High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 187: Culture and the Cardinal Mindset, Dr. Vanessa Shannon, Director of Mental Performance for University of Louisville Athletics

Episode Date: June 16, 2018

Dr. Vanessa Shannon is the Director of Mental Performance for University of Louisville Athletics and Norton Sports Health. As a former NCAA Division 1 volleyball player, she understands the challenges associated with balancing performance in the classroom and performance in sport. Prior to Louisville, Dr. Shannon spent two years at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida where she served as a mental conditioning coach, coordinated psychological test preparation for the NFL Combine Training Program, and served as a Vision Training Coach for the Major League Baseball Off-Season Training Program. Dr. Shannon began her career in academia where she spent 3 years as Department Chair of Exercise and Sport Sciences at Tennessee Wesleyan University and 5 years as a faculty member in the Sport and Exercise Psychology Program at West Virginia University. She holds a PhD in Applied Sport Psychology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, a MS in Exercise Psychology from Kansas State University, and BAs in Health and Human Performance and Psychology from Rice University. In this interview, Vanessa and Cindra talk about: Vanessa’s definition of culture and how she helps teams develop culture Why we must consider behavior to build culture Her 8 Principles of the Cardinal Mindset How the best performers think Why asking yourself the questions, “What do you want and what are you willing to do to get there?” are essential to consider You can find a full description of the Podcast at cindrakamphoff.com/vanessa.

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 187 with Dr. Vanessa Shannon, the Director of Mental Performance for the University of Louisville Athletics. 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 today before I head over to introduce Vanessa, I'm going to go over to iTunes and read a rating and a review. And sometimes you don't know the impact that you make in someone's life. So I really appreciate this comment here on iTunes that Changed My Life wrote a few days ago. So Changed My Life was talking about how they fought depression and discouragement their whole life, but then sought out therapy and spiritual counsel.

This person now listens to the high performance mindset. And they said this, Sindra and her guests have been a large part in my mentorship and have changed my life. I now continuously practice the high performance mindset daily and I'm now pursuing my dreams and it's paying off tremendously.

Sindra, you've changed my life in ways I can't put into words. Thank you for your mentorship. Thank you so much, changed my life. i'm grateful that you wrote that comment there on itunes and particularly that the high performance mindset has helped you in practicing the high performance mindset daily so thank you so much i'm grateful for your comment there on itunes and if you enjoyed the podcast today, I would really appreciate you heading over to iTunes and leave a rating or review.

If you're listening on iTunes or Stitcher Radio, you can do the same over there. Thank you so much. Now, Dr. Vanessa Shannon is the Director of Mental Performance for the University of Louisville Athletics and Norton Sports Health. As a former Division I volleyball player, she understands the challenges associated with both balancing performance in the classroom and performance in sport. Now prior to Louisville, Dr. Shannon spent two years at IMG Academy in Florida, where she served as a mental conditioning coach,

she coordinated the psychological test preparation for the NFL Combine Training Program and served as a vision training coach for the Major League Baseball off-season training program. So she began her career in academia where she spent three years as the department chair of exercise and sports sciences at Tennessee Wesleyan University, five years as a faculty member in the Sport and Exercise Psychology Program at West Virginia University. And she holds a PhD in Applied Sports Psychology from the University of Tennessee, a Master's in Exercise Psychology from Kansas State University, and BAs in Health and Human Performance

and Psychology from Rice University. Now, I know Dr. Shannon very well from our work and our attendance at the Association for Applied Sports Psychology. And there's many things that we talk about in this interview. First we talk about how 50% of her job is culture and 50% of her job is mindset. So we divide the interview in that way. So we start talking about her definition of culture and how she helps teams develop culture. And then we talk about her eight principles of the cardinal mindset,

which I know you're going to like each one of these principles and you'll be able to apply those to your work in business, in sport, and in life. And within our discussion of this cardinal mindset, she talks about how the best performers, how they really think. And my favorite principle within the cardinal mindset is what she talks about, she calls go for the gap. And she says that we must ask ourselves two essential questions. What do you want and what are you willing to do to get there? So I know you're going to enjoy this interview with Vanessa. We'd love for you to join the conversation over on Twitter and you can tag Dr. Shannon at Dr. Headstrong and myself is mentally underscore strong. We'd love to hear what you thought about this interview and

how you might use the content that Vanessa discusses. All right, without further ado, let's head over to Vanessa. All right, welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. I am stoked today to talk to Vanessa Shannon. Vanessa, how are you doing today? I am doing excellent. I'm very excited to be chatting with you today. I think it's going to be a great interview and I look forward to learning more about your work and sharing it with the world. So, Dr. Shannon, tell us a little bit about your passion and what you do. Well, I am the Director of Mental Performance for the University of Louisville Athletic Department and for Norton Sports Health, which is a healthcare system here in Louisville.

So I am literally living and working my passion, I guess. I've been an athlete my whole life. I was a collegiate athlete, and now I have the honor and privilege of serving our athletes here at the University of Louisville and some of the athletes here in the community in Louisville. Excellent, excellent. So tell us a little bit about your journey, because I know you've had a really cool journey going to different places that kind of shaped your work and your philosophy there at Louisville. Yes, I have had an interesting journey, a very, I would call it blessed journey. I've been really lucky to have a number of different opportunities.

And those opportunities have allowed me the chance to interact with a number of phenomenal people in our field in sports psychology, as well as in sport. So as I mentioned, I was a collegiate athlete. I played volleyball at Rice University in Houston. And then after that, I did a master's degree at Kansas State, which ironically ended up being more in exercise psychology than sports psychology, but served me better in the end, because then I went on to get my PhD and applied sports psych at the University of Tennessee, and went into academia for eight years. So I was first at a small school called Tennessee Wesleyan, now University, used to be Tennessee Wesleyan College. And then I transitioned to West Virginia University and was a faculty member there in the sport and exercise

psychology PhD and undergraduate program there. So I spent some time in academia and then decided that I thought I wanted to get more into the applied sector doing the work with the athletes instead of teaching people how to do the work with the athletes and and had the opportunity to go down to IMG Academy for two years and get a lot of applied experience in a fairly short period of time there before I transitioned into my opportunity here in Louisville. Awesome. And I know you did some really awesome stuff at IMG, which is a great place to, I visited several times and seen the awesome mental training that they do there. But you obviously served as the mental conditioning coach and coordinated kind of test prep for

the NFL Combine. I know they have a great vision lab training. So what did you kind of learn in terms of at IMG that's really kind of shaped what you do? Oh, man. I mean, I learned so much at IMG in my interactions with not just the mental conditioning staff and not even just the athletic and personal development staff, but also with the sport coaches there. And even with the administrators, the business side of things. I think, you know,

what I ultimately learned that serves me well here in my role at the University of Louisville and with Norton Sports Health is to kind of view the athlete as a human being holistically. And I think oftentimes we get so fixated on the athlete portion of that individual and the performance portion of that individual and what we can do to help aid them in their journey that we sort of forget to view them more holistically and think about all of the factors that might be influencing not just their performance in terms of athletics, but also in my job here, their performance in the classroom, and then also just their performance in life. So it was an opportunity to interact with a number of different people and sort of learn more about what might be kind of causing our athletes to tick, if you will. Absolutely.

