High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 172: Sustained Excellence on Fire with Colleen M. Hacker, Ph.D., Internationally recognized Speaker and Consultant in Performance Psychology

Episode Date: April 9, 2018

Dr. Colleen Hacker has served as a member of the United States coaching staff for five Olympic Games as a Mental Skills Coach and Performance Psychology Specialist. Dr. Hacker began her National Team service in 1995 working with the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team. They won the first Gold Medal awarded in women’s soccer at the 1996 Olympic Games followed by a dramatic overtime victory over China in the 1999 World Cup that year. She has been named on the coaching staff for more than 10 World Championship and has been named Olympic games Coaching staff for women’s soccer, field hockey and ice hockey. She helped the US women’s hockey team win gold this year at the Winter Olympics. In addition to her work with National Teams, Dr. Hacker serves as the mental skills coach to professional, international and Olympic athletes in a variety of sports. With more than 30 years experience in higher education, she is currently a Professor in Kinesiology specializing in Sport and Exercise Psychology in Tacoma, Washington. Dr. Hacker has received numerous professional awards including the Distinguished Professional Practice Award from AASP (the first woman to do so) and the Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award (the highest teaching honor awarded by the University). ESPNW named Dr. Hacker as one of 30 women in the country who "change the way sports are played."  Catch Them Being Good (Penguin Books and Viking Press) a collaboration with champion soccer coach Tony DiCicco, was released in 2002. In this interview, Colleen and Cindra talk about: Why it’s important to do good work where you are at How she got involved with Olympic Teams Why people in the field should be scholars first and practitioners second How the best of the best can perform on demand The 4-step progression of mental skills development You can find a full description of the Podcast and contact information for Colleen at cindrakamphoff.com/colleen.

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

I had the amazing privilege of interviewing Dr. Colleen Hacker, and her experience is simply extraordinary. She has served as a member of the United States coaching staff for five Olympic games as their mental skills coach and performance psychology specialist. So she started her work with national teams in 1995, first working with the U.S. women's national soccer team. Now they won the first gold medal awarded in women's soccer in the 1996 Olympics, followed by a dramatic overtime victory over China in the 1999 World Cup that year. I clearly remember that. Now, she has been named on the coaching staff for more than 10 world championships and has

been named on the Olympic Games coaching staff for women's soccer, field hockey, and ice hockey. She also helped the U.S. women's hockey team win gold this year at the Sochi Winter Olympics. Now in addition to her work with national teams, Dr. Hacker serves as a mental skills coach to professional international and Olympic athletes in a variety of sports. She's also a professor in kinesiology, specializing in sport and exercise psychology in Tacoma, Washington. She's had over 30 years of experience there. And I remember when she won the Distinguished Professional Practice Award from the Association for Applied Sports

Psychology. She's the first woman to do so. And I remember her keynote, which we talk a little bit about in this interview. And also ESPNW named Dr. Hacker as one of the 30 women in the country who changed the way sports are played. Wow. In this interview, Dr. Hacker and I talk about why it's important to do good work where you're at, how she got involved with Olympic teams, why people in this field in mental training need to be scholars first and practitioners second, how the best of the best can perform on demand. She shares with us her four-step progression of mental skills development. And two of my favorite things in this interview that she talks about, she says, quote, the Olympic games are like every other game, but completely

different. And then she also says that the best have sustained excellence on fire. Now I know you're going to absolutely love this interview with Dr. Hacker and I'd love to hear from you about this one. What stood out to you? What helped you? What surprised you? You know to be honest I got a little choked up towards the end. This is the first time on the podcast where my emotions got the best of me but I think I was a little overwhelmed with emotion just realizing all of her years of experience and how I was interviewing Dr. Hacker, someone so accomplished in my field. So I'd love to hear from you what stood out to you, what helped you, what surprised you. You can reach out to me on Twitter at mentally underscore strong or always shoot me an email at cindra at cindracampoff.com.

Okay, well, without further discussion, here is Colleen. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. I'm delighted today to be joined by Dr. Colleen Hacker. Thanks so much for joining us today. I'm just really excited to talk to you more about your work and get your insights on the profession and how we can all do better work out there. Great, it's wonderful to be here. So, Colleen, just to start us off, tell us, you know, a little bit about your passion

and what you do right now. Well, I'm, for the last, as I say to my students, for the last 30 plus years, but I'm not going to tell you how many plus go after that 30. I've been a professor in kinesiology, obviously specializing in sport and exercise psychology. So I teach at a university level. And then for the past 25 years, as a individual consultant, I work probably 90% of my clients are individual Olympic and professional male and female athletes, and then Olympic female teams in a variety of sports. Yeah, I think, you know, when I read your bio, man, it was incredibly impressive.

And so six Olympic teams that you've been part of the coaching staff in terms of a mental skills consultant. You know, tell us just briefly how you got to where you are right now in your career. Yeah, I, you know, my path is probably a little bit different. There's not a day goes by that I don't get an email from a student in graduate school, whether they're a PhD candidate or an early career professional. And that's the question they asked a PhD candidate or an early career professional, and that's the question they asked. You know, I followed your career. How do I get there? And I think my answer is I'm not sure if it disappoints them or surprises them, but I never planned to get where I am right now. That was never my goal. And so that's actually my first piece of advice is be passionate where you are. Really make a commitment to achieve excellence for whoever you're privileged to

serve at the time. So if you're a youth sport coach or you're a youth sport mental skills trainer, be excellent where you are. and I feel like so many people everything is about the next step and where they want to be that they fail to really invest fully completely in where they are and and so the first thing I'd say to you is I never had a career dream to do what I'm doing now. It never occurred to me. And then life happens. So I guess what I would want to say is when I finished my graduate education, what I wanted to do was teach in a university, which I was already doing. And I coached intercollegiately for 17 years. And that coaching background, I believe really has distinguished me from other mental skills coaches. I coached both Division One and Division Three for 17 years. So I've been in the role of a coach. I've lived that life for a very long time. I was able to

