High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 142: No One Gets There Alone with Dr. Rob Bell

Episode Date: November 8, 2017

Rob is a mental coach who works with Indy Eleven Pro Soccer and teams at the University of Notre Dame. He speaks often to businesses, universities, and corporate athletes including Marriott, Walgreens, Morgan Stanley, and PGA of America. He’s been a mental coach to multiple winners on the PGA Tour, a medalist at the Rio Olympics, the 2013 USTA National Champion and have caddied on the PGA Tour. He has been a certified consultant with the Association for Applied Sport Psychology since 2006. Rob has authored six books including: No One Does it Alone, The Hinge: The Importance of Mental Toughness, Mental Toughness Training for Golf, NO FEAR: A Simple Guide to Mental Toughness, & Don’t “Should” on Your Kids: Build Their Mental Toughness and 50 Ways to Win: Pro Football’s Hinge Moments. Rob was also an assistant professor of Sport Psychology for six years, publishing over a dozen research articles on the “Yips” in Golf, and effectiveness of sport psychology interventions. He has completed a 1/2 Ironman, two marathons, and numerous other road races. You can find a full description of the podcast and contact information for Rob at cindrakamphoff.com/rob.

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. This is your host, Sindra Kampoff, and I'm grateful that you're here, ready to listen to episode 143 with Dr. Rob Bell. Now, the goal of these interviews is to learn from the world's best leaders, consultants, athletes, and coaches all about the topic of mindset to help us reach our potential or be high performers in our field or our sport. Now in today's episode, I interview

Dr. Rob Bell, who's a mental coach who works with Indy 11 Pro Soccer and many teams at the University of Notre Dame. He speaks often to businesses, universities, and corporate athletes, including the Marriott, Walgreens, and Morgan Stanley. He's been a mental coach to multiple winners on the PGA Tour, which is something we talk about. He's a certified consultant with the Association for Applied Sports Psychology. And Rob has written six books, including most recently, No One Does It Alone.

He's been an assistant professor of sports psychology for six years and also published articles on the YIPS. He's completed two half Ironmans, two marathons, and numerous other road races. And in this interview, we talk quite a bit about his new book, No One Does It Alone, how failure is not fatal, why we should respond, not react, and the reasons that we should focus on the process over profits or the product. He also talks about two of his other books. One is called The Hinge, and we describe what a hinge moment is and what that means for us, as well as what parents can do on the car ride home.

So here's a few of my favorite quotes. Rob says that every moment is an opportunity for a hinge moment. And we also talk about staying in the present moment. And he says, sport inherently puts you in the moment. So I think you're going to enjoy this interview with Rob. Before we do that, let's head over to a rating and review on iTunes. This is from Angela Brown. And Angela said, this is rocket fuel.

What an amazing, energetic, and power-packed pocket of mind fuel. After listening, I'm pumped and on purpose. Great work. Thanks so much for your comment over there, Angela. And if you enjoyed this interview, if you could just do one of three things for us. If you could head over to iTunes and rate the podcast like Angela did, you can provide a rating as well as some comments. That would be awesome. Or you could share the podcast on social media in any way or tell a friend about the podcast. That would be amazing. All right. Without further ado, let's bring on Rob.

Welcome, Dr. Rob Bell to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. I'm stoked to have you here, and I'm just looking forward to an awesome conversation. So it was great to see you a few weeks ago at ASK, the Association for Applied Sports Psychology, and now we just get to talk about what we do for an hour-ish. If that's enough time, yeah. Yeah, if that's, I don't know, it probably won't be, right? So Rob, just, you know, welcome you to the podcast. Tell us a little bit about what you're passionate about and, you know, how you got to where you are.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm passionate about just helping people get to where they want to go. Yeah. And I always think of, you know, the importance of a coach. I mean, I really believe that everybody needs a coach. I also think the tough part is that it's just so tough to coach yourselves. And if we think of like the concept of a coach, I mean, like a stage coach, right? So, you know, it's basically, you know, every kind of situation I'm getting into, I was like, you know, I want to be the coach that someone never had or be the coach that I always wanted. Yeah, nice. And what you really focus on is the mental coaching, right? The mental performance part. Tell us about your practice right now. You know, who do you work with? What

do you do? I know you do some keynoting and you do some mental performance work. So just tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, I'll have my individual athletes in the local area in Indianapolis. I work with all different sports. I have my professional athletes, golf, tennis, work with the professional soccer team, head up to Notre Dame once a week, work with athletes up there. You know, I write books pretty constantly and then I'm, and then I'm speaking and then, you know, kind of executive coaching. So working with these high profile, high stress executives that own their own companies. And, and again, that need coaches. So yeah, a lot of fun living, living my passion, just like you are. And it's, it's so rewarding. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I think one thing that you just said, it's like really hard to self coach yourself. And you know, that that everybody needs a coach, I have my own coach

to help me kind of keep pushing my grit and my big dreams. And I like that you're working with a wide variety of sports, but also executives. I know you do some keynoting. So tell us a bit about keynotes that you've done recently or just a little bit about that. Yeah, sure. So I mean, it's not anything that I really seek out, but, you know, I do love delivering a message. I mean, you know, the very first time I ever spoke to a big audience, it was in front of like 2,000. And, I mean, I never talked to anyone in front of a class.