So now you're at Louisville. And so we're going to dive into that work in a few minutes. But before we do, I'd love to hear a story about a time that you failed that didn't go so well and what you learned from it. And there's a few reasons that I want to ask you that question as we start. First, I think it helps connect us, you know, that we're all human and that none of us are perfect. But also, you know, that I think that what you're going to share, we can also learn from it and take some lessons from that experience. So Vanessa, you want to kind of dive in and tell us about a story? Absolutely. I'm envisioning my brother listening

to this podcast at some point. He's four years older than I am and laughing when you ask that question and thinking that he has a file that's very thick of all the times that I failed in my life. And I think ultimately, and in my work here, as we go on and talk about it, we'll talk about kind of this idea of welcoming discomfort and what getting outside our comfort zone can do for us and failure. So it's a bit hard for me to choose. You know, my first memory of failure, honestly, on the soccer field, and I can remember it. Well, it's not even on the soccer field. It's on the side of the soccer field. I can remember really vividly as probably like a five-year-old, my first year playing K League soccer, super proud, super excited, love sports. As I mentioned, my brother was four years older, so I wanted to be him and he had played soccer and got my uniform, was really fired up about having my uniform, got to put it on for picture day,

white socks, white shorts, green Jersey, and got ready for my individual picture. Mom had my hair and pigtails and the gentleman, the photographer taking my picture asked me to kneel down. And he said, you know, right knee in the dirt, left knee up. And it was muddy that day. And unfortunately, I think I got nervous. Maybe I didn't know my left or my right well enough. Left knee went in the mud. And then he said, Oh, you know, I need you to switch knees. And so I have this picture of myself, my first sporting picture, if you will, with a muddy knee right there in my picture. So that's, you know, that's a real small, short story, my first memory of failure in sport. But I think my my one of my biggest failures, but ultimately, something that

shaped me most was and a lot of people don't know this about me. And then when I tell them, especially younger people in the field who want to know about my journey and my path, they're like, really what? I almost failed out of college. So I was a collegiate athlete, as I mentioned, and at the end of my freshman year, one of my very dear friends, one of my closest friends in life passed away and really rocked my world. I mean, I had a pretty all American upbringing, if you will. And I had a lot of really good in my life up until that point. And so, you know, I had lost a couple of friends and some family members before that. But it was really challenging for me.

And so I spent the next year of my life, my sophomore year, really struggling, assuming that people would not be okay with me needing help through a situation like that and feeling the need to kind of pull myself up by my bootstraps and not ask for help. And as a result, I almost failed out of school and, and nearly almost failing two semesters as, as failing as you can be while still being eligible and still being allowed to remain at the university. That's about how bad my grades were. So it's, that's difficult to bounce back from, you know, GPA. And in terms of, like, how do I write this ship, and I had gone into school thinking I wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon and go into medicine. And suddenly, I had no chance of going to med school. And at that point, to be frank with you, I thought no chance of going to any type of graduate

school. But luckily, you know, I was able to kind of right the ship. I sought some help at the counseling center. My family and friends were really supportive, my teammates, my coaches, and was able to kind of turn my academic career at Rice around. And then I think, you know, kind of leveraged the fact that I had had a difficult year at a really highly established academic institution like Rice and was able to sort of share my story as I entered graduate school and convinced some graduate schools to take a chance on me. Yeah. And then obviously a master's at Kansas State and then, you know, a PhD at Tennessee. Right. You didn't stop there and, you know, you rebounded clearly.

I did. Yeah. And I, you know, it's funny, as I said, I'm, I'm sure my brother will hear this at some point. So I'm sure he'll be fine with me telling this story. But I remember him telling me after I got some acceptances to master's programs, that he had actually told my parents not to let me apply because he was worried that I wasn't going to get in and that I, I couldn't tolerate any more failure if that made sense. But I would, you know, I was able, as I said, to kind of share my story and my personal statements and help people understand why that kind of blip in my transcript happened. And then also how I kind of battled back from it and was able to get back on track. And that ultimately ended up serving me well in terms of getting into

graduate school and being able to continue on my new journey. Absolutely. And so, you know, when you think about what did you learn from that experience, you know, that you can, what wisdom do you take from it that you can share with us? I mean, I think ultimately I, the two biggest things I learned from it were number one, failure is a part of life and it's an acceptable thing and it happens to everyone and anyone. And, you know, and then secondly, it's acceptable to ask for help. You know, you don't have to do everything by yourself. And I think there's this misconception out there that the strongest people in the world and the most mentally tough people in the world do it all on their own. And that is not the case. You know, I think it takes a much stronger, more mentally tough person to be wise enough to realize that you can become so much more in accepting the help and ideas and independent. And so being willing to ask for

help and then kind of reframe that and understand that that actually made me a stronger and more independent person was important. I do think people have a difficult time asking for help. And I think in those situations, it's really important that they reach out. So let's kind of transition to your work at Louisville. Maybe just give us a little bit of overview of, you know, who you work with, how long you've been there, and just maybe just like a day-to-day sort of like idea of what you do there. Sure. So I always get confused because I feel like time flies truly when you're having fun, but I just completed what would be my third year here at the University of Louisville. So I started here in the fall of 2015.

