Barbell Shrugged - The Science on Motivation W/ Lenny Wiersma

Episode Date: June 28, 2017

As athletes, the pressure to win has a very strong effect on us. The best athletes in the world are not only the strongest, or the fastest, but the ones who can keep their emotions in check during competition. Emotions before and during competition can define and influence how you perform. These emotions aren't just limited to the negative ones like fear, and anxiety, but the positive ones too. For example, too much confidence and a cocky attitude can leave an athlete ill prepared for a competition. To get a better understanding of how emotions affect our performance, we visited sports psychology expert, Dr. Lenny Wiersma, and Dr. Andy Galpin at Cal State Fullerton to dive into the science behind motivating athletes and developing a champion mindset. Renowned and respected in his field, Dr. Wiersma has worked with some of the top athletes in different sports including several CrossFit and endurance athletes. In this episode, you'll learn how he helps top athletes develop a champion mindset, strengthens their emotional muscles and breaks through mental barriers. You'll also learn how to start developing your ability to own your emotions and adopt a growth mindset around your training and life. We'll also touch on how, as coaches, we can better communicate with our athletes and mentally give them what they need to succeed and excel. Whether you are a competitive athlete or pursuing fitness for life, there are a lot of powerful take aways in this one. Developing mindfulness, harnessing your emotions, practicing being present and taking ownership for your performance can translate over to all aspects of life and help you inside and outside of the gym. Enjoy the show, Mike Mike

So you have two things. You've got motion, which is doing something. Then you have emotion, which is feeling like doing something. So a lot of people put the emotion first. I have to feel motivated to do something for me then to actually do it. But I want to see if they can reverse that. So what happens if you just start doing it? Welcome to Barbell Strugged. I'm Mike Blitzer here with Doug Larson, Dr. Andy Galpin, and we're here at Cal State Fullerton, and we're here with Dr. Lenny Wiersma. Did I say it right?

Yes. You got it. And you're a sports psychologist. You're here with Dr. Lenny Wiersma. Did I say it right? Yes. You got it. And you're a sports psychologist. You're a professor here. And you primarily work with extreme sport athletes. You've also worked with USA Swimming. You're the horde. Horde?

The horde. Horde head, sports psychologist with USA Swimming. And what are some of your big accomplishments? You've been doing this, what, 17 years? Yeah, I got my PhD in 2000, and so I've been basically working the field since that time. So it's true you're John Cena's head sports psychologist, right? The only person he's ever worked with.

No, that's not true. He was my most famous former student, I'd say. Yep. And the reason why I'm sure he's a superstar. Probably. Because he swims so well because of me. Absolutely. Yeah.

Accomplishments. You didn't prep me for that one. I'd say. You know what you've done. I'd say every time I have an opportunity to learn about a new area, that's what I consider accomplishment to me. So if I'm asked to work with a sport or an area that I don't know a whole lot about, I'm going to spend an awful lot of time in that environment, observing, interviewing people, trying to really wrap my

head around the demands of that environment. Because until I can do that, who am I to be able to help people get through those demands, whatever they might be? So I think I've gotten really good at being able to go into new environments and take a step back and do a lot of study of it from my own perspective. And actually, I think, you know, having someone from an outsider perspective come in without preconceived notions of what it is they should see, I think, is a of, of having somebody who is really not that connected to that area because I have a different filter and it's not a filter that's based in predetermined tendencies or stigmas or stereotypes. And I think that's something that I've gotten pretty good at over the last probably 10 years is to be able to do that. And one of the things you, you do primarily is you work with the extreme sports athletes and, uh, people are, those athletes tend to be under more stress than someone who plays like typical team sports. Would you say that's true?

A different kind of stress. It's not about quantifying it because I can imagine what it would feel like to have to hit a game winningwinning, name it, free throw or field goal or something. So I think the amount of stress is not the issue. It's what's on the line. And what I've always said is, you know, if you shank a field goal or miss a free throw or don't do a max lift, you're going to be a little bit beaten up, but you're still going to go home. I may be asking something that you don't have an answer to, but can you talk about the difference between team sport and the individual sports for us?

Because I grew up basically playing only team sports, and I didn't really understand this until I did. I think weightlifting was the first individual sport I did, and I remember my first meet being like, whoa. I have never had everyone just looking at me right now, even though I was the quarterback and was all these things where you tend to think you're getting the attention, but there's so many more things.

So I've heard people say that it's really good or some people believe it's good for kids to do some individual sports because of that specifically. So can you give us any detail about how that stress is different exactly between team and individual? One thing I want to point out, I want to dig into that that one thing i want to point out first is you are working with some crossfit games athletes now too so you were talking about coming into with a new perspective you've worked in other sports both team and individual sports and extreme sports you've got

a wide range of experience and now you're coming into the crossfit space and seeing it with without that that predetermined filter. So I'm really curious as we get into this interview how you're seeing that whole thing. Sure. Sorry, before you answer that, I will add to that a little bit. I know you don't want to say a lot of people's names for confidentiality and stuff, but I can speak to the caliber of the CrossFit Games athletes. These would be ones that if you know anything at all about CrossFit,

you would know exactly who these people are. So we're not talking about people in their first games or people, podium people. Same thing with UFC fighters, gold medalists, you name it. The list goes on and on. And if you could tell us, I think you would all at home be very, very surprised at some of the people that you've had

underneath your tutelage. So that is the caliber of the athlete you work with. And that being said, you know, you're not going into a safe environment where if you attempt to do something with an athlete and it doesn't work, there's not a lot of ramifications of that. When you mention the caliber, sometimes, you know, there's a lot of, I put a of pressure on myself to to make sure that as an outsider coming in i'm not going to say or do or recommend things that is going to have a negative impact on that person because they have a lot more at stake yeah so sometimes you know with students i say start with like youth sports there's a million youth sport programs around here start with a eight and under soccer team to start experimenting with some of this stuff. There's almost no risk in that.

But when you get to a certain level, there's a lot more at stake. And so I had better be good at learning about it and learning the benefit of that is learning from the best too. Hopefully the individuals in those areas have set aside the ego that comes with those type of sports to really be open and really want to share and that's something i think with these type of sports combat sports crossfit weightlifting that there's such an ego involved with it sometimes that they don't they strength is the basis of what they do and so sometimes they feel i can't show that i'm not strong i don't want to admit that I'm not strong. I don't want to admit that I'm not strong, or I don't want to open up some things that might show that I've

got weaknesses. So having that type of, that caliber of an athlete come out and be able to be very honest with it is going to be huge for the entire sport, I think, to recognize that there's pressure and there's, this is not easy to do. So I think going back to your question earlier about team versus individual, there's a lot of things at stake, you know, on a team, you've got team dynamics. And if the team dynamics are, this I think often is dictated by the coach, the team dynamics are really strong. Then the athlete feels as if it's not just themselves, that they're drawing from the energy and the focus of a great deal of people. If it's not good team dynamics, then that's a bad situation.

And you'd much rather be by yourself than be in a bad negative situation. But also sometimes, you know, you can protect your own ego in a team environment because you make a mistake and others might pick up for it. And when you're by yourself, you have to take responsibility for performance. Now you should do that in a team sport environment anyways, but taking responsibility for, for your performance, if you're not capable of truly doing that, you'll never perform to your, uh, potential, whether it's, whether it's just, I want to lift a certain amount, or I want to do a certain amount of pull-ups, or I want to run a certain mile average for 10 miles. If you can't take responsibility for your performance, then you're going to sell yourself short. And I think that's one of the things that an individual athlete probably has to do, even though they're

really good at finding excuses for why they didn't perform the way they did. So if you're transitioning from that environment, that's the very first thing that you and I would talk about is the responsibility part of it. By the time someone gets to the top of their game, whether they're going to the CrossFit Games or they're an Olympian or what have you, do you find that they're still at a place where they're not accepting responsibility

and they're externalizing blame to other people rather than putting them on themselves where they're not taking ownership of their own success? Sometimes, yeah. And it's actually, it's a double-edged sword. Because if an athlete at a high level forgets their mistakes, doesn't take responsibility, at times that can actually be a really good protective factor. It wasn't me.