Unfortunately, you know, what happened was when I got to college, I just really went off on a bad path. I was drinking a lot and partying, and I got in a car accident where I had been drinking, you know, so it was a horrible experience. Okay. And then I was asked to come talk to a high school. So I tried, I tried to turn my mess into my message. Then the only thing I could ever do was really just kind of share my story, experience, strength and hope. And whenever I'm going to be talking to groups,

that's all I can share is things that I've learned and what's my experience been. Because I have a lot of two by four moments in my life, you know, where you get that two by four over the head. Nice. And those are the ones that I think we try to learn from, you know, and it's really, it's like we want wisdom, but we only get wisdom through pain. Right. And if we can learn through other people's pain, that's where I think then we kind of accelerate that wisdom process. Yeah.

You know, yesterday I was given a keynote at the YWCA's Women's Leadership Conference here in town. It was pretty awesome to like speak to my people, right? Like my, you know, my neighbors and everything like that. And one of the speakers that was right before me was talking about authentic leadership. And she called these moments crucible moments where we learn about ourselves. And then that helps us, you know, kind of what you said is like, the only way to learn is like. The way, the way to wisdom is through pain.

So, all right, then we're going to jump right into that. Rob, what I want you to share is about a time that you failed. Sure. What made you go so great and what you learned from it and how it's actually shaped you today. We're just going to start off with a whammy. Okay. Okay. Leave it the best foot forward. I had just graduated from the University of Tennessee, a doctorate in sports psychology.

Right. You know, I had just graduated from the University of Tennessee, a doctorate in sports psychology, and was working with golfers on a web.com tour. And, you know, when I showed up at that event, I had a golfer that was in it. There was another golfer that was looking for a caddy for that week. And, you know, so I volunteered, and he was really interested in the mental game, so we started working together that week. And I was caddying for him. And he was really interested in the mental game. So we started working together that week and, um, and I was caddying for him and he was, uh, he's, I mean, he was playing great. I mean, just playing absolutely great. So this is a four day tournament and this is the second day and we walk up on the ninth green.

So we've got nine more holes to go just in the second day of this tournament as we're walking up to the green. I mean, his name is up there in light, Cindra. And you know what, doc? I really thought like it said bell. I mean, his name is up there in light, Cyndra. And you know what, doc, I really thought like it said bell. Like I really thought like, you know, I'm, I'm absolutely the best sports psychologist and caddy. Tiger Woods is going to be calling me up, you know, the old tiger. This is, this is easy. And so we get up to the green and, you know, by that time I was kind of

like caught up in myself and, uh, and he tosses me the ball and I grabbed the ball and I reached down, I'm cleaning the ball and the ball drops in the bag. And I reach out and grab the ball and toss it to go. And then it was one of those moments where a feeling of dread just overcame me because, uh, you know, for some reason I asked him, I said, I said, Gary, I said, that was, that was a Callaway two blue circle, right? Okay. He wants to know why I'm asking him this. He looks at the ball. It's a Callaway four blue circle. Okay. So in my haste and thinking I'm the man, the best ever, I handed him the wrong golf ball. Okay. So the rules haste and thinking I'm the man, the best ever, I handed him the wrong golf ball. Okay.

So the rules of golf are very specific. You have to start and end each hole with the same ball. Oh, wow. And, you know, golf you call penalties on yourself. Right. We call the rules official over. It was a two-shot penalty. Oh, ouch.

So just like that, from first to fifth, we have nine more holes to go. And we have a couple more hours just on the second day. Right. And so then what happened was that voice that was telling me how great I was and how awesome. So it totally turned on a second. And then that voice was now accusing me of how awful I was at a person. I'm probably not going to drop any vulgarities, but there were a lot in there. How could you be so stupid? How could you mess up? Once you set the bag down here and go kill yourself because it couldn't get any worse than this. Wow. Did you feel that way? Oh, absolutely. And I've lost games before. I mean, you know, I've choked before as an athlete. I've never felt as bad then because I was costing somebody else that. And so he doesn't say anything to me for the next couple of holes.

You know, it's a long time to have those thoughts just inside your head. And here's the message that I learned. The 14th tee box, he stops and kind of looks at me and says, Rob, he says, look, I need you. Okay. We're going to get this shot back, but you know, I need you to be confident either you can't do this stuff or you don't believe in it, but he just said, I need you. And I said, okay, like, all right, I'm, I'm in, I, you know, I can fake it or act as if, and what that taught me there was, um, the power of responding instead of reacting. Nice. Yeah. And the way that I see it, because if we react, if I react, it's usually wrong.

It's filled with emotion. I'm going to make the wrong reaction. It's not usually a good reaction. But if I respond, then I'm cool, calm, and collected. You know, I'm like a first responder, somebody that's trained to respond. You know, reactor, it's like a nuclear reactor, right? Somebody that's going to go off. And that really taught me the power of that one.

