High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 154: Live and Let Go

Episode Date: February 2, 2018

In this episode, Cindra talks with TJ and Lisa about the 9th practice of the world's best: they live and let go. The 10 Practices are featured in Cindra's book, Beyond Grit, and you can find a PDF of the 10 practices of the world's best at: https://www.beyondgrit.com/bonus/. Summary of the episode: High performers let go of mistakes and tough things so they are not heavy or weighed down. Mistakes and disappointments can teach us a lot about ourselves. It’s important when we do experience failure that we see it as learning tool – perhaps motivating us to improve and get better. The best: learn, burn and return.  This Week’s Power Phrase: I see failure and mistakes as opportunity to learn and grow. I will get it next time! Dr. Cindra Kamphoff is a Certified Mental Performance Consultant, Speaker and Author. She provide mental training for the Minnesota Vikings along with many other championships teams. Cindra speaks to and works with CEOs, businesses and organizations on how to gain the high performance edge while providing practical strategies that work. Her clients range from Verizon Wireless to Mayo Clinic Health System. Cindra's first book: Beyond Grit: Ten Powerful Practices to Gain the High Performance Edge was published in August. Her Ph.D. is in sport and performance psychology and she is a Professor in Performance Psychology at Minnesota State University. To book Cindra for your next speaking event, visit: cindrakamphoff.com For more information about Cindra's book, visit: beyondgrit.com 

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. And Dr. Sindra Kampoff is with us today. Good morning, Sindra. Good morning. It's great to be here. It is good to have you in. We had Mother Nature with other plans last Monday as it was just nasty. So it was probably wise of you to just stay home in your jammies with the family. Nobody had to go anywhere that day.

So we are going to dwell on the past a little bit today. However, we're going to go back to the reason we really needed you last Monday after that Vikings game. It'll be part of the example, of course, the NFC Championship. But I like the topic. It does apply to way more than just Vikings football. So listen close and don't discount our conversation today immediately if you're not a football fan.

Today's topic is live and let go. And we'll start with a quote today. It's an anonymous quote, and it's this. You will find that it is necessary to let things go simply for the reason that they are heavy. That whole quote is pretty heavy right there. I know. So do you have an example for us?

Sure. So we'll start with the way that the Vikings season ended. It came to an end against the Eagles. But I think what's really important is that we celebrate a great season. There are 13-3 regular season in NFC North champs. And I think what was cool about the season is they brought the state together with the Minneapolis Miracle, where Keenum connected with Diggs for 61 yards. That was fun for a week.

Fun. That was fun for a week. Very talented team, and I know that they'll be back with more fire than ever. So I think it's really important, especially with the Super Bowl coming to our state this week, that as fans, we live and let go, just like the players have already. I do like the stories that you see about people doing Minnesota nice things, despite the fact that Philly fans are the ones you're doing them to. Because there's a lot of animosity there.

There's a lot of looking back on the behaviors of the fans in Philadelphia when the Vikings and their fans were there, and it wasn't great. But I do like that you hear a lot of the stories are like, hey, it's Minnesota and that's not us, so come on in and welcome to the Super Bowl. We're taking the higher ground. You're taking the high road.

So what do you mean by live and let go? Well, so it's one of the ten practices of high performers, and it's essential for us so that we live freely to live and let go? Well, so it's one of the 10 practices of high performers. And it's essential for us so that we live freely to live and let go. And if we don't, we can live with blame or regret, lots of negativity. And so the world's best to know that people are not perfect and they're kind of themselves. They let go of mistakes quickly after learning about them or from them, and they decide to live life full out. All right.

I've had a conversation. I know that we always, not always, but a lot of times we're able to kind of turn some of the conversations we have like this towards things that we do in regards to our children. And I've had that conversation where, look, you're going to fail probably more times than you succeed. You can't expect to go out and win every game all the time and be the best there was ever. Even the best there was ever, we've talked about it how many times, have failed so many times prior to that to get where they're at.

So how do we do this? How do we live and let go? Well, I think it's really a mindset. And a mindset of realizing that failure is inevitable and essential for us to be at our best. And I think we sometimes think of failure as like not when we don't meet our expectations or our goals and we can let it paralyze us. But as the leader of yourself, as the leader of your family, as a leader of your business, as a leader of your team, it's really important that we each communicate, you know, that failure is a learning tool, not something that we should be ashamed of and that actually something we can learn from, grow from. You mentioned mindset again, too. Let's talk a little bit about that in this particular Live and Let Go mindset, why it's important.