It was the bad bar or it's whatever. They don't beat themselves up over it. And they can move on quicker from that it's easy it's easier emotionally for sure yeah just keep thinking you're great and just move on i've i've heard i've heard confidence but you don't learn is what you're saying you don't and that's like one of our football coaches in college you say like db's got to have a short memory like if they if they screw up and and someone catches a touchdown right you know just past them they weren't fast enough they didn't jump high enough or they timed it wrong

or whatever get a short memory just like forget about just move on the next thing if you're beating yourself up then it's going to happen again and again and again yeah because you're not going to be performing at your best if you're thinking about the last play you screwed up on and i can tell you that is a huge reason of why so many of those very specialized positions football doesn't matter um but the the pick the point guard in basketball picked the pitcher in baseball at the corner, and football is another example, why a lot of people see them as extremely arrogant people. Well, part of it is they have to be like that, because they have to be able to do that. They have to be able to, whether it's shift blame or something else, at least to be able to

remove that and be like, no, I'm fine. I'm the best. He got lucky. Okay, cool, because it's not, and my confidence comes down. When you are on an island like that all the time, if you have a drop in your confidence, you're in real trouble when the stakes are that high. So an athlete has to be choosy when they defer blame and when they accept responsibility. And I'd say if they defer blame too much, then they're going to get to the point where they're just never going to truly take control of what they need to do and make changes and be open about it. That was my bad. I should have been able to do that. But there are times in which they might be able to get away with on occasion, deferring the blame. Yeah. I've watched people move into a major level of personal responsibility where I think most people operate in a world where they don't take personal responsibility for what's going on in their life or what's happening as an athlete.

And a lot of times when people start adopting that personal responsibility, it can be a major life change. And it can really rock their world because then you move into a place where you're really hard on yourself. Yeah. And then there's, so there's, in my, in my experience, watching people move into that personal responsibility and then having to practice a higher level of personal acceptance as well. Yeah. And that's a good point. And I think if they are doing it too often with, particularly with the perfectionistic tendencies of those expectations then that's going to be quite damaging for them later on so that that whole notion that they there's a balance in how often they can do one thing versus how often they can do another thing

one of the things that i talk a lot about especially with with people who train on a daily basis sometimes they train more than one time a day is the difference between surviving and thriving. Now think about how many times our body goes through natural cycles where we have a series of workouts that we feel great at and things are just all coming together. We're sleeping right. We're eating right. And so it's easy when it's easy. Everything is easy. It's easy to stay focused when it's easy. It's easy to manage your nerves when it's easy. It's easy to take responsibility when it's easy. And when those times occur, then you embrace it and you ride that wave. to be able to make a decision that you're still going to thrive, not just survive a workout or a series of workouts. So surviving versus thriving is a huge language, decision-making thing using that language that I want people to do. I'll give an example. A couple of weeks ago, I was playing

tennis and the onset of either really bad flu or really bad food poisoning hit. It was about a month ago. And I went home and I was just done in the bathroom all night long. I felt awful. But I had to work with the team the next day at 8 a.m. I had to meet with a group. And I'm not going to cancel because if I told athletes that they have to suck it up

and then I don't suck it up, who am I, right? Right. So part of me, the tendency would be to say, I'm just going to get through this. I'm going to fulfill my commitment because I told him I'd be there and I wanted to make a point that I can also practice what I preach and I'm just going to get through this. That's surviving it.

I'm not getting paid to survive. I'm getting paid to make an impact. And I had better figure out a way to thrive while I'm feeling the way I felt. And make no excuses for I'm going to go in, I'm going to do what I need to do to meet with the team because I'm fulfilling my obligation. That's surviving. I'm not getting paid to survive. I'm getting paid to help them thrive. So I have to thrive myself.

So I have to change my mindset. How can I be my best when I'm feeling my worst? And it gets cliched. But, you know, there are times I think when going to a training session, when you're distracted, when you are not willing to switch it from, I'm just going to get through it to doing my best at it is worse to do the workout than if you didn't even go in the first place. There have got to be days where you just feel like shit and you just got to get through it. That's surviving because you got to teach yourself that you can do that. But if you string too many of those together, then you're toast. And if you adopt, I'm just

going to go through my workout today because I set a goal to do so many workouts a week or then you're going backwards. And so it's really critical to catch ourselves. How often are we going to allow ourselves to go to a workout distracted, to go to a workout when we're going to submit to not feeling good and just say, I'm going to just get the workout done. In my mind, it's worse to go do the workout. And so now when you're stringing enough of these things together and you would be better off in my mind, not even doing it in the first place. Now you can see the danger of stringing two of those things together. On occasion, you got to say to yourself, I just have to get through this because I had to prove to myself that i could just get through it right but you

can't do that very often it's that point you realize like something's wrong with the system right if you're having if you're having to just survive it every single time in a row and you strung them together i got to change something yeah right something it could be my sleep pattern it could be my nutrition it could be the extent to which i'm carrying my stress from my job into my workout i gotta do got to do something. But that language where I'm in a situation where I've got two choices, or I could quit. That's the third one. I don't have to do it at all.

There are days in which maybe that's the good decision. But I can either survive something or I can thrive doing it. Teams who are going through really, really difficult parts of a season where it's just grind, grind, grind. If they adopt the mentality of we've just got to survive this two-week period, they're not going to get any better as a result. They're going to get injured. They're going to go backwards. Their motivation is going to be decreased.

So the surviving versus thriving thing, I think, is such an important thing for people to recognize. But you have to make the decision before, which means you've got to be aware of it. And you've got to know when you're distracted, and you've got to know when you're not in the right state. And you've got to be able to convince yourself really quickly that you can change that. But it's a decision you have to make beforehand.

Yeah, you're saying distraction. What are common distractions to athletes? Same things that are common distractions to non-athletes, I think. So what's going on outside of my life that's on my mind? If you're a student athlete and you're performing for a division one school, then you've got finals, you've got midterms, you've got, you're missing a lot of class because of travel. Now you're constantly having to make up and go to study hall and, or we all have relationships and relationships take time and they're emotional or things that are going on with our jobs or so it's i don't think it's much

different than between athletes and non-athletes because all of us leave lead lives that we've got a lot of shit going on so that's what i mean by carrying that stuff with you into the place in which you're attempting to perform. Performance being a very, imagine, imagine you need surgery. Would you want your surgeon to be distracted going into it? Absolutely not. I think that's the same approach that a performer needs to take. Yeah. Stakes may be different, but it doesn't matter because i'm not a heart surgeon

i'm somebody who's trying to get stronger what are some practices i'm walking into the gym i feel distracted i notice i'm distracted uh what are some practices i can do to minimize that noise and then additionally i think a lot of people are constantly distracted and they've never not been distracted. So they don't even know what it's like. Yeah. I know that's true. I've seen them in the gym. Yep. And, and what do you say about, I guess the two part question is where's some practices for minimizing that distraction when it really matters? And how do you get to a place where you notice that you're actually being distracted or not? One of the things that I think a performer should do is take out your phone. I very much believe in physical behaviors that are symbolic to what I'm attempting to do mentally. So I have to

compartmentalize where my mind is at. So I need to be able to take out my phone. I need to be able to list the type of things that are distracting me or bothering me. And then they're here on my phone. And so when I put my phone down to lift, I'm going to leave them with the phone. And I'm acknowledging that these things are important to me. I'm not trying to talk myself out of,

you're not talking about in between sets. You mean no, before you walk, before you walk in, before you walk in, just want to make that clear. Okay. If you have to do something before in between sets, then you got to do whatever you got to do to, to, to be able to do that. So I think that, that cause oftentimes people think, well, if it's on my mind, it's important. You've all heard this before, right? If I'm anxious about something, then it means that it must be an important thing. And what I'm not saying is that they need to not acknowledge that things in their life are important.

And I'm going to try to downplay the work stress or family stress or school stress. What I'm saying is you must compartmentalize where your mind is at in certain situations. So for example, I don't want an athlete studying in their sports clothing. I don't mean their uniform, but a shirt that has their team name on it. I want them to change it out of it. It changes, they change roles. And then when they go into their sport environment, they can put the sweats on, they can put the hat on, they can do whatever they want because that's the role that they're in right now. And so doing things symbolically that helps me compartmentalize my mind is that it's going to be a really important thing. So the whole notion of addressing what it is that's on my mind and then leaving it somewhere that I can come back to it when I need to. It could be something symbolic that you put inside your bag in the locker room before you come out to the gym or something that

might help you detach from it, knowing it's there that you can go back to it and then it's there. Yeah. I'm hearing ritual to like change your state. And I'm also hearing identity. You know, I can change identities by putting on a different outfit. So imagine, imagine a puzzle and every piece of the puzzle represents a different role in my life. It represents something I'm going through. So it's just almost as easy as pulling that puzzle as you're saying. That's what I think of like identity. I'm not just a professor.