Because again, if he reacted, he would have said, you know, I can hire somebody else, get out of here. But power being able to respond, don't react. That was the best I learned from that one. And he finished second that week, you know, by like three shots. So that would never even came to matter. Yeah. That's nice that it wasn't like one shot. Right. One thing that I'm hearing is like,

I think sometimes, you know, even if you're not in our field, what you can do is you maybe get a little high on yourself. Right. And then, and then like, maybe you just lose concentration or you lose focus, but then he really needed you to be there. But in those few holes, you were inside yourself, right? You know, overthinking it and then you weren't there for him. So I love that he said like, I need you. How did you feel in that moment that he said, I need you? Wait. And again, I mean, I can go back to that moment. I mean, that's how bad it felt. You know, we remember the negative moments more than we do the positive ones. And I mean, I can go back to that moment. I mean, that's how bad it felt. You know, we remember the negative moments more than we do the positive ones. And I remember, you know, it didn't fully leave, but,

but I was at least engaged by that point. And, you know, the power of a teammate, he was my coach at that point. You know, I couldn't get out of my own head. He, he got me out of it. Yeah. Yeah. So did you keep on working with him or how did that go? Oh yeah, we worked together for years. Yeah. Yeah. So did you keep on working with him or how did that work together for years? Absolutely. Um, became great friends and, um, still keep in touch today and, you know, played on the PGA tour and had a great career. Absolutely. So no one's perfect, right? Yeah. And his name, you know, I can share his name. I mean, it's Gary Christian. He's,

he's a commentator on golf channel now. So, Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah, that's wonderful. I also think your story shows us that even if we're trained in this area, you know, we can get in our own way. And I think sometimes people, you know, maybe when they hear me speak and maybe the same thing happens to you, it's like, oh, wow, you struggle with this too? You know, your thoughts aren't 100% pure and clean and perfect. And I'm like, nope, you know, and, and also kind of being vulnerable with it. So I really appreciate you just like starting this

off on the right way and sharing a moment where, you know, that you really learned something important. How does that shape what you do now, Rob? Like that moment? Yeah. I mean, you know, and especially because I'll, I'll put this in, this comes up a lot. Like I'll put myself in competitions because I need to stay in touch with that competitive environment, you know? So whether it's like doing a half Ironman or even entering a golf tournament and I'm not winning these things. Okay. I'm not even winning age group, but I'm competing. And what it really does is, um,

it just humbles me so much because everything that we're trying to do in life that's worth anything is really, really hard. Yes. And, you know, to stay in touch with that feeling of what it's like to fail and how bad it's to fail. And then the also part is that look, failure is not fatal. It's not going to kill me, but, but how do I get outside of my own head and then start focusing on other

people? And that's the way, that's the part that I've seen that that's the way we get out of our own head is to be able to focus on other people and help other people. We help ourselves in return. Right. So I'm thinking about how an athlete, you know, if they make a mistake in the game, it's like, Hey, you know, how can I help my teammates as a way to like move on quickly? Yep. Well, Rob, appreciate you sharing that with us. You know, one of the things I wanted to make sure we talked about today was your new book, No One Gets There Alone. So tell us a little bit about the backstory of that book. Why'd you write it? Sure. So last year, there was an email came

across my screen that there's going to be a half Ironman. Okay. And, you know, 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike, 13.1-mile run. And, you know, there were three things. Number one, I hadn't trained at all. Number two is I didn't own a bike. I hadn't biked in about 10 years. And number three is the race was in two weeks.

And so I signed up for it just like any sane person would do. And the reason why I signed up for it is because I believe and I like to test that if we just keep moving, we will be successful. If we never ever stopped and we will make it. And I challenged myself, look, I could just keep moving. So the night before the race, I trained two days for 10 days. The night before the race, I remember asking the guy whose bike I borrowed and trained with, like, what happens if I get a flat tire? And he said, would you know how to change it? I said, no.

He said, well, then don't worry about it. I said, all right, cool. So, and you know where I'm going with this story. So we're cresting the only hill in Indiana at mile 30. I mean, it's a pretty flat state. People don't move here to go skiing. And we're, it's that mile 30. My back tire goes flat. I get up to the top of the hill. I dismount my bike. And then I start thinking and panic sets in my race is done. Like we just can't

keep moving if we can't move. So racers are cresting the hill and then taking off and that, you know, five, 10 minutes pass. And then a guy slows down, stops and says, do you have anything to change it? And I said, I don't, I don't have anything. So he takes his air cartridge and his tube and he tosses it to me and then kind of takes off. Okay. And I'm like, you know, it was one of those Disney moments where I'm like, yeah, never going to forget you. Thank you. And another guy stops right at that time, doc. And he asked me, do you know how to change it?

Wow. And I said, I have no idea. He gets off his bike. Wow. And this other racer comes over and says, well, let's get you fixed. Amazing. So this was a guy who in his own race stopped his own race to help a dumbass, somebody who wasn't prepared.

