High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 175: Closing the Gap with Lennie Waite, Professional Track Athlete and Sport Psychology Consultant

Episode Date: April 19, 2018

Lennie Waite is professional track athlete in the 3000m steeplechase and a sport psychology consultant. Waite attended Rice University from 2004-2009, where she played soccer and ran cross country and track. Waite left Rice as a school record holder, a two-time All-American, an Academic All-American, and a top 10 finalist for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award. After her career at Rice, she pursued her PhD in Industrial/Organizational Psychology at the University of Houston which she completed in 2012. A few months after earning her PhD in 2012, she competed in the 2012 Olympic Trials, finishing fourth and narrowly missing a spot on Great Britain’s Olympic Team. In 2016, she achieved her dream of becoming an Olympian and represented Great Britain in the 3000m steeplechase at the Rio Olympics. Lennie is currently preparing for her third Commonwealth Games for Scotland and raced in the 3000m steeplechase in the Gold Coast, Australia on April 11th.   Lennie is also a Certified Mental Performance Coach (CMPC) and an active member of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology. She is passionate about developing athletes to their fullest potential. In this interview, Lennie and Cindra talk about: The best mindset for her to race well at an elite level What the world’s best do differently A signature technique she uses with the athletes she works with Her experience at the Olympic Games How to close the gap between where you are now and where you want to be You can find a full description of the Podcast and contact information for Lennie at cindrakamphoff.com/lennie.

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 174 with Lenny Waite. 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 our sport now before i head over to introduce

you to lenny i'd like to go over to itunes and read a rating and review this is from jackie evancho who said she's a number one fan jackie said this is a shot in the arm. Dr. Campoff's podcast High Performance Mindset is a perfect podcast for anyone looking to improve in any aspect of their lives. The interviews are thorough and provide great insight about high performance with some of the best performers out there. No matter if you're listening for five minutes or get the entire episode, this podcast provides you energy filled shot in the arm that will have you excited to take on life head-on. I absolutely love it. Thank you so much, Jackie, for heading over to iTunes and providing a rating and review. We super appreciate it. And if you enjoyed today's podcast

or if you listen regularly, we'd love for you to head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, iHeart Radio, wherever you're listening to the podcast, and provide a rating and review. And I will make sure that I read it next week on the podcast. So in today's interview, I interview Lenny White, who is a professional track and field athlete in the 3,000 meter steeplechase. And she's also a sports psychology consultant. So she attended Rice University from 2004 to 2009, where she played soccer, and then she was recruited to run cross-country and track. So her story about that is pretty cool. She left Rice as a school record holder, a two-time All-American, an academic All-American, and a top 10 finalist for NCAA Women of the Year Award. After her career at Rice,

she pursued her PhD in industrial and organizational psychology at the University of Houston, where she completed that in 2012. So just after a few months of completing her PhD, she competed in the 2012 Olympic trials, finishing fourth and narrowly missing a spot on Great Britain's Olympic team. But in 2016, she achieved her dream of becoming an Olympian and represented Great Britain in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the Rio Olympics. And Lenny just completed, which is likely her last competitive race

at the elite level, she completed the 3,000-meter steeplechase for her third Commonwealth Games, and she competed for Scotland. And she did that a few days ago, April 11th in Gold Coast, Australia. So Lenny is also a certified mental performance consultant and an active member of the Association for Applied Sports Psychology. In this interview, Lenny and I talk about the best mindset that she needs to race well at the elite level, what the world's best do differently, particularly because she gets to watch them and compete against them. She talks about a signature technique that she uses with the athletes she works with.

We also talk about her experience at the Olympic Games and how to close the gap between where you are now and where you want to be. My favorite quote in this interview is when she talks about how that the world's best have similar distractions to us, but are able to commit over the long run and are more invested over four to 10 years. So I know that you'll love this interview with Lenny. Again, if you enjoyed today's interview, you can head over to iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, iHeartRadio, wherever you're listening

and give us a rating and review. Make sure to read that next week on the podcast. And second, you can also head over to Twitter and join the conversation there. You can tag myself at mentally underscore strong or Lenny at LennyW8. All right, without further ado, let's bring on Lenny. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. I'm excited to be joined today by Lenny Waite. Lenny, thank you so much for joining us here today on the podcast. Yeah, I'm excited about it. So to start off, tell us about your passion and what you do right now. So right now I am a sort of dual career, part professional athlete, part sports

psychology consultant. So I am either out on the track personally training for races myself, or I am talking with teams or one-on-one with athletes. I do some work with some student athlete leadership development. So yeah, a world surrounded by sports and sports performance, either the performer or helping other people perform. Ah, nice. Performer or like helping other people perform. So just tell us a little bit about

how you got to where you are now and maybe start with like your experience in, in sport. And I know you, you know, you got a soccer scholarship at Rice, but then transferred to track and field. So tell us just a little bit about your journey there. So I, I grew up with a very athletic parents. My dad was a professional rugby player and my mom loved to run. She ran marathons before it was a really a thing that women really did or was really popular. I also am the youngest of four girls. So I have three other sisters who were all athletic. So I was pushed into sports at a very young age. And the sister directly older than me, her name is Katie. She's a really talented runner. And I used to go to her races and track practices. So my

parents would just sign me up to run. I mean, I think there's a picture of me as young as like four or five running, a picture of me running in a newspaper saying, you know, how good it is to start kids running young. So I didn't understand what I was doing. I was just following in my sister's footsteps. And then I, you know, you don't always want to do exactly what older sister does. So I got really interested in soccer and I put a lot of my energy there. And I always ran for fun, but I wanted to do something a little bit different, have some independence. And my dad was a huge soccer fan, and I think he loved coming to my games. And I just think that that was the path that I preferred more than individual competition. So in high school, I did both sports, and I had the opportunity.