coach our women's soccer team to five national championship appearances. So, you know, not as a mental skills coach, but as a coach, being able to take a team to five, you know, we finished, we won the national championship three years and finished second twice. So I think there's some credibility that comes with that. And it isn't a toot my own horn. It's the, it's, there's a deeper message here. Since I retired from coaching, then I took up running. So I'm a half marathoner and I'm a marathoner. So the reason I tell those stories is to say that at every point in my professional consulting, I was also, have been also either a coach at the time or a competing athlete. So what I'm talking to athletes about aren't just thoughts or ideas or something from a book. I'm actually living them

myself. So in some ways, I'm my own participant in applying and understanding the competitive pressures. So it's actually a piece of advice I'd give to mental skills coaches is what are you actually doing in a field are you just teaching about the field are you actually consuming it in some primary way because I think that's I think that's really helpful so the long story short and it makes me sad I want to mention Tony DiCicco because I credit him with, he's the one that gave me my start. And you never, you never can thank the person who gave you your start enough or long enough in life. So for me, a big shout out to Tony DiCicco. But how I got my start, I didn't want to start I wasn't

thinking about a start I wasn't goal setting for a start I was an intercollegiate soccer coach and I was just honored to be asked to join the national soccer coaching staff so I actually joined as a soccer coach okay and and our job was to to do coaching education for coaches at a youth high school college and professional level so we were the coaching education body so as a soccer coach I met Anson Dorrance who was the outgoing national team coach, Tony DiCicco, who was the incoming national team coach, April Heinrichs, who followed Tony. So all of these elite coaches were part of our coaching organization. At the same time, I'm a sports psychology consultant. So I met them at the crossroads of being part of the national coaching staff

and a sports psychology consultant. So I'll just briefly say one of my favorite professional memories is sitting in my office out of the blue, unannounced, unanticipated. Tony DiCicco called me in 1995 and said, Colleen, how would you like to help us win the first gold medal in Olympic women's soccer? You know, that's it. I mean, how do you forget a sentence like that? And I was still coaching at the time. So I'm still an intercollegiate coach, but also building up my practice. And I was still coaching at the time. So I'm still an intercollegiate coach, but also building up my practice. And that was an easy yes. I resigned college coaching only because I was offered that opportunity. Okay. So he met me as a coach and as a human being and as a mental skills coach.

So he wanted somebody that brought all three elements to his team, not just expertise, but experience coaching, the right person for the fit, and then somebody with the academic and scholarly credentials to be able to help a team win the first gold medal. So that really was my start. And you never get a second chance for your first start. Or for your first impression, right? And did you, with that 1996 Olympic gold medal team with women's soccer, and then I know they won the World Cup, were you hired to do mental skills with that team right away? Or did you do some coaching as well? Yeah, I wish I could say I did some coaching. They were at another planet. They were at another universe.

I was coaching at a small college level. So, you know, these were the giants. These were the greats in the United States. So, no, he hired me as a mental skills coach, but for my entire five years working under Tony, he always referred to me as a member of his coaching staff. When April Heinrichs took over, she named me as a member of the Olympic coaching staff. So my title wasn't mental skills coach.

It was a member of the coaching staff. So that tells you something right away that these coaches understand how integral mental skills training is to performance excellence. So my story is as much credit to Tony's understanding of mental skills training and how essential it is at any level, as it is any, anything that I brought. But I think that's the point that I'd want to make is, I moved, so he hired me in the spring. And then I moved to Florida, that's where our residency was. So I live in Washington. I moved to Florida. So I'm there seven days a week, 24 hours a day for months at a time working with the team. And in my view, that's what quality mental skills training requires. It doesn't mean flying into town, delivering a team speech, and then going on to the next city. It really

requires sustained, visible, present, ongoing work across months, across years. I have professional male athletes that I've been working with for six, seven, eight years. You know, I spent 12 years with U.S. soccer, spent eight years with USA ice hockey. So, you know, just that awareness, 12 years, eight years, these are long-term consistent commitments both to athletes and to the sport and to the program. And so, you know, give us a little insight on how you might set that up because I think, you know, that I think athletes and coaches when they come to us, they might want a quick fix, right?

And we know that like this one-time team workshop might be just like a band-aid. So I think it's really up to us to set that up for long-term success. Can you give us a little insight on like how you might do that? Yeah, absolutely. There's two parallel needs going on in that level of sport. In my experience, you know, every consultant might have a different model depending on who the owners are and the coaching staff philosophy. But in my experience with two very different sports and no overlap of personnel, they've been remarkably similar. So there's two realities. There's the progress and progression and model that you need with athletes and simultaneously.

So it's a little bit like a Venn diagram. There's the process and the progression that occurs with the coaching staff or the leadership or management. And, and if you're going to have a longterm relationship with athletes in a program, you've got to manage both, both of those relationship going on at the same time.

At any rate, I'll address your first question is, you know, working at that level, I really favor a triangulated approach. And there are certainly some consultants that I've heard, you know, every year at national organizations that don't like that, don't favor it, they have problems with it. I hear that, I understand it, I just disagree. So I have found in both sides of the equation that the triangulated approach provides a deeper, more accurate, and more robust platform for me to do my work. So those triangles change, but at their core, it would be the coaching staff, the sport coaching staff, the consultant is the other leg of the triangle, and then the mental skills coach, where some consultants

just work with the athletes. So it's just a straight line, if that makes sense. And some consultants just work with the coaching staff. And it's that straight line. I want to know what the coaches want to see from their athletes and teams. I want to know how the coaches are viewing the athletes' performance in addition to what the athletes are feeling and how they assess their performance. So, you know, here's a simple example. An athlete as an individual, if I only worked with an individual athlete, an athlete might say, yeah, the coach has no confidence in me.