And in the director of mental performance role, I serve our athletes and kind of, the way I say it, the easiest way to say it is I say I spent about 50% of my time on mindset and about 50% of my time on culture. But in terms of kind of what my role is on a day-to-day basis and how that interacts with the rest of the athletic department, we have another resource for our athletes here, Kate O'Brien, who is a licensed clinical social worker. And so she serves our athletes in terms of any clinical needs that they might have, any life-related, non-performance- clinical needs that they might have any life related non performance related needs that they might have. And then we have a wonderful psychiatrist who has been

supporting our athletic department for a number of years and continues to serve any of our athletes who might have specific needs there, whether it's medication management, or whether it's kind of more in depth mental health concerns. He's there to support our athletes in that way. So that leaves me to focus on the performance side of things. And again, as I mentioned before, most of that is performance in terms of athletics, because we also have wonderful athletic academic resources. So we have academic counselors who support our athletes in the classroom. But occasionally I find myself talking to our athletes about maybe some performance related anxiety that they find not only affects them on the field, but also affects them in the classroom. Oh, I was going to say, and I think, you know, when you, you and I were talking earlier

that, you know, maybe about 50% of your work is kind of with teams and 50% would be kind of individuals. Is that, is that kind of how teams and 50% would be kind of individuals. Is that, is that kind of how it looks like for you? That's exactly right. Yeah. And I'm here to serve all of our teams on campus. So we have a 21 programs, 23 teams, but the consultation, if you will, or the services that I provide is totally dependent on the needs of that program. And so that can look very different. So with some programs, I might just work with individual athletes. And then with other programs, I work on both the team level and an individual level. And then I might also be doing work with their coaching staff if their coaching staff

believes that that's an important part of their program. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of work to do. 21 programs, right? Many teams. So let's kind of dive in, Vanessa, to, you know, kind of one thing that you said about kind of your work is like 50% culture, 50% mindset. So I'm thinking what we could do in the interview is just learn a little bit about culture and how you might approach that. And then a little bit about mindset and how you might approach that in your work. So tell us about this 50% culture piece, you know, in terms of how do you define culture? How do you help teams or groups kind of enhance their culture? Sure. So, you know, I'm a team person. I would describe myself as a team person. That's one of my passions is kind of group dynamics, team dynamics. That's what my dissertation was about. And so I've always been kind of passionate and connected and interested and intrigued in the idea of culture and how high performing teams function. And are there any common characteristics of successful cultures, etc. So, you know, I've, I've tried my best to sort of educate myself from not only an academic perspective in terms of the literature

and what we can learn from research that's been done in team dynamics, but also from a kind of anecdotal perspective, if you will, of what high functioning teams, whether it's corporations or whether it's the military or whether it's athletic teams are doing that sort of sets them apart. So coming in here, it was, you know, it's a bit challenging, obviously, because there were existing cultures when I got here. And, you know, many of them were very high functioning. And, and some of them, the coaching staffs would say, no, that's a piece that we know in the immediate we need to get better at. Others would say, hey, I feel like, you know, our culture is pretty effective at the moment. And so, of course, we always want to get better, but it's not necessarily an immediate need. So in terms of my work here on campus with all our programs and culture, I sort of tried my best to kind of

identify, you know, what is the culture like at the moment? What are the needs of the program and the culture? And what are the coaching staff and the athletes think need to happen in terms of the evolution of the culture? And I will say that our athletic department had a pretty strong culture when I got here, just in terms of the kind of shared mission, loyalty to, you know, the 10 letters Louisville. So it was good that all of the coaches were kind of bought into this idea of culture is an important piece of the equation. For me, what culture ultimately is, and I, the coaches and the athletes that I have spoken to on our campus about this and our program about this, it's about who you are and what you do and specifically

values and then behaviors. So kind of who we are is what we value and what we believe in and what we know and what we stand for. And then ultimately what we do is about specific behaviors that demonstrate those values. And so if you are playing Louisville women's basketball, what does that look like? And if you are playing Louisville men's tennis, what does that look like? And if a person is observing you, then can they know that you are a part of that culture based on the way that you carry yourself, based on the way that you behave, based on the things that you say and the things that you do? Awesome. Awesome. So considering values, who you are and behaviors, what you do. So can you give us a little bit of kind of insight in how you might work with a team or a coach to kind of create

this culture that they're interested in being a part of? Just tell us a little bit about that. Well, and as I mentioned before, you know, everybody had an established culture when I got here. And so then it was just kind of dependent on the perceived needs of the team and the program about what needed to happen in terms of the culture. Did it need to be revamped? Did it need to be kind of elevated? Did it need to be reorganized? You know, however, they perceived that to be. But ultimately, it's just a discussion, right? It's a discussion and a conversation with the coaches with the athletes. And I believe that it is important to include, you know, the athletes

in those conversations. I think a lot of coaches work from the stance of, you know, well, it's my culture, and I'm going to recruit people who can perform at a high level in it. And I think a lot of coaches work from the stance of, you know, well, it's my culture and I'm going to recruit people who can perform at a high level in it. And I think that that can absolutely be effective. But I think it's in what you find in the literature and what you find in examples across the board and in high performances, when there is autonomy, when there is agency and ownership by the athletes, then the culture tends to be even more effective. So it's a conversation about, you know, what do we stand for? What do we believe in when it comes to our sport? And when it comes to the way in which we play or perform, what should that look

like? And what do we believe is most important in terms of our success and in terms of performing at a high level? And then having a conversation about what those behaviors look like that that kind of fall in line with those values. And I think that that is a really important conversation that has to unfold because oftentimes what I've found is that those behaviors are different dependent on whether you ask the athletes or the coaches. So, you know, as an example, if part of what is really valuable to a specific culture is an effective attitude, and then you ask the athletes, well, what does it look like to demonstrate? What does a person who has an effective attitude look like? And then you ask coaches, what is a person who has an effective attitude look like? It might be that you find varying things, right? The coaches and the athletes might be talking about totally different behaviors, but they both believe that those exemplify an effective attitude. And so it's really important to have those conversations with both sets of individuals. And if you do have a coach who are coaching staff and they want to drive the culture and they want

to be in charge of establishing the culture, they say, you know, this is my program. I've been here longer than my athletes have. I'll be here longer than my athletes are. So I think it's important that I drive that culture. I establish that culture. We do as a coaching staff, then that's great. But then it's still important to identify those behaviors and then make sure that athletes understand the behaviors so that they know what they are expected to demonstrate on a daily basis in terms of kind of living and breathing that culture. And then Vanessa a daily basis in terms of kind of living and breathing that culture. And then Vanessa, is there somewhere that you kind of put those behaviors listed or like, how do you think it's, you know, once you have that conversation, how do you follow

up? Yeah, I think it's important for those behaviors to sort of be known in different ways. And we're very lucky here at the University of Louisville and the athletic department because we have some pretty fantastic people in our creative services and in our kind of branding department that are able to implement those things, whether it's on signage on the locker room door or whether it's, you know, on a picture that sits in the insert of that team's team manual. But again, I think it's important for those ideas to be kind of reinforced and present and constantly there as a reminder. Absolutely. You know, and you're kind of talking about how your dissertation is on, you know, was on team dynamics. And when you think about like high performing teams,

