High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 194: How to Be More Positive

Episode Date: July 11, 2018

 “A negative mind will never give you a positive life.” Unknown  High performers train their thoughts. They follow and implement the 3 thought principles to take command over their thinking. They don’t believe everything they think. They talk to themselves not listen. And they think “I will…I can…I am…” to reach their potential. Power Phrase this Week: I talk to myself not listen. I talk to myself starting with “I will…I can…I am…”.   Dr. Cindra Kamphoff is a Certified Mental Performance Consultant, Speaker and Author. She provide mental training for the Minnesota Vikings along with many other championships teams. She coaches athletes, CEOs and executives one-on-one to help them learn and apply the mental tools that lead to success. Cindra also speaks to and works with businesses and organizations on how to gain the high performance edge while providing practical tools that work. Her clients range from Verizon Wireless to Mayo Clinic Health System. Cindra's first book: Beyond Grit: Ten Powerful Practices to Gain the High Performance Edge was published in August. Her Ph.D. is in sport and performance psychology and she is a Professor in Performance Psychology at Minnesota State University. To book Cindra for your next speaking event or learn more about her one-on-one coaching, visit: cindrakamphoff.com For more information about Cindra's book, visit: beyondgrit.com

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. Dr. Sindra Kampoff with us today. High Performance Mindset on The Country Club. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for having me today. Yeah. You've saddled up over there at Lisa's microphone today, so I can actually see you. Oh, it feels comfortable. Half the time I'm looking around my computer monitors

At people over there Time to get into a topic today And if you get a chance, I know I texted you last night And you were busy, but if you get a chance to watch that Travis Pastrana thing that was live last night It was called Evil Live And it was like a tribute to Evel Knievel They had a sports psychologist on

Somebody that I think you know And he totally blew the commentators minds when he was talking about preparing for something like this. And everything he was saying was stuff that you, you know, we've talked about on this show before, whether it's something of yours or something that you have learned from a colleague or whatever. And as soon as they got done, all of the commentators just looked at him and there was a weird, awkward pause. And they said, you're really good. Like they'd never heard this stuff before and I just laughed. I was like.

You're like, yeah, you knew it, right? Like you're like, yeah, this is old news for me. I could tell you that. It's the practicing what you preach bit that I have more of a problem with, but that's cool. So if you get a chance to watch that. I definitely will. And let's blow people's minds today.

How about we do that? I like this because this is because it's Monday, right? Some of you are getting up grumbling because, well, great, now it's Monday and the weather is gorgeous and I've got to go back to work. How to be more positive. I just said that. How to be more positive. So where do you want to begin today? I know we usually start with a quote.

Yeah, let's start with a quote. And actually, first, this is because of Annie at Cato Glass. So I took my car in this week. Oh, sure. And I had a crack in my windshield and Annie said, are you that positive thinker from TJ and Lisa's Station? That's awesome. So this one's for her.

She inspired me to talk about this. So, quote, a negative mind will never give you a positive life. I mean, that's just perfect. Okay, so let's start with a story today then on how to be more positive. So this week I interviewed Jesse Michel on my podcast. He's the mental skills coordinator for the 2017 World Series champions, the Houston Astros. And we were talking about your mind and thinking. And he said your mind is involved in everything that we do.

In everything, there's a mental component because everything goes through your mind. And he said, you know, one of the reasons that Major League Baseball has almost all the teams now have a mental skills coach, or sometimes they have up to six of them working with their team is because they realize this mental component is essential. And he said, you know, it's hard for people to be positive, and particularly because baseball is a game of failure. And you know, just like us, we have a hard time when we fail to be positive. And he said, you know, it's hard for people to be positive, and particularly because baseball is a game of failure. And, you know, just like us, we have a hard time when we fail to be positive. And he said, you know, fail is just a four-letter word. It's just how you interpret the failure and perceive the failure that really determines what you're going to learn from it. So we can train

ourselves to see these failures as opportunities, not as threats. All right. So how does this story connect to being more positive? So today we're talking about probably the most important topic of all of them, and that's how to think. And I think this story connects because just like Jesse was saying, I think we can have a hard time staying positive

when we do fail or we do make a mistake. It's, you know, you're right about the failure thing. I was thinking about a moment with my son yesterday where there was something that happened where he was bummed about not being good at something that had just happened. And I just kind of sarcastically said, yeah, I hate it when I'm not automatically awesome at everything. I'm like, what's it going to take to get through your head? Practice, practice, practice. Because we all do have negative thoughts.

We do. We all have them. They all happen. We'll get around to that in this topic today to talk about exactly how to manage that. But first, how does this story connect with being more positive in an everyday life for us? Well, I think for us, you know, like just you ask yourself some of these questions. Like, do you ever fail and have a difficult time overcoming it? Or do you have big dreams that you're not sure you can accomplish? Or do you ever get sucked into other people's negativity or maybe the negativity in the world?