I was recruited for both at the NCAA level. But I think, as many distance runners know, running can be quite painful. This is true. I'm one myself, so I understand. And, you know, it can be quite lonely. And when you can think about, would you rather spend, you know, 22 to 24 minutes out on a 6K cross country course alone?

Or would you rather spend, you know, 90 minutes hanging out with, you know, 11 of your best friends on a soccer field. So I think for me, I was like, definitely the soccer field way more fun. And so yeah, chose to go to Rice for soccer. But I did know that that the soccer coaches and the track coach were open to me to playing soccer in the fall and running in the spring. So my freshman year, I played soccer in the fall. I did our soccer spring season. And then I remember the night of our last soccer game for the shorter spring season. That night, the track coach came to me and he said, here's a uniform. We're racing down the road at Stephen F. Austin University tomorrow in Nacogdoches. Why don't you hop on the bus and come race? Oh, wow. Yeah. So you weren't even practicing. You just like jumped into competing.

Yeah. So I had just because of my running history and the fact that I love to run, I would do, I run maybe three miles a couple of mornings a week outside of soccer practice, but I wasn't doing any like real track training. But honestly, that was the beauty of it because I was so naive going into my first collegiate race. I had zero pressure. I honestly felt like it was just this like, oh, I'm going to take a road trip to go run a race. And I think that kind of lighthearted attitude with no expectation really helped me have just such a fun trip. I raced very well. I wasn't, I wasn't, you know, wasn't last, I wasn't first, but I was kind of right in the middle of the pack. And I realized that off of basically just soccer training that I was still

a decent collegiate level runner. And I did a few more races, I ended up traveling with the team to Drake relays. And I had an amazing time there, you know, similar, like nothing to lose attitude. And then, and then I came back, um, that summer I focused mainly on my soccer training and I came back in the fall to play my sophomore season of soccer. And I remember during preseason that year, I talked with the track coach again and I, and I asked him what he thought about me coming out to run cross country versus playing soccer. And he said, you know, what did you do over the summer for training? And I said, you know, I ran a few days a week, like three or four miles. And personally, I thought that was a lot. Like as a soccer player, I thought running like 20 to 30 minutes a few days a week was a lot of running um and obviously he knew that was not going to

prepare me for division one cross country uh racing a 6k cross country course so he said you know what why don't you finish this soccer season up and then and then come out uh you know as soon as the season ends in november and we'll run indoor and outdoor track and we can we can take it from there and so that's what i ended up doing and I do I always find it so interesting it was actually the I played I had a great sophomore season in soccer and partly because of the same thing I didn't worry about anything I played like oh every game could be my last game and so it taught me a little bit about how the attitude that I needed to carry forward to be, to be a better performer. Absolutely. So like this, you know, lighthearted attitude with nothing to lose, no expectations and no worries. Yeah. And so, you know, then your journey,

obviously in track and field, you're a two-time All-American, you know, at Rice when you, when you transferred to track and field and then, you know, at Rice when you, when you transferred to track and field, and then, you know, you make the Olympic Games, compete at the Olympics, and like, you know, it's, it's amazing that you kind of started in soccer. You know, tell us about what, what you think, you know, are the mental attributes that you used, or, you know, that you relied on to be so successful in college, you know, two-time All-American? Yeah, so I have a little bit, I'll have to go back a little bit further, a little bit bit of a unique upbringing. So I was, I was born in Scotland, and then my family moved to Switzerland,

and then when I was seven, I moved to America, which was when I really got into playing soccer and doing, doing competitive sports. And I, you know, there are tons of opportunity for youth sports in America. And I had lots of opportunity to practice. And I was, you know, on the select soccer team, I was, I was the one of the best younger runners in the state. And then we moved to Singapore when I was in seventh grade. So I did seventh and eighth grade in Singapore. And I moved and I remember I played on all boys soccer team. I ran with our high school track team, but sports in Singapore, especially for women are not at the same level as they are in the US. And I didn't really know this.

I didn't know that I wasn't continuing to improve during seventh and eighth grade. And I came back to America for my freshman year of high school. Okay. And suddenly the team, the soccer team that I left where I was one of the starters and one of the lead goal scorers, I came back to play on and I, and I couldn't even, I wasn't even good enough to get a starting position. Okay. Um, and, and similar with running, um, you know, I, I used to win races kind of effortlessly and suddenly I was like middle of the pack. And I think I always come back to that move from Singapore back to Texas my freshman year of high school because I think it's pretty unique for somebody of that age to learn what

it's like to be good and then to be bad and then have to learn how to be good again. Got it. So I, I think I went through the shock of what a lot of people go through when they go into their freshman year of college, where they're a stud in high school, they're used to winning, they're used to, to things, you know, not coming easy, but you know, you put a little bit of hard work and you have a lot of natural talent and you're great. And I went through that, I think at a much younger age. And I remember I hated the feeling my freshman year where I was like, oh my gosh, I'm not good anymore. And I don't like it. And I made the decision there to spend extra time outside of practice to get back to where I was before I, before I moved over to Singapore. So that difficulty really helped you like invest your effort into like being a