You know, I'm not getting a good look. You know, they're just on my case all the time. Where the day before, I just heard from the coach, oh, we expect great things from this athlete. We're really pushing them to develop their skills more. So here's the athlete only seeing sort of the expectation and not feeling the belief. And the coach doesn't realize that the athlete is losing confidence and doesn't feel like they're a franchise player or that they're a part of the offense if it's the NFL or that they're on the first line if it's hockey or that they're seen as a starter if it's soccer. So that ability, and then vice versa where an athlete feels like, wow, I'm just phenomenal. Everything's going great. I'm the best person they have at this position. If all that I was

doing was hearing from that athlete, my consultancy advice and the model and the research that I would look at is very different if they had an accurate self-assessment versus an inaccurate self-assessment. So that ability to triangulate is critical, but there's a number of different triangles. So even with HIPAA laws, I want to triangulate with the medical staff. So what can the orthopedic surgeon legally share? So, you know, what are they dealing with in terms of long-term or acute injury? The medical training staff, the massage therapist. So being able to connect with all of those different triangles, I think, again, within ethical and professional and HIPAA boundaries, it allows you to have a more complete picture of the athlete.

In the business world, think of it as a 360 evaluation, right? That you understand people lateral, above, below, etc so that's the first thing that's the first thing i'd say and and the second is i i know a lot of folks say it uh and yet i just see the handouts out there for lack of a better way to say it and one team is taken out another team is typed in and one name is taken out and another name is typed in. If you have a canned program, if you have a, this is what I do, I think you're not meeting the teams and the athletes where they are. I can't, I cannot possibly know in advance what an individual athlete needs. It's not possible. Nobody knows the athletes better

than themselves. I can't possibly go into an Olympic quad and already know what they need. So my first set of interactions are question posing. I'm trying to learn where they've been, what they're doing well, what their strengths are, if they've faltered when, where, and how they've faltered in the past, what they see are issues percolating underneath the surface. So my first set of interactions are a beginner's mindset. Tell me what I need to know. And then I can begin to make, ironically, better informed questions. So questions follow questions. And after that second round, now I'm able to offer some recommendations and insights. But I always want to work, I view my work as part of

the coaching staff. So back to that triangle, my message needs to resonate with the entire program's philosophy and mission and expectations. So Cleen, one quick question I have about that is like when I think about, you know, your model in terms of working with teams, that makes sense, right? Where, you know, you're gathering in this information. Let's say an individual athlete comes to you and you're not working with their team, say an NFL athlete or an Olympic athlete where you don't know their coach. Would you do the same thing? Or, you know, how might you approach that work?

Yeah, I can't do the same thing. And that's a great follow-up question because, you know, most of us in this field, we have a great number of individual athletes that we're working with and maybe one team. If you're doing a team well, you're a better person than I am if you can work with multiple teams. To me, that's a full-time job. But great question. So I try to get as close as I can, however imperfect, following that same route. So let me do the quick no's. No, I don't call the coach. No, I don't reach out to the coaching staff. But I'll ask that athlete a series of questions. When you've played your best, tell me the qualities and characteristics of that best performance. All right, now tell me about a poor performance that you've had recently.

What are the psychological characteristics of that? Okay, let's compare those. And so they quickly start seeing that they were thinking one way in a different way. Their somatic activation was different in one way. They got distracted. They didn't just get distracted. They were thinking too much. They were thinking too little. They were focused on the wrong things. I mean, the list is endless, but very quickly, not me, but they start seeing the differences. Now I have an entry point. So we triangulate, in that case, their actual lived performance. It's not me sharing it, it's them being aware that, wow, you're right. Yeah, I hadn't seen that before. And so what we

want to teach the athletes to be able to have confidence in is to deliver performance on demand. You know, I tease athletes that athletes and coaches sort of wake up on game day like we approach the weather. They wake up and hope it's going to be a good day. And you can't function at a high level waking up and hoping it's going to be a sunny, warm day. So we've got to wake up and make it a good day, regardless of how we're feeling or thinking. They have to have the requisite skill and ability. And they have to have confidence in their skill and ability to bring their performance on demand, whether they feel like it or not. So I'll say things like, let's learn how to bring 100% of your 80% gain. The notion that athletes are in

this mythical zone, or they have to be brilliant or fantastic to play a good game, I think they're in a world of trouble if they adopt that kind of mindset. Most athletes are dealing with something every time they go on the ice, the track, the field, the strip, if they're a fencer, the court, it doesn't matter. You know, there's nobody that has everything going on, and yet the greats learn how to get it done even with 80% of their game. Awesome. Awesome, Colleen. You know, and that kind of

follows up to my next question is like, what do you, you're such an incredible opportunity to work, you know, six Olympic games as their coaching staff, plus all the elite athletes you work with, the business people you've worked with in the organizations. What do you see some of the world's best performers or leaders do? And how do you see, you know know that separating from kind of the rest so number one they can deliver performance on demand but what else yeah well they don't just know what to do I'm struck by how often both athletes and coaches sort of give themselves credit for knowing what to do um you know how the last game go yeah I just wasn't focused. How, you know, what do you need to do better at? Well, I really should use imagery more. If only sport were a multiple choice

test, everybody would get A's. In other words, it's not knowing what to do. You don't get any extra points for knowing what to do. You have to do what you know. You have to act on it. So that to me is the great separator from those in the podium and those that aren't, from Olympians and non-Olympians, from professional athletes and non-professional athletes. My students, as much as I love them and I do, my students will sit and say, yeah, I know about imagery. Yeah, I heard about goal setting. Yeah, they know all kinds of things. They just don't do them.

