High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 168: Perform on Demand with Sport Psychology Professor and Consultant, Rich Gordin

Episode Date: March 23, 2018

Richard Gordin is an emeritus professor in sport psychology at Utah State University. He has been at the university for 37 years. Dr. Gordin has authored 100 articles and book chapters. He has been a sport psychology consultant for numerous athletic teams at his university, USA Gymnastics, USA Track and Field, US Ski and Snowboard Association and several professionals on the PGA and Champions Tours. He was the sport psychology consultant for the USA Women’s Gymnastics Team in Seoul in 1988 and a sport psychology consultant for the USA Track and Field Team for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. He recently served as the consultant for the USA Nordic Combined Ski Team in Vancouver in 2010 and in Sochi 2014. In this interview, Rich and Cindra talk about: His lessons learned attending several Olympic Games as a sport psych professional What the best do to succeed at the Olympic Games The mental skills that the best use on a daily basis Two concepts: Scripts of Excellence and Scripts of Connection Why acceptance is the first thing you must do You can find a full description of the Podcast and contact information for Rich at cindrakamphoff.com/rich.

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 168 with the legend Rich Gordon. Now, the goal of these interviews is to learn from the world's best leaders, athletes, coaches, and consultants, all about the topic of mindset to help us reach our potential or be high performers in our field or sport.

And to start off today, I got some exciting news about the podcast. We are now on iHeartRadio, Spotify, and Google Play. So it's a great reason to celebrate. So if you're listening to this at any of those three places, I'm excited to offer this option for you. I'd also like to celebrate by heading over to iTunes and read a rating and review. This rating and review is from CW Lucek. CW said, get high, high performance that is. Cinder runs a great show that pushes you to get in the right mindset to get you into that extra ounce of effort. Great motivator of a podcast. Thank you so much, CW. I appreciate your comment and your five-star rating over there. And if you enjoy this podcast, if you listen to it regularly,

or if this is your first time and you enjoyed it, if you could head over to any of those options, anywhere that you're listening to this and rate it, that would just help us reach more and more people each week. And I would be incredibly grateful. So today's interview is with Dr. Rich Gordon and he's a professor emeritus in sports psychology from Utah State University and he's been at the university for 37 years. He's also authored over 100 articles and book chapters. He's been a sports psychology consultant for several teams at his university, as well as USA Gymnastics, USA Track and Field, US Ski and Snowboard Association,

and several professionals on the PGA and Champions Tour. Now, Rich was a sports psychology consultant for the US Women's Gymnastics Team in Seoul in 1998, and a sports psychology consultant for the USA track and field team for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. He also served as a consultant for the USA Nordics combined ski team in the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and in the Sochi 2014 Olympics. So as you could imagine, we talked quite a bit about what it what it takes us to succeed at

the Olympic Games and what he really learned from attending several Olympic Games as a sports psychology professional we talk in this interview about like what the mental skills are the best use on the on a daily basis he describes how acceptance is the first thing we must do and then he provides two different concepts that we talk about, scripts of excellence and scripts of connection. So I look forward to hearing what you think about that. Now my two favorite parts of this interview were number one, he talked about how the great ones know what they need and are able to perform on demand. And I think what's fascinating is in the next couple of interviews, you'll hear as I post

them on the podcast, you'll hear about how consultants are really talking about this performance on demand. Rich describes that to us and introduces us a little bit more to the concept. Now, Rich also talks about how the best in the world have a plan and they leave nothing to chance. So I think you're going to enjoy this interview with the legend Rich Gordon. If you enjoyed today's interview, you can head over to iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify, wherever you're listening to it, and leave us a rating and review. You know, the podcast has been getting incredible momentum recently, and I think it's because of people like you who are willing to share it and provide a rating and review. So I'm just grateful for you. Thank you so much for listening. And second, you can head over to Twitter and join the conversation there.

You can tag myself at mentally underscore strong. All right, without further discussion, let's bring on Rich. So welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. I'm excited today to be joined with us, Rich Gordon. Thank you so much for being here, Rich. How are you today? I'm doing great, Sandra. My pleasure. Awesome. So I'm just looking forward to talking sports-like with you and just learning more about your work. So just to kind of start us off, tell us a little bit about your passion and what you do. Well, I've been passionate about what I do for almost 40 years now. So it course, our field was not as highly developed as it is now.