Somebody had no idea what they were doing. And after that, you know, he changed it. I ended up finishing the race. And then that thought stuck with me. Would you have stopped, Rob? Yeah. Up to that point, I'm going to be honest. The answer was no. And it has nothing to do with, I'm not a nice person. I'm not benevolent, but when it comes

to racing, it's just a different mindset. I've always had that different mindset. And I couldn't get away from that question. Would you have stopped until that point in my life? Although having a lot of experience in life, I've now changed my answer. So now I'm looking for opportunities to stop, looking for opportunities to help. That's where the whole book started was no one gets there alone. If it wasn't for this life changing event, I don't know if the book would have happened. And so looking at all these examples of elite athletes in Olympics, in ACC championships, NCAA championships, where they stopped to help somebody else out, even though it was detrimental to themselves, they were all asked the same thing. Why,

why'd you do that? Why'd you help that person? And they all said, I don't know. Okay. Every single one of them said, I don't know. So when it comes to this point is like, would you stop? I think it's a question that we need to all ask ourselves before the opportunity is there because once the opportunity hits to be able to help somebody, then it's too late. We start thinking about it. We get inside our own head. And the real beauty about it is even though this is benevolent and it helps other people, like I kind of said earlier, the way that we get outside of our own head is to be able to focus on other people. If I can see how my experience can benefit others and focus on

helping five other people through just my strengths, then I can't but not help myself at the same time. And a better you makes a better us, and a better us makes a better you. Nice, nice. Well, that is powerful that he took some time in his own race. And my bet, what, five, six minutes? Was it longer than that? Yeah, absolutely.

The whole thing probably took 18 minutes. 18 minutes that he sacrificed, right, his own time. And, and did you later ask him why he stopped to help you? Yeah. Same thing was, you know, you look like you need help. Wow. I asked him when he was changing my tire. Like, why'd you stop? He just said, well, you know, it looked like you needed help. Um, yeah. And that was it. Same thing. I don't know. And when you look back at that experience, your hinge hinge moment, right? Yeah. Hinge moment. And when you look back at that experience, your hinge, hinge moment, right? Yeah. Hinge moment. How do you think that now informs what you do and maybe your practice and maybe even the message that you deliver? Well, I'm, I'm even sharing that with athletes and,

you know, I shared it today is, you know, who, who are you going to help at this event? And at first, what do you mean? You got to focus on who are you going to help? And it doesn't mean like it's just when we focus on other people, we can't but not help ourselves out. And that's how the whole message now has changed is, you know, we're planting trees that we will never see. We're not going to know the results from our actions all the time. But if we take no actions, there will be no results. And you and I both

believe this, that look, if we help enough people get to where they want to go, we're going to get to where we want to go. Absolutely. I just think the main way, the key out of our own head is to focus on other people. Absolutely. Because we can, we can just sit there and ruminate and think of all the terrible things or, you know, after you've made a good point after a mistake, it's like, we're thinking many times that we're a failure, but if we focus on someone else, that's kind of just a different cue to get out of our own head. So that's what led you to write the book. Just tell us about more about, you know, what could readers expect from the book? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's just, you know, again, all these stories about individuals who would stop or would create their own companies, all focused on other people.

And it's about the process, not necessarily profits. So I actually wrote this one for, you know, corporate athletes. I say, look, everyone's an athlete. Our office is just different. It's all focused on the steps on how, how do we focus on other people? What is it that we can do? You know, so for example, like I think, you know, we can use our, all our transitions in life from driving to place to place from, you know, when we do have some downtime to focus our thoughts on other people and who is it that we can help at that time. Just these small steps that we can help. Then the other part is obviously build the mental toughness.

I can't give away what I don't have. And I do give away what I do have. So I still, Rob needs to be okay as a person in order to be able to focus on other people. So there is that element of a better you makes a better us. Super good. So when I think about you, you have been writing a lot of books. This is your sixth book. Other books that you have is, you know, No Fear, The Hinge,

Mental Toughness Training for Golf, Don't Shit on Your Kids, right? 50 Ways to Win, Pro Football's Hinge Moments. Tell us besides this book, No One Gets There Alone, which, which other one is your favorite, you know, or if you could talk about one, which one would it be? Yeah. I mean, I get to ask that one a lot and I do have a lot of parents that reach out about don't should on your kids. You know, that just the tips in that said that really helped them parent like their kids, which, which means a lot, you know, cause they're the integral part, I think of the youth sports. But, you know, I they're the integral part, I think, of the youth sports. But, you know, I always just look for these hinge moments, you know, that one moment, that one event or one person that's going to make all the difference in our lives.

We just have no idea when that's coming. And the real beauty about it is no matter how bad things get in our life, like, it takes one, one moment, one catch, one opportunity to turn everything around. That's the beauty about our preparation because when our moment's there, we're not even going to necessarily know it for weeks, months later. But when our opportunity hits, it's too late to prepare. That's why every moment, every person we meet could be a possible hinge moment. That could connect us to the person that we need to be connected to.