what would you tell us, you know, in terms of two or three things that would be supported by research in terms of what do high performing teams do? You know, I'm going to go kind of time relevant. I just finished reading the book Culture Code, which I thought was an excellent read for anybody out there who's interested. And one of the things that they talk about in there, which I think is really important and is similar, my dissertation was looking specifically at female athletes' perceptions of cohesion and their experience of cohesion and what it means to be kind of unified and effective and high performing from a cohesive perspective. And so it was not surprising based on my research then and the previous research that had been done to

know that that in that book one of the kind of primary tenets is this idea of belongingness right yeah that we know that we belong to a group and we feel safe in a space because we feel like we are able to have an opinion have a voice be be understood, and all of those things really encapsulated in that idea of belongingness. It starts there, it starts there, and then it builds out in terms of communication becomes extremely important. The ability to cooperate while simultaneously competing becomes important. Awesome, awesome. So we can look up your dissertation or read the culture code to learn more. Look it up, but you'll find it in the dissertation section. You won't necessarily find it in a peer-reviewed journal. I never got to that point with it. You might have to read 150

pages. It'll be worth it. That's right. Vanessa, let's kind of go to the kind of this 50% mindset. Tell us about, you know, what you might do in terms of helping your student athletes there and the teams and the coaches develop their mindset. Well, so again, you know, I, I obviously brought into this position, my understanding of what I thought an effective mindset was and the pieces of that. But then, you know, I've got to rely on the experts. And so the experts in the individuals who are trying to apply that and use it and employ it on a daily basis are the athletes and coaches here. And so, you know, through my three years here, I've really been trying to work through what if we call it here a cardinal mindset,

what does a cardinal mindset look like? If we are performing a championship mindset or using your words, a high performance mindset, what are kind of the ideas that reside there that sort of serve as the foundation of that mindset? So I brought into this job my ideas. And then over the three years, I've kind of worked with our athletes and coaches on campus with different teams differently to sort of establish what those tenants are on a daily basis in terms of my work when it comes to mindset. Some of that happens in terms of team sessions, in terms of small group work, and then some of it happens in individual sessions, but just kind of talking more about thinking effectively and thinking at a high level and how our thoughts can influence our performance and how they need to be directed in order to have them have a positive influence on our performance and not

a negative influence on our performance. I think that, you know, oftentimes I think there's this assertion that the best athletes on the planet don't think. And what I try and help our athletes here understand is they, it's not that they don't think it's that they think less and they think more effectively. And so there's still thought that occurs. There's still cognition that occurs. Our brain is like a computer. And so it is going to see information and process the information. So the thoughts will occur, but we want to make sure that we don't just allow those thoughts to kind of race through our mind aimlessly. We want to make sure that we're the driver of our thoughts, that we're steering them in the right direction. I love that analogy. And what I appreciate,

Vanessa, about, you know, your perspective is you have like this PhD, this master's, and then, you know, eight years in academia, and now this like rich applied experiences. So let's kind of dive into these eight principles of a cardinal mindset. But before we do that, I'd like to just get your perspective on how you might see these eight principles reflective in the research within, you know, high performance and mental training in sports psychology? Yeah, I mean, ultimately, these things are the product. And again, they're the product of kind of a number of different things, my understanding of theory, and how we can take that theory and apply it. And then also anecdotal evidence. So teams, athletes, CEOs, companies, the military and things that

have been reported to be successful in their use of these ideas, and then also feedback from our coaches and our athletes here and their experience. But each of them, I would say, is grounded in some way empirically in the literature, whether it's in sports psych, or whether it's in social psychology,, whether it's in sports psych or whether it's in social psychology or whether it is in a communication theory or whatever it might be. So as we kind of go through them and touch on a couple of them, I'd be happy to sort of share how that connects back to the theory. Awesome. That sounds great. So how about you give us an overview of these eight principles first and then we can dive into some of them. Sure. Yeah. So one of the things that I talk fairly quickly with our athletes here on campus

about is kind of a principle or an idea called 10 letters. So the word Louisville is 10 letters. And, you know, this is this idea of kind of being all in, kind of becoming part of the culture and sort of adopting the Louisville way of doing things. You know, many of our athletes are very high, high level athletes before they get here. And then they get here and they're asked by our coaches to do things maybe differently than they've done in the past or to do new things that they've never been asked to do in the past. And they have a lot of evidence to support the fact that they can be successful doing things the way they know how to do them. But they don't have any evidence yet when they first get here to support the fact that they can be successful doing things the way they know how to do them. But they don't have any evidence yet when they first get here to support the fact that they can be successful doing the things that the coaches are asking them to do. And so and or

myself or other support staff. And so I think there's this piece where there has to be buy in, there has to be trust, and there has to be a willingness to kind of become part of our culture. So 10 letters is really about that. And going back to, you know, what I was speaking about before, it is about belongingness. It is about committing to being part of this culture and then getting to a space where you feel like you belong and you know what your role is and you feel satisfied in that role. Right. Absolutely. And I think about even like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? If you don't feel like you're safe and that, you know, you're safe kind of being yourself, right? You can't reach actualization. So that is exactly right.

Absolutely. Okay, cool. So 10 letters, the first one. Yeah. What's the second principle? So the second one is how, not who. So we talk a lot about how we play, not who we play. And I first heard that kind of phrase or that way of thinking from Gino Auriemma in an interview or actually in a speech I heard him giving to his team at UConn years ago. But the idea that it's about how we play, it's not about the opponent that we're playing, we're not going to change the way we play Louisville softball or the way we play Louisville lacrosse because of the team on the other side of the field. We're simply going to kind of live and breathe our process and commit to that and try our best to perform that way. Another kind

of instance of that in the media that was reported was after Clemson beat Alabama in the national championship two years ago, Dabo Swinney was sort of asked by a reporter, what's the, what was the one difference, right? Because they had lost Alabama the year before. And so he was asked, what was the difference? Like if there was one thing that was different between last year and this year, and I recall him saying something to the extent of last year, we tried to stop Alabama from playing Alabama football. This year we just focused on playing Clemson football. Nice. Yeah. So focusing on your process and what you, how you're going to make what you want to have happen rather than how to avoid what you don't want to have happen. Kind of being proactive and being in control, right?