Sure. They don't do them. So the biggest separation is the to help them then they want to know how often to do it when to do it why to do it how to do it better if you can show them through their performance that they need to develop a mistake ritual then they're going to want to know is this right how about this um so so the elites act on it They make it a mission to do it and not just know about it. And that's really simple to say. It's simple to understand. But that chasm between knowing and doing is the most significant chasm that I've found in elite performance. Excellent. And even

the way they might ask you questions might be different. You know, they're, they're probing for more and more and more so that they just don't know, yeah, I need to do imagery, but they want to know in detail how they need to do imagery or how they need to do goal setting or how they need to, you know, get in their, their optimal zone, right? Like they're, they're asking you prompting questions so that they can learn more and do more. Absolutely. And it's completely individualized. So my 9 o'clock appointment and advice and suggestions might follow a very different path than the 10-15 appointment. So back to this.

It's individualized. Second, meet the athletes where the athletes are. Meet the team where the team is i really believe as well in a periodized approach to mental skills training the same way that athletes are very accustomed to periodizing their strength and conditioning and their speed and agility training so in a quad or in the off season, like sometimes I'll only have a year cycle to work, for instance, with a professional athlete. Sometimes I'll have a quad four years to work with an Olympic athlete. So either way, it's just a longer periodized schedule or a shorter

periodized schedule. But you want that teaching, learning, acquisition, implementation in practice and subcritical events, and then implementation in, you know, big events, and then re-evaluation. And that cycle just continues and continues. So for example, as we get closer to the Olympic Games, I make it a point, we're not introducing any new psychological skills or strategies. We're not introducing anything new in the same way that you don't start a new squat routine during the Olympic Games, right? So we're periodizing it and then tapering, if you will. So by the time we get to a world championship, by the time we get to an Olympic Games, by the time a professional player season starts, we ought to be at the top of that pendulum. We ought to be at the refinement stage. So the work occurs ahead of time. And there's no

shortcut. There's no easy button. It has to be sustained excellence over time. You know, and I think one thing that really impressed me, Colleen, you know, you do the Coleman Griffith lecture, maybe three or four years ago, it asked the Association for Applied Sports Ecology and was a member of the audience and completely loved the keynote that you provided. One of the things that I took away from that was how informed your work is by research. And you know how it's not just, you know, taking an idea, but you're making sure that it's, you know, backed by the research in our field. So tell us why that's important to you.

And the second question I'd have is like, how do you do that? So for people who are listening, who are working in the field, or you may be not working in the field, but thinking about their own work and whatever that is, how can they use the research to inform what they do? I really appreciate that. Thank you for the compliment. But I really appreciate that you took that away from it. I think people who've known me over the decades understand that I feel a tremendous responsibility to embody the scholar practitioner. I feel like there's a certain number of folks in our field that want to know the tricks. Oh, what's the trick to teach this? What's the technique you use? The technique and the tricks, so to speak, are the last step and those need to be personalized and individualized. I'm just always amazed at how many conferences it's standing room only for learning the tricks of the trade.

And there's 30 people in understanding the scholarship that informs those techniques. So number one is I think our entire profession would be enhanced. And I think each individual's effectiveness as a consultant is enhanced if they adopt the responsibility of scholar first, scholar practitioner. So what does that mean? It means you have to. I try not to be declarative. There's a lot of things that I don't feel declarative about, but this is one where I feel declarative about. You have to read the primary scholarly research, not the best-selling book that was based on the

primary scholar research. And I'm smiling. I don't want to use book titles, but I'm asked all the time, you know, oh, have you read, and then it's flavor of the month, whatever that coach or consultant, have you read this book? I just loved it. And I try to say as evenly as I can. No, I haven't. But I have read the primary research that informed that best selling book. You've got to read the primary research. And that means going to the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, going to Sports Psychology in Action, going to the International Journal of Sport Psychology. It's hard work. There's no shortcut. or might not work at that particular time with that particular athlete in that particular sport, there are so many variables that impact the efficacy of a technique or a treatment that one

would be reckless to learn the techniques without learning the scholarship and theoretical underpinnings. So 100% of the time when I present, you will see the evidence that supports my practice, the theoretical underpinnings. Now, having said that, I can't talk like that to athletes. Their heads would be on the floor. Not that they're not bright enough and not that they're not capable, but back to my first precept, you have to meet the athletes where the athletes are. So I might read the research on cognitive restructuring and I'll talk to the athletes about stinking thinking. Sure. Absolutely. So it's that kind of a change where your language changes, but it's based on that same scholarship. So drink deeply, drink deeply from primary research,

which is not books. I'm trying to say the same thing a million different ways, but books are secondary sources. You want to go to the primary scholarship. Second, in our field, in my opinion, if you are not actively reading in four areas, actively and ongoing reading in four areas, in my view, you cannot be the best mental skills coach that you're capable of being. And that is motor learning research. I'm shocked by how little sports psychology consultants really are, are experts in motor learning. Sociology is sport. Sport occurs around other human beings.

These athletes are performing in social systems with families, with sport organizations, with media, with politics, with education, with socioeconomic status, with issues of race. I mean, the sociology of sport is an absolute must. Exercise psychology, and then performance enhancement. So those four areas are just sort of the opening bid. And then obviously you mentioned in my world, I work with what I call, you know, my corporate athletes. So then for me, there's a fifth level, which is the business literature. So I need to know what the C-suite executives are reading,

and I need to know what C-suite executives are basing their company or their managers or their leaders. So, yeah, so reading primary research, reading deeply and broadly in those four areas, and then based on the findings and recommendation in concert with the individuals you're working with at that moment, then you create your interventions where I think for a lot of folks, they learn the tricks of the trade and then they, what I call spray and pray.