I'm not just a son. I'm not just, I'm all these things at one time. And to be, to recognize that these are distinct roles that I can separate from, I think helps people understand that I can compartmentalize. I think that that identity piece is important that you're saying. Yeah. That's also stuff you can use mid competition too, right? Where you can have a certain cue that you go to if you feel like you're getting distracted or you're losing focus. It's like, I have a certain thing I look at or a mantra or whatever, something like that, right?

Or did I just make all that up? You did. But actually, you got lucky because that's a really important thing. One thing I've learned in my time with you, Lenny, it's that sports psychology is a soft science. No doubt. It wasn't until we collaborated on a project

that I realized that, all right, fine. Maybe there's something to this. When you say mantra, this is something I think that's important with a technique to be able to do this stuff. You know, the whole notion of self-talk, I'm sure we've all recognized that we talk to ourselves and there's some really interesting research that shows that there's different types of self-talk that is going to be more effective than others.

And I've extended it a little bit beyond what the research is saying. So first person self-talk is, first of all, I want to start out with this quote. Okay. Don't listen to yourself, but talk to yourself. So if I listen to myself, I'm feeling sorry for myself. I'm tired. I'm cold. I'm, and then you, you buy into that. You're the subject of the talk. Yep. Gotcha. So instead of listening to that, you need to talk to yourself. So the first person is I'm fine. I could still do this even though I'm tired. That's the first person is, I'm fine. I could still do this even though I'm tired. That's the first person self-talk. Far more effective than just listen to yourself

because at least you're trying to change where your mind is at. But there's some newer research that say if you talk to yourself in the second person, it's a lot more powerful. So imagine like the research that they've done on a cycle ergometer where they have to do like a high intensity thing and they're measuring their performance. And so they, they give these subjects two different types of phrases to say to themselves, you're told to say things in the first person. I'm fine.

I have more than I think I can. I got this, et cetera. You're taught to say things in the second person. You're fine. You got this. And the people in this group perform better because it's more powerful to take it from the second person than it is from the first. Maybe just if you read like old yoga, it talks about the observer and the observed. That's right. And so that's what you're doing is you're putting yourself in the seat of the observer, which has more power. Yep.

Would that extend to the third person then? Like, you know, Andy's fine. Andy doesn't get tired. Andy's a machine. Like, would that be better than the second person? See, you're actually getting really good at this, Andy. This is scary because... Interview's over.

We're done. So what I think is an extension of the second person is actually the third person. But here's how I want you to think about this. Think about, and I want all the listeners also, who's somebody in their life who they really admire, who they really respect, who they really care about. It could be a person who's an actual person in their life, a father, a coach, somebody. Mike, 10 years from now. There you go. You in 10 years from now?

Mm-hmm. Okay. That's a whole other thing. That's a whole other piece. That guy's a dirtbag. He owes me 40 bucks. So it could be even, it could be someone you've never met yourself, but you admire, you know. Now imagine the exact same message that's being said by that person in their voice, looking you in the eye saying it.

That to me is an extension of the second person, which is sometimes you got to hear from somebody who you trust and you respect because you're going to buy into that more than you're just trying to convince yourself of that. So now we're getting into the difference between the first, second and third person. And here's what I think is really important with that part of it. Now, you need to be really thoughtful about who it is that you're going to allow into your mind. And so if I'm working with a performer, I am very honored to get into their mind because I'm hoping if I'm doing my job right, that they're hearing the stuff that we've been working on in the moment. And that's, that's a privilege to be in someone's mind like that. That's one of the most sacred spaces you

can be in, is in their mind. And so I want the person to really be very thoughtful about who they allow in. And sometimes we're our own worst enemies. And believe it or not, if that's who's taken our space in that first person stuff, we have to really teach a person to be able to take control. Pushing them through a series of pull-ups, for example. Imagine trying to convince yourself that you're strong, but imagine whoever this person is who's really important to you saying, giving you a message, that's going to be a lot more powerful. I think it's going to lead to a much higher performance as well.

Have you seen the new movie Split? No. You don't know what I'm talking about? It's M. Night Shyamalan, but the whole premise is basically this person with multiple personalities. And I won't give you the spoiler, but one of his personalities is like a super beast. And then there's where the problem is. But the point of it is, of the show, is once he transformed into this totally different personality,

his physical traits, he physically looked different, right? And he was able to perform things far outside of what he could actually able to do. And the bigger, bigger point is the psychologist he's working with is sort of of the belief that this is innate in all human beings. We just don't have the access and that these people with split personalities are actually just ahead of the curve because they can access the different frameworks. When they need to be sensitive, they can go to their sensitive personality. When they need to be in pain, they go here.

When they need to be invulnerable, they go there. And they can access these different compartments. It's really interesting. I mean, Sam Lashon was terrible. But that aspect of it was interesting. I've heard of the same thing with people living into an archetype. Yeah. So this is particularly

powerful for younger kids. And I'll have opportunities sometimes to work with high school athletes or even younger than that. That's where you started, right? I mean, you started the whole center for youth sport, right? Youth sport psychology stuff was really big. And how do we teach young people these skills that they are going to really need to dictate through adolescence and the challenges? And it's a real shame in our country that we put so many resources in schools that are teaching them skills that look good on report cards but are they truly going to benefit from using those things so i've always been a huge proponent of teaching mental skills

as a required subject matter at kindergarten you would you totally for sure so uh can't believe it imagine like imagine this is this is coming from terry orlick terry orlick is a sports psychologist in canada he's worked i believe with every olympic team winner in summer since 1972 olympics so this guy's got wow he does this stuff with kids where imagine you're on a soccer field and you there's a tree and leaves are falling from the tree you ask each kid to go over and grab a leaf. Don't tell them why. And then they come over, and you tell them to study that leaf for 30 seconds.

Contours, shape, as much details as they can get from it. Now you have 20 kids. And then you have them all put the leaves in a pile, and you shuffle them all up. And then you say, I want you to go, and I want you to find your leaf. And at first glance, every leaf looks the same. But if they taught themselves that they can actually find details and things that they didn't even know they're looking for, then a six-year-old is able to pull one leaf out of 20 that was the same.

And kids have the ability to do that stuff. Kids are far more present than adults are. I'll give you an example. So say Andy's a little kid and he's running around his house with his brother. Him and Casey are like wrestling. I've seen it. For sure.

So hypothetically speaking, so he and Casey are wrestling around and they're really sweaty and hot, but they live up in Oregon and it's snowing outside. So their mom says, you got to get your jackets on. We're going to go out. Well, the seven-year-old Andy is like, but I'm hot. But it doesn't matter and it's snowing outside, so their mom says, you've got to get your jackets on. We're going to go out.

Well, the 7-year-old Andy is like, but I'm hot. But it doesn't matter because in four minutes you're going to be cold. But I'm not cold right now. So you're fully present. Kids are really, really good at being present. So tapping into a lot of these skills at a really young age, I think, is really pretty critical. We talked about this actually last night, Kenny Kane and Brian McKenzie and I, where he just did some international travel with his,

his like one half year old or something. And, uh, he was like, the conversation was like the old person, Josh was getting really, really cranky because of the time flight and the change and all that stuff. And he's like, you know, the only difference between me and Thor, the toddler was that I was being passive aggressiveaggressive about my motion, and he wasn't. He was just living it. He was just living it. He's like, I'm going to tire him cranky, like I'm going to be cranky.

And like Josh was, he just wasn't owning up to it, and he was doing it passive-aggressively. There was a point I was getting to when I started talking about the kid thing. Do you have anything to add? You just want to envision me wrestling around. It goes back. I was wondering where that was going for a second.

I know it was. I was getting into that was going for a second. I know it was. I was getting into something that I'm sure was really brilliant. You were talking about kids being more present than adults. It goes before that. They notice things. Oh, no, it was about the superhero stuff. Oh, yeah. Remember we talked about that adopting a persona.

