work with, care about them as deeply as
2:18
Speaker 1: I can, and if I don't get it back, it's fine.
2:21
Speaker 1: I don't take it personally, it doesn't matter. My job
2:24
Speaker 1: is to make sure that everybody that I work with
2:27
Speaker 1: is lifted up so I'm not offended by it. Chad
2:31
Speaker 1: Millman is proud of himself. Italy was so shamefully, obnoxiously excellent.
2:41
Speaker 1: I almost hesitate to talk about it in a public
2:44
Speaker 1: forum because the rest of us are never going to
2:46
Speaker 1: go there, so you're just you don't want to rather
2:48
Speaker 1: than our faces. But I get it. I don't know
2:52
Speaker 1: that you'll go there and do it the way that
2:53
Speaker 1: I did it, you know, being the mogul that I am. Yeah,
2:57
Speaker 1: probably not gonna sell a company worth two millions, so
3:00
Speaker 1: I'm probably not gonna do it. Lucky you did. It
3:02
Speaker 1: was truly extraordinary. I will say this that we got
3:06
Speaker 1: very lucky. There were nine of us. It was me
3:08
Speaker 1: and my wife and our two boys, and my sister
3:11
Speaker 1: and her husband and their three kids. It's amazing to
3:13
Speaker 1: go away. You're lucky if you can get to go away.
3:16
Speaker 1: It was amazing to experience a lot of things in Italy.
3:19
Speaker 1: The Colosseum, which I sent you in mitchell a picture
3:21
Speaker 1: of it, was spectacular, it totally. My wife described it
3:25
Speaker 1: yesterday to a friend like it was just a special,
3:28
Speaker 1: wonderful trip. We're lucky to have done it. You'd recommend it, though,
3:31
Speaker 1: someone ask you, what should I spend a bunch of
3:33
Speaker 1: money go to Italy? You would say, yeah, alright, Simon.
3:39
Speaker 1: One of the hardest things about coming back is mentally transitioning.
3:44
Speaker 1: One of the hardest things about being a professional better.
3:47
Speaker 1: Being a better generally generally is mentally fighting through the
3:53
Speaker 1: mock You and I talked about this all last year.
3:56
Speaker 1: We will be influenced by what we see, we will
3:58
Speaker 1: be influenced by what here. Last year, it probably took
4:02
Speaker 1: us four or five weeks to get into a zone
4:04
Speaker 1: where we got out of the trash and just started
4:07
Speaker 1: focusing on what we know is right and staying true
4:10
Speaker 1: to that course no matter what, because we understand like
4:13
Speaker 1: how we can be at our best. There is nobody,
4:17
Speaker 1: nobody who is a better expert at understanding performance the
4:23
Speaker 1: mental aspects of performance than our guest today. If you
4:29
Speaker 1: listen to the show, you're probably a sports better. And
4:32
Speaker 1: whether you do it recreationally or professionally, As I said,
4:36
Speaker 1: it's no secret that sports betting can be one of
4:38
Speaker 1: the toughest, most mentally exhausting activities around. Simon. We brought
4:45
Speaker 1: in an expert who's exploring the science behind toughness and
4:49
Speaker 1: by the way, this. This timing couldn't be better, because
4:53
Speaker 1: we're getting into the point where we're all going to
4:55
Speaker 1: have to start making hard decisions as better. Today's guest,
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Speaker 1: Steve Magnus, is a perform him, an expert and author
5:01
Speaker 1: as well as the coach to some of the top
5:03
Speaker 1: distant runners in the world, literally writing the book on
5:07
Speaker 1: the subject the science running. But today he's got a
5:09
Speaker 1: new book, folks. We'll be talking to him about that book,
5:14
Speaker 1: Do Hard Things. It re examines how we perceive the
5:18
Speaker 1: traditional model of toughness and it's mentality of fear, false
5:24
Speaker 1: bravado hiding weaknesses. In the sports betting world, we see
5:29
Speaker 1: plenty of this. Steve, You're going to have a captive
5:33
Speaker 1: audience today, and as someone who is an avid peloton
5:38
Speaker 1: or rower exerciser, I'm gonna have a lot of questions. Welcome. Oh,
5:45
Speaker 1: thanks so much for having me. I'm so thrilled to
5:47
Speaker 1: be here, especially after your Italy vacation. I'm now jealous
5:51
Speaker 1: as well as thrilled to be here. But you know, listen,
5:55
Speaker 1: you're you're a bestselling author. I'm sure you could find
5:57
Speaker 1: a way to get there. You know that. I've been
6:01
Speaker 1: to Italy once, but it was unfortunately to watch a
6:04
Speaker 1: track meet that I had people competing at, and I
6:06
Speaker 1: had like three hours to tour all of Rome. So
6:11
Speaker 1: I may or may not have snuck into the Colosseum
6:14
Speaker 1: instead of waiting on all those lines, but it in
6:17
Speaker 1: those three hours, it was. It was a great place.
