High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 214: E + R = O

Episode Date: October 22, 2018

“You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself.” Jim Rohn   High performers know they need to take 100% responsibility for everything in your life. They embrace E + R = 0. They ask themselves, how can I take just 5% more responsibility for my life. They realize its not what other people say to them that matters, it is what they say to themselves matters. They give up blaming and complaining. They take control of their life and drive it!   Power Phrase This Week:  “I accept 100 percent responsibility for my life. I own my power."   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. Sindra with us today here for High Performance Mindset. Good morning, Sindra. Good morning. It's great to be here. It's going to be a big weekend for a lot of people here, and I noticed as you go through the park and things like that in the Mankato area, there's a lot of positivity, a lot of signs up that are

pushing people along and encouraging them. I've even seen sidewalk chalk out there already, which is kind of cool because you usually see that on race day, but it's nice to know that there's people that sneak out there and do that. Even just on the trails, people are running to train for a big weekend. And our team will be out there.

The Sports Psych team will be out there at the expo on Friday and then Saturday during the race. So I'm going to just tell people to talk to themselves, not listen. Don't listen to that negativity because you know you're going to experience it if you're pushing yourself. You've got to talk positively to yourself. I think it's very unique that Mankato Marathon has you guys there because I don't know a lot of other sports psych teams that go out and really help these people through what can be quite a challenge to get through 13.1

or 26.2 miles. Absolutely. Thank you for having them out there for that. That was good. Me and my buddy that I'm running with this year in the half marathon went out yesterday for our last training run and we ran Sibley Park twice. Oh good. Back to back just to challenge it because that's one of the most mentally tough parts

of the whole entire race is getting in and out of Sibley Park in Mankato. You've got to have pre-planned self-talk, I think. Yeah. Like, be ready. And take advantage of the cheer zones and the people that are inside Sibley Park that are there to kind of give you a boost because it can be tough. But anyway, on to our topic for today. And there might be even a little math to be done here today, sort of.

Take 100% responsibility for your life. Let's start with a quote. So this is a Jim Rohn quote. He said, you must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. The wind. I had to throw the wind in there. I'm always complaining about the wind. We'll just know yesterday. Yeah, exactly. So let's start with a story.

Yeah. So last week I attended my own professional development. It was a day-long event called One Day of Greatness with Jack Canfield. And some people had heard me speak the last six months or so were like, why are you here, Sindra? And I was like, well, of course I'm here because you're either getting better or the opposite. And so I'm always looking to get better as well. And so Jack Canfield wrote the books Chicken Soup for the Soul, which maybe you heard of, right?

Perhaps. A few different renditions. It was rejected by 144 publishers, by the way. And finally, when it was published, they did five things every day to make it a bestseller. So talk about perseverance and persistence. I actually learned about Jack from a book called Success Principles that actually helped me inspire when I was writing my book Beyond Grit, like in terms of the structure and really short chapters and easy to read. So I wanted to go listen.

So why is this topic of taking 100% responsibility for your life important today? So really the best in the world take 100% responsibility for everything that happens in your life. And this is a chapter I talk about in my book called Responsibility 101. But that's difficult to do. 100% is it's a lot. And Jack had us do this exercise where we had to turn to the person next to us. So somebody we didn't know. And we had to say quickly, you know, back and forth, if I would take 5% more responsibility for my life, I would blank. Right. And I thought I was doing a pretty good job.

But these things came out and I was like, oh, wow. Yeah, I would. If I take 5% responsibility more, I would exercise every day. I would eat better, not eat so much chocolate. I would stop complaining or blaming about the little things. And so it was really powerful to consider, you know, how could you take just 5% more responsibility? And then he said, you know, you don't take 100% responsibility, do you?

And I was like, ooh, that was powerful. Yeah. Yeah. It's always good when those things kind of just slap you in the face and they're an eye opener. So there was, I said, I kind of alluded to some math and I'm obviously sort of kidding there, but there is an equation. What is that? So the equation is E plus R equals O. And this connects with what we're talking about today, responsibility. And it means the event plus your response equals the outcome and if you

want to change the outcome you can only control your response you can't control the event right the event might be the seasons or the circumstances or the wind right but we can easily blame the event or complain about the event but that leaves us powerless and if we we work to change our response that gives us power so you know and if you think about it if we work to change our response, that gives us power. So, you know, and if you think about it, if we take 100% responsibility for everything, like everything is an outcome of the previous response that we made to an event. All right. So you pointed out a lot of things maybe that aren't 100% for you when you were talking about the thing that Jack used to slap you guys all in the face and make you come to realization there. So what do you think that it really means to take 100% responsibility?