Yeah. So, like, kids are really good at knowing what it would – So, if I work with a bunch of little swimmers, choose your favorite superhero. And imagine, imagine what, okay, so you choose Batman. Imagine what Batman's body language would be before they step up on a block. Imagine what they would, what Batman would be thinking stepping up on a block. And so when kids can start adopting that persona very much like you're talking about it's a huge thing and believe it or not i've worked with with adults who still very much connect to the notion of superhero stuff yeah so i'm working for example

with a college student athlete at a division one school one of the best in the country and it's up in northern california so when we Skyping, I can see on his wall, there's a picture of Captain America. So I asked him, the irony is he was a foreign student too. So I asked him, what's the significance of Captain America? And he talked about how it shows strength and stuff. So we were talking about thought stoppage and recognizing when you're saying something that you need to block. Well, what does Captain America use? It's the shield right so even even with adults to be able to adopt these personas as

you're saying i think it'd be an effective strategy yeah i like that that strategy because we think in words and pictures yep so if you have a picture of a shield that comes up you can actually control your thoughts. Yeah. Interesting. And then, you know, when you talk about people who are in extreme environments, whether it be in an ocean that's pumping out 60 foot waves or whether it's a, you know, sea fighter entering the octagon, the reality is that sometimes they just don't feel confident and it's okay.

And it's okay. Yeah. You don't, you don't necessarily have to feel confident. And it's okay. And it's okay. You don't necessarily have to feel confident in that moment, but you sure as hell better act like it. And then things start to follow. The bodily research to change the way that we're thinking, which then changes our affect and our emotion. Yeah, a lot of emotions follow the physical thing and vice versa. Emotions can control you physically, the mechanics, and your mechanics can control the emotions that's right and you're also never going to

accomplish anything truly great unless you're a little bit outside of your comfort zone at frequently ideally for sure so it's that challenge mindset that i think people have to adopt and i think like the big wave surf analogy is a perfect example of that because imagine if you surf regularly six foot waves, you know, that's a head highway for most people who are taller than I am, you know, so if that's where you're currently at, then if you want to surf an overhead wave, you're going to have to take a lot of licks and you're going to have to put yourself, extend yourself onto that larger wave, knowing that it's going to take some time for you and it's going to be scary. But eventually, if you never do that, then you're always going to be at a six-foot wave.

So this whole notion of a challenge mindset, I think, is really pretty important. Protecting our ego is the thing that's going to keep us, hold us back, I think, than almost any other factor in performance is protecting our ego, protecting our confidence. So when you say that, sometimes you must extend yourself to do that. I think it goes back to ego protection. So, for example, like a real-world example would be, let's say you're a female and you compete against other females and you don't want to train with other females because if you train with guys, they should be stronger. So now I have a protective.

I protect my ego. So if someone's doing more pull-ups or doing more burpees, and they're a guy and I'm a woman, well, then they should. So what they do is they don't want to train with another female because now they don't have that excuse anymore. Interesting. And so now you're protecting yourself from, I know national team athletes who refuse to train with each other because there's too much on the line.

What are some other examples of that? Of ego protection? Yeah. Because I'm sure there's a guy version of it too, right? Well, I think, I mean, I think that, you know, people are probably doing it a lot more than they would be. I mean, like most women probably don't realize that that's a form of ego protection, right? Yep. So do you have any other examples where someone goes, oh, shit, I do do that?

When was the last time you think you backed out of a challenge, of any type of challenge at all? You had the chance to do something. The likelihood of you being successful at it was not that great. And so you came up with a reason not to engage. I bet this happens more than we think it does. I'm sure I do it way more often. I just don't recognize it as backing out of the challenge. Let's say hypothetically.

It could be something simple, though, like I'm going to go work, and then you're like, I'm going to clean my room first. Like little procrastinations like that, do those count? Sure. If you're holding yourself back. Let's say hypothetically you just learned a new skill. clean my room first. Like little procrastinations like that. Like do those count? Those little things. If you're holding yourself back let's say hypothetically you just learned a new skill. And then you were asked

to demonstrate that skill. You know what I'm getting at? There's got to be something. No, no, no. There is something. Andy, you know where I'm going with this one? No.

So you're in front of a screen that you're trying to come up with a unicorn. The HRP. Oh, yeah. Oh, I did it today. And you know what you need to do, but you fall back to the safer way of doing it. Because what happens if you try this new thing on film and in front of us? It's not working.

I got competitive. My ego took over. And you try protecting it. Yeah. Right? Now, I don't know if that's actually what you did. And that horse didn't have a horn, so I didn't get the unicorn. No, you got the horse.

The horse is not a unicorn. Now, I cut him off. There were more animals. I just want to give you something to work for in the future. There may or may not have been a unicorn. Did you see what you did there? I think. I do.

I think what you attempted to do was I attempted you. Definitely. I think you attempted to protect your ego Because I know by trying something that was that you thought was gonna put you in the best position of doing well Yep by trying something new even thinking that there's a possibility that it's gonna Decrease your performance I think what's interesting about that is so if you give a challenge and you give them an option like you can take the medium Or they're really really difficult one, right?

Well, the people taking the medium one are basically saying, I don't want to fail. I'm going to put myself in a better position. And that's an ego protection, right? Yeah. But then almost what you said with the females, I would tend to take the massive challenge, like the biggest one possible, so that when I fail, I have the fallback of, yeah, well, I tried the big one. Not if you're competing against that person, though. What do you mean? Well, if this is somebody who's a threat to your winnings or your ability to medal or

something, and you lose to that person, you've lost to that person. They're better than you are. Right. Yeah, yeah. They just demonstrated head-to-head. Yeah. Now, if you don't ever put yourself in the head to head environment to where you could fail, then you've always got the thought of, but that would also be why the, you'll always hear the person saying like, well, you know, everyone wants to fight Floyd Mayweather, right? Because

even if you lose, you're supposed to, but if you win, it's like this huge thing, right? So that in and of itself though, is still ego protection because there's, it's like this huge thing, right? So that in and of itself, though, is still ego protection. Yeah. Because there's no loss there, right? That's right. So you have to put yourself in a situation where there is real loss. And sometimes those bigger ones are my way of protecting you because it's like, well, yeah, I lost, but I don't feel bad because I should have lost. Yeah.

Yeah. Now, I think I'd be a little bit remiss to try to connect this to something that your listeners probably have heard about before, which is the mindset with Carol Dweck of Stanford, the fix versus the growth mindset. So I don't know if you're familiar with that. I assume you probably have heard of it before, but it's a very, very popular book and thought where if I have a fixed mindset, then I think that my performance is dictated off of fixed factors, such as my talent or my genetics, which I perceive that I may not be able to change that. If I adopt a growth mindset, then my performance is based off of controllable factors such as effort and hard work and dealing with mistakes and failures. So what you said earlier, Andy, about, you know, if you feel like you should

perform a certain way, imagine as a child, you do really well in school or you do really well in a sport. And so the message you're getting from your parents and your teachers and coaches are that it's you're talented. Then you don't want to put yourself in situations that you might disprove that you're not actually talented or smart. So what you said about these different options. So imagine if you've been told as your child that you're good at math and then imagine if you're presented with a math test. And if you adopt a fixed mindset, they think I'm smart. What if I'm not smart and don't do well? Then you'll shy away from those challenges.

But if you were told at a young age that you're good because you're hard work and you're hard work and effort, then you're a lot more likely to adopt situations that really push you and challenge you because you're not protecting your ego right and so what what carol is saying is that that growth mindset is something that as children we should really foster and this is why you're supposed to praise kids for their effort rather than their accomplishment right yep so you've heard that that's just how all this stuff is kind of connecting right isn't that also an eco protections thing thing that kids do at we're at a university right now like where someone won't study for a test yeah because then if they do poorly on the test they can come back and say well i didn't really study for it

anyway so you know if i would have studied though i would have done really good yep now you if you trace that backwards people say that i'm just like what the fuck is going on if you trace that backwards those are probably the subjects in which they convinced themselves earlier that they just weren't good at. I'm not a good writer. That's the fixed mindset. Or I'm not very good at math. So what do those kids do at the college level? They adopt that philosophy.

They fail the classes. For sure. And, you know, so I think it says a lot about the mindset that we take into a situation. Imagine like, you know, it's the day that you're doing a lift or something that you just don't like doing. Versus the day that you're doing stuff in the weight room that you really enjoy. And then you don't do well in the stuff that you don't like doing, but you do really well in the stuff that you like doing. You think it's because you're good at it. But let's go five minutes before you walked into the door.