6:20
Speaker 1: So the Colosseum is a good transition to what we're
6:23
Speaker 1: talking about because it was sort of, you know, a
6:27
Speaker 1: spectacle to perform in the Colosseum. I mean everything in
6:30
Speaker 1: the Colosseum basically ended in death. It would be a
6:33
Speaker 1: day of death. But the idea of sport, the idea
6:39
Speaker 1: of being mentally tough. Do you are an expert on this?
6:44
Speaker 1: So before we even get into how you become an
6:46
Speaker 1: expert or what you tell people or how people fight
6:50
Speaker 1: through it, give me a time recently when you haven't
6:57
Speaker 1: been mentally tough and you had to fight your way
6:59
Speaker 1: out of it. Oh man, that's a good question. Um,
7:03
Speaker 1: so i'll give it. I'll give it in that actually
7:05
Speaker 1: the exercise realm because at one point I was a
7:09
Speaker 1: really good athlete, but as often happens with most of us,
7:14
Speaker 1: as we get older and a job and family and
7:17
Speaker 1: real life, our fitness starts to decline, and recently I've
7:22
Speaker 1: been through about of like injuries and then just I'll
7:25
Speaker 1: just say it. It's been like a hundred degrees in
7:28
Speaker 1: my hometown of Houston, Texas, so it's miserable to be outside.
7:32
Speaker 1: So I haven't been exercising as much. So you know what,
7:36
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, I'm gonna get back on it.
7:38
Speaker 1: I go out first day after coming back, not in
7:42
Speaker 1: the best shape, but still have that mentality as if
7:45
Speaker 1: I am. So I go out for a run as
7:48
Speaker 1: if I am, you know, my younger in shape, fast self.
7:52
Speaker 1: And it was miserable and I quit. I was like this,
7:57
Speaker 1: this sucks. And for me as an athlete, that's like,
8:02
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's an anathma to who I am.
8:07
Speaker 1: But it just shows you that like that mental muscle
8:10
Speaker 1: to handle difficult things, it is a skill that we
8:14
Speaker 1: can develop and that will also decrease and go away
8:19
Speaker 1: if we don't flex that muscle enough, even in those
8:21
Speaker 1: who of us who have like a lifetime experience of it. God,
8:25
Speaker 1: that's so interesting that you say that, because I'm not
8:30
Speaker 1: saying it to sounds like a jerk. I will exercise
8:33
Speaker 1: a lot. Went to Italy for two weeks, actually worked
8:37
Speaker 1: out in the gym in the hotel, went running a
8:39
Speaker 1: couple of times outside even though it was close to
8:41
Speaker 1: a hundred degrees even at like eight in the morning.
8:44
Speaker 1: But I came back and like mentally could not get
8:47
Speaker 1: myself into it. In my workouts since I got back
8:51
Speaker 1: had been terrible, like shorter, not as high performance, not
8:55
Speaker 1: as hard, and like mentally cannot breakthrough I think of
9:00
Speaker 1: it because I just wasn't performing it sort of the
9:02
Speaker 1: same level and intervals and intensity as I was before.
9:10
Speaker 1: How do you retrain yourself? How do you get your
9:12
Speaker 1: mind to be exercising as a muscle like that? Yeah,
9:17
Speaker 1: so a lot of it is being in that experience
9:20
Speaker 1: and then um being able to like sit with it
9:23
Speaker 1: experience and then navigate through it because you have to
9:26
Speaker 1: look at it this way. Our brain is a protective machine.
9:32
Speaker 1: So the reason it tells you, hey, don't go out
9:34
Speaker 1: and exercise, don't do that, is because it's something that
9:37
Speaker 1: is outside of your norm. It's the same experience when
9:40
Speaker 1: maybe you know you're making a risky bet or like
9:44
Speaker 1: thinking about it, your brain is sitting there like, don't
9:47
Speaker 1: do this, don't take this risk. Why because it's it
9:49
Speaker 1: wants to be safe and comfortable, so that anything that
9:53
Speaker 1: stretches that, you know, that safety or comfort or pushes
9:57
Speaker 1: us out of that zone are kind of security mind
10:00
Speaker 1: comes about on and sounds that alarm and tells us
10:03
Speaker 1: to like freak out, stop escape. The way that we
10:07
Speaker 1: get used to it again is often not to like, hey,
10:11
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna like ignore that push through it, but
10:14
Speaker 1: to realize and recognize, Okay, why is this happening in
10:17
Speaker 1: this moment. So for you coming back from Italy, it's
10:20
Speaker 1: a great thing, all that good stuff. You just said,
10:24
Speaker 1: your intensity, your intervals were a little bit worse, right, Well,
10:30
Speaker 1: what does that send? That sends a message that, oh,
10:33
Speaker 1: this isn't worth it anymore. We're not making progress, Like
10:36
Speaker 1: we're not getting better. We are motivated when we think
10:40
Speaker 1: we are getting better. When we don't have a shot,
10:43
Speaker 1: or we feel like we're going the wrong way or
10:45
Speaker 1: we're losing and our bets or whatever have you, that
10:48
Speaker 1: motivation is gonna plumb in. So you have to kind
10:51
Speaker 1: of figure out, Okay, how do I reframe things and
10:54
Speaker 1: get myself back in the state where I see progress,
10:57
Speaker 1: where maybe I'm not at my best self but I
11:00
Speaker 1: can start where I am and say, Okay, you know,
11:02
Speaker 1: maybe a month ago I was doing acts, but let's
11:05
Speaker 1: forget about that and let's focus on where I am
11:08
Speaker 1: now and figure out how to get that motivation back
11:11
Speaker 1: by giving your yourself a path and route towards progress.
