High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 209: Thoughts Have Power

Episode Date: September 29, 2018

“Be very careful what you say to yourself because someone very important is listening…YOU!” John Assaraf   High performers grow their consciousness. They catch their limiting or automatic negative thoughts. They take control of their life instead of letting life control them. They think in a powerful way – focusing on their dream each day and tell themselves powerful things about themselves and that their success will continue!   Power Phrase This Week:   “Great things are coming my way! I will reach my dreams!” 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. Time for a little high performance mindset today with Dr. Sindra Kampoff on The Country Club. Good morning, Sindra. Good morning. It's great to be here. Good to have you in. Today's topic, however, has nothing really to do with football, but it really does apply to all of us. And it's something that I think as parents, we try to let our kids know. So there's a great way to kind of bend today's topic towards your kids, towards yourself,

maybe as an employee at a business and just in general, I think in your quest to be a better person. Thoughts have power is the topic today. So let's start with a quote. So this is a quote. Be very careful what you say to yourself because someone very important is listening. You. Quote by John Asraff.

That's awesome. So you have a story to go with this one. You know, about five years ago, I got really clear on my purpose, and I had a wake-up call after I ran a marathon. I ran a personal best at the Boston Marathon, and then suddenly it really didn't matter because I was right in the middle of the Boston Marathon bombing. And I remember sitting in my hotel thinking, why am I here? What difference do I make?

And I just kept on going over and over with those questions in my mind. And that day, being there, really woke me up to my fire and my purpose. I think before then, I think I was just kind of playing pretty small with my goals and my dreams. You know, I wanted to write a book, for example, but kept thinking about all the reasons I couldn't and, you know, that no one would read it. And so that day was really powerful for me and really kind of sets the tone of what we're talking about today. Pretty awesome to see where it's taken you

as well, even though that was a tragedy, something really good for you came out of it. Why is this topic so important for us today? Well, I had to find my purpose in my life and I didn't really know what my purpose was. And I think most of us go through our life without kind of reaching our potential or reaching our greatness. We don't really use what we have and we don't use our imagination. And when we start thinking about what we want, we just kind of settle and we give into the conditioning that maybe is around us. And when our mind says like, oh, come on, give me a break. You can't do that. We listen and we give into other people's negativity or what people tell us about what we can or can't do. That's good. So how we explain events in our life makes a

difference. Tell us about that. So this is called our explanatory style. And it was first written about by a psychologist named Marty Seligman. And he says that, you know, how we explain our success and our failure impacts what we do. And so the same thing can happen to two people, but one can explain it in a way that helps us be successful about our future. Whereas the other person can explain it in a way that doesn't, by saying things like, bad things always happen to me. And our explanatory style is really at the hallmark of whether we're an optimist or a pessimist. Is that like growth mindset versus fixed mindset? Very similar.

Yeah. And then I can only imagine like, you know, things happen for me, not to me. Exactly. Lisa has been listening. That's impressive. I feel like that most people kind of fall into that negative category, you know, and it's the training of yourself to take the more positive route that's so difficult. So what do most people do? Do they fall into that?

Well, most people let conditions and other people impact them. And I recently read that 87% of what we say to ourselves is negative. And if you think about it, we have between 50 and 70,000 thoughts a day. So we're telling ourselves a lot of negative things. And the way I talk about this is I use an acronym by Daniel Amen, and he said that we have automatic negative thoughts. And, you know, these are all the reasons that we can't. But I think the key is, is to recognize that they are automatic. And especially in times of stress or pressure, I think they're louder.

