High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 225: Attention is the Currency of Performance

Episode Date: December 30, 2018

Dr. Peter Haberl is a senior sport psychologist for the United States Olympic Committee. Through the USOC, he provides individual and team consultations and counseling sessions to various resident and national teams and athletes at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Before joining the USOC in 1998, Peter served as the sport psychology consultant for the 1998 U.S. Women's Ice Hockey Olympic Team.  He also served as the sports psychology consultant for USA Triathlon at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. During the 2000 to 2004 Olympic summer quad leading up to the Athens Olympic Games, Peter worked mainly with US Diving, US Synchronized Swimming, USA Triathlon and the US Women's Volleyball team. With the restructuring of the Performance Services Division of the USOC in 2006, Peter moved into the Team and Technical Sportfolio with a focus of providing services to team (USA Men's & Women's Water Polo, USA Women's Indoor Volleyball) and technical (USA Shooting, USA Archery) sports in their preparation for the Games. Born in Austria, he received his undergraduate degree in sports science from the University of Vienna, Austria, and earned a master's degree in counseling and his Ed. D. in counseling psychology at Boston University. He is a licensed psychologist in Colorado.  In his applied work, Peter has a specific focus on mindfulness based interventions. Peter played professional hockey in Europe for 10 years, also representing Austria at two World Championships. In this interview, Peter and Cindra talk about: Why attention is the currency of performance How to deal with uncomfortable thoughts and feelings What it looks like to have a flexible mind Why it’s important to ask yourself, “What do I do with my attention?” The difference between informal and formal mindfulness practices His unique opinion on the topic of confidence Why we need to decouple performance from our sense of self You can find a full description of the Podcast at cindrakamphoff.com/peter

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, Dr. Sindra Kampoff, a certified mental performance consultant and keynote speaker. And thank you so much for joining me here today for episode 225 with Dr. Peter Harbaugh. Now, the goal of these interviews is to learn from the world's best, the world's best consultants, athletes, coaches, leaders, and experts to help us be high performers

in our field or our sport. Now, today's episode, I had the amazing privilege of interviewing Dr. Peter Harbaugh. He is the senior sports psychologist from the United States Olympic Committee. Now, throughout the USOC, he provides individual and team consultation and counseling sessions to various resident and national teams, as well as athletes at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Now before joining the USOC, he worked as a sports psychology consultant for the 1998 US Women's Ice Hockey Olympic Team. He's also spent time with USA Triathlon during the Summer Olympic Games in Sydney.

And then as well as he's worked with diving, synchronized swimming, triathlon, and USA Women's Volleyball Team. Now with the restructuring of the Performance Service Division of the USOC in 2006, he moved more to the team in technical sports and now works with men's and women's water polo, women's indoor volleyball, USA shooting, USA archery to help them be the best that they can be at the Olympic Games. Now, Peter was born in Austria. He received his undergraduate degree in sports science from the University of Vienna, Austria, and earned a master's in counseling and his Ed.D. in counseling psychology at Boston University. He is also a licensed psychologist in Colorado. Now, in this interview, we talk mostly about Peter's work and how it's focused on mindfulness-based interventions. I've heard Peter speak many times at our National Conference in Sports Psychology and was just really excited to have him on.

You know, throughout this interview and by the end, I was so relaxed just because of his demeanor and I got so much valuable content and perspective from this interview. You know, I've been practicing in the field of performance psychology for nearly 20 years and so I know, I'm hopeful that you will get some really valuable content to make you really think about how you can use mindfulness in your own life and perhaps your work. Now, Peter played professional hockey in Europe for 10 years, and he represented Austria at two world championships. So in this interview, Peter and I talk specifically about mindfulness-based interventions. We talk about really how to deal with uncomfortable thoughts and feelings, what it really looks like to have a flexible mind, and why we should ask

ourselves, you know, what do I want to do with my attention? We talk a little bit about the difference between informal and formal mindfulness practices and his opinion about the topic of confidence. I think you'll enjoy his perspective on that. Now, two of my favorite quotes from this interview is one towards the beginning of the interview, and he says, attention is the currency of performance. And then towards the end of the interview, he talks about how we need to decouple performance from our sense of self. I really look forward to hearing what you think about this interview, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

You can head over to Twitter. I'm on there at mentally underscore strong. I'm also on Instagram at cindracampoff. And then, as always, you can shoot me an email. I would love to hear from you. And you can reach me over on email at syndra at syndracampoff.com. Now, if you'd like to see the full show notes and description for this podcast interview, you can go to syndracampoff.com slash Peter.