You know, do you ever doubt yourself? What seems like no reason at all? Or do you experience negativity that can get you off track? And I think the answer is yes to all these questions because we are human and because we have what's called automatic negative thoughts. And yeah, and man, you see it a lot in the workplace too, right? You get kind of sucked into something that somebody's kind of negative about and then pretty soon you're all complaining about it and it's just toxic. But we do, like I said, we all have

these negative thoughts, right? Yeah. And so I talk about them as ants. So automatic negative thoughts. And I first read about ants in Daniel Amen's book called Change Your Brain, Change Your Life. And I read about it many years ago, but it was really life-changing for me, I think, because as a college athlete, I ran cross-country and track, and I did really struggle with my mindset. It's probably one of the main reasons I do what I do now. And I wish I would have known this concept then because, you know, especially this

idea of automatic, right? That I think it could have prevented a lot of suffering for me just realizing like, hey, this is what everybody deals with. And it's not just me. You're not the only one. It's going to happen. It's how you react to it then, right? Exactly. So how is that important to high performance? Well, you know, we don't always choose our thoughts. They have a way of just creeping in and making themselves home without us sometimes even realizing it. But, you know, our thoughts drive what we do and they determine how we interact with others, how we feel about others, how we act. And, you know, our thoughts can become our emotions and our actions and then our habits. So our thoughts are really important in terms of like shaping our destiny. And so that's why it's really important to practice what we're going to talk about next. It's funny because I have, I mean, we've said it off the air to you in here. I'm like, there's times when we can kind of slip into the negative and kind of get going and snowball. And you got two, three people in the room and they're all not excited about what's happening. So when people are negative and people

will ask you why they are so negative, what do you say? So this is what I explain, you know, that your brain has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. And so we had to notice one thing, the predator, the tiger, we had to notice the negative thing or we wouldn't survive. And your brain is here to keep you safe. It's not here to help you be a peak performer. But I would say is like the world's best. And I know this because I have the amazing opportunity to work with some of them. They don't rely on this biology. And so they're really training their mind to think differently. And we can do that too. Interesting. All right. So there are three powerful thought principles that are helpful for us to know. What's the first one? So this is what I usually, I always talk about

this when I speak because I think it's really eye-opening. And if you practice this, something I practice every day is these three thought principles and they make a big difference. So the first one is you shouldn't believe everything you think. So remember, it's automatic negative thoughts and they're not always telling you the truth. And so sometimes I just say, this is my old brain talking. You know, I know this isn't true about myself or my potential. And so I I just say, this is my old brain talking. I know this isn't true about myself or my potential. And so I don't need to believe everything I think. That's like the ants don't always tell the truth is a post-it note on the mirror kind of thing right there. That is really, really good. I like that. What's the second one?

So the second one is you either let the thought pass by, right? Like don't even give it any attention. Or the second principle is that the best talk to themselves, not listen. And they're intentional with the way they're talking to themselves because negative and unproductive thinking can really, you know, make you feel scared and paralyze you, make you feel uptight and doesn't help you be happy, right? Whereas powerful and productive thinking does the opposite. It keeps you, you know, following your dreams, keeps you fired up, keeps you relaxed and alert when you need to. So the best talk themselves, not listen.

And so the talk is this powerful and productive thoughts. The listen is this automatic and unproductive thinking. All right. And the third principle? Third principle is this. The best way to talk to yourself is I will, I can, I am. And these are what I call power phrases. And they're way better than I won't, or I can't, or I'm not. And sometimes actually what the research shows is when we kind of when we're intentional with our self talk, even if we plan them out, it can help us.

And so these I will, I can, I am, you know, reflect like a positive statement, or a positive change or your potential, or you know, who you are instead of who you're not. And so I will as a statement about your intention, I can as a statement about your potential, and I am as a statement about who you are and your identity. And I think sometimes we forget who we are. We have to remind ourselves of that. Do you say that we should do these even if at first we're not necessarily a believer in them? Just do them anyway and keep repeating them because.

Yeah. I mean, it is important that, you know, you, you believe in your self-talk, right? But I think the I am is so powerful because it, it, you know, we can use this and we can take an inventory of our, our strengths and our talents and like who we are. Right. But it's also, we can use them to be more of what we want to become. Right. Because what you think about yourself, you become.

So for example, yesterday I was out for a run. It's the longest run that I've ran for a while. And so, you know, I was working on using these things. And it's like, well, even times when I didn't feel great, you know, like I'm strong, you know, I can do this. I will finish, right? And so even if you don't feel strong, you want to use these as long as they're believable to you. And that's what's really important because I am is like it's a it's a

powerful statement about your identity and what you already have inside you. Great topic for a Monday morning for sure. How to be more positive. And and thank you, Annie. Yeah, thank you, Annie. There you go today. So how do we summarize today's topic? So high performers train their thoughts, and they follow these and implement these three thought principles to have command over their thinking. They don't believe everything they think. They talk to themselves, not listen. And then they think, I will, I can, I am to reach their potential.

I like that because you've been told how many times don't believe everything you hear. Right. Yeah, cool. Also, don't believe everything you think. Nice. Which is a great way to go. What's our power phrase for this week then? I talk to myself, not listen. I take command over my thoughts. Excellent. You'll find that one on social media if that's where you like to go and catch up with Cindra. Otherwise, there's other ways to do that. There's the book. There's the workbook. There's the podcasts, which I'm I mean, there are several that I haven't listened to, but I try to listen as often as I can. If we want to get in touch with you and follow along,

how do we do that? You can find more information about the book and the podcast at drcindra.com, so D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A. And you can check out the podcast also on iTunes or Stitcher Radio or iHeart Radio. All right. Dr. Cindra Kampoff with us today for High Performance Mindset. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. That was a great one. How to be more positive. Make that how you start your work week.

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.