It's going to make all the difference in our lives. And the only part that's changed for me now is helping people discover, all right, well, who are you going to be the hinge for? Nice. Every person that you meet. So, I mean, there's like that saying, Doc, where it's like, you know, live every day like it's your last. I like that one, but I think a more powerful one is can we live every day like it's somebody else's last day? Then how would that impact us and our behaviors and turn our thoughts towards somebody else? Who can we be the hinge for? Nice. Who can we be the hinge for? So you've given us an example, I bet, of one of

your hinge moments was when you dropped the ball in the bag. What's another example of a hinge moment for you that really, you know, turned things around or made a big difference in your life? Okay. So I do share this one. You know, I knew in college that I wanted to be, you know, a sports psychologist. I wanted to work with athletes, coaching the teams on mental toughness. Ended up following down that path. But when I was a kid, my grandmom used to get me every Christmas,

Reader's Digest magazine. That was like, wow, thanks, grandma. For a 13-year-old kid, it's like, okay. But I would always look for these stories, like the sports stories in there. And I remember one time and I came across this story about these runners that would go on these runs, they'd have these euphoric sensations and would just flow time, you know, and it was runner's high. I remember that. And so I'm a kid, right? I'm probably 14 at the time. And that image stuck in my head. So I'm getting ready to graduate college. And there's a capstone class where what the teacherader's Digest magazine was tattooed in my brain.

And I said, I'm going to do that. And so I went and kind of replicated the study that was done as best I could as an undergrad student, not really knowing that much about it. And then I took that proverbial year off and then apply to universities. And as I was applying to this university, I was talking to the professor and he was really interested in this project that I did. And he was asking me these questions, asking me these questions. Well, in my naivete, I had no idea who I was talking to until when I looked and this guy was, his name was Dr. Michael Sachs. That's awesome. He coined the phrase runner's high, you know? So I got into Temple University. I got an assistantship. Yeah. And that was from that moment on, everything was different. If my grandmom never gets me Reader's Digest magazine, who knows what the story looks like today.

And if you never open it up, if you were like, Reader's Digest, not for me, you know, like, then you wouldn't have never had the hinge moment. Who knows where you'd be? Maybe you didn't get into Temple if you didn't do that, that Project and Runner's High. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, that's the thing. I mean, I just love those are the moments. I didn't know that until years later, the impact of that. Yeah, that's really cool. You know, I remember I had a similar experience, not that I did a research study, but my mother got me a runner's world magazine when I was in high school. And that was actually my first introduction to sports psychology. And guess what? I remember Michael Sachs' name being in there. And the first thing I would do is like, you know, I would love when it came in the mailbox, I'd run to the mailbox there. And the first thing I would do is like, I would love when it

came in the mailbox. I'd run to the mailbox. And then the first article I'd always read was the mind and body article. It was like, and I would study it and I would lay in bed at night, just because I wanted to master the mental game for my own self as a runner. But it's cool that those experiences in magazines or publications kind of shape, shape at least a little bit for the, in the field that we both went into. Yeah. And the story you shared at the conference, I mean, that would, that was such a hinge moment, you know, I mean, I just thought it was so tremendous at the Boston Marathon. Yeah. Yeah. And I can kind of quickly, I'll just quickly kind of share.

Yeah, please. I'll be the interviewer here. Yeah. I'll just quickly share it for people who are interested. But I was at the Boston Marathon bombing and I was just a couple blocks away and just we could see the Boylston Street from our hotel. And, you know, there was just a moment where I didn't know

if I was going to get home. And we had heard there were maybe multiple bombs along the course. And, you know, of course, you're thinking like there's probably a bomb in our hotel, you know, and you try not to go to the worst case, but you do, you know, and then you think like, gosh, am I going to see my boys? You know, at the time they were kindergarten and

second grade. And one of the things I did not share at the conference, but you know, my son heard about, heard about the bomb at school and he was in, he was in second grade and he came home to our nanny who was staying with you know them and said did my mommy get killed by a bomb today oh wow so it was pretty scary for our family but there was a moment where I'm in the hotel room and I'm like you know what cinderella there's no more playing small with your life like just step it up you know and let's go for it. You know, it was definitely my hinge moment that I just was like, all right, let's go for these big dreams that you have. And it definitely shaped what I do today. And, you know, like just jumpstarted my purpose and being

more on purpose every day. Yeah. That's so, that's such a great story. Yeah. How your experience can benefit others. Absolutely. And it's like, I'm grateful that I was there. So something I talk about in my book is like how I see that difficulties happen for you and not to you, you know? And it's like, I think that difficulty happened for me. Like I was there for a reason and, you know, it was felt like my wake up call when I wasn't injured. Right. You know, I wasn't, I wasn't there at the finish line when it happened, But you know, it's like, you're still impacted forever being so close, because you know, you don't know what's going to happen in the moment. So yeah, and those, and those tragedies when they do happen, I mean,

they're immediate hinges, because from that moment on, nothing's the same. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, cool, Rob, tell us a little bit about, you know, I'm just, I'm thinking about like the awesome work that you do with the teams and the executive coaching you do and the keynoting. Let's kind of dive into that a little bit. And, you know, when you think about kind of like your practice of sport and performance psychology, what do you feel like is central to your practice? And I'm already hearing a few things, you know, that no one gets there alone and kind of these hinge moments, but you know, what, what would you say is like really central, like core to what you do and how you practice it? Wow. I mean, I tell my athletes this, like, you know, a lot of times I'm really just a one trick pony, you know, every, every practice that we have is the most important one. Every person that we're going to meet is the most important one. And to be present in that moment. And, you know, and it really, it does. It gets back to our preparation.