11:15
Speaker 1: One more question before I left, Simon jump in. As
11:18
Speaker 1: an athlete, what made you have the confidence to say,
11:23
Speaker 1: wait a second, I feel like I can be an
11:26
Speaker 1: expert in telling people how to be mentally stronger. So
11:31
Speaker 1: I think that took a very long time, and I
11:34
Speaker 1: think it was on it honestly from my own struggles
11:37
Speaker 1: in the places where I didn't succeed. So briefly, i'll
11:43
Speaker 1: give you an example is, as I said, I was
11:45
Speaker 1: a really good athlete in high school. I ran a
11:47
Speaker 1: mile in four minutes in one second, which was just
11:51
Speaker 1: shy of that four minute barrier, and the fastest high
11:55
Speaker 1: schooler in the nation at that point. So in my
11:57
Speaker 1: mind I saw like, oh, I'm gonna like go to
11:59
Speaker 1: the Olympics do all this crazy stuff. Well, I never
12:02
Speaker 1: got better, So part of that push me towards evaluating
12:09
Speaker 1: why that happened and why I couldn't get through this
12:12
Speaker 1: this kind of moment or breakthrough that I so desperately
12:15
Speaker 1: wanted and that pushed me down this search to be like, Okay, well,
12:19
Speaker 1: a lot of that is the psychological game. It's that
12:22
Speaker 1: mental muscle we're talking about. So a lot of it,
12:26
Speaker 1: like where do you get that confidence from being able
12:28
Speaker 1: to tell people how to get stronger, tougher, whatever? It
12:31
Speaker 1: is a lot of it comes from my own failings
12:35
Speaker 1: and my own struggle in that situation to figure out, Okay,
12:38
Speaker 1: what would I do differently if I was, you know whatever,
12:42
Speaker 1: eighteen year old Steve, How could I now handle this
12:45
Speaker 1: situation to be able to get on the other side
12:47
Speaker 1: of it instead of being stuck in that that that barrier.
12:51
Speaker 1: I think you touched on a little bit like something
12:53
Speaker 1: that I attribute a lot to sports, Like I learned
12:56
Speaker 1: very young that losing is a part of life. Right
13:00
Speaker 1: you don't play sports, You're not really losing a lot
13:03
Speaker 1: in life, right, like, unless you're playing video games against
13:05
Speaker 1: other people. But I do think it's good that one
13:08
Speaker 1: of the best parts of sports is losing and learning
13:10
Speaker 1: early on that if you want to win, you want
13:13
Speaker 1: to do better, you literally just have to put the
13:15
Speaker 1: work in. And I've carried that over to sports betting,
13:18
Speaker 1: where my job is bouncing back from losing, like I'm
13:22
Speaker 1: gonna lose and I'm gonna lose a lot of money,
13:24
Speaker 1: and it's like one of these stressors where that's probably
13:28
Speaker 1: the hardest part of my job. I tell people all
13:30
Speaker 1: the time, you can build a model. Anyone in the
13:33
Speaker 1: world can go online, find a model, build it. In
13:36
Speaker 1: no world does that make you a sports better because
13:38
Speaker 1: there's just so many other pillars that go into it,
13:40
Speaker 1: and one of them is money management. And how do
13:42
Speaker 1: you affect after loss? Is like I could tell you
13:45
Speaker 1: every loss I've ever had, I can't tell you, but
13:47
Speaker 1: every win. Right, it's just like human nature, right, we
13:49
Speaker 1: remember survival instincts. Remember the loss is not so much
13:53
Speaker 1: to wins. And I would just love to hear a
13:54
Speaker 1: perspective a guy that you know, you've been around sports,
13:57
Speaker 1: you get how everything is kind of a marathon, it's
13:59
Speaker 1: not a sprit, and what is your view on sports,
14:01
Speaker 1: but and how gods can use that in that field
14:03
Speaker 1: where it's like you're gonna lose. That's just part of
14:06
Speaker 1: life and part of sports betting. Yeah, So I'm so
14:08
Speaker 1: glad you brought this up because I think it In
14:11
Speaker 1: the US, often what happens is we learn how to
14:14
Speaker 1: lose very poorly, which is we almost linger on it
14:19
Speaker 1: and think that we should, you know, feel like it's
14:22
Speaker 1: the end of the world, and like really experience that emotion.