It's advanced tremendously in the last 40 years. So I had to have a real why, you know, as Cynic talks about, you know, know the why, go from the why. I had to figure that out before I ever listened to him. By the way, he's awesome. But I figured out why I wanted to do it. And the why was, is to help people achieve great things and to achieve their very best at what they do. And so coming into the field when it wasn't as highly developed as it is now, at least in the applied portion, we had a lot of fine research going on 40 years ago, but

I had to know really why I was doing it. And my passion just kind of came along with it because I've been an athlete all of my life. I mean, I've played athletics since I was a little boy. And I'm slowing down a little bit now, but I'm still doing the best I can. I don't consider myself, I don't ever consider saying that I'm an athlete. I've been an athlete in the past tense. I like it. I still say that I am an athlete. I like it. So you were at the University, Utah State University, for 37 years. That's phenomenal. And you were one of the pioneers in terms of starting the Association for Applied Sports Ecology, but also just like continuing to do, you know, great applied work.

And applied work really wasn't maybe as popular. So tell us, just kind of fill us in on the blanks, Rich, and tell us, you know, just briefly how you got to where you are now. Well, I was, first of all, when I concluded my baccalaureate degree, I went into teaching and coaching. So I was a teacher and a coach at the high school setting. So I started doing, I guess, sports psychology as a practitioner, as a teacher and a coach in high school. But this is back in the early 70s. And then I decided to go and study this field as it existed. And that's when I went to get my PhD, to get my doctoral degree. And I was lucky because when I got my doctoral degree, timing is everything at times.

The field was just starting to become more applied, taking the fine research and starting to do application. And so I got an early opportunity to work with athletes and coaches during my doctoral work. And then it just exploded from there. You know, it just, I just kept getting these nice opportunities. And, you know, I'd like to say that it was a linear path, but it really wasn't, you know, you just kind of follow along and, and you hopefully do good work work because word of mouth is very important in our field. And if you do good work, then maybe people will contact you to do some more work. And that's kind of how it developed for me. And it's still going. Yeah, nice. You know, when you think, you know, 37 years ago when you started at Utah State,

what are one or two of the biggest changes you've seen in terms of applied work, maybe how it's done or accessibility to sports psychology services? I think that the accessibility now is tremendous. I remember listening to Angus Mugford's talk a couple of years ago in Phoenix when he was outlining the different opportunities that are available to us in our profession now for applied work. And I was just blown away by that, you know, how many people were working in major league baseball. I think he said something like 40 at the time. It may be more now. You know, all the work that's being done with the military, all those positions and everything, and then all the other work that's available. The fact that the USOC now has expanded the's been really good in a lot of ways is that our membership, people who are interested in our field, has expanded to people who maybe didn't come up through sport. You know, they come up through different areas and it may be medicine, it may be business, you know, all these type of things. And so now this is why we now call this performance

psychology more than sport. Now, I'm still in a love affair with sport. Don't get me wrong. I mean, that's where my love affair is. But these other opportunities to use our knowledge and our application and our research to help people achieve great things is really one of the biggest changes I've seen. That along with people joining the field who perhaps had never even heard of the field even 10 years ago. People are getting excited about getting into our field and that's encouraging too. And then every time I go to ASP and I see all these young professionals there, it excites me. It really makes me feel good because I see that they're so enthusiastic. You can see the light in their eyes. You can see that they're like sponges,

you know, and for information and hopefully somebody like me can remain a sponge. Yeah, you're right. We all do need to remain like learners and like, you know, where we're continuously growing and learning from other people. I think that's why this podcast is so awesome because we get to learn from legends like you, Rich. So before we dive into talking about, you know, your work and how you do it, tell us about a time that you failed and what you learned from it. And I want to ask you that question right from the beginning is because, you know, I think as I read your bio to start off the interview, like, you know, USA Track and Field, USA Gymnastics, USA Ski and Snowboard Association,

like you've worked with all of these high level athletes. And, and sometimes I think we can glorify other people and just realizing that they're, you know, they're people just like us who've grown and learned in this field. So tell us about a time, Rich, where you failed and what did you learn from it? Well, that's, let me say something about the word failure first and then I'll very easily tell you a time that I made a mistake I like it you know we hear a lot in our field about comfort zone and I know what a comfort zone is it's where we we feel that we're, we're at our best. You know, I've been reading your book by the way, and, and I'm enjoying it. And, and this, I think you call it your, your genius, you know, your, you, we want to get in your genius zone.