Imagine if you put yourselves back in school. Imagine your favorite class you've ever taken. Your favorite teacher you've ever had. You probably did well in that class and it wasn't because you were good at it because think about what your mindset was five minutes walking in that class. You were excited about it. You expected to do well at it. Imagine the class that you hated. The teacher, the subject matter. Go back five minutes before you walked in that classroom.

You walked in expecting it to be awful. So you determined your performance ahead of time because of the expectation that you had. Now, we do this all the time, too, and the things that we challenge ourselves with physically. You know, imagine the five minutes walking into a weight room. You've already made a decision, if you like, what it is you're about to do, and often you do. You have to be careful about that. And so, you know, one of the things that I thought about that I think is a really important thing for listeners to understand is the notion of psychological flexibility versus psychological rigidity. So to be psychologically rigid means I have whatever goal I have set for myself. So that's here. But the parameters and the pathway to be able to get to that goal are very narrow. So I have a certain set of conditions that must be met for me to reach my goal.

That's rigidity. It could have to do with the weather. It could have to do with how I feel or I have to have my pregame routine. And if I'm going off, like I'm not right. I didn't take my creatine this morning. Right. Yep. This person is in the weight room. They're not usually watching me now they're here today. You know, so a psychologically rigid mindset is I have to have certain conditions that are met. Psychological flexibility means that I'm going to allow myself a lot larger pathway to get to my goal. I'm not going to set up so many if-then conditions about how I'm feeling or what the weather's like and what I'm doing today.

Imagine if I'm working with a tennis player and they're struggling with their first serve. So they force their first serve and they keep on making errors. And so what I want that person to do is to have some psychological flexibility and say, I got to figure out what? I got to figure out how to win on my second serve. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, yeah. So it's a different path. I have to have a good first serve. I got to figure out a way of winning on my second serve. So it's a different path. I have to have a good first serve. I got to figure out a way of winning on my second serve. And the magic is when they stop worrying about their first serve,

guess what happens with their first serve? They start hitting it. But they gave themselves a larger pathway for that. And I think psychological flexibility has to do with all kinds of factors in our life that we have to recognize expectations that we set for ourself when we think we perform our best what are those things that we're trying to attach that what if those things aren't present you make a decision ahead of time if you're going to perform based on those things actually i think i experienced all right i did experience a level of psychological flexibility and growth in that area when I was weightlifting. And then when I got into CrossFit and I went from everything, my hands had to be set the same way, my feet had to be set the same way.

I was like always the same every time because that's the way you're taught. And then I got into CrossFit where you may not be wearing those shoes. You are trying to go faster. You may not set your hands exactly the same way every time the grip might be a little bit different and then i noticed that oh my performance can still be pretty good even if the conditions aren't exactly the same every time so i remember having that going through that transition of that rigidity to that flexibility yep uh let's take a break real quick when you come back i want to talk about the biofeedback.

For sure. And we're back. Lenny Wiersman. Oh, man. God, you're so close to doing your job. So close. You had one job. Ever. Well, half my job is to be

funny, and I'm pretty sure people found that to be funny. Hilarious. Your incompetence? Yeah. My mom won't find that very funny, I'm pretty sure people found that to be funny. Hilarious. Your incompetence? Yeah. My mom won't find that very funny, by the way. Is she buying anything? I'm not worried about it. His dad is an ex-Marine? Right?

Sniper. Sniper, so be careful. Oh, shit. He's awesome. You won't hear a thing. That's all right. I have a new picture I should show you

of him with his sawed-off shotgun. Really? He's badass. He's shirtless. You can pull show you of him with his sawed-off shotgun. Really? He's badass. Shirtless? If you can pull off being a sniper with a sawed-off shotgun, you're very good. Yeah. I know that.

We're making great radio right now. For sure. Yep. So this is. Oh, yeah. This is the. I wouldn't mess with that guy. Amazing.

Amazing. Yeah. This is my influence growing up. That's your childhood right there. In perspective. Oh, I get a lot now. I'm getting it. Okay. So I have a question for you. So it seems, uh, in my experience that a lot of people who are at the highest level of sport, whether it were it's football, it's baseball, it's their, they're going to the Olympics, they're CrossFitters, they all seem to say the same thing, which, you know, this sport is 90% mental, 10% physical. Everyone says that at the highest level, it seems. Everyone that is there, they're in shape, they've been training for a long time,

they've been working on the physical skills of the sport, they've been competing, they've been playing. Are they just saying that because that's the that's the one aspect of of their upbringing that was underdeveloped the physical development is like the focus the entire time and then the mental side of things they learn when they get to the highest level that's where the biggest gap is amongst themselves and and the rest of the competitors like why do people say that do you think i think because they think it's true and i also think it's something that people are really more aware of now than probably they used to the question i have for those people who say that if you think that sports are 90 mental then how much time are you spending in that area

i know athletes who spend zero minutes, formally at least. Everyone's doing the psychology. You're not doing it right or you're not doing it well, but you're talking to yourself. You're doing that stuff. So, but I think the biggest thing in our field is when we start to really see a shift in arriving at being able to really contribute to performance such as other fields have strength the addition of nutrition when coaches and athletes are actually dedicating the time to do it and one thing i don't like about when we start to compartmentalize physical and mental the thought is that in addition to training i must work on the mental side but you must be

doing it every single movement that you do you should But you must be doing it every single moment that you do. You should be doing it. It shouldn't be separate. You shouldn't be doing imagery for 10 minutes a day and meditation for another 15 minutes a day and listening to your scripts. You should be doing it in the moment. And I think that's where a lot of people can really get better at recognizing. You mentioned awareness before, recognizing that it's not a separate approach.

If we try to compartmentalize into these different categories it is the movement that's what it everything is so interrelated to each other so with that said is it is it beneficial to have a separate coach for the mental side of things or is it the responsibility of the kind of the main coach to just understand the the psychological emotional part of the sport even better that way they can infuse it into practice i'd say both i'd say i'd say coaches that that have a stronger appreciation for it are going to be more likely to be able to communicate with somebody who's got the training to do it and try to adopt it in their daily work with athletes when i work with an athlete i never want it to be separate from the coach. I always want to make sure that the coach is part of the conversation at some point.

But sorry, you can finish this. But you don't, you're not talking about like in the actual room. So when you work with a client, correct me here when I, if I make this wrong, but you work with like Mike separately, completely separate of the coach, then you work with the coach separately, and then you may have some ones where they work together but you still keep that barrier right i don't like to think of as a barrier i just think that it's a logistics issue when i'm working with the athlete typically they're not in their environment which they're training although if i can go to the training to watch them and to watch the coach in iraq that's the best situation to be in but yes the day-to-day is typically i'll work with an athlete one-on-one, and then I'll communicate with a coach, usually outside of that, on occasions in which the three of us, if it's three, might be together.

I think that's good. But sometimes, you know, there's a lot of things that coaches don't want to hear about the relationship, and there's a lot of things that athletes don't want the coaches to hear. But having the conversation, I think, is really important. So, for example, there's a coach that I've worked with for a long time. Actually, we swam together in college. And so he refers a lot of his athletes to me. And he knows that he's got a certain persona. He's a hard ass.

And sometimes if you're a hard ass, then you can't always say something the athlete needs to hear. Because they're just going to put that off as that's just him being a hard-ass. That's just Andy being a hard-ass. They're not going to listen to it. So sometimes the coach will come to me and say, direct quote from this quote, this is going into Olympic trials. Give me a girl's name. Shauna.

Shauna is getting really stressed because Olympic trials are coming up. Would you please tell her to pull her head out of her ass in a psychological sort of way? Got it. My favorite email of all time, right? He's giving me insight that she needs to pull her head out of her ass. Now, if I already have established that I'm not the hard ass per se, but she trusts me, then I can say, pull your head out of your ass.

Yeah. I might be able to say that to her because she trusts the message and where it's coming from. She doesn't blow it off like she would coming from the other person. If it comes from someone else, that's just Andy. Andy's a hard ass. Of course he's going to say that. So the communication for what an athlete needs to hear and who they need to hear it from is going to be really pretty important.

And I think that sometimes, going back to your question, should a coach do it? Should a specialist do it? I believe if an athlete has the resources that it would be remiss not to tap into somebody who's got specialized training in sports psychology, who can also then communicate with a coach about the coach sees them every single day. So what are the, some of the type of things that you might be able to look for with the athlete? What's some type of feedback that I need to hear as someone from an outsider?