14:25
Speaker 1: You see this with like football coaches all the all
14:27
Speaker 1: the time, where they're just like, you should despise losing,
14:31
Speaker 1: and I get it, losing isn't fun. But if we
14:36
Speaker 1: constantly ingrain that negative view of losing, what it does
14:39
Speaker 1: is it puts us in a fear, in an avoidance state.
14:42
Speaker 1: So if I sit there and I'm like, you know,
14:44
Speaker 1: I make a bet and I lose a lot if
14:46
Speaker 1: I linger in it, all I'm doing is training my
14:49
Speaker 1: brain to say, this state really sucks, I should do
14:52
Speaker 1: everything possible to avoid it, which isn't the place to
14:56
Speaker 1: perform out. You want to perform out of what we'd
14:59
Speaker 1: call a pro ng or like you know, being proactive
15:03
Speaker 1: and playing to win versus playing not to lose. And
15:06
Speaker 1: actually there's some fascinating research in the sports world that
15:09
Speaker 1: shows that. For example, after a tough loss, there was
15:12
Speaker 1: a study on professional rugby players, some of the toughest
15:15
Speaker 1: guys ever that showed that you know, if a coach
15:19
Speaker 1: just like kept berating them after a loss and said, hey,
15:22
Speaker 1: this is where you messed up. This is how you
15:24
Speaker 1: screwed up, Like, look at this game film and see
15:27
Speaker 1: everything you did wrong. Right afterwards, what happened is they
15:31
Speaker 1: experienced this this stress response, They experience a high level
15:35
Speaker 1: of stress hormone cortisol. And then what happens is a
15:39
Speaker 1: week later in their next game, those who went through
15:42
Speaker 1: that tough loss and like had their coaches berating them,
15:46
Speaker 1: they were stressed more before the next game and they
15:50
Speaker 1: played worse. On the flip side, the players who said, hey,
15:55
Speaker 1: that loss sucked, the coaches are like, that lost sucks,
15:58
Speaker 1: here's what we can learn from it, but let's move on.
16:01
Speaker 1: Before the next game that week later, they had an
16:04
Speaker 1: increase in testosterone, a positive stress hormone, and they were
16:09
Speaker 1: able to like have confidence and take on that game
16:12
Speaker 1: and they played better. So often, like, how we handle
16:15
Speaker 1: those losses impacts us, not just in that moment, but
16:18
Speaker 1: in impacts how we're going to bounce back and be
16:21
Speaker 1: ready to do the thing again. What do you do
16:27
Speaker 1: if you're like Simon, if you're a better you're going
16:30
Speaker 1: through a season, You're not going to have that that
16:35
Speaker 1: that sort of external motivation or de motivator. It's all
16:40
Speaker 1: got to be internal. What are the hard things that
16:43
Speaker 1: you need to sort of steal yourself for when you're
16:47
Speaker 1: the only machine that's powering it. It's like it's like
16:51
Speaker 1: a marathon, right, Like you're not gonna have someone yelling
16:54
Speaker 1: at you in the middle of a race. How do
16:55
Speaker 1: you get through two miles? How do you get through
16:58
Speaker 1: a seventeen week andfl season with internally having to get
17:03
Speaker 1: through hard things? Yeah, it's it's incredibly difficult. And I
17:07
Speaker 1: think one of the things, especially when it's you know,
17:10
Speaker 1: I almost equate betting to like individual sports where you
17:13
Speaker 1: don't have that support group around you, where it's just
17:16
Speaker 1: kind of you alone in your head and you're trying
17:19
Speaker 1: to navigate that and that makes it ten x you know,
17:23
Speaker 1: more difficult. And one of the reasons is because what
17:27
Speaker 1: happens is we essentially internalize everything. So it's not just
17:32
Speaker 1: that oh, I lost this bet or I wasn't successful
17:36
Speaker 1: betting on this game. Your brain almost internalizes it as
17:40
Speaker 1: like I am a loser, like it is my character
17:45
Speaker 1: that is like at fault here. We're in games, team games,
17:48
Speaker 1: like you can blame it on someone else. You can
17:50
Speaker 1: like you have this external that you can say, oh
17:53
Speaker 1: is the coach, it was the ref, it was someone
17:55
Speaker 1: else's in in betting. When it's just you making those bets,
17:58
Speaker 1: you can't do that. So a couple of things that
18:02
Speaker 1: really help getting through that is almost creating your own
18:05
Speaker 1: like support and structure to make it where you realize that,
18:11
Speaker 1: like betting is the thing that you do and it's
18:13
Speaker 1: really important, but it is not your soul defining like
18:18
Speaker 1: reason and and being on this world. There are other
18:21
Speaker 1: aspects or other parts of your life that like you
18:25
Speaker 1: can get meaning and value and whatever have you. Not
18:28
