High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 221: The Psychology of Clutch

Episode Date: December 6, 2018

“There are 3 types of people: those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who wonder what happens.” Tommy Lasorda High Performers are clutch. They can perform better-than-usual under pressure. They realize self-control – knowing they can handle the situation – is key in being clutch. They also have a high self-confidence, even if they are just getting started in the activity – the belief in themselves.  Power Phrase This Week:   “I am clutch. I stay confident and in control when the heat is on.” 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. It is time for High Performance Mindset today with Dr. Sindra Kampoff in studio with me. Good morning, Sindra. Good morning. It's great to be here. Good to have you in. Last time I saw you, you were just covered in snow. I know. On the sideline at that epic, epic MSU football game on Saturday night, or Saturday afternoon,

I guess I should say, against Tarleton State out of Texas. So that was a little unusual for those guys to come to town and have to deal with the snow like that. It was kind of funny, just a side note, I had the you know, I stand next to the play-by-play guys for the visiting team in the press box for the games as I do public address.

And they started to go on and on as the snow was really coming down about how they might want to start thinking about postponing this game and finishing it at another time. These conditions are terrible and these aren't something about supposed to be a neutral deal and whatever. And I was like, it's not like we live and breathe every day of our life in a half a foot of snow. Exactly. It's extreme conditions for both teams. We don't play every football game in the snow out here. Not like that. We don't play every game with leaf blowers and plows and stuff to clear the field.

That's not the way it works. So, yeah, the conditions were the same for everybody, and the Mavericks come out on top in that win. So, pretty awesome. It was really awesome. And I know we'll talk a little bit about some of that coming up here in today's topic, the psychology of clutch. And we've never really talked about this before, and I know that that's a term the kids use in my neighborhood. Dude, you're clutch, right? Nice, yes. I hear it quite often. We start with a good quote kids use in my neighborhood. Dude, you're a clutch, right? Nice.

Yeah, I hear it quite often. We start with a good quote from Tommy Lasorda. So this is, he said, there are three types of people. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who wonder what happens. Nice. All right, so let's start with a story today. So my story is actually from the Maver football game. And, you know, I think one of the most memorable

games I've ever been a part of, you know, for people who didn't watch, they were trailing, you know, zero to 10 at halftime. And it looked like the team from Texas would prevail, you know, especially when it began to snow, it seemed like they embraced it. And they were doing snow angels and things like that on the field. But it seemed like the more and more it snowed, the more we embrace the adversity. And I heard things on the sidelines like, you know, this is fun. This is just like spring ball. I mean, it was so snowy.

I don't know how many inches we got during the game, but you couldn't even see the field or the lines. So my guess is like four? Maybe. Yeah. It was enough that you couldn't see any of the yard markers. It was really hard for the stats people and the play-by-play radio guys and the public address announcer to tell what line the ball was on

and all of that stuff. They were out there, like I said, with plows and shovels and leaf blowers trying to blow the snow away so we could tell. And they couldn't keep up. They couldn't keep up. And so one performance that stood out to me was Nate Gunn. He's a running back. And he had 50 carries for 262 yards, breaking a 50-year-old record.

And I thought, wow, you know, talk about leveling up in adversity. And, you know, every time he went out for a play, I saw him ask coach if he could go back in. And as I was processing what I saw, all I could come back to was like, wow, he was clutch. They were clutch. And they ended up scoring two touchdowns in the final quarter, one in the final three minutes to go on to the final four post-Ferris State on Saturday. Yeah. Another weird stat, though, that you probably don't see in a lot of football games, the Mavericks went on a 27-play, 97-yard drive that took over 12 minutes off the clock in the second half.

Most of that, if not all of it, was Nate Gunn on the ground, on the ground, on the ground, on the ground, until they got to the end zone, then the quick pass for the touchdown. So, yeah, he basically put that whole team on his back and carried it 97 yards, almost 97 yards down to the end zone. And that was clutch. Clutch. Clutch.

So what does the research say about being clutch? So this is from Mark Otten's research from California State Northridge. And so if we could define what clutch is, and it's really a better than usual performance that occurs under pressure. So a better than usual performance that occurs under pressure. And pressure is really any time that we want to perform well, that the outcome is important to us. And anyone can be clutch. We're talking about football right here, but anyone can be clutch provided that you're in the right mental state.

And we hear a lot in sports, but you can be clutch in a job interview, a presentation at work, a conflict situation at home or at work. And the opposite of clutch would be choking, where, you know, we fail to perform as needed under pressure. And we tend to point that out a lot when it happens to other people, I know, especially in sports, especially in sports, right? But whenever you say clutch, I think of guys like Michael Jordan. Absolutely. Put the ball in his hands and yeah, there's a pretty good chance something good is going to happen. And they're the best ever because they're embracing the moment. So why should we keep listening to this conversation about being clutch today? So first of all, we perform every single day.

And we might not realize that we are performing. But we can all be in really pivotal situations where we need to consistently perform at our best, especially when the stakes are high. And so clutch people are really defined by consistently performing well when a lot is on the line. And these situations we can thrive in when the pressure is high and the consequences are important. And so all of these factors can influence our ability to handle situations at work or with our family or with our marriage. So what kind of factors predict being clutch? What's one that you can think of? So the most highest predictor of being clutch is what's called perceived control.