So that goes back to kind of controlling the controllables. What can we can control? We can control our process. And so we focus on how we play and we don't necessarily worry about who we play. And of course, things are going to change depending on the opponent, you know, scouts change, personnel changes, but it's always within kind of our philosophy or our way of playing. If we have a toolkit in terms of tactics that involves A, B, C, D, and E, then against one opponent, we might use A, B, and C

part of our tactics, whereas another opponent, we might use D&E. Yeah, and it sort of reminds me, you know, of focusing on kind of what you said, this process. What is our process? How do we play at our best and commit to that instead of the outcome, the score, or who we're playing? And, you know, sometimes I think that's where athletes and teams feel a lot of pressure is they're thinking about who they're playing instead of, you know, what do they need to do to perform their best? That's right. Yeah. And for me, it goes back to value, right? The value that we place on something. And so, you know, if we think about psyche and how it can influence our performance, if I overvalue an opponent, how is that likely to make me think and feel?

Versus if I undervalue an opponent, how is that likely to make me think and feel versus if I undervalue an opponent, how is that likely to make me think and feel? And so ultimately what we find is best is to value all opponents the same, right? To pay them the same respect and not under overvalue anybody. That's great. That's awesome. So Vanessa, I know your third one is attack the gap. Tell us about that third principle of the cardinal mindset. Yeah. Attack the gap is an evolution from one of the All Blacks principles, the New Zealand All Blacks. So one of their kind of mantras or ideas or principles is go for the gap. And so for us, we sort of adopted that into this idea of attacking the gap. And, you know, a lot of times you'll hear our coaches and our support staff on campus

talk to our athletes about, you've got to be an athlete 365 days of the year, right? Like you've got to, it's got to be on the forefront of your mind and the decisions that you make. There's a book that was written and a great business principle that I love, which is the way you do anything is the way you do everything. So this idea that we want to have a championship mindset, a high performing mindset and everything that we do. Ultimately, though, that can seem really exhausting. Absolutely. Especially to a group of athletes, especially for our first years when they first get here, because as I

mentioned before, maybe they've not had to do that before. They've been able to get away with being successful despite the fact that they've not thought about everything that they do in that way. And so attack the gap is more about there is a gap between where you are now and your best. And your goal every day is to attack that gap. And some days you're going to attack it really big. And some days you're going to get a lot closer to your best. But And some days you're going to attack it really big. And some days you're going to get a lot closer to your best, but some days all you're going to have in you is just to attack it a little bit, but you're still going to get one step closer to your best. So every day we're sort of aiming in that gap and trying to just chip away at our potential, if you will. Ah, nice. And how do you think, you know, in terms of maybe your work with

individuals or teams, how do you help them figure out where that, you know, what that gap is and, you know, in terms of who are they at their best and what is their potential? Yeah. And that's a great question. And because ultimately it comes down to perception as reality, right? And so they're going to be the best at, at truly maybe knowing and understanding what they perceive their best to be because a coach might look at an athlete and think, oh my gosh, that person has the potential to be 10 year WNBA player, right? Whereas that athlete might think like, I'll be, I'll be really happy if I'm just a four year starter.

Right. And so, and that's just kind of a informal way of assessing what their best is. That doesn't even look at, at specific performance indicators and what they can do physically or tactically or technically or mentally. But, you know, it has to start with the athlete sort of being willing to acknowledge this is what I think I'm capable of doing, which comes with, am I motivated to do that or not? You know, so we talk about, there's a difference between wanting to win and being willing to do what it takes to win. And so if I think that I'm capable of being a, you know, a WNBA player, but at the

end of the day, I don't want to be a WNBA player bad enough, then that's a difficult thing to assign as my best, right? Because I'm probably not going to be willing to attack that gap very much. So just having conversations with athletes about, you know, what do you want and what are you willing to do to get it? And making sure that those two things are in line and then being able to use that as the marker for, okay, then I'm going to consider that is where I'm aiming for. That's quote unquote my best, right? And every day I'm going to work to get closer to that. I think like, as people are listening, they can apply it to themselves, no matter if they're athletes or not, you know, like,

I'm thinking about myself and, you know, what do I want and what am I willing to do? And, and what is my gap? How can I, how can I chip away at that gap? So every, you know, every day I'm working towards what I want to do and where I want to go. Absolutely. Awesome. Awesome. So Vanessa, tell us about the fourth principle of the cardinal mindset. So the fourth thing that I talked to a lot of our athletes and teams and coaches about is the idea of welcoming discomfort. And I, you know, there's many different ways that you've, I'm sure heard that before. And the people listening have heard that before, whether it's getting comfortable being uncomfortable, or that idea that, you know, the magic happens outside of your comfort zone. There's a TD Jakes quote that says excellence requires discomfort. And

that's always resonated with me because I think, again, we, and this is from a societal perspective, like we live in a time where it is given your means and given your situation, it's fairly easy to live a pretty comfortable life, right? Like there's not a lot of discomfort happening. And I'll share with our athletes sometimes stories of me in grad school when I actually had to walk across campus at Tennessee, which was not very far, but still I had to walk across campus to the library to find a journal, to pull it out, to actually copy the journal. And they look at me like I'm from another planet, you know, or like, wow, like they're looking at me thinking, wow, I always thought you were younger than my parents, but now I realize you must be about 70 or 80 if you had to do that.

And it's like, no people, it wasn't that long ago. No, it wasn't. So something as simple as that. And, and again, I'm not, you know, I, I don't want my athletes to think I'm sitting here telling them the whole, oh, I had to walk to the library uphill both ways in the snow with holes in my shoes. It's not like that. But it's just about, you know, if I wanted something, if I needed groceries, I had to go to the grocery store. There's a lot of places now in this country where you don't have to do that. You can order them online and they'll be dropped off on your doorstep. And so with the evolution of technology, I think, unfortunately,

we get away from opportunities to engage in discomfort. And ultimately, growth comes from discomfort so I you know I really am challenging our athletes to welcome discomfort every time there's an opportunity for discomfort which many of them have not had a lot of in the past when it comes to their athletic careers it so when it, it's surprising and it's extremely uncomfortable to them. But instead of avoiding it or instead of blaming somebody else for the discomfort, own it, right? Like welcome it and get excited about it because that is where the money is, right? Like that's where the growth happens. Get into that discomfort, immerse yourself in it, and you're going to find that you become better