That's C-I-N-D-R-A-K-A-M-P-H-O-F-F dot com slash Peter. Without further ado, let's bring on Peter. Welcome, Dr. Peter Haberl to the podcast. How are you doing, Peter? I'm well, thanks. Thanks for having me. I appreciate you joining us today from Colorado Springs, a senior sports psychologist from the USOC. Peter, what I'd love to start with is, could you tell us a little bit about what you're passionate about and tell us a little bit about your position there. Well, I'm passionate about sports psychology and I'm passionate about the Olympic Games. I'm passionate about working, you know, with my athletes here. As you mentioned, I work for the Olympic Committee

and I'm assigned to work with a select group of athletes and teams in their preparation for the Olympic Games, trying to help them perform to their best at the Olympic Games. Excellent. So tell us a bit about your background, Peter. I know you grew up in Austria, got your degree here at Boston University. You are a clinical psychologist or licensed psychologist in the state of Colorado.

So tell us a bit about just your journey, where you started and how you got to where you are now. Sure. So I started, as you mentioned, I was born in Austria, grew up there, got my undergraduate degree there in sports science, played professional hockey there, professional ice hockey for 10 years. And then at the end of my career, I decided to go back to school and study applied sports psychology. At the time, I thought the best place to do it is the US. So I went to Boston University, got my degree in counseling psychology, actually. Counseling, okay. And then while I was at Boston University, I had the good fortune to start working with the US women's ice hockey national team in 96 and then got a chance to work with them in the lead up to the Nagano Olympic Games in 98

and then that experience sort of allowed me to get a two-year position at the Olympic Committee here in Colorado Springs their sports science department in sports psychology. And then that two years led to a full-time employment then and been here ever since. Yeah, that's wonderful. That's wonderful. So, Peter, tell us a bit about your experience as a professional ice hockey player and what led you to study sports psychology? Well, that's a long time ago. It is, it is, but I bet there's something. Well, I think, I think one thing that, you know, being a professional athlete, right, I

sort of came to understand the importance that my mind played in my performance. Okay. There were, you know, times when I played really well and times when I didn't play so well. And I kind of thought the difference was really mental, right, upstairs. And I was just sort of curious, you know, can I learn more about that? Can I understand myself better in the process? And then the other thing that happened too is I'm sort of introverted by nature. So I'm kind kind of quiet guy and when you're quiet, interestingly enough, very often people, other players will come and talk to you and sort of share with what's going on with them. So I think I had sort of this skill of listening and then, you know, as I sort of

pursued sports psychology, I was able to sort of combine those two interests of the role that the mind plays in performance, and then perhaps my ability to listen. Love it, love it. So Peter, thinking about Olympic athletes, you know, do you, would you say that most of them buy into the mental side of sport, or is there still some hesitation, you you know that the mind is a really important component? No I think this has really changed over the years. I don't think there's any hesitation anymore and I'm fairly sort of in tune with what's happening internationally right at the Olympic Games with regards to sports psychology provision and pretty much every country and team and all the elite athletes they tend to have sports psychology support so it's not a question of buying anymore.

Yeah that's excellent. Did you see a lack of buy-in at the beginning of your work there as it you know become stronger in terms of interest or tell us about that progression um well again i've been here for 20 years and you know overall it's sort of been a historic process you know going back to the the 70s with uh sort of the first instances of when sports psychology had a presence at the olympic games but since then it's simply been a continuous growth, I think, and now it's just sort of a standard practice, basically. Yeah, absolutely. So, what do you see in terms of the Olympics every four years, right? And I know from speaking to you and talking with you and hearing you speak at the Association for Applied Sports Psychology, you know, these Olympic athletes might train for four years, and then they get, you know, this one shot.

What are some of the distinguishing characteristics or mental factors that you see, you know, in terms of them being able to really perform at the Olympic Games? Well, I think how my own thinking has evolved is for me, I consider attention the crucial currency of performance. So at the Olympic Games, if you want to perform to your potential, you really need to be in charge of your attention. So the ability to aim, focus on the present moment, truly be in the moment.