I like that. Well, it's better than the comfort zone. The genius zone is where you're really doing great stuff, but we don't want to get too comfortable in our comfort zone. The genius zone is where you're really doing great stuff. But we don't want to get too comfortable in our comfort zone. And the reason we do is because we're either going to be successful or we're going to using the term, we're going to be a failure. But what I learned a while ago was, is I took the word failure out of my vocabulary and I replaced it with the word mistake. The reason I did that is because I'm going to make mistakes every day. I don't try to, but I will. But if I look at it as a mistake, I'm not going to be afraid of failing. I know I'm going to make mistakes. So when I make a mistake, I learn something from it and then leave it behind where it belongs and move.

And then it becomes part of my success. And this is a very important concept to me. But I will talk about a mistake I made. All right. I like that. Early in my career, you know, I started with using altered states of consciousness to do some work, including hypnosis and this type of thing. I just within 40 minutes or 30 minutes of competition, I did a group relaxation procedure with the team. Well, they came out and of course they were sluggish. They, you don't go into a deep relaxation within 30 minutes of competing.

You're, you're up. And so the other team should have thanked me for this intervention where I screwed our team up that night. So I learned real fast that you've got to be careful when you make interventions and how you make interventions. And sometimes you make no intervention. Sometimes it's what you don't say that's more important than what you do say interventions and how you make interventions. And sometimes you make no intervention. Sometimes it's what you don't say that's more important than what you do say or do. And so what would be the biggest take-home point that you want to, you know, make to us as

listeners or professionals in the field or people learning more about the field or people who are athletes or coaches, business people? What do you think we can learn from that? Well, I think you learn that not all interventions work for everybody. So I quit doing group things, at least for the most part. I mean, I'll have group talks and that kind of thing, but I quit doing group type of relaxation stuff or mindfulness stuff, because everybody has to, has to learn their, their individual zone of optimal functioning as jury Hannon calls it. Everybody's got to figure that out.

So most of my work is done individually with that kind of a intervention, you know, a relaxation activation type of intervention. So I learned that it needs, that needs to be done at an individual and it needs to be done as a training, as a mental training that you don't, you can't make assumptions about people immediately pre-competitively. Because if you watch people in a locker room just before a big game. And you've done this. And you cannot always tell from the outside what's going on on the inside.

Absolutely. And so yawning, for instance. If you see somebody yawning, this is sometimes a sign of over arousal. But a coach might look at that as a sign of disinterest or disengagement. And so then they might yell at that person and then it's going to exacerbate the problem because they're already anxious. So you have to know your players and you have to know when and how to intervene. And sometimes doing nothing is the best thing. Yeah, yeah. You know, I think, Richard, you know, just in terms of as I'm listening to him

thinking about your experience at the Olympic Games, you know, five Olympic Games that you've traveled to in terms of, you know, doing mental training and providing services there. Tell us, you know, what do you see kind of the best do, you know, in terms of the mental game? How do you think that the best differ from the rest in terms of what they do related to their mindset? The best have a plan. The best leave nothing to chance with a little bit of wiggle room.

Okay. They have a plan. They know exactly what they're going to do with the village. I'll talk Olympics. So with what's going to happen in the Olympic village. Even those that are first timers do their homework. They ask people who are veterans. They ask questions. They figure out how they're going to handle all the distraction of the village. Because once they're done with their competing, the village becomes one big party. It is a party, and there's something going on in there 24-7. So you might be getting ready for your competition.

You haven't had it yet, and somebody's having a party two doors down from you in the village. The media, they know when they're going to talk to the media and what they're going to say. One of the things where I feel we fail in our field is not helping young athletes and even very experienced athletes how to handle the media. Because now the problem with that is their agents think that's their role. And perhaps it is, but sometimes I think they don't do a very good job of it. And so we could really make a difference in the life of a successful Olympian if you teach them how to handle the media circus. There's more media passes at the Olympic Games than you could, well, I suspect it's probably the same at the Super Bowl. You know what I'm talking about. I mean, there's people asking you questions, and they're going to bring up, they're not going to

bring up good stuff. They're going to bring up controversial stuff. And you got to be able to handle these type of things. So yeah, definitely a lot of distractions in terms of the Olympics. So media, you know, kind of the Olympic village that you said, you know, when you're, when you're thinking about working with someone in terms of preparing them for the Olympics, tell us kind of where you start. I start at least three years out. I will not take a job with the Olympic athlete.