better athlete in general. Yeah. Yeah. So when I, so when I joined the track team and I, I mean, I was, I was good, but I was, I wasn't going to like win a conference medal and never going to make it to the NCAAs at the level that I was when I switched over from soccer. But I had a little bit of like, I could remember in my past that I'd been in this position before, and I had kind of navigated my way up to where I wanted to be. And I, in the back of my head, I knew I would get there to be able to contribute in a big way to the team. I just didn't know

exactly how long it was going to take or what that path was going to look like. Yeah, absolutely. I think your path is really unique. And perhaps like that, your freshman year that happening actually, you know, led you to more of your success because you're more invested in it. And you could you knew what the this bad feeling of not being able to compete at the best of your ability, really what that felt like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, Lenny, so I'm thinking about how you've had, you know, eight years of experience in elite sport. I know your last international race, you know, is Saturday. So it's just coming up. But the first question I have about that is, you know, competing and watching and, you know, just being with the world's best. What do you think separates them from the

others mentally? So, gosh, that's something that's so unique to me because, because growing up, I didn't have a, I didn't have a vision of becoming an Olympian. So I know what it, I know what it feels like to look at Olympians and feel like they're superhuman. They have this weird, like, you know, thing that other humans don't have their genetics or superior. I remember like, that's what I used to think an Olympian or somebody who competed at that world stage had. And then I, I moved over to the, to the UK and I trained in an Olympic training center. And I was surrounded by people who were either Olympians or training to be Olympians or even medalists. And I suddenly realized like,

they're completely human too. Like they actually, it's, it's strange to me. And I think about it, how, you know, how normal or how I feel like they could integrate onto any team I'd previously been on for the most part. And as in they have, they have their bad days. They have the things that they're constantly like, ah, why do I always do that? I know it's not good for my performance or they are distracted. I think the, so on the surface, a lot of the characteristics are the same, but when you spend a lot of time with them, I think world-class performers, you realize that yes, they experience, you know, all the, all the similar distractions or, you know, wanting to, you know, have, have a big dessert

the night before the race. And, you know, sometimes they do that and, you know, or they, they don't want to go to their training session because there's something more fun to do. There are times where great athletes do have hiccups. But I think over the long run, they are more invested in the four to 10 year, however long that journey is of continuing to chip away. So just their ability to not let one kind of, you know, bad workout or bad race or bad game deter them from their goal that may be two or three or four or five years ahead of them. So I think it's their ability to look forward

at the long term for longer than a kind of club level or college level athlete. Yeah, really insightful. And when you think about like the mental process that you use to, you know, think of the long term and move on past a difficult race or competition, you know, what do you think's behind that? Like, how do you do that? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I think, you know, honestly, I do think a lot of it comes from my parents. I think I was lucky in the way I was raised. And there were definitely times as a child when I remember, you know, crying about losing a soccer game or being upset with a race performance. And my parents just never bought into those hysterics or that attitude. They were kind of like, I can't do anything about it. Just go do better next time.

And I feel like they're a lighthearted approach and just like, so what? Fix it. That eventually really just stuck with me until I got to the point where I was like, you know what? The only person that can change this is me. So figure out a way. And one of the things that my dad has always told me growing up was, you know, don't come to me with a problem.

Come to me with a solution. So whenever I have a bad race, I think let's not complain about it until I start thinking about the solution. And let's like jump to that. Let's jump to solving it. Let's have some action to move forward in a beneficial, proactive way. And that has helped me deal with failure a lot. I love it. So, you know, not complaining or being upset, but it's like, what's the solution? What

can I do to fix this? How can I move forward and learn from it? Absolutely. So besides having this like long-term focus of, you know, where, where they're going, but really being infested in where they are now as well, like what else do you think separates world-class from, from others? I think, I guess I think about the, the, the, specifically in track and field, I think the bodies of the athletes, their resilience to injury. Yeah, sure. I think that's a huge thing. And I always think about at every stage of my career, there are definitely athletes that

were more talented than I was, but I have been lucky to be pretty durable. And I think a lot of, a lot of really elite level athletes, um, would agree that maybe at, at every stage of their career, they weren't the best, but they were more durable to make it to the next level, which just, you know, allow them to continue to compete for longer and get, get better for longer. Um, and then I think, you know, the way that they love the sport, I think that becomes important. So there's a, they have a purpose more than, you know, winning or losing or seeing how fast they can go. I think they have a bigger reason why they're doing the sport. And I think that they're able to pull from that why more than other people. And I think, I think whenever you lose, you lose sight of, of the why and it becomes

about, you know, running a certain time or beating, beating a certain person or just preparing for one championship without a purpose behind it, it's easy to, to, to lose motivation and to quit. So I think the people who make it on the world stage, they have a bigger base of motivation to pull from. Nice, nice, awesome, awesome. And so kind of just paint us a picture of like what you think it takes to compete at that kind of level. I mean, we were talking, you know, yesterday when we were chatting on the phone, you know, that you've competed in front of like, you know, 50,000 people. So what do you think it takes, you know, even in like your day-to-day preparation, but then to compete at that high level against the world's best? So day-to-day preparation, definitely not giving too much meaning to any one thing that happens