Are we focused on just getting 1% better today? Because if we can, and I believe that. I don't believe that we stay the same. I believe that we get better or we get a little bit worse. And, you know, obviously, I mean, there's rest days in there that that's what helps us get better. So, you know, with our preparation, if we focus on just getting a little bit better each and every day, then we get the compound interest effect. And then that's where the real change then takes place if no matter what we're going to be doing yeah and it's

always it's focusing on the process not the product process not the product what else were you going to say rob no i mean and that's just where that's where the beauty of everything lies i mean you know holding up the trophy is is a great feeling you know and I love that. I love, I love giving people, giving athletes this feeling, but that, that ends, that feeling ends. And what people most remember is the struggle that they went through, you know, the time when they were down and they came back and ended up winning that game. And, and then, you know, the bus rides and the camaraderie. And if that's the stuff that we remember, then that's the stuff that we really need to emphasize and emphasize more. You know, we practice more than we're ever going to play.

Yeah, for sure. You know, we train more than we're ever going to actually perform. So that's more important than our actual play. It's really just stressing that, you know, I've always just really stressed and hammer home the preparation. And what do you think in terms of, I mean, I completely agree with everything that you just said, being present in the moment. And I think that's really hard for athletes and even executives these days, because there's, you know, so much that's maybe riding on, you know, I think

about like, gosh, even an executive in pro sport, right? There's so much riding on if you lose or if you win. You know, one of the football teams I'm working with right now is ranked number one in the country. Super exciting. But, you know, that's just a ranking. And, you know, they can easily get caught up in like the next next game instead of the moment right now. What do you think about how to train that? What are your best practices to work to stay in the moment? Yeah, and I think when it comes to that, it's really philosophy, I think, that we have to have on life. I think the mental game can really be achieved if it's the goal,

if it's a secondary goal, you know, if it's just kind of out there, well, we'll just kind of handle it one game at a time. And that's just something that gets said. It's not core. It's not a core principle. Right. And so it has to be the part of the culture. It's got to be the core principle. And that's where I think if we look at those types of coaches that really emphasize that, then that's what gets emphasized, you know, so what next play and yeah, in those, you know, dime store little sayings, they're nice. But unless it's the goal, it just doesn't get emphasized like that. Yeah. So you think it's important, like, or maybe even essential as a coach to have it like your, your philosophy, right? Like, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know,

then when it comes to staff, I think all the staff have to be speaking the same language, you know, everyone that's involved. It's hard to do. It's not easy. It's not easy to actually take it one play at a time, right? Like I think, at least I think it takes a lot of mental discipline to get your mind back to where, where you need to be, where your feet are, you know? So besides the core principle, what else do you think about, you know, why that's really important or how to do that? I think that's the part that's fun. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's just a lot of fun. Well, you know, we back to the runner's high example. I mean, I've had it twice in my life. I had it one time during a race and man, that was like, that's just, that's just so much fun. Yeah, for sure. And that's what everybody misses is the, the experience of the game being in

the moment. Sport inherently puts us in the moment life, we can go through the whole day and not really be in the moment. But sport inherently says, look, no, you have to be in this moment. And if that's what it's asking us to do, then we're just granting its wish. Right. And it's just a lot more enjoyable that way. Absolutely. Yeah. Super good.

Well, when you think about some of the best athletes that you've worked with, what do you see them do kind of mentally that you think separates them? Like when you think about what gives them the edge, what do they do that's different? So, and I asked myself this question a lot, you know, cause I don't think it doesn't come back to personality. I think there's a lot of different personalities that we can have in order to be successful. Um, but I do think that there just is that it factor in that person. And I think that it factor can be different. You know, some, it can be that just obsessive preparation. Some, it can be, you know, just that utter belief that they have in themselves. Others, others, it can be that this, this person is just unshakable. Do not let anything bother, you know, and I just look for that. And you see it sometimes that come out and then there's really trying to emphasize that

that's their gift. And, and that's the only thing that I've seen from the very best is they, they just have that little it factor that intangible. And, you know, that's the only thing that I've seen from the very best is they, they just have that little ed factor, that intangible. And, you know, that's the part about being able to observe players in their environment and how they prepare and what they do that you can, you can kind of see it. And do you think that ed factor varies by person to person? Oh yeah. Yeah. Can you give us an example of maybe like Peyton Manning and Eli Manning? Sure.