They spray them out there and pray some of them work. That's not a good model for professional practice. Yes, for sure. And you know, one of the things that I'm hearing, you're really deliberate in your work. You've thought through it. It's over the long term, not the short term. And you know, one of the things that you kind of told me about before we started the interview was how that, you know, you really look at the Olympics in quads. So tell us about like how you might do that and how does that inform what you do? Yeah. And I'm going to address that specific question, but I would say to all the listeners, you might not have a quad to work with, but actually it's a good model if you think intercollegiate athletes are their own quad, right? First year, second year, third year, senior

year, high school, you know? So even though I'm going to specifically talk about the Olympic Games, use this model to whatever program and whatever level your listeners are working. So for both athletes and coaches, I look at a four-step progression. They're already athletes. They're already on the team. They're already in the national team pool. So we know they're pretty good, right? So, you know, they're already doing infinitely more right than wrong. And I think as consultants, we have to remember that. But I think of a four-step progression that I share with people that they start out unaware and unskilled. In other words, they don't know why they're good. They don't, I don't know.

I had never used imagery. I don't know. I was thinking about today's game count. Yes, that counts. So they're unaware of mental skills. And so they're not very skilled at it. Then we begin working together, and they become aware of a variety of mental skills, 10, 12 different mental skills, but they're unskilled at bringing them on demand. They're aware of them. They understand what they

are, but they're again, unskilled at, at being able to do it when they, when they need it most. Then they transition to third phase, which is aware and skilled. So now I know about activation strategies. I know about mistake rituals. I know about pre-performance routines. I know the importance of confidence, and I'm skilled enough to do that on my own. I can do it not just in practice, but in games, not just in smaller competitions, but in the biggest competitions. And then joyfully, but ironically, the best of the best then transition to the fourth and final stage for me, which is unaware and skilled. You think unaware, obviously you want them to be able to do these mental skills without thinking of them. So we go

back from controlled attention to automatic attention to use the motor learning language. So when we're having to be thoughtful and thinking about things, we're using controlled focus and attention. And we know that best performance happens when it's unconscious, when it's automatic. So then that final stage is unaware and skill. And same thing with coaches is teaching coaches going through those four stages so that they're very intentional about what they want from me or from the mental skills coach. I mentioned being periodized. So in a quad, the first two years are our heavy learning periods. That's when we'll introduce whichever and however many of the 10 or 12 most common mental skill areas that the coaching staff feels that this team needs in this quad. So, again, everything from activation strategies, closed to open skills, team relationships, self-confidence, dealing with acute or chronic injury.

A major event for professional sport and Olympic sports are event criticality. So I spend a tremendous amount of time on event criticality, match criticality, situation criticality. So those three components. And then qualification events. Think of that as the playoffs. You know, we're in the middle of March Madness right now. Absolutely.

Not like the regular season. And we're seeing evidence of that every right now. Absolutely. Not like the regular season, and we're seeing evidence of that every single day. You know, I was fortunate to be on a panel in ASP a year or two ago on preparing for the Olympic Games, and it's a mouthful, but I'm going to tell you everything that I believe in the title of my talk, and it's this, the Olympic games are exactly like every other game and completely different. And if you don't practice for both sides of that equation, you are not going to do well. I feel like I hear so much from coaches and athletes,

whether it's the Superbowl or whether it's a gold medal game, treat it like any other game, not going to make any changes, it's the same. And I want to say, what planet are you living on? There's nothing about it. There's nothing about it that's the same. So you're going to try to keep to the same schedule, the same routine, the same techniques. Yes, you're going to do that side of the equation, but you also have to in advance have planned for the other side of the equation, and that is it's completely different. That's a really good point. Yeah, how do that clean what do you think yeah and that that i'll go back to the pen ultimate point that i made

so we work very early on on event criticality that all games aren't the same um i'll just use pion chang so we lost in pool play to can. It was an important game. It was an Olympic game, but that game didn't have the criticality. Both teams were already advancing. It didn't matter if we won, lost, or drawn. I'm not trying to in any way indicate that we didn't want to win or we wouldn't have preferred to win, but it didn't matter. The

fact of the matter is both Canada and the United States were advancing to the semifinal match. Well, that has a different level of event criticality than a gold medal match. So those kinds of things. So winning the conference championship means that you go into the playoffs, but winning conference has a lower level of event criticality than that first playoff game, which is one and done or an NFL playoff season. So there's event criticality and then there's situation criticality. The situation criticality can occur in any event. So a situation criticality is maybe my final is there's a very different physiology that's going to be occurring. There's a very different cognitive shift that you can reasonably anticipate is going to occur. So we need to practice that ahead of time.

I'm going to use our gold medal team. Jocelyn Lamoureux scored what became our game-winning goal in the overtime in Olympic ice hockey. And I love, by her own admission, after she scored the goal, Canada still had another shot. So if they would have made it, you know, we would have gone on again. Maddie Rooney our goalie 20 year old goalie by the way 20 year old goalie stops a four-time Olympian shot but after Jocelyn Lambert scores her goal she actually just put her stick down on the bench she was that

confident in her teammate that was going to make the save. So there's somebody who had faith in advance. It's one thing to say afterwards that you had faith. It's another thing to sort of show by your actions. We had trained for situation criticality. She had trained for situation criticality. She talked about working for years and years and years with her coach in North Dakota on that shot. So it's that example. She had trained for regular games, and then she had trained for match criticality and for situation criticality. And she was very intentional and specific and deliberate in that practice. But for those of us that are saying treat it like any other game, don't change a thing, it's exactly the same, it just makes me chuckle.