in training or in racing and staying focused on the long term. And I think you have to have an unbelievable sense of self-confidence and belief. And I think a lot of people that starts out, I mean, I know for me, it started out being pretty forced. Like I really had to practice instilling belief and confidence in myself. And it's still something that I work on to this day. And it's not something that comes natural for to this day. And it's not something that comes natural for everybody, but it can be worked on. So I think that is really important. And then also recognizing the sources of pressure and what is making you feel like in some races, you're going to underperform and having that self-awareness to know what are your strengths

and what are your weaknesses as a performer and how to deal with that. So, you know, for me, a lot of times I get more nervous when I have family or close friends or loved ones watching. And if you think about that, like, why does that make a difference? If they're watching or not, it doesn't actually impact my physical ability to perform in my event. But learning that about myself and learning how to deal with that has allowed me to go on to this stage and compete in front of 50,000 people and still try and stay focused on what I'm personally trying to do. Absolutely. And when you think about, you know, when you said like instilling confidence, and I agree that that's a really important attribute of the world's best, like what are the ways that you've found to work for you in terms of like instilling

your confidence? Or what do you found in terms of like working for your clients? So for me personally, I, my confidence grew basically from my coach at first. And I think, you know, there are sources, the sources of confidence can be your training experiences, your coach, appraisal just from others watching you, and then your actual race experiences. So for me, it all started off from the coach. And then he taught me how to take confidence from my training experiences and how to then carry those forward into racing moments so that I can draw confidence from my training experiences and how to then carry those forward into racing moments so that I could

draw confidence from my races. And now, you know, I have enough history to pull from where I feel like I've encountered every situation that a racer could encounter since I've been doing it, you know, racing at a pretty high level in the NCAA since 2005, that past experiences have become very important for me. Yes. How did your coach like teach you that? You know, like, is there a way that he helped you debrief the races? Or was it just like his interaction with you? And, you know, in terms of like instilling the confidence and helping you see your past performances as a way to like build that confidence. So he is an incredibly positive man. And in training sessions,

he would just remind me like, he would basically take the workouts that I had done. And he would say, you know, I've had I've coached athletes for 30 plus years. The girls who have been able to do this, they've gone on to do X, Y, and Z. And that, that always took me a while. It still takes me a while to buy into it. First you, I didn't fully believe it because I still feel like I have to do it for myself. But once somebody tells you something long enough, you feel an expectation to go out there and do it for them, especially if you have a good relationship with your coach. So then I could, then I could go out there and actually do it because I was like, well, if my coach thinks I should do it, I should at least try and then you succeed. And then you have that past performance to pull on in the future.

Nice, nice. Awesome. Awesome. So let's dive in Lenny a little bit to how you work with clients. And so is there one topic, you know, related to mental training that is central to your work or that you cover with, you know, most of your clients? Yeah. So most of the clients that come to me, they always feel a little bit unique in that they have this problem that they feel like nobody else has and they don't know how to get around it. And they're almost like embarrassed to talk about it. Um, and so I feel like I always start out by explaining them that they're not that unique, that unfortunately, unfortunately that I've worked with athletes at all levels and I've been around world-class athletes and you know even I get nervous for

races I I get probably more nervous now because there's more on the line than I did when I was a college athlete and I think talking them through how normal a lot of things that they're going through are is a helpful place to start and then also explaining to them that there are certain ways that the brain works and that the brain interacts with the body, that no matter how much you try and like change it or switch it off or go a new direction, the brain is really, really powerful. And it's not just going to, it's not going you and you're not gonna go into your brain and like redo the wiring. And so learning how to live with some of the thoughts that you feel like are distressing or how to turn those into just, you know, normalizing them or realizing that that is a common part of your performance routine and integrate it into

your, your performance routine instead of, instead of fighting it. And just giving yourself a little bit more of more love instead of like, why am I like this? Yeah. Yeah. So more acceptance than fighting, more love than beating yourself up. And can you give us an example of, you know, maybe for yourself or, you know, like a client, and you obviously don't tell us their name or their sport or anything, but, you know, like somebody who maybe comes in and they might beat themselves up and be embarrassed, but yet they realize that, you know, maybe some of these thoughts that they're going to have to live with. Can you give us an example of, like, what are the thoughts?

Yeah. So, you know, there are a lot of people who, for one example in, in track, it's the, the nerves going into a big race. So they, they prepare all week and they're very excited to, to step on the starting line. And then they, you know, the night before the race and race day suddenly comes and they forget all of the things that they've done to prepare. And all they want to do is avoid getting to that starting line. So they, a lot of times athletes interpret that as, as being burned out or not really loving the sport or being underprepared. Um, and whenever they say that, I just say, you know, even on the morning of the Olympic games, I laid in my bed, like, I don't know if I'm ready to go to the starting line.