If somebody comes to me at the 11th hour and says, OK, can you help these people and will you do something with them at the 11th hour? It's just it does not work. Now you're looking for an easy fix. You're looking for the quick fix. And maybe you could do something to help them, but it is going to be a band-aid and it's going to be looked as a band-aid or magic even worse. Now I have some magic, but I don't like to use it very much. So you start about three years out, right? So that means to me that it's like working with

that person over the longterm. It's not this quick fix. It's like these building these mental skills and building these mental tools. So you can learn more about them. They can learn more about, you know, how, how they can use these things within the competition and training. Right. And more importantly, I'm part of the team. They don't see me as coming in on a white horse and all of a sudden here's, that could be taken the wrong way. You know, some athlete could go, well, what's he doing here? What, why, you know, why do we need him? So you not only get to know the athletes as whole people, but you also get to know the coaches. Because if you don't know the coaches and the coaches don't know you,

and they don't trust you implicitly with what your role is on the team, and they know what you're going to do and what you're not going to do, you can become a big distraction at the Olympic Games. Yeah, for sure. So when we go back to my question for you, you said the best have a plan and they leave nothing to chance. What are some other mental attributes that you would describe the world's best athletes? They have a total command of their focus. And that kind of leads into the other what I said said but i haven't found an athlete yet in 40 years that is poor at focusing that can maintain high level performance over a long run they can have a good performance once in a while but but they don't they cannot maintain it

consistency over a career so focus is a is one of the skills that I just believe is tantamount to great performance in anything that's of a performance nature. Also, the ability to regulate your arousal level. Again, it's individual. I've seen people compete at a very high arousal level. I've worked with throwers, for instance, throwers in track and field. And if you tried to calm those guys down, you'd be messing them up. Right. A lot of these guys operate at a very high rev level. And so you just need to make sure that that they're they're able to adjust their thermostats correctly where they need to be sprinters are the same way sprinters are high rev high yeah high energy they wear me out if i'm around sprinters very long i get worn out

and and that's what's kind of cool about track and field because each one of the event groups has its own type of skill set that they need. High jumpers or vertical jumpers are different. Horizontal jumpers are different. Distance runners are different. And so it's knowing what you need and knowing how to have what I call perform on demand. The great ones can perform upon demand. They don't just perform and it happens by chance. They kind of make it happen. So when you think about training that, you know, in terms of like training total command of their focus and regulating arousal and being able to perform under, you know, on command.

Let's say if there's somebody that you're working with that can't do one of those things, tell us what might you do? Well, I'll just pick one. Arousal regulation. Of course, we know that you can train the autonomic nervous system to not react in the stress response. This is well grounded in the literature, but you would have to teach them some kind of way to do that. It just doesn't happen by happen chance. You have to teach them some way to break the cycle of the cortisol rush because cortisol is no good for long-term stuff. It'll wear you out.

You talk about burnout, well, you'll be done before you ever start. So you have to teach them, and we know all of these things. And you can pick and choose the different methods. Mindfulness is one that's very good and talked about a lot now in our field. But going back to some of the old standbys, you know, there's relaxation training, there's autogenic training, there's hypnosis, there's breathing techniques, and there's all kinds of ways to help someone to learn regulation skills. But they would need to be put on a training plan where they have to do that on a daily basis, both in practice and out of practice. So when you show up to competition, it's a tool in your toolbox. It's not something that,

it's something you're very familiar with. That's why I said the long-term approach to training is very important to great performance at any high demand situation like the Olympics or the Super Bowl or the Masters golf tournament coming up here in about two weeks. So let's take, Rich, the one that you mentioned at the beginning about total command of their focus and that they can maintain it, right? And so when you're saying total command on their focus, do you mean like their ability to focus in the competition and, you know, on the relevant cues or, you know, in the game? Or do you mean like the focus and the commitment, like over the long term in terms of their goals and their

commitment to their sport? Good question. Well, it's both. I'll tell you, Sandra, I could tell the Olympic Games with track and field, I usually stayed fairly close to the athletes, you know, credentialed. And I watched. And I could tell you that the people who were there for the social, that were hanging out in the lobby, you know, that's where they were all the time. You could stick a fork in them. They're done.

The ones to be worried about are the ones you never see. Because what they're doing is they're doing their thing. They don't care what everybody else is doing. They're doing their thing and they're getting prepared for their event, their one moment in time in their own way. So they may be in their room doing mental training skills. They may be on a long walk separated from the group. And when they choose to engage with people over that 17-day period, they do it on their terms, not on somebody else's terms. So they're really intentional with their actions. Very intentional. And what are they doing to mentally prepare for that moment in time? You know, and I think Rich, like you hear that moment in time and you might

think, oh man, you know, it all comes down to this one moment, so much pressure. What are the ways that you think, you know, is best in terms of helping people relieve that pressure in terms of like these one moments in time, right? Like, you know, the Olympics only happens every four years. If you're an NFL player, you may get one chance at the Super Bowl. You know, what are your thoughts in terms of helping people mentally prepare for that? Well, the first thing you have to do is accept it and understand that this is big. I mean, I don't agree with people who say downplay it, you know, and say, oh, this is nothing. It's just like practice.