because of it. And, you know, in terms of the student athletes that you work with, or even yourself, you could use an example, you know, what, what do they, how do they like describe this discomfort, right? So, you know, for me, it might happen where I get really nervous and I think, oh man, can I really do that? And I have to welcome that and step into my courage and say, of course I can do it. Watch me, right? You know, I'm thinking about when I go up in front of a big audience, right, to do a talk, it's like this instance right before, sometimes I'm like, oh man, you know, and then I have to, you know, remind myself of who I am and what I do. So, you know, what, what do you see in terms of how do the athletes kind of identify this discomfort? I think the most common experience

that many of our athletes have with discomfort is sort of the old small fish, big pond, big fish, small pond, you know, situation. I think I said that in reverse, but a lot of our athletes come from playing a lot and maybe being a starter, and maybe being the star on their team. And then they get here, as many college athletes do when they arrive to college, and they realize that they're sort of just an average size fish in a pretty big pond. And how that can translate is maybe lack of playing time. And that's their first experience with that. And it's extremely uncomfortable for them because they have sort of identified their value or the way in which they contribute to a

team very singularly, right? It's performance because that's what I do. And I go on the field and my stat line shows that I contribute to my team. And now when they get here, if they're not able to contribute in that way, it's, it can be really uncomfortable for them. So now we have to find a way, how else can we contribute, right? Like let's embrace this and let's be okay with that discomfort. And let's learn through that discomfort that there are so many other ways that we can contribute to our team. Absolutely. Love it. Love it. And as people are listening at, you know, they can even be thinking about when are they experiencing discomfort and how can, how can they welcome it? And why is that really essential to their success? Absolutely. And not, you know, when you, when you feel it almost, there should be this moment of,

there's this moment of anxiety, right? Like we feel discomfort and we're like, ew, I don't like that. But instead, maybe it can be instead of a feeling of excitement, right? Just a different interpretation of the same state. Like, yes, this is, I'm going to get better because of this moment. I'm excited about it. Or yes, like this, this anxiety is important because this means that I'm excited and I'm ready. Right. So your fifth one in the Cardinal mindset, Vanessa, is the mortal matters. I don't know what that means. So tell us. The mortar matters is I've told the kind of proverb or story that maybe many of you listening and maybe you've heard about the retiring home builder or the retiring carpenter, I think is how it goes. And this individual is worked for a

company his whole life building homes, and he's ready to retire. He's done. He's ready to hang it up and goes home, discusses with his family, you know, plans after retirement is getting really excited about retirement, goes into his boss's office and says, I'm ready to retire. And his boss says to him, Oh, can you, can you do one more project for me? Can you build one more home? And he begrudgingly says, you know, okay, okay, I'll do it. And this gentleman, his whole career has been known kind of for craftsman homes, really, really high quality, everything, never cuts corners, but isn't really present for this experience. He just wants to get through it. He said, yes, I'll build the home, but he doesn't really want to do it. And so he cuts corners and gets done as quick as possible and doesn't pay as much

attention to detail. And at the end of it goes back into his boss's office. And as, and he says, I'm done, you know, I'm, I'm going to retire now. And his boss says, okay. And out of his desk drawer, he pulls a small box and he slides it across the desk and he says, happy retirement. And he opens up the box and it's a key to the home he just built. Wow. Yeah. And so, you know, obviously there's this message of the story is kind of you, you reap what you sow, if you will, but also it's really about the importance of details. John Wooden, I think said, small things make big things happen. Right. And so the fact that again, many of our athletes and, and oftentimes, and I keep talking keep talking about many of our athletes and you've done a nice job of kind of connecting it back to not just my athletes here at Louisville or collegiate athletes, but just life in general.

You know, a lot of times we have experiences in life where we can we can get away with cutting corners. We have the skill set that sort of maybe over meets the expectations, if you will. And so we can get away with doing it not as well as it needs to be done and it will get done. But at the end of the day, it might, it won't last and it won't make us better and it won't make the existing situation better. So I've actually with a couple of our teams even brought in bricks. And I'll say, you know, if we stack bricks up, if we stack them up six feet high, it would serve as a wall, it would make a wall, it would serve some of the purposes that that a brick wall would serve, it would prevent people on the other side from seeing us, it would give us privacy, it would create a barrier, it would signify a barrier between us and them. But at the end of the day, when the storm came along, the bricks would fall over and

we'd have to continuously rebuild the wall. And it's the mortar. It's the glue in between. Mortar. Got it. It's the details. It's there that kind of creates the sturdiness of the wall. You know, and I also heard something in that story that the builder,

the carpenter just wasn't very present, right? He was just kind of going through the motions, right? And I think about how, you know, like sometimes when we do that, we regret it in the end. And so, you know, he now living in this house that maybe isn't his best work, you know, because he wasn't really deliberate with his energy and his focus and, you know, just kind of not present, not really having the standard of excellence. Yep. That's absolutely right. And I'll, I will segue from that to skip ahead, which is one of our, one of the other things that I talked to, you know, many of our athletes and coaches here about is this idea of head feet here now, right? Like being present, making sure that our head and

our feet are in the same place, making sure that we are right here right now. And I think truly that becomes imperative in terms of not just performance, but also in terms of enjoyment and satisfaction and ultimately, you know, happiness. There's a great quote by Lao Tzu, and I'm going to paraphrase, but basically the extent of it is if you are sad or angry, you're living in the past. If you are worried or anxious, you're living in the future. If you are at peace, you're living in the present. And so I think that ties into that story,

but also into high performance, it becomes really important to be present, to be in this moment, not in the previous moment and not in a future moment. Yeah. And what would you tell people who are listening who, because sometimes, you know, like, and this is something I teach as well and, but it's really hard for me to practice, you know, because my mind might drift to what I got to do next or, you know, my drift to what just happened earlier the day. So, you know, what do you find in terms of like best practices to implement in terms of like head, feet here now? Well, I mean, ultimately I think the biggest tool that's useful in being

present is forgiveness of yourself, right? Kind of being willing to forgive yourself for the moments that you aren't in the present and then reconnect as quickly as possible because what, what tends to happen, it's like the athlete who's nervous about being nervous because nobody ever told them that it was an acceptable thing to be nervous. And so they're terrified of it in the same way. I think, you know, if we make that our goal and we want to be purposeful and intentional, and I'm in, I'm doing a session with an athlete and I'm sitting here and all of a sudden I do get distracted like you said because it happens about something I forgot that I was supposed to do right instead of in that moment just kind of being mindful and being like okay I'm going to worry about that later let me get