And it's a completely normal sensation for a lot of athletes to have. And a lot of it isn't about, it's not about being underprepared or not loving the sport or not wanting to perform. It's a lot of times the exact opposite of wanting to perform so badly and the fear of not reaching that expectation. And I work with clients on making them realize that those feelings are a normal part of their pre-performance routine and are a vital part. And almost to the point where if they don't have those feelings, it's more likely that they're underprepared to race and their feelings of care and excitement and just reinterpreting those and taking a deep breath, accepting them and going to

the start line anyway. Yeah. I was hearing when you're talking about, she's like, it's all about our interpretation. And when we have that thought, is it, are we thinking, oh, we're not prepared. I don't want to do this. I can't do this. Or if it's like, you know, this is normal and natural. And this is, this is like, this means I'm ready. Right. It's all about our interpretation of that, of that experience. So Lenny, can you give us an example of a signature technique that you might use with

your clients? Yes. So I have, you know, the thing about sports psychology is if somebody has a bad day and they may see me out of the track or they may see me around Rice Campus and they'll be, they'll come up to me and they'll say, you know, I've had, I've had this like bad day. Can you help me? I don't feel like I'm ready to compete and I need to turn it around. And I always find that really challenging because I can't promise them that in a 45 minute to 60 minute session that we're suddenly going to find the magic cure and turn everything that's been going wrong around. And I think a lot of people hope that that one session with a sports psychologist will like put a light bulb on in their brain and get them going the right direction. Yeah. It's long-term work, right? It's not like this quick fix. Yeah. You don't, you don't want to start off being like, yeah, sure.

I'll meet with you. This could take months to get better. Right. Of saying, yes, of course I can help you, but it's not going to take more than one session. And so I try to make clients realize the investment that they have to have in getting better on the playing field by drawing some charts. And I have, where is the ideal you as a performer? And where are you currently on this chart? So, you know,

ideal you is a hundred and you're performing at what, what, how do you feel you're performing at what percentage of your ideal self? And, you know, a lot of times clients put somewhere between, you know, 40 and 60%. So then it's saying, okay, so there's a, say they, they draw that they're like 60% of their ideal self. And I say, okay, so how committed are you to closing that gap, that 40% gap between where you are and where you want to be? And without a doubt, everybody says they are 100% or even 110% committed. So I'm like, great, that is awesome. Let's go over the actions in the past week that you've taken to close this gap.

And generally there's complete silence. The action has been, well, I asked you to help me. So that's when it becomes apparent that a lot of athletes have this great vision of where they are as a top performer and they can see where they are now and they want to close that gap, but they don't know exactly how to put that vision into actions and figuring out what those actions are. And also, I mean, a lot of times those actions are not desirable and they require quite a big change in lifestyle or commitment and thought processes. And so that's when I think, when I start off at that point, that's when the clients realize like, oh, I'm not going to walk away today being

a superstar athlete. This is going to take like a little bit of time investment. Yeah. And I like that kind of these four steps that you talked about, like what's your ideal vision of yourself as a performer? And then, you know, where are you right now? How committed are you? And then the fourth one, you said, like, what actions are you taking? And I like the actions because I think we all have this vision of where we want to go, or at least the best do, right? In our field, in sport, in business, and in life. But it's like, are we putting, are we actually doing the actions every single day that are

going to lead us to that? And I think there's so much distraction. You know, there's so much like things that can take our attention instead of like being focused on the things that matter most to us and they're going to lead to our success. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. So could you give us an example of like how that works out? You know, when you kind of talk to somebody about this and they say like, oh yeah, you know, I can't give you any of the actions. Do you then help them figure out what actions they need to take or what's the next step from there? Yeah, the next step is a conversation surrounding, you know, what are the things that you think

need to be done? And this is where it's different for every single athlete because a lot of athletes, you know, for some athletes, they're way too hard on themselves and, you know, reducing their pressure and increasing their self-love and just changing the way that they think about themselves as an athlete is an important part of that process. But then there's the other extreme where, you know, maybe historically, this athlete has found success really easily. Now they're at a level where it's going to require, you know, getting more down into the nitty gritty of nutrition and sleeping and giving up some of the finer aspects of life in order to increase in performance and, you know, kind of making a more

structured, regimented, accountable schedule for them. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and Lenny, I think one unique thing about your training is your PhD is actually in industrial organizational psychology, but then you have this specialty in sport and gotten mentorship and that, you know, tell us about how like that, that PhD provides like uniqueness of maybe how you might approach your work or, you know, even, you know, how you might approach your own thought processes, like, you know, when you're competing? Yeah, so industrial organizational psychology is really heavily focused on the psychology of the workplace. So a lot to do with motivating, motivating employees in the corporate world. And a lot of those theories are based on, you know, personality factors. Because, you know,

teamwork is a big part in creating optimal teams for performance. And then what kind of, what kind of workers are best suited for what job? And how do you motivate different types of personalities and different types of jobs? So I feel like I take a lot of those personality and performance theories into sports psychology with me. So I'm always really interested in, you know, what makes the person, what makes the person tick? Are they, you know, where are they on their scale is like extroversion, introversion, openness to experiences and, you know, using those personality factors to build a psychological skills training program that can be motivational for that one athlete. Right. And I think IO psychology does a really good job of giving you those theories of the individual person and how they perform in a workplace. And essentially, the sporting environment is a workplace.

You know, sports is a big business. So those theories apply nicely to sports. You're just kind of changing the examples. We're not talking about, you know, doing teamwork for a corporation. We're talking about, you know, scoring points for a basketball team or, you know, working as a team on the soccer field, it's just, just a slightly different environment. Absolutely. You know, and I know your experiences, you were competing at this international level while working on your PhD. And I couldn't imagine

like how difficult that was to do both, you know, tell us about your experiencing experience doing that and kind of juggling that. Yeah. So that was, I think I was a little naive, so that helped a lot. Um, it's funny now because I've had some clients come to me and they were talking about being a professional athlete and doing graduate school. And I think, I mean, I, it's really hard for me to encourage people to do both. Although I did both, it was looking back on it, it was, it was a lot. And I was so unbelievably lucky that my, um, advisor for my PhD, he thought it was the most awesome thing ever that I was training for the Olympics. And that really taught me the importance of the support staff that you had around you.