What are some things that you might be able to say to that person in different situations without the coach overthinking it too? Because you have to understand coaches are in a tough position. If they're dealing with an athlete who's emotional in an emotional time, the coach is putting a lot of pressure not to say the wrong thing. Now they overthink it, which means they're going to say the wrong thing, probably. So you have to, and two, I think the more that coaches understand their athletes, the

easier it is for them to know what they need. So it's not just knowing their technique really well. It's talking to them about what they need. Going back to very specific scenarios. Do you remember when we were in Budapest, the world championships? And you remember how your first two lifts you failed or something. What do you need me to say to you in that, in that moment? What'd you need from me to ask about it? Otherwise you take a risk. So I think that's really important. Another thing that this is relating to a lot is, you know, you talked about this. We talked about the challenge mindset and putting yourself in situations where you don't have to protect the ego. If you encourage people to get into situations that really truly push themselves and basically what you're doing is you're encouraging them to fail more and no one likes to fail. And so part of the part about failure that I think is really important from the

psychological side is you're going to feel sorry for yourself when you fail at something. And I think an athlete needs to be very clear about how long they need to feel sorry about themselves. That's the exact language that I might use. For example, I'm sure you guys get this all the time. I met dinner at a friend's house on last Saturday night. He and his wife were there. And then they had a couple who were there in town for some type of marathon the next day. I think it was a Disney something. Half marathon, whatever.

So what always happens is the wife of someone who I've never met before, my friend says, hey, you're a sports psych. She's been dealing with injury. She's running tomorrow. What advice would you give her? I freaking hate when that happens. First of all, you can't afford the advice.

I'm just kidding. But first of all, it's free advice. But second of all, I don't know who she is. It's like going to a stand-up comedian and be like, say something funny.

Yeah, tell me a joke. Fuck you, go away. It's crazy. It happens all the time. I'm sure people ask you all the time advice about stuff. Same thing, but it's like the NRs we would away. It's crazy. It happens all the time. I'm sure people ask you all the time advice about stuff. Same thing, but it's like the NRs we would get. My back hurts.

What should I eat tomorrow? Why does my back hurt? I don't know. Your back hurts. Just Advil, go. So my buddy sets it up like she's running this race tomorrow. Her back has been hurting. What should she need to know for tomorrow?

I don't know what the hell she needs to know for tomorrow. I just met this girl, but I'm going to take a risk. So I said, why? So I said, are you still, are you still feeling sorry for yourself?

Because if you go to bed tonight, feeling sorry for yourself about how you feel tomorrow, then your race tomorrow is over. Now that's a risk saying it to somebody who doesn't know you, who could take it completely the wrong way. But she's like, that's exactly what I needed to hear. I've been feeling sorry for myself. No one said quit it.

And so if you work with a performer who goes through a failure, we have to recognize that you do need a period of time. And I use that phrase purposefully, feeling sorry for yourself. That's a very negative phrase. But it's exactly what we dofully, feeling sorry for yourself. That's a very negative phrase, but it's exactly what we do. We feel sorry for ourselves. So the question I would have, Andy, how long do you need to feel sorry for yourself? Now, if I preface it with how long do you need,

it makes it okay for you to feel sorry for yourself, but then it's also figure out how long. Yeah. At some point, this goes back to the pulling your head out of your ass in a psychological sort of way. At some point, you just have to decide, this is the time I need. And at some point, I got to move on from it. What's the time frame usually like?

It depends on the significance of the event. Right. Let's say a fighter drops a fight. Yeah. And they're on the verge of maybe not getting their contract renewed with the UFC. That's a little bit more significant than somebody who loses one game out of 161 game season in baseball. Right. Yeah. I've heard the term used, the amount of time that you hang on to that emotional state is indicative of your emotional intelligence. So if you're somebody who can't shake a negative

feeling quickly, your emotional intelligence is just poor. And so if you're somebody who can't shake a negative feeling quickly, your emotional intelligence is just poor. And so if you're somebody who has a negative thing happen to you, you know, something happens on Sunday and on Friday, someone goes, man, why are you so down? Well, on Sunday, my mom didn't, you know, tell me she loved me at church. And, you know, I just feel down about it. I was like, that's somebody who's emotionally not very intelligent. Whereas somebody who is, which would be like the next day is like, you know what?

Maybe she was having a bad day and dah, dah, dah. And you know what? I'm just going to let it go and I'm going to move on with my life. But it's, it's all, it's all,

it's all relative because, you know, for most people, if something happened on Sunday and now it's Friday and they're still moping, I'd say this person is probably weak, but it depends on what the thing is too. Yeah. I mean, if there's a cancer diagnosis or something, then of course Friday, it's not even close to being able to process that.

And I, I don't want to value judge it. So when I ask specifically, how long do you need? It puts it back in Andy's court. I don't want to value judge and say say you've been feeling for yourself long enough. I don't know if that's the case. Oh, that's why you don't put a number on it. I ask them. Yeah, I see.

And now you just feel bad for feeling bad for yourself for so long. Right. Are you done yet? Are you done? Yeah. Let me know when you're done and when you're ready to get back on the horse and then we'll go. And I think that goes back to the emotional intelligence part you have to sort of guide them sometimes with that yeah i've heard the term uh time heals all wounds

and then i've had conversations with people about that that phrase yeah and then come to think of it like time actually doesn't heal all wounds. It's whatever processing needs to happen. And sometimes it has nothing to do with time. It has to do with how you're approaching it. Right. So you can allow it to take years or you can allow it to take minutes depending on how willing you are to go into it. Yep. Yeah.

So that notion of taking control goes back to what I said earlier. You can't control your performance until you can control yourself some people they they recognize that they they are out of control so to speak with with their thoughts and emotions and there's a stigma around and we kind of mentioned this earlier off camera there's there's a stigma around um getting a therapist as an example like that there's something about getting like a physical therapist because you hurt your knee is like totally fine but getting a psychological therapist because because you need help psychologically that all of a sudden now you're you're a person who is broken or or is stupid or there's there's some you just talk about like like negative criticism or judgment around

around values and stigma like there's there's a lot of baggage there still so a lot of people the people that need it the most quite often won't reach out to someone who can help them because they don't want even more judgment or shame or, or guilt or what have it, uh, poured onto their current emotional state by, by seeking help. It's, it's, it's almost like this negative spiral, so to speak. And particularly if you're in sports or in events that require toughness. CrossFit's a tough sport for example. Boxing's a tough sport. It's going to take two things. Number one it's going to take the message of it is a stigma and until we can recognize that it's okay then people are going to continue to suppress it. But it's also going to take very courageous successful individuals who have been very open about what they've dealt with to be able to break it down.

If Prince Harry, as he's doing right now, there's a big stigma of mental health in the UK. If he says that I mourned and I went through an awful lot of depression after his mother died and he says that publicly, then it's going to have a lot more power and change in the stigma for other people who are dealing with it because of his stature. And so, you know, when you have an athlete, I was watching an interview with between Joe Rogan and Dominic Cruz. And Dominic Cruz admitted in that that there were a lot of times where he felt his life is spiraling. And he not only consulted a sports psych person, but he consulted a clinical therapist. And he used the phrase, you know, if you're doing a 1RM

and sometimes you have a spotter there, and they just give you a little tiny bit of lift that it just is enough to get you through it. He also said, imagine like floaties, like just you're treading water and something comes along that gives you temporary relief why wouldn't you take it who who wouldn't want that right yeah and it wasn't that i relied on it but it gave me something that i needed in that one moment to be able to stop and take control and then move on from it yeah i like the spotter example because it doesn't matter how strong you are eventually you'll get to a weight

where you are at the limits of your capacity and you need just a little bump through that sticking point and or you've done so many repetitions where now you're just fatigued and on like the final push you need just a little push to get to that sticking point to actually finish the rep and psychologically everyone has a capacity and everyone has the limits of their current capacity and having that little bit of help when you are someone like Dominic Cruz and you and he was the champ in the UFC and WEC for a long time and just recently suffered a loss, and that's a hard thing to deal with. He was on top for a long time, and now he's not on top anymore. Like, what do you do?

I don't know what that feels like to have that taken away from you, but it's probably really hard. Yeah, and I want to say this is I wish I personally had realized the impact of like therapeutic settings, like psychologically therapeutic settings when I was an athlete, because I didn't take advantage of any of that. And then as an entrepreneur, I've taken a huge advantage of that because I was approaching it from, um, so other entrepreneurs doing it.