Speaker 1: saying make it less important. I'm just saying, like, have
18:31
Speaker 1: some diversity of sources of meaning to go to. And
18:35
Speaker 1: then the other thing that I think is really important
18:38
Speaker 1: is having a clarity, having clarity on like the purpose
18:42
Speaker 1: and what betting brings to the table, because like success
18:45
Speaker 1: and failure can pull us towards like you know, almost
18:50
Speaker 1: being a little delusional on those external things, and we
18:53
Speaker 1: need to have reminders of like, well, why do I
18:56
Speaker 1: choose to do this? Why do I choose to go
18:59
Speaker 1: through this? You know, sevent team game season that can
19:03
Speaker 1: cause me to go a little bit crazy. Having those
19:06
Speaker 1: reminders that like center you allows you to get through
19:10
Speaker 1: that that that marathon without you know, having your motivation
19:14
Speaker 1: completely go haywire. You mentioned something really interesting before that
19:21
Speaker 1: if you're only doing something to improve performance, it can
19:24
Speaker 1: be demotivating. And I think that gamblers can teach us
19:32
Speaker 1: a lot about decision making, the way they approach bets,
19:37
Speaker 1: the way they approach managing consequences and making decisions when
19:43
Speaker 1: a lot of money is at stake, when risk, and
19:45
Speaker 1: then how gamblers tend to sleep relatively well, win or
19:49
Speaker 1: lose because they've gone through a process that allows them
19:52
Speaker 1: to feel comfortable with the decision, and that process will
19:56
Speaker 1: allow them to make the same decision the next time
19:58
Speaker 1: if all those circumstances are lining up. What's interesting to
20:02
Speaker 1: me is that, and I don't know how you translate
20:05
Speaker 1: this to high performance athletes, but the best betters in
20:08
Speaker 1: the world, signment is one of them. If they're winning
20:13
Speaker 1: five point three times out of ten, they're superheroes, which
20:18
Speaker 1: isn't very good like in the grand scheme of things
20:21
Speaker 1: you want to perform at, but is that reality for anybody? Yeah,
20:29
Speaker 1: what I would translate this to sport is actually you see,
20:33
Speaker 1: the best athletes are almost like hyper real on embracing
20:39
Speaker 1: the reality of the situation they they experience. So we
20:43
Speaker 1: often think that athletes are like the best athletes are
20:46
Speaker 1: like the ones who are like super overconfident and like
20:49
Speaker 1: have all this bravado and all that stuff. But what
20:52
Speaker 1: the research actually shows and what the experience of the
20:55
Speaker 1: best athlete shows that they can like disting ish like
21:02
Speaker 1: the task that they have at hand versus their ability
21:07
Speaker 1: to handle that or their capabilities, and they match that
21:11
Speaker 1: up in aligne that very you know, concretely, And I
21:15
Speaker 1: think that's what you're getting at here, is that with
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21:21
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21:24
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Speaker 1: five point three out of ten times, that's realistic and
21:31
Speaker 1: that sets you up more for success and maybe not
21:34
Speaker 1: having that like negative emotional arousal where you think like, oh,
21:38
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21:41
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Speaker 1: in West Virginia. Yeah, I talked on her all the
23:31
Speaker 1: time about like I'm human as much as I want
23:34
Speaker 1: to come on here and be like I'm living the dream,
23:36
Speaker 1: like I try to to rub it on people's faces
23:38
Speaker 1: on here, but I'm literally a guy in my early thirties,
23:41
Speaker 1: no wife, for kids, tons of money, worked really hard
23:44
Speaker 1: in the industry, and now it's like, you know, it's stressful,
23:48
Speaker 1: but the stressful days are kind of behind me a
23:50
Speaker 1: little bit, where like, yeah, I'm stressing about football, but
23:54
Speaker 1: am I hungry? Am I like worried about health insurance
23:57
Speaker 1: like all that stuff. No, So I think what you
23:58
Speaker 1: said is good about perspect that where it's like I
24:02
Speaker 1: hate sometimes doing this show chat. I'm not gonna lie
24:04
Speaker 1: to you, Like there's sometimes where I'll lose big money
24:07
Speaker 1: and I gotta come on this podcast and talk about
24:09
Speaker 1: losing that big money and it's like literally like reopening
24:13
Speaker 1: up a wound, right, like I've already done the surgery. Basically,
24:15
Speaker 1: my rule is I can drink, I can smoke, do whatever.
24:17
Speaker 1: Sunday night, Monday morning, it's a new week, right, I
24:20
Speaker 1: dive into the new data, it's a new week for football.