And I think I did a, I did a good job of, of explaining the importance of having this Olympic dream and how, um, how it could help in my, in my future with my work. And I think he really thought that too. And I got, um, lucky that, yeah, Dr. Alan Witt at you at the university of Houston became one of my, my biggest sporting fans and really understood the importance of, of balancing these two goals that I had in terms of getting my PhD and also training for the Olympics. But also my personality is that I never wanted to let my coach down and I never wanted to let my PhD advisor down. And there were definitely some sleepless nights and some things that I did that were not optimal for performance.

But I learned a lot and I, you know, I still joke that I wouldn't have changed it for anything. And I think that the information that I gathered doing that and through all the trials that I went through will be really useful when working with clients in the future. Absolutely. And, you know, you said something to me that was important when we were talking before about how like your 100% looks different than anybody else's. Like, tell us about that. And then, you know, how did you deal with that, you know, in terms of like being an elite performer and still having confidence in yourself and your ability? Yeah, so it was always unique in the PhDs or year-round programs but in the summer I would

do like research projects actually one summer I went to a university in the UK and used that as my training base and helped write a book chapter and I would navigate ways to incorporate continuing my PhD studies with also finding a way to race the European circuit. And one thing that was challenging for me is when I would get over there, you know, all the athletes are 100% into, you know, sleeping as much as they can, keeping good nutrition, being really regimented. They're only focused on their race. And I remember I'd be like, oh, I have to, you know, revise this book chapter. I need to do this research. I have to like email my dissertation advisor.

I need to start thinking about my data collection for my dissertation. So there would be times where I would sit there in Europe and I would think, am I even committed to running this fast when everybody else is, you know, they're fully invested in preparing for this race. And I have like a lot of other worries on the side. And I think for a while, I was a little bit mean to myself. And I thought, gosh, you're really not doing everything that you could do. But looking now at this stage in my career, you know, a lot of those athletes who were there that I was competing with in 2010, 2011,

they retired from the sport, partly because they maybe they had injury, or maybe they realized that they don't make very much money in professional athletics, and they needed to go on and do something else with their life. And I feel like always having the either my PhD or starting my business or working with clients has allowed me to continue to stay in the sport because if I have a bad race or if things aren't going my way, it's not the end of the world. I can, I can put my head down and continue to train and, and focus on my business. And I have something that can continue to support myself that can allow me to continue to train and go on

and go on to prepare for the next competition. Absolutely. I've definitely rewritten that narrative to say, if I wouldn't have been doing both things, I would have quit the sport before I ever had the opportunity to make an Olympic team, because it would have been, it would have been too hard. You know, when, when track and field is your only identity and you go through a stress fracture or a season where you don't run faster than you did the previous season, um, then you, you do want to give up. And I totally understand that, but that would happen to me. And I would just put a little bit more focus on the PhD side of my life and continue to train in the background until I got my confidence back up in racing and kind of kind of balance between both both pockets. So it really helped you in

terms of like doing both when you're competing, you know, competing and then in school. Tell us about your experience at the Olympics and you know what that was like to compete at, you know, one of the world's biggest stages. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So the Olympics was was quite a whirlwind. I had a very interesting buildup to the Olympics. So in 2015, I actually made the world championship team for Great Britain in terms of hitting the qualification standards. And I was introduced to the ugly side of politics and sports, and I wasn't taken to the world championships, which was devastating for me.

And so I think at the time, I you know, had a little bit like, I felt like track and field broke my heart. Um, but it really allowed me whenever anything bad happens like that, uh, you know, you re you recenter your focus on, on how you're going to move forward and what the sport means to you and what you want to get out of it. And so that served as a really great, like it shook me and it made me realize how passionate I was about making the next Olympic team. And I think that going into Rio, I was so focused on not letting what happened in 2015, as in qualifying and not getting selected to go compete. I was so focused on not letting that happen to me again that it helped me reach a new level of determination and purpose in terms of getting to the Olympics. And I think I surprised a fair number of people when I ran my best time ever in 2016 in the build up to the Olympic Games, which is kind of like a dream.

And I'm sure you've talked to enough athletes to know that getting that timing right over the course of a career is an art. And I was so, so happy to be able to do that. And then the Olympics is also a very interesting thing for a track and field athlete like myself, because most of, you know, most of the years when I'm training and competing, nobody cares what I'm doing. They're not like asking me about my races or, you know, how I'm running. You know, the world championships are most years and people don't take much interest in those. So I'm used to going about my business kind of in quiet.