back to the present and to this conversation with this athlete a lot of us then get caught not being mindful and we stay out of the present because we're beating ourself up about the fact that we forgot the thing. And then we're beating ourself up for the fact that we got distracted. Right. But it's sort of like, okay, yep, it happens to me. Everybody's human. It's part of life. Get back to this. Worry about that later. So I think sometimes mindfulness and the ability to be present can be stalled and our work towards becoming better at that can be stalled because we don't allow for the fact that it's going to happen. We're human beings, you know, and you're

going to find yourself at times distracted and out of the present moment. And rather than kind of stew on that and get upset about it and beat yourself up about it, just get back to the present. For sure. And I like what you said about forgiveness, because you're right, like we're so hard on ourselves and we just need to give ourselves some self-compassion. I like what you're saying, just like normalizing all of these things, like normalizing that, yeah, it's hard to stay in the present. Yes, you know, it's easy to choose comfort over discomfort, right? Or it's easy to kind of give into kind of what, what you were saying earlier about like your thinking and

this, you know, the thinking that limits you, but really how you said like the best think less, but think also more effectively. Absolutely. So let's see, we have two more to kind of connect about. So the seventh one would be expect the expected. What's that mean? Yeah. So let's see, we have two more to kind of connect about. So the seventh one would be expect the expected. What's that mean? Yeah. So, you know, I think oftentimes you obviously hear that phrase, expect the unexpected, which if you think about it as an impossibility, because if it's unexpected, then how can you expect it? And so, but I do think that having a discussion about expectations, managing expectations and preparing your mind for what might happen is extremely important. And so as we know, preparation kind of breeds confidence and we

get, we get a lot of confidence from past experiences with things, right? So again, kind of touching back to self-efficacy theory and this idea that past experience is going to let me feel more efficacious about my ability to complete a specific task or in a specific experience. So I think what's happened over time is we've sort of gotten in a space where we talk a lot about positivity and positive psychology and positive mindsets. And all of that is absolutely important. And there's a lot of good evidence to suggest that that can be really helpful. But I think what's happened is because we talk about that, it's given people the idea that it's not acceptable to think about things that might not go perfectly. Right. So I should eliminate anything that might go bad for my mind, because if I think about it, it might happen. This kind of idea of the self-fulfilling for empathy, right? Disaster. But at the end of the day, if we don't think about it

happening and what we might do in that situation, then when it does happen, it's going to cause panic. You know, it's going to cause anxiety and it's going to elicit a negative response. So, you know, the great example anecdotally would be Michael Phelps, who talks a lot about his use of visualization and mental preparation to sort of prepare for anything, right? So what might happen in a race that might get in his way? Let me think about it happening and think about how I'm going to handle it so that if it ever does happen, I I'm going to handle it so that if it ever does happen, I am just ready to handle it. There's not necessarily any emotional response that has

to happen because I've sort of programmed my mind to deal with it. So I think it becomes really important to expect the expected. Identify ahead of time what might get in your way and how you're going to deal with it when it does potentially happen. Absolutely. You know, Vanessa, I have an interesting story about a time I did that. So one of the things I do is run marathons. And a few years ago, I don't remember exactly what year it was, but it might have been like maybe 2014, but I was running the Boston Marathon and we were getting these notices the day before. So I was in Boston, right, ready to run the next day and train for this race for, geez, you know, six months every single day running crazy mileage. And we were getting these messages from the race director

that it was supposed to be 90 degrees the next day. And, you know, we could drop out if we wanted to, you know, we could always, you know, register. You know, they'd let us register for the next year. And so it was like these constant reminders how hot it was going to be. And I remember that night after dinner, I was walking to my hotel, and I was so pissed. I was just so mad at Mother Nature. And it's like, why on this day is it going to be so hot? And so I went back to my hotel and I was like, okay,

Cinder, this is not a good mental state for you to run this race. You got to do something, right? And I was thinking about like research by Dan Gould and his, you know, and his group about how, what elite performers do differently. And I remembered like this contingency plan idea. So I actually wrote down like all the things that could go wrong in the race. You know, what was I going to do if I got really hot? What was I going to do if my hand started swelling? Because that's usually what happens when I get too hot. What was I going to do if, you know, like I was so wet that da-da-da-da-da-da, right? So I wrote all these things down and then all of a sudden I was like way more creative and confident about how I was going to handle the race. And so one of the things that if I wouldn't have done, I didn't, I wouldn't have a strategy to deal with the heat. And so literally at every water stop, I put two glasses of water over my head and then I drank one glass of Gatorade, right? So by the end of the race, I was sopping wet. But you were hydrated. But I was hydrated and I actually ran a personal best. Oh, that's

amazing. Yeah. Where everyone else like was dying. And so, you know, I was, I was grateful for the research that I knew about sports psychology, right. And just also intervening with myself. But I think that's, you're right. That I think we sometimes, we don't want to think negative, you know, because of this positive psychology or this positive thinking. That's what we've been, you know, what we've heard, but it's like, it's good to, to, to think about what could possibly go wrong. And then what, how do we want to react? Which is, that's what I hear from expect the expected. Absolutely. That is a perfect story to demonstrate that. Thanks so much for that story. Yeah, for sure. Okay. So let's go to the last one, Ride the Wave.

So the last one, Ride the Wave, is really about kind of emotional management. And it piggybacks a little bit off of Expect the Expected, but just in terms of what competition is like and what we can expect in terms of emotional responses within competition and being able to understand. One of my favorite quotes of all time is by Jon Kabat-Zinn and it's, you can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. And I learned that from, from Dr. Ed Edsel at West Virginia during my time at West Virginia. So just this idea that, you know, in, in competition and even in training, to be frank, waves are going to come, things are going to happen, but you just kind of have to ebb and flow, right? It's not necessarily about trying to prevent the waves from happening.

It's more about being able to surf those waves. I was at home in California with my family probably two or three years ago and heard an interview with Kelly Slater, who is arguably, I think probably unarguably the GOAT, the greatest of all time in terms of competitive surfing. He's won 11 World Surf League Championships and was the youngest ever to win one at 20, was the oldest one ever to win one at 39, still surfing today. And as I was listening to him talk about surfing and competitive surfing, I started to think, you know, it's such a good analogy for competition. You've got to be all in, you have to commit to the wave. You know, you're going to get wrecked sometimes, but you have to get your board, you got to get on and you got to paddle back out and you got to have a go again

and keep trying and being persistent and being present and focusing on your process and all of those things. So this analogy of ride the wave has kind of really resonated, I think with many of our athletes and some of our teams on campus to the point that one of our teams, the coaching staffs, actually we talked about using surf as an acronym for kind of for mental skills. And at the NCAA championships last year, one of their hashtags was surfs up and they Hawaiian shirts. And so we're really bought into this idea of kind of riding the wave.