Absolutely. As there's 4,000 cameras facing you, as you go through the mix zone and you have five hours of interviews. You're going, it's not like any other game. So we've got to plan. We've got to do a better job of really understanding the environment in which elite performers have to display their skills. And Colleen, can you tell us, give us a little insight on how you might train that match criticality or the situation criticality? Like, you know, just kind of paint us a picture of what that might look like.

And so I'm thinking this question could be really helpful for the lead athletes who listen, right? Or even if it's not somebody who works in sport, it could be, you know, you have a big, a critical situation coming up, right? That you want to do really well in that might be a higher stakes, you know, involved? Like, how do you think that it's best that we kind of mentally prepare for that? Right. Well, as close as you can, engage in simulation training. I'll come back to that in a second. Let me answer that first by saying what not to do.

And in saying what not to do, I think a lot of folks will recognize themselves. Whether it's free throw shooting or penalty kicks or penalty shots or, you know, all of these situation criticality moments that you have in whatever your sport is, how a lot of people train is they'll take 10 free throws in a row. They'll take 20 free throws in a row. They'll take 100 free throws in a row. And then they'll call that commitment and practice. Okay, great. That's a great way to habituate your skills. That's a great way to perfect your technique. But that type of practice does not help you at all in any way in situation-critical events.

Because if you know the motor learning literature, every shot you take improves your next shot. So I'll just use 10 as an example. So when I go and I'm going to practice getting better at free throws for when I'm on the line for a one-on-one with the game on the line, I shoot 10 free throws in a row. Every free throw I actually get better at. And so it's a false sense of security. It's a false sense of confidence. So I don't know if that helps at all, but how athletes and coaches train for situation criticality flies in the face of decades of motor learning research, just to be blunt. And then you combine the motor learning research and the sports

psychology literature, and now we get to the answer of your question. So I'll use free throw shooting as an example, but I could use penalty kicks in soccer, and you know, I could do this, you know, at bats and baseball and on and on and on, field goal attempts in football. There's just no sport where it doesn't apply in which there are these situation critical moments. So in basketball, instead of taking 10 or 50 or 100 free throws, let's get the scoreboard on and let's put 49 points for our team and 50 for the other. Because in practice, athletes never look at the scoreboard. Why?

Because the scoreboard isn't on. Because nobody's keeping score. Because nobody cares. So they don't have to think, worry, deal with all of those same thoughts and emotions. Just watch a game and look at how many times people look up at the scoreboard. They're constantly looking at the scoreboard. So if you want to practice situation criticality, coaches and athletes, get the scoreboard on, give your team one less point, and then run a sprint down to the other end of the court, then come back and take your free throw. Why? Why sprint down and then come back and take your free throw? Because free throws happen in the run of play. You've just been playing defense. You've just been playing offense. You're tired. So your heart's racing. Your thoughts, and now you've got to take a free throw.

And guess what? You're going to take the first of a one-on-one, and if you miss that first one of a one-on-one, now the rest of the team is on offense. Do you follow what I'm saying? We're simulating the conditions on which we have to make the play. So in your world, in professional football, you'll see kickers kicking in, right, kicking into the net 30, 40 times.

Well, 37 is better because of the 36. Five is better because of the four. Then you trot out into the field, and now I've got to do it with a racing heart and divergent thoughts and concentration. I've looked up at the scoreboard. All of a sudden, nobody's patting my helmet when I'm kicking into the net, but I walk out of the field, and everybody's giving me a thumbs up and patting me. It's different. So I have to train under the same conditions under which I'm going to have to execute that skill. And people mistake repetition for performance excellence. And you have to replicate the physiological, psychological, and cognitive demands as close as you can,

and when you can perfect it on demand, now we've got somewhere. Colleen, you give me a lot to think about. One of the things that I'm working to connect with what you just said about kind of simulation is, you know, the fourth step in your progression, which is unaware and skilled. Yeah, unaware and skilled, correct. Yeah, so besides like this in terms of simulating and practice, what do you see the best do in terms of how do they get there? Sustained excellence over time.

They're not one-hit wonders. They're not flavor of the month. They're going to get there psychologically and mentally. They become mentally tough in fire. I mean, you've got to be in the competitive cauldron and it's in the competitive cauldron that you have to hone and refine our skills so i try to hold my count my clients accountable in practice in games so i don't want to just know that you understand what i'm saying i don't want to just know that you can repeat what i'm saying again it's not a multiple choice test i want to know, in soccer, an important role of a midfielder is being able to change the point of attack. So I'm going to actually keep track. I'm going to count the number of times you change the point of attack in your game.

So I think one of the things, part of the reason, there's a million reasons why athletes are so committed to strength and conditioning. But one of the reasons is it's numeric. We see that 150 pounds is 10 more pounds than 140. You know, 300 pounds is 10 pounds more than 290. So we have a very clear metric. I try to provide that same thing in mental skills training. So back to our earlier talk when I said compare your best game to when you underperformed. In soccer, a back might say, you know, when I'm not confident, I hesitate going forward. I just

don't want to get on attack. You know, I'm not confident that I'll get back. I'm afraid I'll make a mistake. So we'll keep track of that. We'll say, okay, your average game, you get forward four times per half. Okay, I looked at this last game. I looked at the film of this last game. You only went forward two times. Why'd you only go forward two times? So we give them metrics. and they start understanding that when they can control their confidence and then i say to you after the game did you watch the film did you remember how many times did you get forward i got forward five times now we see the athlete sees their progress in the arena where it matters so we want to impact performance i want to work with athletes who see the fruits of our labor in their performance not just in