And this means when you feel like you're in control of yourself, your performance, the situation. So your ability to turn it on when it's clutch is really important and to provide your best performance. And so perceived control just means that you feel like you can handle the situation. And so when you're in a situation of pressure, it's really important to have powerful self-talk. And things like to me that would indicate that you're in control would be like,

I got this. I can do this. You know, I was made for this. Or things I heard during the Maverick game were, you know, this is what we always do. You know, this is just like the spring game. I never heard anyone say we should cancel the game. Yeah.

Right. No way. Not a chance. Not a chance. In regards to the Vikings game yesterday, I also noticed this. And there's two different kinds of players, right? You see a guy like Adam Thielen who has the ball slip through his hand, outstretched hands. That would have been a huge clutch catch for him right there, right?

But it didn't happen. And he got up and he went back to the sideline, and there was a fraction of a second that the camera was on him. I could tell, you know, there's different kinds of people. Some guys are going to come to the sidelines. They're going to slam their helmet down. They're going to be angry they didn't make the catch. They're eventually going to get over it and move on.

Adam just came to the sideline, had his helmet on. Someone looked at him, and he was like, meh. You know, kind of like, I didn't catch it. I'll catch the next one. Absolutely. And you could tell he was already moving on from it. Yeah, not beating himself up. Yeah.

All right. So what's the second factor that predicts clutch? So the second one is confidence. And, you know, for example, in the research, it shows like those who express the most confidence, even if they were just starting the activity and even if they were an expert, like they've done it really a long time, confidence was the second predictor. So the more confident you were, the more you tended to be able to be clutch. And so really confidence to me is your ability, your belief in your ability. And that's really crucial when the pressure is on, you know, your belief in yourself, your team, if you're on

a team. I think about people that train for marathons, right? And they're nervous during the taper and people are like, hey, trust your training, trust your training. So believe in yourself. There's a reason they're saying that. You know, you've run 20 miles in training. What's another six? Exactly. So what other things relate to our ability to be clutch? So there's some other researchers who are from England and Australia who've said like clutch, things that relate to clutch are

not holding anything back and a really heightened self-awareness of what you're thinking and feeling the absence of any negative thoughts about consequences or maybe what would happen if they failed and so really to be clutch the key is that you're you're focused on the task at hand you're you're in the present moment You're not overthinking about the task, but you're aware of yourself and how you're feeling, and you're not thinking about what could go wrong. And that's kind of one of the things I saw in the Maverick game. I never heard anyone or even really saw it on their face

that they didn't believe that they were going to win or that something could go wrong. There were players from Tarleton that came out, even before the football game started. They came out of the locker room, walked on the field, and were immediately chirping across the field. I could imagine. And I saw the MSU players just stand there and just watch them. Not engage in it.

Not really engage in it, but then obviously the outcome went the way they wanted it to, and they didn't have to do any big talking at the front end of it. Nice. That was nice to see. So what gets in our way of being clutch? So two important things. First, like when you're too anxious or too nervous, especially when you have what we call cognitive anxiety, like anxiety in your mind and then somatic anxiety in your body. So I think the key is to take a deep breath, get that under control and talk to yourself really powerfully. So anxiety

would be the first one. What else gets in the way? So when we kind of reinvest too much attention on the task, like when we're thinking too much about what we're doing. So when we have too much of like focus on ourselves. So the key is instead to trust yourself and feel like you're in control and maybe even put the attention a little bit more outward. All right. My daughter was just talking about being nervous about something yesterday, and I was like, hon, just rip the Band-Aid off and go. I'm like, you got this. No big deal.

Excellent. I'm like, what's the worst that happens? You're going to live. So how do we apply this information today on being clutch? So most people need to perform under pressure at some point in their lives. So it's maybe public speaking or exams. You know, if you're if you go to MSU and you're listening, you know, we're working closely towards a deadline. And so, again, the two most important factors would be like your ability to feel like you're in control of yourself in the situation or perceived control and confidence. So believing in

yourself that you can handle the situation is key. And I think what you just said is reminding yourself that you're prepared. All right. So how do we summarize today's topic? It's a good one that we've never discussed on the radio before. So high performers, those people who are working to reach their greater potential, they are clutch and they can perform better than usual under pressure. They realize self-control, like knowing they can handle the situation is key in being clutch. And they also have a high self-confidence, even if they're just starting in the activity so they believe in themselves all right and a power phrase to wrap things up with today i am clutch i stay confident and in control when the heat is on awesome that's a good one uh heat would have

been great yeah i know maybe that's why i was thinking of that heat on saturday also will be great but ferris state will be the team the mavericks will host at Blakeslee Stadium if you want to come out and see a real clutch football team. Nice. Get out there and get the job done and try to earn that trip to the National Championship. Get your tickets and be at the Blake on Saturday for a 2 o'clock kickoff. If we want to follow along with

what you're up to or listen to your podcasts or grab the book from you, any of that good stuff, where do we get in touch with Sindra Kampoff? You can head over to DrSindra, so drcindra.com. You can sign up for my regular emails there where there's more information about the podcast and the book as well. Always good stuff. Thank you very much.

Thanks for having me today. 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.