Well, here are the things that we can control. We can control our behavior and our thoughts and the images that we put in our mind. And all three of those are connected, our behavior, our thoughts, and our images. And I think by taking 100% responsibility, you realize that we do have a choice on those behaviors and those thoughts and those images. And I think by taking 100% responsibility, you realize that, you know, we do have a choice on those behaviors and those thoughts and those images. And that's really a choice that we make. And the images are really important because they control our behavior. So what are we thinking about? What are we picturing makes a big difference in terms of what end up we doing. So do you have a good example? I do. So let's say I say something to TJ that

makes you really mad. All right. Okay. Maybe you could think of something that I could say that would make you mad, but it's not what Sindra said to TJ. It's what TJ said to TJ. Okay. So meaning it's what we say to ourselves that matter. And it's not what somebody says to you. You know, it's what you say to yourself that impacts your beliefs and your actions. And I think that that's what it means by taking 100% responsibility is that, you know, we end up kind of blaming our conditions or we say, well, so and so did that. But by realizing, OK, what would I just say to myself about that comment? I think about a lot of kids at school, you know, and you're kind of stuck in a building and the farthest you can get away from

somebody that might be rubbing you the wrong way is the other side of the classroom or the other side of the lunchroom. And you really have to kind of take into consideration how you're going to react and what you're going to do. And if you do the wrong thing, you end up in the wrong place. What do we always say

in here when we're talking about our kids? It's like, it's always the second guy. Yeah. Same with on the football field, right, Cinder? Like two guys get goofing around. One guy does something, the other guy reacts and boom, yellow flag. Yeah. It's like we have to take a deep breath and realize that we are responsible for our actions, even

if somebody has provoked us. So what do we do instead? Well, so think about the word responsibility. I think we want to take response. So it's like you can split it up into two words, response, ability. And I think what that means...

Your ability to respond. Nice. Okay. Nice, nice. Okay. So I think what we want to do is take control of our response and I think give up all complaining and blaming.

And that's really hard because it's really easy to do. Well, yeah, because all the time, well, they did this to us. Yes. They did that to me. Yeah, absolutely. And that's why I did it or whatever. But so what does blaming do? Well, when we blame others, we really weaken our power and our ability to be high performers.

And, you know, every time we blame something or someone, we really dwindle our chances of success and reaching our goals. We are less gritty. And, you know, we say things like, you know, why me? Or what if that would have happened? Or it's, you know, it's all their fault, right? They're the one that provoked me. So what does some of the best do then? So they take responsibility for everything. So their future, their past, and they realize, you know, their choices and decisions have led them to where they are today. And they're really the only person responsible

for where they're at and their quality of life. So I'd say they look inside and they create the life that they want. So what's the final point you want to make about this today? I think as you think about what you want to do and where you're going, I think the key is to take responsibility for everything right now.

And what I see at least the best of the best do, is they recognize they're in the driver's seat and they take control and they drive. So I'd encourage you to whatever problem you're going to experience this week or whatever difficulty you're going to experience, because we all will experience something, is when you're experiencing that, just ask yourself, how can I take 100% responsibility and take control over my perspective? Always a work in progress, aren't we? Yeah, always.

So how do you summarize today? This is a great topic. We're humans, you know, so we're always a work in progress. So I'd say high performers, those people who are working to reach their greater potential, you know, they know they need to take 100% responsibility for everything in their life. They embrace the E plus R equals O. And they ask themselves, how can they take, you know, just 5% more responsibility? And they realize that it's not what other people say to them that matters is what they say to themselves. So they take control of their life and drive.

I like the equation, actually. I don't know that we elaborated on that enough, but it's the event plus the reaction equals the outcome. Right. So if it's like you can't, if you want to change the outcome, you can it's the event plus the reaction equals the outcome. Right. So if it's like you can't, if you want to change the outcome, you can't control the event. So yesterday the event was snow, right? You can't control the event. You can't control what someone else says or does to you or does around you, but you can control your response. All right. That's a good one today. And a power phrase to wrap it all up. I accept 100% responsibility for my life. I own my power.

Perfect. All right. If we want to get in touch with you, Sindra, or we listen to the podcasts, I know that these segments end up on the podcast. There's also a lot of very knowledgeable people that you interview on the podcast. And there's the book.

There's just a lot going on. How do we get in touch? You can head over to my website, Dr. Sindra. So D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A. And check it out there. All right. Sindra Kampoff-R-C-I-N-D-R-A and check it out there. All right. Sindra Kampoff with us today.

Thank you very much. Thank you for having me always. High Performance Mindset on The Country Club this morning on Minnesota 93. 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.