It's just you've done, you know, you've done this a thousand times. You haven't done this a thousand times. This is the first time you've done it. But you've done a whole lot of things to prepare you for this moment in time. So it's a reassurance of the training that has gone in for this moment in time. So you have to acknowledge that this is, the people that have told me over the years that the Olympic Games is just another track meet or just another,

I usually, I walk out of the room at that point. I go, well, okay. Don't think you know much about that. The athletes have told me this, Sandra, this isn't stuff. That's my opinion. I've talked to, this is one of the things I'd really like to emphasize on in the talk today. We as professionals need to learn as much as we possibly can from the athletes and the coaches because they've had more experience at their craft than we have at their craft. And I find that the best professionals that I know in our field are ones that respect coaches, respect athletes, and it's a two-way street.

They learn from the athletes just as much as they give to the athletes. They learn from the coaches just as much as they give to the coaches. Because a coach is the one who spends the most time with athletes. Like Rick McGuire says, the athlete meets sport at the coach. And so my way of working is if I'm going to work with an athlete and a team, I'm going to also work with the coaching staff. I have no idea how to work with a team without working with the coaches as well. I think that's so important because the coaches are typically the gatekeepers. And I think they can really tell you like what you're saying a lot about the team or the athletes. And, you know, it's like, I think it's almost impossible if you don't have the coaches buy in. So Rich, let's dive into your work a little bit more. And, you know,

can you describe a signature technique that you might use so your clients can really capitalize in terms of in these big moments in time? I've thought a lot about these signature techniques. I've heard some. I've seen people talk about them at ASP and I was thinking if I even have a signature technique, it's almost a zeitgeist of it's me. I don't mean that in an arrogant way. I hope people, it's how I have to know what I can do and what I can't do. For sure. And how I can present information and not present information.

And I also know that whatever I do is not going to be 100% successful 100% of the time with 100% of the people. And it doesn't feel good, by the way, when you don't help somebody. I mean, anybody who's, I don't know if anybody who's listening has been fired before from consulting. I have, and it hurts. But you can't be protective about what you do. You have to just figure it out, do the best you can, and know that you're going to make mistakes as i said earlier and and give it give it everything you've got give it everything you've got because one of the

things i know about coaches and athletes if they're spending all that time doing what they do the one thing they'll see in you real quickly is lack of commitment if it by the way, I don't believe in 110%. I don't get that. I can give 100. That's all I can give. And some days I don't give 100. You know, that's the Ken Revisa stuff that I've always appreciated how he's explained that. But I can tell you that they will pick up commitment quicker than anything else. I've had to, I've had, you need to be around when they've had a bad performance. You can't disappear. And so I guess I'm answering your question of signature technique is, for me is understanding my effectiveness and how I can be most effective and where I'm not effective and try to be true to that. Because one of the things that we try to do at the Olympics early on is, since it is such

a big thing, sometimes you have to be real comfortable doing nothing. You know, just like not trying to do too much being around athletes and coaches in big venues, because they're highly sensitive at that time. Their radar is up. Their radar is highly sensitive. And so even a well-intentioned word could create anxiety. Sure. Or if you plant a question, like if you just give a give just a general question, let's say they're getting ready to go do their thing. Let's say they're within an hour of going to do their performance, and you go, how are you feeling?

Yeah. Well, what that's going to translate to subconsciously to that athlete is, well, I thought I was feeling pretty good, but now that you ask, I don't know, maybe that left arm is just a little tight. So one of the things I try not to do is I make only declarative statements on game day. I don't ask questions. I make declarative statements. And I can give you an example of that if you'd like. Yeah, that sounds great. Okay. So this is one that I've told before, so I'm not breaking confidentiality. I've told it with permits,

but a young man named Todd Lodwick, who's a six time Olympian in a Nordic combined Nordic sport. It was in Vancouver and we're sitting at breakfast one day, the day of competition. So it's six in the morning, seven in the morning, whatever it is. And we're eating breakfast in the village and, and we walk back over to the, to the rooms and we get on an elevator. You want to talk about an elevator speech? Well, here it is.