24:23
Speaker 1: But then I come on the show and say we
24:25
Speaker 1: do it on Tuesday, and it's like I gotta relive
24:27
Speaker 1: a horror. So I would say that was probably something
24:30
Speaker 1: I did just to where as a normal better that's
24:32
Speaker 1: that's not normal, Like you just you you would never
24:35
Speaker 1: talk about again being killed on a Sunday and you
24:39
Speaker 1: have to re talk about it on Tuesday, where it's
24:41
Speaker 1: like that's part of the gig. So I would love
24:44
Speaker 1: to hear perspective of the failure because to me, that's
24:47
Speaker 1: just such an important thing in life for people like
24:49
Speaker 1: you said, about I think that's an American thing, the
24:50
Speaker 1: failure thing, where it's like I love failing, Like I
24:54
Speaker 1: just I have all these memories of my life of
24:56
Speaker 1: these risk I've taken and have I failed, And it
24:59
Speaker 1: was like who cares? Like, like literally, I tell people
25:01
Speaker 1: the time about talking to girls if she says no
25:04
Speaker 1: to you, Like if you go up to ask her
25:06
Speaker 1: buy a drink or even talk to her and she
25:07
Speaker 1: says no, who cares. It's literally, you just took ten
25:10
Speaker 1: seconds of your life. You already know the answer. It's
25:12
Speaker 1: on you move to the next one. And that's just
25:14
Speaker 1: my perspective of sports betting where it's like it hurts man,
25:17
Speaker 1: like losing a lot of money on a stupid football game.
25:19
Speaker 1: It really hurts. But just like you talked about these
25:22
Speaker 1: sports athletes, I'm kind of bread for it, Like I
25:25
Speaker 1: I think one of my things, I'm like, I'm best
25:28
Speaker 1: that I've had something weird in my brain where it's
25:29
Speaker 1: like I am unfazed by like I just know you
25:32
Speaker 1: put the work in, the winning comes. And I feel
25:35
Speaker 1: like you just talked about that with athletes, like they
25:36
Speaker 1: have the same way of thinking. Yeah, no, you're probably
25:40
Speaker 1: wired in the same way that elite athletes are um
25:43
Speaker 1: and actually there's some fascinating work on neuroscience in the
25:46
Speaker 1: brain that shows how this occurs, which essentially we have
25:50
Speaker 1: think of it as we have this like sensitivity of
25:53
Speaker 1: an alarm. And for some people it's like they fail
25:56
Speaker 1: and it's like the alarm goes off and it's like
25:59
Speaker 1: life or death. My my life is over. For other people,
26:02
Speaker 1: it's like a blip where it's like, yeah, this sucks,
26:04
Speaker 1: I'm experiencing this, but like that blip is gonna get
26:08
Speaker 1: turned down and I'm guessing if like we could look
26:11
Speaker 1: in your brain, that's how your brain is simon, Like
26:14
Speaker 1: you have done that. And what's interesting is you just
26:16
Speaker 1: got out there is okay. People hear that and they're like,
26:19
Speaker 1: oh am I born with that or not. Well, the
26:22
Speaker 1: research is again clear, is like yeah, some people are
26:24
Speaker 1: better at it than others, but we all can train
26:28
Speaker 1: to improve that that kind of alarm sensitivity. How do
26:31
Speaker 1: you do that? Two main things is, and you just
26:35
Speaker 1: describe this, you inoculate yourself. If you put yourself in
26:39
Speaker 1: situations that like make that alarm kind of go off
26:44
Speaker 1: where you're a little uncertain and then realize, okay, what's
26:46
Speaker 1: the big deal? Like I went, I went and talked
26:49
Speaker 1: to that girl, got rejected, Like is my what my
26:52
Speaker 1: life over? No, I'm just moving on to the next thing.
26:55
Speaker 1: The more you do things like that in your life, like,
26:58
Speaker 1: the more that tells your brain that hey, I'm okay
27:01
Speaker 1: with failure. And the other thing that is really important
27:04
Speaker 1: here is also your mindset and approach, which we can
27:07
Speaker 1: all control. And there was some wonderful research in the
27:11
Speaker 1: world of Special Forces and Navy Navy Seals that found
27:15
Speaker 1: that they tend to have a stress is enhancing or
27:19
Speaker 1: like failure is positive mindset because they realize, oh, yeah,
27:25
Speaker 1: this is gonna be really difficult. But this is also
27:27
Speaker 1: where the growth comes from. If I fail, I often
27:31
Speaker 1: learned something about myself that I don't learn when I succeeded,
27:36
Speaker 1: so it can be this positive. And they found that
27:39
Speaker 1: again most of the Navy Seals have this just subtle
27:41
Speaker 1: mindset shift that other people often don't. So to me,
27:46
Speaker 1: it it's pretty simple. It's like put yourself in the
27:48
Speaker 1: right mindset and then allow yourself to explore and take
27:52
Speaker 1: risks and bail And sometimes that means like starting with
27:56
Speaker 1: really simple things before you jump to the big thing.
28:01
Speaker 1: What's a simple thing? I mean it could be as
28:05
Speaker 1: simple as you know. The example Simon said there is like,
28:08
Speaker 1: you know, are you scared to talk to women at bars?
28:11
Speaker 1: Will go force yourself to go talk to two or three?