I, um, I saw it as more of like an optimizing thing. I was like, I didn't see anything wrong with myself. I was like, oh, if I go participate in this thing that looks a lot like therapy, I might be in tears and talking to somebody and digging into the past. And after having experiences where I was like, oh, wow, that was optimizing and I had to go in the past and deal with some crazy shit. And had I known that then that it would be that beneficial, I would have definitely taken it up as an athlete. Now I'm really quick to step into a setting where I'm looking to improve myself as a businessman

or improve my relationship with my wife or something like that because I know what the benefits are on the other side. Labels and expectations are pretty powerful, right? So the exact same session called a business coach versus a therapist, right? It's the exact same session. I've had business coaches, and then afterwards I'm like, that was such a therapy session. Definitely. And there are times too where an athlete comes to see me,

and I don't do clinical work. I'm to see me and I don't do clinical work. I'm not clinically trained. I don't do any. I don't do psychological work. I deal with performance. So an athlete comes to me and they start talking and they start talking and I say nothing to them. And they walk out going, that was so helpful. I didn't have to do anything.

But, you know, I think that that's probably the most positive trend in my field of sports psych is what you're talking about is shifting the perception that sports psychology is something that athletes who have things that are going wrong need to. This is a form of performance enhancement like everything else that a person does. If you go see a physical therapist, it doesn't mean that you're weak. If you go see a nutritionist, it doesn't necessarily mean that you eat poorly. If you go to a strength coach, it doesn't mean that you're weak. It means that you want to get better. And I'll tell you a really interesting juxtaposition. The very first book ever written in sports psychology was called Problem Athletes and How to Deal with Them.

That's what started our field. Right? Now one of the most popular books. Assholes. Now one of the most popular sports psych books written by Bob Rotella is How Champions Think. Imagine that difference between those two perspectives. One psychologist is definitely better than the other. Bad people and what to do.

And it's exciting to see that transition too. Right. You know, that part of it. I'm curious, Andy, you said earlier, if you've done some work with Lenny, how is your initial understanding of sports psychology and how has that transitioned? My initial understanding is the same as it is now,

that it's a nonsense BS sport. It has no place in real science. This guy's full of shit. Yes. We've had a wonderful opportunity to interact together professionally with a lot of athletes, actually, at this point, which has been really fun. But probably five years ago or so,

we collaborated on an actual research project, which is really fun. And I'll let you give them the detail, Lenny. But basically, we set up a scenario where people did a physical strength test, muscular endurance test more specifically. And then they were actually told their performance. And so we set their expectations differently. And they came back in and had to reproduce the performance. And so it was really fun because it was the age-old thing. And I know this. I had this with 300 pounds.

It was like I just wanted to clean 300 pounds. And it was like, right, well, there were days I know where if you would have told me it was 280, I would have cleaned it. Right. Right. And so everyone's been through this before, and it was really funny when we – I think it was your idea initially. And I was like, yes, like finally we get to address this problem that everyone knows that there's that number you have.

Or 250 or it's 100 kilos or whatever that magic round thing is. And then how does it look? So you can tell. That mental barrier. Yeah, exactly. Right. This goes back to something I said earlier about that five minutes before you walk into your performance setting, you've already made a decision. Imagine, Mike, that I asked you to do a plank for as long as you possibly could.

Okay? Want to do it? Yeah, at least 20 minutes. And I had a stopwatch out. I had a timer. And so at the end of it, I'd tell you how long you went. Then I'm going to give you a rest. Well, I did a plank yesterday, so it wouldn't be fair today.

What was that time? Just to say. No, I'm talking about like a minute rest. I'm not talking the next day. I'm talking about a short rest period. And I tell you what time it went the first time on it. And then if I were to say to you that 80% of people are able to hold a second plank longer because they're used to the discomfort, then you go down and the expectation is that you probably should go longer so now let's say i'd let you see the stopwatch as it's as it's going and the first

time you did i'll just use fake numbers the first time i you did it i said you went for 200 and i'm sorry for two minutes and 20 seconds but in actuality you went for 205 but i told you it was 220 and then the second time especially if I say to you that most people do longer than the second one. Now, if I let you watch that elapsed time, you expect to be able to surpass 205 by about 15 seconds. And the next time you do it, you'll probably go close to 220. Your physiology didn't change and it becomes stronger as a rip to the first one it's it's about the expectancy effect and the study that that we did was we had uh students come into uh the building here and they held a uh dumbbell of five percent of the body weight for as long as

they could and we said that we were trying to just tell that held that for you listening home just straight out in front of you just like a front raise would be so arm is at 90 degrees 90 degrees to your body, which is a movement we traditionally don't do, which is one of the reasons why we picked it. Because people have no idea what they should be able to do. Right. Like we don't want to pick bench or whatever. Yeah, 20 seconds could be good. I don't have any idea how long I can hold it. Yeah.

So we said that we're trying to establish muscular endurance in arms with college students. Which is this cool part about the study is we got to lie like shit all over the place. I love this stuff. This happens in most psychological studies. Yeah. It's just one big trick. The fun stuff. The fun stuff.

All psychologists are liars. Yeah. All deception. It was cool. So we had them come in one occasion, then we had them come in a second time, and we had different groups. So if you're in one group, we told you that you actually underperformed shorter than you actually did.

Okay. By 15, by five, 15 or 25%. And then you were in a group where we told you exactly what you did the first time. You don't know that we lied to you. And then Andy's in a group that we always overestimated five, 15 or 25% longer than they did. The second time they did it then, and they actually came in two days later, the second time they did it, we just happened to have my iPad out, which happened to have the elapsed time going. And sure enough, each one of you performed the second time based on the time that you thought you went the first time, to a point.

Once you go 25% over, it had a negative impact on performance, but to a point. That's a huge difference. It sure is. I mean, 5% is huge. Of course. And anything, 25% is crazy. Yep. Yeah, well, when we got to the 25% conditions, it started having problems because people would, you know, say you got a minute the first time.

And then we told you, you got. Minute 15. A minute 15. And that number became so big. When you got like 40 seconds in, you started going like, oh, you see 40 seconds and you start shaking because you're at 80 or whatever and you think like oh my god i'm only halfway there yet and the people would just quit but they quit far earlier than the first time when they were actually able to do this so when the carrot was too far down the road and they started to realize i'm never getting there they just quit right way at the beginning they didn't go to their full capacity

not even close they just knew they weren't going to get it and just decided it's not worth it. Right. So you have to set a goals that are out there, 15%, but if you put them too far, you're going to get halfway into it and then be like, I'm out because I'm never going to get there.

It's a good thing to note. Yeah. It's a really good thing to note. I think it goes back to what I said earlier. Like I said, this field is nonsense. It has no applicability. I think that it goes back

to what I said earlier about setting up expectations. You like doing things you're good at because it reinforces your ego. And so what happens is a lot of people give excuses. I don't squat as much as I need to because I'm not good at it, so I don't like doing it. Well, they just said an if-then condition. You're never going to like doing something you're not good at. So you have to remove the I have to be good at it to start doing it.

I'm just going to do it enough to get better at it. Just trust me. If you do it more, you're going to get better at it. And then all of a sudden, guess what? You're going to like it more. It's like people that say that they don't want to sign up for a gym membership because they're not in shape yet. I'll come in when I'm in shape.

It's so crazy. It happens all the time. That was probably the number one objection when we were running a gym that we got was I'm going to come join. I go, okay, when? Oh, when I get in shape. I'm like, that's what the gym is for.

I'm really confused. But how are you going to do that before you get here? Yeah. So you have two things. You've got motion, which is doing something. Then you have emotion, which is feeling like doing something. So a lot of people put the emotion first. I have to feel motivated to do something for me then to actually do it.

But I want to see if they can reverse that. So what happens if you just start doing it and then you start getting momentum and it starts. So imagine like, you know, it's finals week on campus right now. Imagine somebody has a big paper that's due a big project that's due. They're never going to start doing it when they feel like doing it. The deadline is going to approach, then they're going to have to start doing it and all of a sudden they get momentum and it's not as bad as they thought. So the motion created the emotion. But a lot of people try the reverse and say, I'm not going to do something

until like you say, I feel like doing it. All right. And that's a really important, again, we're going back to a sense of control. I can control then. I may not control how I feel, but it doesn't matter because I can control what I do. That's an interesting thing. You'll hear a lot of writers specifically talk about. It's like, well, what's the key to writing? It's like not getting up and doing your meditation and then getting your coffee, right? Like, no, get up, start going and start writing because that's the worst part of the whole thing. And it could be the worst draft ever, but it's much easier to revise than it is to start with a blank screen.