So we get on the elevator and it's about 20 seconds riding up. And Todd says to me, he goes, hey, Doc, he goes, I didn't sleep very well last night. And I looked at him and I said, Todd, I said, you've got all the rest of your life to sleep. I love it. And the doors open, and he goes, yeah, you're right. And he went that way, and I went the other way. Now, I could have really screwed him up by getting into that. And so people will ask who are listening, well, how did you know to do that? I don't know. I just trusted myself. It came to me because I had a long relationship with this athlete. And I knew one thing, I didn't want to plant any doubt of any kind. I like that, Rich. I think that's a really helpful point in terms of no you know, no declarative statements

on game day or only declarative statements, no questions. So I'm thinking about, you know, the questions that you would want to avoid asking. And that might be like, how are you feeling? Or why did this happen? Or what are some other questions that we want to avoid? I don't know, Sandra. I guess I could say it. I don't think you want to get too darn philosophical on game day. Yeah. I think you just want to keep it pretty simple, go to what you have, and execute. And that's it.

You know, and people go, well, is that it? I go, well, yeah. You know, when people come out of great performances, what do they say? They don't go, they don't say that thought good. They say it felt good. Right. So you get them into the feeling of competing. Tiger Woods yesterday. Okay. Tiger, he's competing again. He's competing. And I didn't believe it myself. I mean, I've been out on tour since 1990, and he's had four back surgeries. Wow.

But he is competing again. And the reason he's competing again is obviously that surgery, that fourth surgery was successful. That's number one. But the other thing is, is that he knows how to compete. And when you get him into competing, then you don't think about anything but competing. And I think one of the things that we could do better in our field is teach athletes how to compete in their best way. And people would probably say that are listening, well, that's the coach's job. No, that's all of our jobs. That's what we're trying to teach people how to do, to put forth that performance upon demand. And some days you're going to get beat. But you know, if you get beat and you competed at your highest level, most people can take that. It stings, but they can take that. It's when you don't compete at your highest level,

if you don't stay true to yourself in competition, if you get out of your routine, that's when you wake up at night in cold sweats. Can you define for us what it means in your mind to perform on demand and maybe give us an example or two of somebody that you've seen do that? Well, I guess I can share this one. 2003, Augusta, Georgia. Sunday at the Masters. Mike Weir is in the last group with Jeff Maggart, and he's got the weight of Canada on his back. That's heavy, by the way. I could imagine. Canada is a big country, but he knew how to handle it

because we had worked together since 1997. How many years is that? Six? Six. Yeah, six years. So now it's hitting the fan. Sunday, the last group of the Masters is big time. And he went around that golf course with complete command of himself

in a situation which could have taken hold of him and just completely turned him inside out. It's one of the most awesome performances I've seen from an athlete of staying totally in his own control. You know, we talk about that all the time in our fields, control the controllables and all these things. Well, when you actually see it done in person, when you actually watch it and they do it, it puts the hair on the back of my neck up. I'll have to admit to that. Now, does that happen very often?

No, no. But a lot of hard work goes into being able to do that. Well, he comes up to the 72nd hole and he's got an eight-foot putt to either make it or miss it. And if he makes it, he's in a eight-foot putt to either make it or miss it. And if he makes it, he's in a playoff to win it. And if he misses it, he three-putts the 72nd hole of the Masters, and for the rest of his life, people are going to remember that. Now, what would you be thinking about?

I'm saying that to the whole audience that's listening. You've got an eight-foot putt, and if you make it, you're going to a playoff and you've got a chance to win this thing. And if you miss it for the rest of your life, you're going to be known for three-putting and choking the masters. Well, he made the putt. And he made the putt by staying totally in the process. He made everything he looked at that day on the green

but he didn't make that putt any different than any of the other putts that he hit it may have had a little bit his heart rate may have been up a little bit higher than normal i gotta admit that i gotta say his heart rate must have been up just a hair but he stayed totally in the process and knocked that thing right in a thimble. And then to complete the story, he goes on and wins a playoff. And he's forever a master's champion. He gets to play there until he's done playing there. Outstanding. To me, that's performance upon demand, but a whole lot of work went into that by Mike. I mean, I hope I helped him do some of that. But by golly, he did the work. He did the complete work. And the crazy thing about that whole story, I went over to his room

a Sunday morning because he was staying in a hotel. I was staying over in what I call animal house. He rents a house and everybody's over there, you know, friends and everything. You don't get a lot of sleep over there. But anyway, I went over to talk to him and he kicked me out in a nice way. I walked into his room and he goes, I'm good, Doc. You're good. He goes, yeah, I'm good. And he didn't play till three o'clock in the afternoon. This was nine o'clock in the morning. He was watching Caddyshack, laughing, watching Caddyshack, the movie Caddyshack. Yeah, just enjoying his time. Yeah, and he said, I'm good. I said, okay, well, I'll see you in Butler Cabin then. And I walked out. I never went out on the range. I never talked to him again.