28:14
Speaker 1: Like make that decision? Or it could be something and
28:18
Speaker 1: you're I guess the What I would say is anything
28:22
Speaker 1: that puts you in a in a mindset where you're like, oh,
28:25
Speaker 1: I should avoid doing this, go towards it, embrace it,
28:29
Speaker 1: or on the flip side, anything that like feels like
28:32
Speaker 1: a struggle to avoid, such as I don't know, um,
28:36
Speaker 1: picking up your phone all the time while you're doing
28:39
Speaker 1: stuff right because the phone calls you to pick it
28:42
Speaker 1: up and you feel anxiety. If you say, oh, I'm
28:44
Speaker 1: just gonna let that phone like sit there and buzz
28:46
Speaker 1: and beep and what have you, that's another opportunity to
28:49
Speaker 1: train that mental muscle, because your alarm is essentially saying, hey,
28:53
Speaker 1: my phone is buzzing and beeping. I should pick it up,
28:56
Speaker 1: Like this could be like life or death calling me.
28:59
Speaker 1: And if you just like learn to sit with it
29:01
Speaker 1: for a minute, you'll feel that sensation and that alarm dissipation,
29:05
Speaker 1: and your brain will realize, oh I'm I'm in control.
29:08
Speaker 1: I get to make the decision. So even the simplest
29:12
Speaker 1: things like that are opportunities where you can train that
29:14
Speaker 1: mental muscle. As my favorite Peloton instructor and a love
29:19
Speaker 1: Well might say, change is inevitable, growth is optional. You know,
29:26
Speaker 1: I think maybe you should write a book about that.
29:28
Speaker 1: There you go, I'll give you the royalties on the
29:30
Speaker 1: next book. But I think that is a very astute point.
29:33
Speaker 1: Is we're all going to change in different areas, but
29:37
Speaker 1: it's our It depends on like whether we're adapting in
29:41
Speaker 1: a positive direction or not, and we're in charge of
29:44
Speaker 1: like putting ourselves in position to do those things. Often
29:48
Speaker 1: it's like do we want to avoid the difficult thing
29:51
Speaker 1: and stay in that this comfort zone or do we
29:55
Speaker 1: want to embrace it? And the other reasons. You know.
29:57
Speaker 1: The other thing I'd be remiss if I didn't say,
30:00
Speaker 1: because it ties into betting, is if you look at
30:03
Speaker 1: gamblers investment bankers, which is you know, essentially gambling is
30:09
Speaker 1: the psychology shows they are much better at being in
30:12
Speaker 1: tune and dealing with their emotions instead of avoiding it
30:17
Speaker 1: because they know when to listen and when to say
30:20
Speaker 1: you know what I'm I'm I'm gonna block this out
30:22
Speaker 1: and just move forward with my process and my decision.
30:25
Speaker 1: So one of the things that's it's really interesting you
30:27
Speaker 1: say that because another thing that I think gamblers do
30:32
Speaker 1: very well, and I wonder if this is something that
30:36
Speaker 1: you tell your athletes to do and if you talk
30:40
Speaker 1: about um a sort of a regular part of the practice,
30:43
Speaker 1: is how much introspection do you have to do about
30:49
Speaker 1: previous performance. Yeah, so it's it's really important because I
30:54
Speaker 1: get again, I think what happens here is when you
30:59
Speaker 1: enter respect, what you're doing is two things. Is A
31:03
Speaker 1: you're shifting to this like I'm gonna learn from the
31:06
Speaker 1: failure mindset, and then be you're also making the success
31:12
Speaker 1: or failure. You're translating it from an emotional thing to
31:16
Speaker 1: essentially analytical thing where it's like, Okay, regardless of what happens,
31:22
Speaker 1: I'm going to process this and figure this out. And
31:25
Speaker 1: you see this difference between amateur and professional athletes all
31:28
Speaker 1: the time. Amateur athletes often like will flip out when
31:33
Speaker 1: you review an introspect. Professionals see it as part of
31:37
Speaker 1: the job, and it's like, this is part of it.
31:40
Speaker 1: I need to get better. It's why quarterbacks like Tom
31:42
Speaker 1: Brady are obsessive of watching game teap They're introspecting, they're learning,
31:47
Speaker 1: they're growing all that good stuff, and we can either
31:51
Speaker 1: use that to our advantage or it can be this
31:53
Speaker 1: thing that we we fear if we avoid it. So
31:55
Speaker 1: I think going towards that is a is a very
31:58
Speaker 1: important strategy. The people asking that all the time, they're like,
32:01
Speaker 1: how do you not freak out? Or like, you know,
32:03
Speaker 1: Reugh Free blows a game and I lose a bunch
32:05
Speaker 1: of money, Like why don't you go on Twitter or
32:06
Speaker 1: going the podcasts and freak out, And it's just I'm
32:09
Speaker 1: just so used to her. It's like they're literally it's
32:12
Speaker 1: just a waste of energy. You just described it. It's
32:14
Speaker 1: like instead of freaking out and blaming, it's like, no,
32:17
Speaker 1: I mean a mistake. Need to go back, look at myself,
32:19
Speaker 1: Look what I did wrong, Look what I looked overlooked.