their head but in their performance you know how their as their field goal kicking changed in critical events in different distances, against different opponents. So we do a lot of metrics. We want to sort of like show me the evidence, show me the proof that working in mental skills has resulted in improved performance on the slope, on the field, on the ice. And so you have to know the athlete and you have to know what is a typical performance to know when they're exceeding and when they're

underperforming. But I'll tell you, the athletes know that. So we need to do a better job, we meaning mental skills coaches, quantifying what we're doing. And I'm not talking about psychometric quantification. I'm talking about actual performance. Athletes don't hire us so that they get higher scores on their sports psychology exams. No. They hire us to be better performers. Yes. So let's find metrics. You know, are they winning more first

balls? Are they winning more second balls? Is their service improving? Are they getting better? So you have to be able to, in sport terms, quantify the evidence, quantify the proof of improved concentration, improved focus, an ability to handle distractions, an ability to regain my confidence after I lose it. You know, I think most people are surprised at how often elite performers struggle with confidence. I think the lay public thinks, man, you're the best in the world. You're a Super Bowl champion. You're an Olympic gold medalist.

Your confidence must be off the charts. Not so. Not so. So that ability to withstand the roller coaster that is confidence, that's something that we can quantify. If you're a goal scorer and you don't score for a quarter, that's better than not scoring for three or four games in a row yes so we look at how quickly you can come back so there's all kinds of ways but i want to be able to show athletes and more importantly i want athletes to see for

themselves in their performance how mental a commitment to mental skills training results in a better performance. And I think if we know the sport, we can do that. So Colleen, you know, one of the questions I wanted to ask you kind of as we wrap up the interview, we could talk about these issues like, oh man, couldn't we? Oh man. But you know, I think about the amazing work you're doing in the field and the amazing work that so many other people are doing. What do you think holds people back from, and thinking about the athletes or the business

people that we work with or the coaches, from kind of coming forward and saying, gosh, you know, this mental skills stuff really helped me. What do you think is holding people back there? I know there's more and more awareness and more people talking about it, but what are your thoughts on that in general? Yeah, there is. And I love that question. First of all, I just bow down in appreciation. Every time an athlete goes public, it's like a pebble in a clear lake. It goes out to so many athletes. They read it, they see it. When we see Michaela Schifrin struggle with nerves the number one ranked skier in the world wow we say apparently we're all near mortals when it comes time to perform yeah so when we see Lindsey Vonn write performance cues on her ski gloves

when we see Serena Williams write performance reminders which which are what their forms of self-talk so the first thing I'll say is every time an elite performer is public about their use of mental skills training they help everyone performing at lower levels and they help athletes in other sports. What holds us back? The belief that sports psychology is for head cases. Oh, there's something wrong with you. I say, I don't deal with head cases. I get to deal with the best people in the world at what they do.

And they want to, they're already great. They're not head cases. Why are they hiring me? To help them stay there longer, to help them enjoy the experience of being there, or to work on some right now stuff. Generally, they're great at A, B, C, but right now they just need a little bit of a tweaking on C. So I think one thing that holds people back is that there's something wrong with you or that you're a head case not the case at all second it's a quick fix for a lot of sports psychology consultants they're bread and butter for lack of a better

way to say it is something that I absolutely have refused to do in a 40-year career is I won't be a one-trick pony. So I don't go in and just do a session with a team and then say I worked with NBA. I don't go in and do a session with an NFL team and then claim that I'm working in the NFL. It's just called giving a presentation. So there aren't quick fixes. So anytime you do something one and done, in essence, I think you're implicitly part of the problem. You're saying bringing me in one time is going to be meaningful and helpful. And so I won't do that because I don't want to model the very thing that I'm speaking against. And I realize I've just made a lot of enemies and I'm comfortable in that world.

But I just don't be the one hit wonder because during your one hit wonder, you're telling them how it takes time and hard work and you're in one time and out so there's a real credibility problem there absolutely i think a third i think there's a third issue is athletes think you either have it or you don't as though it were um dna or genetically determined like you either have blue eyes or you have brown eyes mental skills are just like strength training. Different people are stronger or weaker in different muscles at any given time,

but everybody can get stronger with proper training and expertise. So no matter, let's say you're already mentally tough, let's help you get mentally tougher. Let's say you already use imagery, let's help you get mentally tougher let's say you already use imagery let's help you use imagery more effectively it's like athletes are already strength training so why go to a strength and conditioning coach because they're going to help you do it more efficiently and more accurately and safely you know i think i think in some ways that that would be the final one that that I've already discussed, but people thinking that psychological skills are different from physical

skills. So if you want to get better at your running your offense, what do you have to do run your offense, you know, and you have to run your offense. You know, every day at practice, and you've got to run it against different opponents, and you have to run it in different conditions. Well, guess what? In mental skills training, you've got to work on it on a daily basis, not in the classroom, sitting at your desk with your iPad dutifully open taking notes. But on the field on the rink, you've got to practice mental skills where mental skills occur. And I chuckle at this. Can you imagine a coach saying, look, I'm going to implement a new offense.

I'll have everybody in the classroom. Please take notes. This is the new offense. They show the new offense. They do a PowerPoint on the new offense. They give the athletes a workbook and a handout on the new offense and you and you're laughing because you know where i'm going with this yes it's not going to work this is what mental skills trainers do all the time they have powerpoint presentations

you know they're they're just all sizzle and no steak so we do wonderful power presentations we do magic tricks we spin plates on our fingers we're engaging and memorable we make people laugh and then we never hear or work with them again that's not mental skills training that's a dog and pony show so i think we're missing sizzle for steak And then we wonder why there might be a credibility problem or a hiring back problem. And, and I'll say, that's why it's meaningful to me to be with the program 12 years, eight years, you're not coming back 12 years if you haven't proven your value.