And guess where I saw him the next time? Butler Cabin. Now, that's a great story. I hope it answers your question. Yeah, it definitely answers my question. I'm thinking about, you know, at least for Mike, what are the mental skills or tools, you know, in terms of like your work for six years? And obviously, that was a long, a long time you worked together. But I think what that shows you is that it does happen over the long term, right? But what are some things that you think really helped him in that moment, you know, in terms of the mental tools and skills? Like one of the things you said was that he was able to stay focused on the process, completely on the process.

Anything else you think helped him? Well, he had a good handle on his focusing abilities. He had excellent arousal regulation because in golf, your only attachment to the instrument that you're hitting is the club with your hands. And if you start to get tight in your hands, like your grip pressure, it can go right up your arms and your shoulders and it can affect your entire golf swing. In fact, the way I show this to most people is the concept of bracing. So I have people put their hand out on the table,

like if I have my hand right on this counter right here, and I make it really tight, and then I try to move my two fingers with a real tight hand, that feels very bad. But if I shake it out and rub it, and then I move my fingers just naturally, that's how I want to play. I don't want to be braced. I don't want to be gripping the golf club at a 10. If you grip the golf club at 10, you're not going to hit good golf shots. I will tell the audience this, that most guys on the PGA Tour, professional golfers, on a scale of 10 being gripping the lights out, you know, the blood right out of the handle of that club, and one being the other where it's going to fly out of your hands, but it won't. They're usually at about a four grip pressure. So he had command of his grip pressure.

He had command of staying in and playing the golf course with a plan that day, staying with his plan because Mike's not a big hitter. He's a shorter hitter out on tour, but he played his game. So he learned how to, remember I talked about planning earlier. They have a plan and they stick to it. And you don't let the circumstances or the environment change your plan. You stick to it. Those type of skills. And he worked on that very hard for six years for that. Yes. Yes. Well, thank you for kind of giving us an example of what you mean by performance on demand. You know, Rich, I know one thing that's central to your work is the

practice of hypnosis. So tell us a little bit about how you have used that over the past and how you think that helps in terms of athletic performance. Well, one of the things I've enjoyed about my use of hypnosis is that it cuts through the defenses that a lot of us have. You know, it kind of goes to the subconscious mind and you're working with to have a real good conversation with their feelings. You know, rather than how to do something or what are they doing, they're more in touch with, as I said earlier, that when I've listened to cynics talk about, it puts you in touch with your why. And it also allows you to work quickly. You know, it allows you to work, to do a lot of work in a shorter amount of time than some of the other techniques. But those would be some of the things that I really like about hypnosis.

Yeah. And do you see athletes pretty open to the use of hypnosis? And yeah, yeah. Tell us about that. Well, without mentioning the team, I got called this year from an NFL player from a reference from one of our colleagues that he specifically called me because he wanted to use hypnosis. And so there's a person who is wanting to do it. Evidently, they've tried other things and it didn't work so well for them. So they wanted to investigate the use of hypnosis. What I found interesting about it was is after I have them write a script of excellence and a number of other things and not just in sport, but in life and those types of things. And then I use their words, not mine. And then I send it to them remotely. And then we talk and then we could meet in person if we have to. But the point is, is when he did

these tapes, and I think I did four or five of them for him, he kept saying to me, he goes, is that it? Is that how I'm supposed to feel? I go, what do you think? I mean, how do you feel? You know, it's like people have this extra expectation that it's going to be something different, something like off the wall different. And that can be used both good and bad. One of the problems with hypnosis, and I got to be honest about this, is if somebody is really wanting to use the term hypnosis, you have to debunk some of the myths that are associated with it. And that,

that takes time. So, but you do, and because of the stage hypnotist, you know, people, most people have seen hypnosis performed on a stage and, but there's all kinds of,

there's, there's induction techniques and then there's utilization, what you do in hypnosis performed on a stage. But there's all kinds of, there's induction techniques, and then there's utilization, what you do in hypnosis. And then there's what's called de-hypnotization. And these stage hypnotists are really good at the induction and the de-hypnotization, but they do really bad things ethically, I think, in the state of hypnosis. And it makes it hard for all of us that use it in our practice. Yeah, that's a really good point. Rich, tell us a little bit about the script of excellence that you have people write in.