Peyton Manning, no one prepared harder. I mean, he would go through practices just working on one step. I mean, just relentless, detailed practice. Eli, his strength was, he was one of those players that would totally forget about the last interception he threw. He would totally forget about the mistake he had. Not Peyton. That would be the complete opposite. That would tear him up. And it did, you know, from time to time. But those are, those are two people whose it factor was completely different, but both were really effective at it. Nice. Awesome. Great examples, especially because they're, they're brothers. So you might think

that they're exactly the same, but they're different. Yeah. Yeah. Well, sounds good. When, you know, when I think about you talked about one of your books, no, don't shit on your kids and how that has been really impactful for parents. Tell us a little bit about that book and maybe some tips or strategies you talk about within the book to help us be better parents or better leaders. Yeah, sure. I mean, you know, youth sports has, has changed so much just even in the last 10 years, you know, I mean, parents, they make such an investment, both time and financially. And, and I don't think there's any parent out there that wants the worst for their kid. You know, I think we want the best. So there was never a manual that was written on, Hey, here's, here's what you should be doing. Allowing coaches to coach. You know, I wrote that one. Don't shoot on your kids. You know,

we can't say it three times fast, obviously. Right. You know, it was tips from, Hey, here's what we should be doing in the off season with our son or daughter. Here's what we should be doing in the preseason. This is what we should really be emphasizing. Here's what we should not be doing. Like the day before the big game is then talking about the big game and how much this means. You know, I mean, I just think it's important to be aware of that. I'll get most of the comments about the car ride home because I really wrote on that one a lot, that don't talk about the game,

don't talk about the practice on the car ride home. And the point being is that, you know, you're not going to get anything from the athlete anyway. You know, aren't going to be able to share anything. Nobody wants to talk about a loss on the car ride home. Nobody wants to talk about how bad they played and they shut down. But if we're cool, calm and collected, if we can set a time afterwards, you're going to get more back from, you know, your son or your daughter. You're going to, they're going to be able to process it more. There's just a grief time that, you know, Hey, why did you do this? Why'd you do that? On the

car ride home is not it. And I think if parents could really get that one home and just, uh, it makes a real big difference, I think just in the the relationship. And I've got to be a product of the product. I totally remember one time with my daughter, I was just going to say one thing, right? Right. My wife said, you know, call right home. Can't do it. Okay. You know, when we got home, what I had to say was so profound.

It was so brilliant that I totally forgot what I was that I was going to say. That's how important it was. Right. Exactly. And I mean, I could not remember what it was. And that's the importance of it. Respond, don't react. Hey, we got to do a car ride home. Yeah, that's good. And I think we, and I'm a parent too, right? I want to be a good parent. I want to help them. I want to help them learn. I want to help them grow. And so I think like our overemphasis on, on being good parents and helping our kids, you know, that I think that's the reason we want to give feedback on the car ride home. And we want to talk about it immediately, but I think you make a really good point that we have to grieve. And, you know, it's like, it's like my work with a lot

of young kids and, you know, some today I was working with a 10 year old or some teenagers, right. And they hate, they hate talking to their mom, their mother or their father about the game. Cause it's like, they're just going to tell me all the things I did wrong instead of what I did. Right. Right. And this is the part that I look at. I mean, I know we're both in agreement on this and most people listen. I mean, sport, I love sports. I mean, the play, right? Like, I mean, we got to play every day, no matter what it is. And when we professionalize that part for kids, we take that away. And sport can teach us so much. I mean, every lesson that we can learn in sport obviously applied to life. And that's what I try stressing all the time. Like, what is it that I want my kids to learn about sports?

Number one is be physically active, too. You know, to be in the moment, to enjoy it, have fun, to help other people out, to learn what leadership and communication is all about, and to overcome that adversity when you lose yeah it stings it's not gonna be any fun okay so what are we gonna do about it absolutely and i hear you know when i hear you those things i hear more of like character development than maybe performance enhancement like sometimes we get so we get so like focused on being you know being your best and and and also like reaching your goals

that we, we kind of forget maybe as parents or even coaches, like that it does help them be better people and better leaders and that the difficulties and the struggles are important because it teaches us something really important about where we want to go or who we want to be. That gives us the hinge moment, right? Yeah. And we got more kids that quit now by the age of 14 than ever before. They're not even playing team sports, you know, and even, even if they are in the, in their good, um, by the time they're, they hate it in college or they're done by the time they're in high school, you know, and that, that's the real shame. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Rob, what is another kind of core principle to how you, you know, kind of view your work that we haven't talked about?