Like, yeah, there's I have a handful of people that are interested in my running. But a lot of people are like, oh, you run track. That's cool. And then it's an Olympic year and suddenly everybody was so, so interested. So that was really hard for me to deal with because I wasn't used to people being like thinking that I was somewhat like of a, you know, you almost seem like treated a little bit like a celebrity in the buildup to the Olympics. And normally they just look at me like,

why do you run all the time? So there's a drastic shift in like, just people in, in, on the street who would be like, oh my gosh, you're like training for the Olympics. That's awesome. Like, well, yeah, I mean, every track athlete is kind of training for the Olympics and what we do every year is pretty similar. Um, so I, I think dealing with that increased attention was hard for me. And how did you deal with that? I don't think I, I don't think I dealt with it great. I think I was like, I was overwhelmed and, and, you know, it just gets more and more because, you know, you get into the Olympic village and they give you all these freebies and you're around all these

other professional athletes and everybody even asks you more questions about it. And it's just, to me, that was like so, so foreign. And I really, it felt, I felt rushed once I got into the village with people feeling very interested in what I was doing, asking a lot of questions, wanting to do interviews, trying to prepare to compete. Plus I was dealing with a little bit of a, of a plantar injury. And when I say little, I mean, I mean, I ended up rupturing my plantar fascia at the Olympics. Oh my goodness gracious. So it was, yeah,

it was what I thought was going to be one of the most incredible moments of my life. And there were some really, really dark days in there leading up to my Olympic race. I mean, partly because I didn't know if I was going to be able to race and dealing with everybody's interest in my race without a complete understanding of what it takes from a body to get to an Olympic start line completely

healthy after going through the process of racing fast enough to even make the Olympic team, you know, it's just, and I felt like I needed to come to explain it to everybody because they had a lot of questions and I, and I like having fans and I like people being interested, but it's impossible to explain how the world of track and field works to, to every single person. Absolutely. And so what was your experience? Did you, could you finish the race?

Yeah. And when you ruptured your planter, it was like really not very much fun, painful. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was really, it was really hard. I mean, the hardest part was honestly being at training camp where in my mind I had viewed it as this time to, to, to get my fitness like perfect and to get treated and to get my body like completely ready for Rio and everything was going so well. And during training camp I couldn't train because I had a huge, I had a huge tear already in my planner that we were afraid was going to rupture. Um, and we talked about,

I talked with the doctors back and forth about should I race or should I not race? And, um, you know, know, one doctor thought, you know, don't race. Like if you do and you do rupture it, it could sacrifice the rest of your career. But I was like, I'm already kind of at the end stage of my career. I'm not going to make the Olympics and then not race. And plus I had that weak side of my, you know, my whole weak side is my whole family was coming over to watch. My in-laws were coming. I couldn't let them down. And so that was playing in my mind too. And then I had another doctor who said, you know what, like if it ruptures, it ruptures. We'll deal with it after that. You can always say you're an

Olympian and who knows what's going to happen once you're out there. And so I was like, I am holding on to that. Nice, nice, nice. And that's what I grasped onto. And I remember I took the first water jump in that steeplechase race and I felt the pop in my foot. Oh my goodness. Okay. And I remember just being like, you know what? I didn't feel the pain a ton during the race.

And I remember just being so happy getting across the finish line because it had been such an emotional, like, are you going to be able to race? Are you going to be able to make it across the finish line? Are you going to have to be structured off? So although it wasn't the performance that I wanted, I'm so glad that I did race. And also, you know, another huge learning experience. And I think when you talk to like 10% of the people that go to the Olympics, do what they want to do. The other 90%, like they didn't win a medal. They didn't have the best race of their life.

And so honestly, I was in the majority there. It's just, that's not what you see when you watch it on TV. And it's not what you think about when you think about the Olympics growing up. But it is a story for many, many Olympians. Yeah, that's a really good point that, you know, only 10% do what they really want to do, have their maybe peak or ideal performance at the games and 90% don't. When you think about like the lessons learned from that, like what can you tell us in terms of like what can we gain from that experience? Because that sounds like a really emotionally like up and down experience.

Like you had this, all this like, like frustration and just like, will I be able to, you know, compete? And then you competed and it was like, I am an Olympian. And no, so what are the lessons learned there? Yeah. The lessons learned are that, you know, even competing on the, on the world stage, I think none of us are bulletproof. That's really, you know, the biggest thing is I think when I work with athletes and they know

that I've made it to the Olympics, a lot of the time they think your career, you must have hit like the jackpot at every stage in your career to make it to the Olympics, things must have been like super smooth. And it's like, absolutely not. You know, that those two weeks at training camp, not being able to train knowing that I had the biggest race of my life were, were probably two of the hardest weeks of, of my life. But it also showed me how good of a support staff I have in terms of my coach and my husband and my family and, you know, the staff for British athletics. And it just shows me that, you know, no matter like how emotional you can be about a sport, if you stay focused on doing what you want to do,

you'll figure out a way to get there. And it just showed me that if I really want to do something, I'll find a way to make it happen. Nice. I love it. I love it. You know, you have an incredible ability to like turn these difficulties into like opportunities. So like already in this interview, I'm hearing, you know, like the example of your freshman year when you came back and you weren't very competitive and it was like that fueled you, you know, in 2015, when you didn't make the, the, you know, the team, you know, you turned it around and used it to like inspire you to be better and get to the Olympics. And then even your experience at the Olympic Games. So I think that's something that's an amazing, like mental quality that a lot of people have, you know, so,

so two questions, Lenny, that I have as we wrap up the interview. I know you're really passionate about doping and what people are doing in doping. Tell us about, especially in track and field that's coming out recently, but tell us what it is like in terms of a competitor who is clean and who doesn't dope. And then what is it like to find out out that somebody dope that you raced against? So this has been one of the hardest things about being a professional track and field athlete for me. Running in high school and in the NCAA and even probably my first year as a professional, I didn't know that doping was a thing. I didn't really understand that people would take drugs to do well in sports. It wasn't how I was raised in sports. And it wasn't a side of sports that I really even like knew existed. And I remember once I got at the level and of