If you start your writing process with a Word document that is blank and you're like, okay, there once was a boy. Awful. Like you're just dead in the water. I'm going to go reheat the coffee. I'm going to come over. I've got to get my workout. You've got to get that distraction in. Yeah, exactly, because you've just got to get something banged out and typed down.

What's also interesting about our thing, too, is the other side of the equation, which was when you set the carrot too far out, people quit. But people also massively underperformed when we set the expectation really super low. So what they would do is, and please tell me when I screw this up, if they got like a minute and we told them 25% on the other end of the direction, and they would wait until they got to like a minute one and then quit, which was actually 15

seconds less than they actually got. So their ego wanted them to do better the second time and we knew they had 15 seconds left in the tank, but they quit anyways because they had beat their performance, which is all they wanted to do and they weren't, definitely not as tired. Interesting.

That's exactly right. I actually think that's the more interesting thing. Let's say, and this is a true study back in the 70s, that they were unmarked weight plates. You mentioned 280. Yeah. Let's say on that. Was that one RM what? Snatch.

Okay. One arm snatch. Whatever it is. So I put more on the bar than I tell you, and you're capable of doing it. To me, that's not as interesting and powerful as I put on less than you think it is, and you can't do it. Right. That, I think, describes an awful lot about the power of expectation. Yeah.

Right? Yeah, so it's setting the bar too low there and doing it just for the sake of getting it, even though I didn't really get to the where I could have done. Right. So hitting potential at all. So now this comes into what I think is one of the biggest fallacies there are in performance, which goes back to that feeling like it is putting way too much judgment on how you feel when you're performing or when you're going to the gym or how energetic you feel when you're performing or when you're going to the gym or how energetic you feel that probably is one of the biggest uh limiting factors in our performance is only performing

when we feel a certain way actually can you follow up sorry um um about you say this all the time and this is actually i don't think i've heard anyone else say this about athletes being aware that the week before the competition or like two or three days before you're going to start becoming extremely sensitive to everything. And that's kind of like what you're saying now. It's like you have to be aware that all of a sudden this little thing that didn't bother you a week ago, now it's going to be a huge thing. Can you talk about that?

It's hypersensitivity. Yeah. And the analogy I give would be, you know, you have a nerve, and then you have the myelin sheath around the nerve. The myelin sheath is a protective factor, but what happens when that myelin sheath is damaged or it wears away? Then things that innervate with the nerve that wouldn't have been that sensitive become hypersensitive because that myelin sheath is worn away. So going into a big competition psychologically, our myelin sheath naturally starts to get thinner and thinner so that when we experience certain things, we experience them with the greater perceived intensity than they actually are. So now what happens is our emotions are going

like this. And I talk a lot about the notion of staying centered emotionally. Staying centered emotionally would be, imagine the state that you're in right now. You may be dealing with things outside of this room, but right now you're rational, you're composed, you're in control, it looks to me. Unless you're really faking it. So this is mostly

a state of control for you, a state of center. What I don't want you to do is I don't want you to veer from center into a negative or positive emotion from here. Well, now that you've brought it up, now I'm bouncing back and forth. I wish you had told Mike this before he interviewed Rachel. Oh, yeah. That's for a later story.

Rachel Starr. Yeah, there you go. Oh, that Rachel. She can do better. So what I want to make sure that athletes recognize is that, you know, you may come up with the sniffles, whatever, on Tuesday and you're leaving on Thursday for world championships. And so you're going to start to overreact to that. And that's going to cost energy.

Imagine you have a mason jar. This is an example I use with a UFC fighter. The week before a fight, imagine the hypersensitivity that a fighter goes through. So you've got a mason jar. This is the quantity of energy and focus that you have for today. You wake up, it's full. You go to bed, you don't have to save any of it for the next day. Next day, you get another one.

So I want you to think very carefully where you're dispelling that energy and focus. And if you are putting it in places that really you don't have any control over, it's a quantifiable way of sowing that we only have so much to do. And if we react emotionally to situations that are going on, going into performance, then we're going to be spending an awful lot of that energy and focus that we're going to really need for other things. So that's a really critical element is this notion of detaching yourself emotionally from situations and attempting to be as centered as you can when you're in different environments. And it can be a lot easier said than done.

I've got visuals that I have with athletes you mentioned before, behavioral things. I have visuals that kind of represent that. And I think it's going to be really important for us to recognize when we're reacting or overreacting to something. And I mean this. It's obvious how negative emotions are going to have a negative impact on your performance. But people don't also recognize positive emotions

and how those can be damaging to performance. So imagine it's a quintessential i hit a what i consider to be a game-winning shot but there's still four seconds left in the clock so i celebrate and what happens and i've i've worked with teams before where they've just lost time and time again with one two seconds left. And when we start working on this emotional control thing now, they're in the exact same situation. But they'll make a shot block because they were present to do it. If I'm working with, so we have national championships this weekend in open water to make the national team and travel internationally and get a stipend top six. So imagine that I'm in fifth place and I've got 150 yards to the shore.

I've done 10K and I start recognizing I'm in fifth and I shift my focus to making the national team and I shift my emotions to getting excited about it. But as this happens every single time, I shift it for just that moment that gives two people to pass me at the very end. This happens every single time. And I go from fifth to seventh and I'm out of a national team spot because I reacted emotionally, positively. And so the recognition of that, I think is really critical on both sides of the emotional spectrum. It's not just the negative step that's obvious. We all feel it and know it. Also that positive side too. So instead of doing that, what should you be doing in that case?

You need to be very, going into it, you need to have a strategy. And you need to be very specifically focused on something in that moment. So, you know, if it's the finish of a 10K race, the night before the race, they should be in that lake and they should be studying the line and they should know exactly what focal point they need to be looking at to be able to to get the best line on it that's where i want their mind at i don't want them counting places i don't want them i want them to be present on something that's going to be helpful for them in that moment could you take in a mindset of something like i'm not going to just try to get

fifth i'm going to try to catch the person in fourth would that be better or would that still not be where you want their focus better yeah i think it's better for sure but i don't want to be counting places oh period right so just be just doing what they're doing when they're doing it totally present and just just doing the best they can like independent of all surroundings just if you're swimming in this case you're just swimming as fast as you fucking possibly can. You're not worried about where anyone else is. And the rest of that stuff is just noise. Because getting fifth or fourth is the future, which is irrelevant in the moment.

It's trash. Yeah. What happened in the last turn is irrelevant right now. It's trash. Yeah. And so that's the trash is what keeps us from being fully present yeah imagine you're trying to write you mentioned earlier writing imagine you're writing and there's stinky trash in your kitchen and you're in your dining room and it's distracting you so what do you do with the trash ashley

somebody takes out the trash right that goes back to i use that analogy that goes back to the the movie peaceful warrior which is a true story where the peaceful warrior where this this gymnast is constantly focusing on on past and future and his mentor keeps saying take out the trash it's distracting you from the only thing that's that's important which is right now yeah so the overarching theme or motif of this whole thing is if you can stay present not thinking about the past or or projecting and worrying about the future then you'll be in a good spot psychologically you'll be focused you'll be managing what you need to manage and you're controlling what you can control which is the right now what What am I doing right now?

Not what may happen, what has already happened, but right now. So a lot of this stuff is very connected. What might distract me going into this training or this workout to keep me from being present right now? Lenny, this has been amazing. Awesome. Very insightful.

I think that everybody at home or in their car is going to get a lot out of this. Cool. You're not on social media. Or you hate social media? I didn't say I hate it. Is that the deal? I didn't say I hate it.

So if people want to find out more about your work or follow you in any way, what's the best way to check it out? Thank you. Hit up Andy. Yeah. You could contact me through Cal State Fullerton. You could get my information on the bio from Cal State Fullerton and send me an email or something. Yeah. Excellent.

Thanks for joining us today. For sure. Thanks, Lenny. All right, guys. Mike Bledsoe here from Barbell Shrug. If you like what you're hearing, head over to iTunes. Give us a five-star review, positive comment. And if you're on Stitcher, welcome to do the same thing.