And how do you think that helps them? Well, I think it helps them get in touch with when they've done things really, really well. I mean, sport, unfortunately, and it's necessary, I guess, is always looking at correction. It's called feedback. And correction can mean that you could be doing the same thing over and over again incorrectly. So what I try to do is get them to think back of times when things were going very well. So how are you, how were you, you know, in a rich language and as rich

of languages they can use and with all their senses, I try to get them to remember back to when they were having a really, really great performance performance and so they get into the feel of what that how they felt that day how they were walking what what what were they thinking about how were they carrying themselves like what was their posture what what did the environment seem like and and of course when you remind yourself of these things it it can actually recreate it. It can actually get you to feel it again. And so it's a very rich way to get in touch with a time when you were performing at your very best. This would be what Kenny Revisa calls

the green light. Absolutely. You know, your green lights. Now, I also agree with Ken that we don't get to the green lights all the time. Most of the time we're working in yellow. And so you have to have also then with along with a script of excellence, you have to have a script of correction and mastery. You know, when things don't go well, can you refocus rather quickly? You know, I talked about focus earlier, but being able to refocus is a tremendous skill to have because we will lose our focus. I mean, it's just, we're humans. We're going to lose our focus. And what does the script of correction look like? Can you give us a little bit more examples or an example or details? Yeah, this would be like, if this, then this. So if this happens, then I do this. And what I usually try to do is use a trigger.

So something that they can do, like a tight fist. So if you make a tight fist with your left hand, and then you take in a deep breath and hold it and then exhale and let go with your wrist or with your hand and your breath on your exhalation, this triggers a better feeling in you. But once again, Sandra, I want to be really clear about this. This is something that you have to have a lot of reps in. You got to have a lot of practice, mental practice. I like the term mental practice very much because this is what it is. It's practice. Yeah. And I think, you know, one of the biggest points that I'm taking, Rich, from your interview so far is just that, you know, this work is done over the long term that it is mental practice. You know, when I think about the

other things that I really enjoyed about our conversation, you know, I like what you said about how, you know, the best of the best have a plan, you know, they leave nothing to chance, they're able to perform on demand. And then, you know, probably my favorite quote so far is that, you know, on game day that you, you know, you only give declarative statements, not any questions. as we're kind of wrapping up do you have any kind of final advice or you know anything else that you want to share with us today well I would just say it's on that last point on not asking questions on game day that's hard not to do it is really hard yeah so you got to practice it. I mean, I've done it inadvertently

before and caught myself. Oh, just to wind up, I've had a great time discussing some things with you. I appreciate your program. I'll just say to the listeners out there that I just wish everybody the best to continue in our pursuit of excellence in ourselves to help others. I mean, my, my, my 40 years has gone by really, really quickly. And that's because if you have a passion for what you do it, time goes fast and time is the only equal opportunity employer we have, but we can't create more of it or lose any of it. We have to use it the way that is best beneficial for us and for others.

And this has been a wonderful use of my time. And I appreciate your inviting me on the show. I appreciate you being here and sharing with us your wisdom. And particularly being a pioneer in the field, I appreciate just your here and sharing with us your wisdom and particularly being a pioneer in the field. I appreciate, you know, just your longevity and the great work that you've done with so many athletes and performers. So as we wrap up, Rich, how can people reach out to you if they're interested? It's rich, R-I-C-H dot Gordon, G-O-R-D-I-N at U-S-U dot E-D-U. And I'm pretty good at responding to email, but I prefer conversations, but that would be a way to reach out. Excellent. That's a way to reach out.

You can find the full show notes today from today's interview with Rich Gordon. If you go ahead over to cindracampoff.com slash rich. So thank you so much for joining us today, Rich. I really appreciate your time and your energy and all the amazing work you've done in the field. Thank you, Cindra. I've appreciated you asking me and good talking with you. Thank you so much for joining me today on the high performance mindset. If you'd like to learn more about the mental game in business, sport, and in life, you can pick up your own copy of the Beyond Grit book and workbook at beyondgrit.com. The book and workbook covers 10 practices to help you gain the high performance

edge and provides practical strategies and tools that work. Adam Thielen, a Pro Bowl wide receiver for the Minnesota Vikings, wrote the foreword. And you can learn his insights on how he implements the mental game. And a special offer for the listeners of the podcast, you can use the code FREESHIP, that's capital letters and all one word, FREESHIP, to get free shipping of the book and workbook at beyondgrit.com. Have an outstanding day, my friends, and be mentally strong. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset. If you liked 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.