being a pretty good professional athlete, and suddenly hearing whisperings of Oh, well, I bet you like that person is doping? Or did you see that that he or she tested positive. And I suddenly was just wondering what I was a part of. And for a while I questioned why would I want to do a sport where a lot of the people that I'm lining up with or the people who are winning medals or getting awards are like the cheaters. And it, it did, it shook my, it shook my confidence in my, in myself and like, in terms of what I was doing. Cause I always felt like doing sports was, was something kind of good and showing people what was possible. And it, and it changed that for me. Um, and it made me have to rewrite my narrative again of why I was doing this sport. And I had to figure out why I was doing it because I suddenly realized that I didn't, I've never been the type who I'm not

going to win a global medal, I'm not going to win an Olympic medal. And definitely not going to when the people that I'm competing against are doing drugs. And I'm definitely unwilling to do anything like that. And I viewed myself as different to those people. So I had to figure out why am I doing the sport? And, you know, my purpose kind of came from enjoyment, you know, showing how sport is really beneficial in terms of gaining life skills. You know, the fact that you can do, you can do hard things in life, like you can make the Olympics, and you can get a PhD, and you can learn a ton of lessons from it. And, um, you know, not letting the people who are doing drugs or doing unethical things or, um, that, that environment impact my motivation or, or my love,

uh, for, for the sport. Um, and then, you know, beyond that, when I was at the Olympic games, and this is a crazy story to me, I remember we were, I was in the call room and there was an athlete who had tested positive the night before, and it had come out on the news. And that athlete was in my heat for the steeplechase. And so I'm in the call room and they're calling this athlete who everybody in the race knows that she's tested positive and that she's not coming to race because she's banned. But that information hasn't been passed on to the people who are working in the call room. And I remember sitting there thinking like, this is the last thing that I want as a reminder before I'm going to have the biggest race of my life. It was basically like this bell just going off in my brain, like people in your race do drugs, people in your race do drugs. And I, in that moment, I, I react a lot to that because it makes me so angry. And I'm

very passionate about like preventing that. And I remember just thinking like, that was not like from a sports psychology point of view, that was not what I needed in the call room, right before going to compete on the world stage, like a firm reminder that it is not an even playing field, that there are people doing things that are not getting caught, or if they are getting caught, they're getting caught too late. And I always think like the system has to be better than it is right now, because it's not rewarding the athletes who deserve to be rewarded. Absolutely. And I think, you know, one important thing about that is you think about the, your confidence, you know, in terms of like comparing yourself to people who are doping

and they run super fast. And the reason that one of the reasons they're running super fast is because they are doping. So making sure that we have a level playing field. I appreciate your comments on that. So Lenny, how can we connect with you and how can we follow what you're doing? So you can go to my website. It's lennywaite.com, L-E-N-N-I-E-W-A-I-T-E.com. You can also follow me on Instagram or on Twitter. And my handle is LennyW8, so L-E-N-N-I-E-W W8. So L E N N I E W 8. And yeah, you can see my if you're interested, you can see my journey in the Commonwealth Games. So I leave for for Brisbane, Australia on Saturday, and I race,

I'll be racing for Scotland at the Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast on April 11, against an incredible steeplechase field. And it'll actually be my third Commonwealth Games. Nice. Most definitely, I think my last. So yeah, so I'm really looking forward to going there, being more of a veteran and using my past experiences to have a great time out there. Awesome.

And use your mental game. That's what I'm hearing. It's like using these mental skills that are going to help you do well. So again, that's the Commonwealth Games, April 11th, and you're running the steeplechase. Yeah. Awesome.

Okay, we'll follow you along or follow along with you. So Lenny, thank you so much for your time and your energy and your passion and just sharing with us what's the, you know, the important things about your work and your journey. You know, there's a few things that I actually really, really enjoyed from this interview. So I'm going to repeat them for the listeners, but also to kind of show you

what, you know, what stood out to me. And I liked actually from the start where you're talking about how this lighthearted attitude with no expectations and just the love of the game really, really helped you and how you were talking about how the world's best that they are invested in this like, you know, four to 10 year time frame, and that they're, you know, they're doing what they can today to get there, but they have this long term investment, that they're durable, that they're, you know, like resilient from injury. And then I loved your signature technique about helping us think about our ideal performer and, you know, where we are right now compared to that. And how can we close the gap?

And what are the actions that we actually need to take to do that? And I really appreciate your, you know, your describing us your experience in the Olympics. I thought that was really impactful. So thank you so much for your time and your energy. What kind of advice or final comments do you have for people who are listening? Yeah, my advice would be to,

to not give too much weight to today or tomorrow and to think about what you want to do in the longterm, um, to be, to be kind for yourself and to spend some time figuring out how your brain works. So, you know, what makes, what, what kind of things contribute to your best performances, what kind of things contribute to your worst performance and how many of those things are, are fixed in terms of, you know, that's the way the brain and the body work together and that you just need to embrace. And how many of those things can you actually, you know, change and work on and to be kind to yourself for the things that, you know, you can't change or just, you know, innate in the human mind and human body and then to really get after those things that you can change. Outstanding. Excellent advice. Thank you so much for your time and energy, Lenny.

Thank 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.