Nice, nice. I love how each of these are creative, but also backed by the research in the field and, you know, in other fields. So which of these eight do you see like, you know, people struggling with the most is to implement? You know, I would argue that the thing that I see people struggling with the most to implement is probably the how, not who, you know, and they're tied together, right? The how, not who is somewhat dependent on our ability to be present. And so I could say, well, it's really the head feet here now. But I think it's very challenging in today's day with social media and with the access that we have to information to not get distracted by others. Yes. And to really stay committed to our process. I think it's also challenging to stay committed to our process

through periods of time where it's not necessarily getting us the outcome that we want. And then suddenly we get to the revelation that it's not our process that's broken. It's our implementation or employment of our process that's broken. One of my first experiences with the University of Louisville, when I was at IMG, I actually was working on contract for the women's lacrosse program here. And I went to watch them play at Duke. And that year, I think Duke was probably ranked number six. And our women's lacrosse program was outside the top 25 at the time. And they ended up going on to have a marquee year. But we were at Duke and and actually the Louisville's team went up five to nothing in

about the first 10 minutes of the game against number six Duke. And I thought, well, this is going to be fun, you know? Yeah, for sure. And then Duke scored. So it was five to one and then Louisville scored. And I remember at six to one looking at the coach or coach and saying, this will be very telling. Like right now, what's about to happen until the end of the half is going to tell us a lot about this team and where they're at and where their mentality and their mindset is. So at six to one, Duke then went on to score seven unanswered goals and went into the half eight to six. And what happened hindsight, as we were talking about it is at some point, once Duke started to score, instead of our athletes and our team realizing they're the number six team in the country, they're probably going to find a way to get through our defense at some point and score. They stopped living their process because they thought the process wasn't working.

When at the end of the day, it wasn't that our process was broken. It was just that for the moment, their process was a little bit better, right? Right, exactly. So being able to stay committed to how you play, even in the moments when it's not working and being able to reflect and say, okay, either it's not working because I'm actually not doing it, or it's not working because I'm doing it, but it just turns out that in this particular moment, that person's process is better, which happens in sport, right? That's how we end up with winners and losers. So I think that one is pretty challenging. And as I mentioned before, I think it's especially challenging at this level. And I'm certain at the professional level, and I'm certain in life, it's challenging

when you move from one job to the next, or, you know, when you graduate college, and now you're in the workforce, because you have had an experience of success, and you begin to believe that you know what is necessary to be successful. And then when it turns out that in a different situation, there are different requirements for success, it can be challenging, right? There can be some resistance to adopting that how we play. Well, wait a minute, I used to play like this, and it worked. And now you a minute, I used to play like this and it worked. And now you're telling me I have to play like this. And I have no evidence to support the fact that that will work for me.

So I think it can be challenging, especially when you're transitioning to a new kind of how we play, to really buy into it, especially if you have previous experience of a process that's been successful for you. Absolutely. Well, Vanessa, I really enjoyed this interview. I think that you provided us so much value and some sticky things for us to think about. You know, what I'm really getting out of it is like, I look back, I think back to what we

talked about related to culture. And then it's like, you know, your definition of, you know, who you are and what you do. And it's like these values and behaviors that was really helpful for me. And just this idea of like belonging as one of the central pieces of research within high performance. And then I also thought when you were talking about thoughts and you know, that we think that the best athletes on the planet, like don't ever think negatively, right. But I like what you said about was like, they think less and they think more effectively. I thought that that was really, really helpful. And then, you know, I appreciate you going through these eight principles. I think for me, I appreciated attack the gap and, you know, helping us think about, you know, what do

you want and what are you really committed to doing, which they might be different, but then, you know, just the importance of like chipping away at that gap be different, but then, you know, just the importance of like chipping away at that gap every day. And then, you know, the last thing which I appreciated was, you know, expect the expected and just that, you know, it's okay to plan for things that might go wrong and have a plan for them, which then also, you know, reduces your anxiety. I think also builds confidence and it's, you know, helps you be more mentally prepared for anything that might happen. So I'm just grateful that you provided so much value today and got us really thinking about, you know, learning more about how you do your work,

but also thinking about our work and ourselves. So I'm grateful that you were here today. Oh, thank you so much. I'm really grateful for the opportunity to speak with you. I always enjoy that and also share some information. Hopefully the listeners heard, you know, just maybe one thing that they were able to learn or think differently about. Absolutely. So, you know, as you think about wrapping up the interview today, what advice do you have for us in terms of, you know, those people who listen are people who want to reach their potential and are interested in using their mind to do so. So what kind of final advice would you have for us today? You know, honestly, I think

the final advice that I would give, and it's ironic because I spent the majority of my life up until this point being a pretty unruly perfectionist. But it's just to like consider managing your expectations. And you know, when I think about the times in my life when I failed, and when I think about the times in my life when I've been successful, in terms of performance, or in terms of athletics, my career, whatever it might have been, it's been when I've been willing to manage my expectations of myself and others. And I think oftentimes that's seen as kind of limiting yourself or seen as a negative and oh, you're giving up before you even try. And I don't mean it in that way at all. I mean it more

so in the way that I was speaking of before when we were talking about being present and head beater now and the idea of kind of forgiveness, but keeping in mind that performance and achieving things that we set out to achieve, it's a journey and it's a process. And, you know, as Jon Kabat-Zinn said better than me, the waves are going to keep coming, right? And so be ready for the waves. But if a wave takes you out and trashes you, be okay with that, right? Be, understand that it's part of the process and don't beat yourself up too much about it. Just get back on your board and paddle back out. I absolutely love it. So Vanessa, tell us how we can reach out to you either on social media or, you at Dr. Headstrong. So Dr. Headstrong. You can find me there and I'm happy to hear from any listeners who might have questions

via email. If you want to reach out to me, my email is Vanessa at gocards.com. And if you don't hear from me, it's not because I'm ignoring you. It's simply because my email is a bit complicated to navigate, but I do want to hear from anybody who might have any questions or comments. Outstanding, Vanessa. Thank you so much for your time today. Oh, thanks so much, Sindra.

It's been a pleasure. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset. If you like today's podcast, make a comment, share it with a friend, and join the conversation on Twitter at Mentally Underscore Strong. For more inspiration and to receive Sindra's free weekly videos, check out DrSindra.com.