I think it's really important because it helps condition ourselves to find success after failure. And so when we view failure as shameful, it creates anxiety, tension, regret, and emotions that don't lead to high performance. And when we take it really personally, it can negatively impact our confidence. And what I mean by failure in order to find success, a great example would be Bill Gates, who is the richest person on the planet. And his first company was named Traptodata and went belly up. And so Traptodata was a computerized machine company that used a chip to process and analyze traffic data. And although the company was a failure, actually Gates and his co-founder said that they learned

so much from that experience that that helped them create Microsoft. And you know, Microsoft is now... Might've heard of that. Yeah, no one's ever heard of that, right? Net worth of $90 billion. So, you know, Microsoft is now... Might have heard of that. Yeah, no one's ever heard of that, right? Net worth of $90 billion. So, you know, I think those are people and you can find lots of examples of that, of people who have had massive failures, but then, you know, those failures led them to what they're doing now and their success now. So in moving towards letting things go, what do we want to avoid? Well, we want to avoid thinking like, I am my mistakes. And this is something I did, especially when I was in college competing, is I would really internalize failure and see it as a reflection of myself. And that led me to a slump. Instead, we want to make sure that we're not

viewing them as like, that we are our mistakes. And so we want to avoid letting mistakes kind of negatively impact our self-worth, our belief in ourself. Okay. What's another thing we want to avoid? Well, really what we're talking about today is like, avoid thinking that failure is useless. You know, instead see it as something that is necessary for our success. And I read this article this week about Michael Phelps, you know, the world's greatest Olympian who's had the most Olympic medals. And he said the first time he went to the Olympic Games, he performed terribly. But that actually drove him to get better and work harder and led him to success that he's had in the last several Olympics.

So if somebody's having some difficulty letting things go, what kind of things do we need to remember or tell ourselves? Absolutely. So I have a strategy that I use. It's really easy to use and doesn't take very long, but it's kind of wraps up everything we've been talking about today. So the strategy is called learn, burn, return. Three quick steps to let go of mistakes. So the first thing you want to do is learn. You want to think, okay, what should I do differently next time? But make sure you're using the next time and not taking it personally, but really seeing the mistake as more objective. And then you want to burn it. You want to let it go.

You want to move on. You know, maybe you say to yourself, let it go next time. Flush it. Flush it. You know it. So you don't ruminate on the whole. Exactly. So then you've already thought about what you, you know, what you learned and then you

want to move on. And then the return is, you know, can you return confidently with confident self-talk and confident body language, still believing in yourself and seeing that this is going to lead to more. Like this is another opportunity for me to try. Absolutely. Love that.

I feel like the Vikings players post-game were better at that than the fans were. I think so. The talk I hear, the fans are really struggling with it still. Yeah, more so than the players. The players know, look, it's done. And we had no control over it.

The rest of us are like, please, just one before I die. So how do we summarize today's topic? Because it's a good one, and even if you are still dwelling on that particular game or something else in life, it definitely is applicable today.

Absolutely. So high performers, those people who are working to reach their greater potential, they let go of mistakes and tough things. So they're not weighed down or not heavy. And mistakes and disappointments can really teach us a lot about ourselves. So it's important that we see failure as a learning tool, as a way to motivate us to get better and to improve. So the best do is they learn, burn, and return. All right. We wrap up with a power phrase every week,

something that you can take through the work week with you and apply this particular topic. I like this one. It's this. I see failure and mistakes as an opportunity to learn and grow. I will get it next time. Awesome. If we want to get a copy of the book, we want to book Sindra for an appearance,

we want to listen to the podcast, we want to know more about you, what's the best way for us to do all of that? You can head over to drsindra.com. So it's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A dot com. And all that information is there. The book information, it's called beyond grit. And then you can find this podcast later on this week. All right.

I've been listening to a couple more of the podcasts on the nice days. I've been able to get outside and they're always great to have good stuff to listen to when you're out there getting things done and living and letting go today's topic. Yes. Dr. Cinder camp off with us today. Thank you very much.

Thank you for having me. Thank you for listening to high performance mindset. If you like today's podcast, make a comment, share it with a friend and join the conversation on Twitter at Mentally Underscore Strong. For more inspiration and to receive Sindra's free weekly videos, check out DrSindra.com.