32:22
Speaker 1: And I feel like that's when the healthiest things for
32:23
Speaker 1: sports bettors, where it's like, mean Jack could come on
32:26
Speaker 1: every Tuesday and talk about how bad the refs were,
32:28
Speaker 1: Like we try not to because but sometimes we can't
32:30
Speaker 1: help because we're just so mad but like that's one
32:33
Speaker 1: of the things I've really learned where it's just like
32:34
Speaker 1: it's just I think you talked about it. It's like
32:36
Speaker 1: a waste of your mental energy. You're you're literally not
32:39
Speaker 1: improving your life. You're just venting about something that's already happened.
32:42
Speaker 1: So I do think that's just you just talked about
32:44
Speaker 1: where it's like I I catch myself a lot trying
32:47
Speaker 1: to do that, where it's like, don't focus so hard
32:49
Speaker 1: on the past of things you can't control instead of
32:51
Speaker 1: focus on the future of things you can control. Exactly.
32:55
Speaker 1: And again, I you know, maybe to illustrate this point
32:58
Speaker 1: for your listeners, again, I'm gonna turn to the research.
33:01
Speaker 1: But they they there was this one study that compared
33:05
Speaker 1: essentially Eastern expert meditators versus Joe blow American on the
33:09
Speaker 1: street when experiencing something that's like really stressful, and the
33:14
Speaker 1: typical American gets a triple dose of stress. They're freaking
33:18
Speaker 1: out going into the stressful thing, they're freaking out during
33:22
Speaker 1: the stressful thing, and then that that stress is lingering after.
33:26
Speaker 1: Just like Simon said, you look at expert meditators, their
33:31
Speaker 1: stress levels both in their body and brain only went
33:34
Speaker 1: up once during the difficult thing when it's supposed to
33:39
Speaker 1: go up. So I think that lesson applies to the
33:41
Speaker 1: rest of us. Is if we're freaking out afterwards after
33:47
Speaker 1: something stressful already occurred, like what good is that going
33:51
Speaker 1: to do? It's just gonna cause us to kind of
33:54
Speaker 1: linger and be in a state where we can't process
33:56
Speaker 1: and deal with the thing and improve upon it. So
33:59
Speaker 1: how do we learn to turn that off and get
34:02
Speaker 1: back to kind of you know state Simon just talked about,
34:06
Speaker 1: which is you know, process, deal with it, analyze what
34:09
Speaker 1: I can do better, and then move on to the
34:11
Speaker 1: next one. Do you think this kind of thinking leads
34:16
Speaker 1: to good karma? I I do. I'm gonna give you
34:20
Speaker 1: a science answer, not surprisingly to a karma question. Psychology
34:25
Speaker 1: shows that emotions are contagious. So if we are putting
34:31
Speaker 1: out negative emotions and energy into the world, that's going
34:36
Speaker 1: to translate to those who are around, to the people
34:38
Speaker 1: were leading. There's actually fascinating psychology on coaches, like when
34:43
Speaker 1: we when coaches flip out and freak out during a
34:47
Speaker 1: game because I don't know, ref blew the call, it
34:50
Speaker 1: actually leads to players like feeling more stress and performing
34:53
Speaker 1: worth so I think the same applies to everybody else,
34:57
Speaker 1: is like, are we putting this like positive emotional experience
35:02
Speaker 1: into the world. And if we do, like good karma
35:04
Speaker 1: will come back on us. And if we're not, then
35:07
Speaker 1: I think that will last and linger and the next
35:11
Speaker 1: go round. We might be slightly biased in a negative state,
35:15
Speaker 1: or slightly biased to be like betting out of fear
35:19
Speaker 1: or worrying about losing, which isn't the attitude we want
35:23
Speaker 1: to take towards performance. I think optimism wins, and I
35:28
Speaker 1: feel a hundred more optimistic Steve after talking to you
35:34
Speaker 1: on this podcast. I want everybody to go by do
35:39
Speaker 1: hard things. I want everyone to listen and re listen
35:43
Speaker 1: to this podcast. This is an amazing insight, and I
35:46
Speaker 1: think it's super helpful for anybody who's about to enter
35:48
Speaker 1: the slog of betting over four or five six months
35:52
Speaker 1: in the NFL, which can be whether you bet five bucks,
35:56
Speaker 1: fifty bucks, five hundred bucks, five thousand bucks. It's an
36:00
Speaker 1: emotional roller coaster because so much of it feels out
36:03
Speaker 1: of your control. So all of the mental exercises that
36:07
Speaker 1: you just talked about today are going to be invaluable
36:10
Speaker 1: for people. Thank you, Thanks so much. Really enjoyed this conversation.
36:14
Speaker 1: The book is Too Hard Things. The author is Steve Agnus.
36:17
Speaker 1: I am Chad Millman. He is Simon Hunter for Matt Mitchell.
36:22
Speaker 1: This has been the favorite podcast from the Volume podcast network.
36:26
Speaker 1: Downloaded from Spotify, Apple Podcast. Whenever you get your podcast
36:29
Speaker 1: rate reviews, subscribe, leave us five stars, say whatever you
36:32
Speaker 1: want feedback as a gift until next time. I love you.