Yeah, so they're going to happen, but we have to recognize them. Well, what do we do instead when that happens? Well, we have to catch ourselves and we need to tell ourselves what we can do, what we can make happen, and we need to affirm what we can do. And I think we have to change that inner conversation

because it does impact the results that we have in our lives. So it's really important to catch ourselves. All right. So can you tell us what we can do instead? What do we do then after we catch yourself? Yeah, for sure. What can we do instead? So I think the key is, is like, ask yourself, what is my dream? You know, and I think that everyone has a dream and a purpose that's been given to us. I think for me, being at the marathon really helped me better understand that purpose. And, you know, no one else can do what we can in this world. And when you follow your dream, you actually inspire others. And so what I've come to recognize is like, let's say,

you know, my dream was to write a book. And now I see, okay, just doing that helps inspire other people in my field, you know, that they okay, just doing that helps inspire other people in my field, you know, that they can do the same or helps inspire other people in my community. And I think the key is we got to keep searching for that dream, even though we don't know what it is right now. And we can't give up till we find it. We have to really stay focused on finding it. Okay, so what is your dream? And then what would you do next? Well, I think to recognize that we're going to experience adversity and challenges. And then we're going to be telling, you know, people are going to tell us what we can't do. We're even going to experience these own automatic negative thoughts. And so we have

to stay focused on what we want and trying to find that. And we have to stay focused on our thoughts. And by focusing on, you know, giving ourselves the best chance and really cultivating these powerful thoughts is going to help us. talk to us about talking to ourselves then. If we say 87% negative stuff to ourselves, how do we go about talking to ourselves in the process? Yes, good question. So I'd say the best in the world, really, talk to themselves, not listen.

And the listen is these automatic negative thoughts. These are all the reasons that we can't. But talking to yourself is really intentional. And so why not say when. But talking to yourself is really intentional. And so, you know, why not say when you're talking to yourself is like, good things are supposed to happen to me, right? Because most people expect bad things to happen to them. And, you know, when bad things happen, they say, you know, see, you know, bad things always happen. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Exactly. Exactly. Because when we, whatever we look for, we're going to find. So why not say, you know, good things are supposed to happen to me

instead of, you know, see, bad things always happen to me or everywhere I go, bad luck always finds me. So how do we get better at doing that? I think the key is we have to catch ourselves and grow our consciousness. And what I mean by that is be more aware of how we're talking to ourselves and really be intentional with our thoughts. And we can't stop the automatic negative thoughts like they're going to come, but we can let them go from our mind and we can decide on the thoughts that we put back into our

mind. And what we actually know is that research shows that if we have pre-planned thoughts ready, that we're more likely to be at our best because we know what we want to say to ourselves. And so and the more you do this, the more that you see that you have something to give you, the more that you see the value, you more likely you're going to be able to follow your dreams and find that and kind of come back to this purpose we're talking about. The more positively you talk to yourself, the more it becomes natural. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. So why not say like, great things are coming my way and I'm going to reach my dream, you know, instead of like, you know, bad things happen to me all the time. Right. And the more that we say, you know, I will instead of I can't,

it's going to give us more power. Seems so easy, yet it is so darn difficult. It's really hard. How do you summarize this topic today? I just caught myself last night. And I was like, I'm going to take out my notes and remind myself. I think we all had some moments of not being able to control the moment yesterday for sure. I know. So I'd say that high performers, they grow their consciousness and they catch those limiting or automatic negative thoughts. They really take control of their life instead of letting life control them. And they think in a powerful way, focusing on their dream

and telling themselves powerful things about themselves so their success will continue. What a great way to start your Monday, folks, on your way to school or work. Consider all of that and practice it. If we have to take this whole topic today, put it into our power phrase for the day. What do you have for us?

Great things are coming my way. I will reach my dreams. Pretty simple, right? Get after that this week. If we want to get in touch with you, learn more. I know that you're out doing speaking engagements quite often. There's the book that we talk about quite a bit. The podcast is always amazing.

These particular segments, plus all of the professionals in her field that she talks to, appear on the podcast. There's always some useful nuggets there. How do we get in touch with you and follow along? Yeah, you can head over to Dr. Sindra, so D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A, and the podcast is on there. The book information, Beyond Great, is on there as well, and that's how you can reach me.

All right. Thanks so much. 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.