Boy, that's a tough question. What we haven't talked about. Yeah, what have we not talked about? What have we not talked about that's central to like what you do or what you talk about? One of the things I think is important, and obviously when it gets back to preparation, is just making our preparation more difficult than our actual competition. And that's the part where I want, I want to know where our mind is going to go when we're faced with stress

because everyone's mind goes a little bit different, right? Some, you know, even if it's going to be racing and they're doing, there's really tough workouts. Where's their mind going? Is it, is it safe for them to just check out and not give 100 because that's what they're going to do in the race if we've got a five foot putt um that really really means something are we going to think about oh please don't miss this putt or we're going to think about putting a good stroke on it and so when we can recognize where our mind goes that's where i think then we can we know know what the challenge is. And look, every

athlete I've worked with, um, or every athlete that I've always seen has choked at some point in their life. Yeah. It happens. I mean, you cannot be in sport long enough and not have it happen. I mean, that's part of it. So, you know, I want them experiencing that stuff in practice so they can really recognize it. This is exactly where your mind is going to go, possibly in competition. How are we going to train instead? So that's the part where I'm just big on that part is making practice and preparation more difficult than our actual competition. Absolutely. And you can apply that in lots of different ways, not even if you're an athlete, but how are you preparing every day as an executive or a leader or as a parent, right?

For whatever your competition is. Right. I mean, like John Wooden would write out every practice, every minute of practice that we'd have for a two-hour practice. That took him two hours to do that. Yeah, but he was incredible at what he did and structured and his athletes were very well prepared. Exactly. I mean, that's what it took. Nice. Nice. Well, tell us about, you know, your journey of writing six books. How many years did it take you since your start? And, you know, like, are you constantly writing or tell us about that process? Yeah. One of the jokes that I'll make sometimes on social media, and I'll just say if, you know, people ask me like, well, how do you write so many books? And I just said, well, just call me

at 530 in the morning. I'll tell you. Nice. When everyone else is sleeping. So, I mean, I write for one hour every day. Wow. And that was communicated to me. You know, Dan Check at Georgia Southern had told me that was the formula that he did to write his thesis. That's what I did to write my thesis. One hour every day. I can do one hour. I can't do three.

So it's just like working out. You know what I mean? I can really work out hard, go at it for an hour. Sometimes you're going to have those longer workouts, but I'm trying to put a three hour workout in. I can't do it. But so it's, I think it's really, it's better to be consistent than it is to be crazy, you know? And that's, that's where we're always looking for consistency. And every book, I mean, every book's been different in terms of how long it takes. Um, but it's just that 1%, it's just writing an hour for every day. And then we look back,

then we can have something, we have a product. 530 to 630 AM every single morning. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That takes a lot of discipline, especially that early. Yeah. Yeah. And there are times where, you know, cause I also work out in the morning as well, so there are times where there's a little bit of give and take there. Sometimes I'll have to work out at 5.30 and then I'll come back and I'll get the 6.30 to 7.30 done. For sure. It sounds a lot better when it's just always 5.30. And what are you working on now then? Since you just finished the sixth book, No One Gets There Alone, what's your next project? Yeah, so really it's just promotion for this one because this is going to be released in a month. And I always have a notebook with me because I'm always down writing out ideas. I love blogging, and I love just being able to help people get to where we want to go. And, and the power of encouragement. And that's, that's really the biggest thing right now is just

how can I communicate that message that no one gets there alone. If we focus on other people, that's how we get outside of our own head. Awesome. So tell us how we can connect with you. I know people who are watching are going to want to go over to your website and you have an incredible resources. They're a very active blog and a lot of good resources. So tell us how we can, you know, get in touch with you and then how could we buy one of your books or this new book coming out quickly? Yeah, sure. So on social media, I mean, it's at Dr. Rob Bell and my website is drrobbell.com. You know, the books on Amazon, every one that you mentioned there, and they're also on the website. I've got a newsletter that goes out every single Friday. People ask,

well, why on Friday? Because a lot of people just check out on Friday. A lot of people put their blogs on Monday, like we need to have a good week. I want us to stay focused here on the weekend on what we're doing and you have a lot of fun with that and thanks so much for having me on I really appreciate it absolutely I was a joy to have been talking to you do you have any final advice or final words for people who are listening or watching a quote that I just came across and I really love this one a lot and this one was by Gil Reyes this was Andre Andre Agassi strength and conditioning coach. Great story. Great man. He never, Andre never lifted a weight without him around, you know, never a rep at all those years. And he said this, he just said, look,

some battles are worth fighting, even if you lose. And boy, that one really resonated with me. I just thought that was such a righteous statement because that means you know to go for it you know no matter what nice awesome awesome well Rob here are a few things that really stood out to me about our conversation as I recap I loved your story about your failure and what that taught you and and also like how you were honest in the moment right even though it was really really difficult and how you were honest in the moment, right? Even though it was really, really difficult and how you even got in your own head. And so what the golfer said to you just like, hey man, I need you. It was a really kind of powerful wake up call. I like what your message about respond, not react. So stay in control of yourself, calm, cool, collected. I loved our conversation about hinge

moments and what that means. And then you also shared with us some tips on parenting in the car ride home. So tons of value here. I didn't even summarize everything. So I just, you know, really appreciate your time and your energy and your commitment to bringing people a positive message and making sure that we don't do it alone. Yeah. Thanks, Doc. I appreciate you. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset. If you like today's podcast, Yeah. Thanks, Doc. I appreciate you.