You're not working with a professional athlete for five, six, seven, eight years, if you haven't proven your value. So it just, we just can't, we're too busy, as John Wooden says, we're too busy learning the tricks of the trade without learning the trade. We have to build our house on a strong foundation. And Kevin Costner reminds us, if you build it, they will come. Well, I'll co-opt that phrase with mental skills training. When we prove our value and we prove our worth over time, athletes, coaches, and teams will come to us. I've just seen it over the course of 30 years. Absolutely. I think about how you've even built your career. It wasn't a fancy website,

right? It was about doing great work and doing amazing work where you're at, and then continuing that. And obviously, we've seen that now. Colleen, I am just honored to interview you. And I just think about all the experience you've had, how many lives that you've touched, and how you've really helped, you know, our US teams strengthen their mental game. And what good has come from that? And so I just want to honor you and thank you for your time. Wow. Thank you. Thank you. Because I'm just kind of like taking in everything that you have done in this field and how you're such a great role model for all of us. And, you know, I think about as I've been taking some notes today, like the things that

most have impacted me. And... Kendra, Kendra, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I have to. You asked me what separates the good from the great. You're modeling it right now. Here you are established in your field, a respected figure, working with the greats and listen to what you just said.

And I know I'm being rude as a person, but I judge this to be so important. I want all the listeners to hear that. And here you are taking notes. That's the difference. The greats continue to learn. They have something to learn and as a consequence, they do. So I just lift you up as a model for what the very things I'm talking about is your green and growing, your green and growing, even at the level that you're

at. That's what the listeners need to attend to is what you're modeling right there. Oh, thank you. I really appreciate that. And I'm just taking in all your wisdom today and it's like thinking about, right, like how can I grow? How can I learn?

What can I continue to do differently? And how can I even use the research even more to inform my good work? So here are the things that I got from you today, Colleen. And I want to repeat these because I want people to think about what did they just learn from the time with you. So one of the main things that I heard was just the importance of like doing long-term work consistently, right?

And it's not just kind of like this one and done thing, but what can you do in terms of working with the individuals, but also the teams long-term? And it's not, you know, you're talking about 12 years, right? Sort of the other things that really impacted me was how you said four-step progression. And I thought that was really interesting because, you know, that really our goal is to help people kind of be unaware and skilled and so they can do it without thinking that it is unconscious and automatic. You talked about how the Olympics is like every other, you know, competition, but very completely different and how you have to really like mentally prepare for that. And you talked about simulation. And then I also really just enjoyed

what you said at the end about really what your goal is to help people enjoy it, stay with it either longer or, you know, work with the stuff that they have right now. And that everybody can learn from these mental skills just because you think that you're mentally tough doesn't mean that you can't be more mentally tougher, right? And that, you know, our work is best informed by the research. It's not like kind of this, we need to understand the research before we can understand the strategies. So there we go. Beautifully summarized. Colleen, I just appreciate so much of your time and your openness to talk about your work. What advice would you have? So I think about the people who are listening, and they might be elite athletes.

They might be business leaders. They might be sports psychology consultants or coaches. So what advice would you like to kind of finish with? I guess a couple of things. One, only because of the number of people who reach out to me with common questions, how do I get to the next? How do I, is be where your feet are. Embrace, seek excellence where you're at right now. I don't care what level, what age, what group, you are part of a noble and honorable enterprise. Helping people achieve whatever their individual or collective potential is.

Really understand that the big time is where you're at right now. It's not some other place. So be where your feet are. Seek excellence where you are right now. If nothing else comes from it, there's honor and value in that. And the second I'd say, and, you know, here you are again, you hit on it. I've said everywhere I go, the greatest part of my life are the people in it. I view my role and my advice to others is to adopt a similar mindset as I view myself as a servant leader, that I think we serve, that we lead best by serving others.

And so I feel just honored and privileged when athletes take me in, trust our relationship, want to be collaborative in this quest for excellence together it's not a top down it's not me to them it's a it's a reciprocal relationship so really just view yourself as a servant leader how can you serve others how can you help others i i joke but it's not a joke. I said, I don't do anything interesting or significant. I help interesting and significant people. So that's how I look at it. And I think if you have that mindset, I just feel honored and privileged when I do get to be part of their journey. And that's really what my role is. I'm part of their journey.

So be a leader by serving others. And then I'll finish. My dad, who's since passed away, I grew up camping. And one of his principles in camping is always leave the campsite cleaner than when you got there. I can't camp to this day without walking around and leaving the campsite cleaner than when I got there. So my final piece of advice is leave the athlete better than when you got there. Leave the team better than when you got there. Leave the profession better than when you got there. Teach, mentor, bring others along. Be generous with other people rather than proprietary.

Those kinds of things, metaphorically, leaving the campsite better than when you got there, I think has served me well. Excellent. So three pieces of final advice. Seek excellence where you're at right now. View yourself as a servant leader and then leave it cleaner or better than when you came. So Colleen, I know you're on Twitter at Dr. Colleen Hacker, right? What are other ways that we might be able to connect with you or would that be the best way? That would probably be the best way. I sort of eschew a online presence.

I think good work gets more good work. So yeah, I think Twitter would probably be the way to do that. Okay, that's Dr. Colleen Hacker. And tell us what you thought about today's interview. What's it out to you? You can head over there and you can tag Dr. Colleen Hacker in there and myself at Mentally Underscore Strong. So Colleen, thank you so much for taking the time. I'm honored and I really appreciate you taking some time with us this morning. Thank you so much. 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.