And the interesting thing about that though though, is at the games, that's really hard to do because this event comes only every four years, is super important in the life of the athlete, right? They have maybe one shot at it. And because it means the world to them and because the outcome is uncertain, it invariably comes with a host of uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. And to me, it's a bit of a myth in sports psychology that athletes should be cool, calm, and collected. But actually, if they think they should be that way almost always, that becomes a trap at the Olympic Games.

Because more often than not, again, if they're in a position for a medal, they will not be cool, calm, and collected. So this ability to be open to unpleasant emotional states and to be able to skillfully work those unpleasant states is hugely important. And I think that can be trained, that openness can be trained, and that ability to put attention where attention needs to be can be trained in that environment.

And that's really where I see my job comes in, in helping athletes train that flexibility of mind as they go into the Olympic Games. Excellent, Peter. Wonderful. I've heard you say that attention is the currency of performance. I think that's really powerful. I guess to start off with that idea is, you know, what you said about having those uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. How would you describe how an athlete feels at the Olympic Games, particularly if they're in medal contention? Well, I like to use actual athlete examples, and I usually get these from, you know,

autobiographies, athlete quotes in the media, but here's one of my favorite ones, right? So the athlete says, it's the only way to describe it. It feels like the gallows. So it feels like you're about to be hung this moment right before the final at the Olympic Games. So when I asked my athletes, do you want to feel that way? 100% they say, no, I don't want to feel that way. That sounds terrible. Then I ask, why do you not want to feel that way? Well, if I feel that way, I'll perform very poorly. So the athletes are convinced that in order to perform well, you're the right way, right? Yes. But then again, what I want to show with these examples, and I have many of them, is that perhaps no, you don't, because then I show

them, well, who is this athlete who felt like the gallows? And this particular athlete, this won't be familiar to a North American audience, but his name is Chris Hoy. And he's actually Sir Chris Hoy, because he got knighted by the Queen of England. And he's won six gold medals at the Olympic Games. So I'm trying to show them that it's actually very normal to feel unpleasant and to have unpleasant thoughts thoughts of doubt at the games here's another one is you know the athlete says is I've been doubtful about myself in all the 11 years I've played here so again I asked well how do you think this athlete did well probably didn probably he didn't do that well, is the answer. Well, do you want to feel this way?

Do you want to have doubt at the games? And they say, no, no, I don't. Because again, if I have doubt, I won't do very well. And this particular athlete is Rafael Nadal, talking about the French Open. So when I use examples like that, the light bulb starts to go on. Hey, you know, it's okay to have unpleasant emotions. It's perhaps normal to feel that way. And I can actually skillfully work with those emotions.

I take in charge of my attention rather than changing my feelings. So it's really important for me to communicate to the athlete, you don't have to change your feeling or your thoughts for that matter. What you want to do is be aware of the thoughts and feelings that come up and then take charge of your attention. Excellent. Excellent. I love those examples, Peter. So taking charge of your attention and being aware of those thoughts and feelings. Maybe tell us a little bit about as people are listening, they might think goodness you know how

how do we do that um what would you say the kind of the first step in being able to do that especially at the olympic games and and my guess is you have to practice this uh very often before the olympics uh yes this is a practice right I usually start with a simple exercise, right? I pull out a stopwatch and I ask the athletes, once I hit start, no more thoughts. Okay? And the moment the first thought pops into your head, just raise your right hand, tells me you're done. Then they laugh a little bit because it's kind of silly, but let's give it a go, right? I hit start.

And within seconds, the first thought will pop into your head. All right, stop. Okay. So in seconds, the mind has produced a thought. So what I'm trying to get across is the mind is a thought and emotion producing factory. That's not the problem. The problem is if we get caught up in that thought and emotion producing factory, and if we think, we should change it. Rather than, can I just notice, here is thinking, here is feeling, okay? Here's the thought, it feels like the gallow, I'm about to be hung, got it, okay? Now what do I do with my attention? So what I'm talking about here is formal mindfulness practice, where I practice noticing what's on my mind, and I practice putting my mind where it needs to be.

I want the athletes to do formal mindfulness practice, and I also want them to practice mindfulness informally in their sport. So every time they engage in their sport, they can practice mindfulness informally by, again, noticing what comes up and then putting

their attention into the task at hand. So what about those athletes, Peter, who might be really overwhelmed with anxiety or frustration? Do you get any pushback in terms of if, you know, if they feel those emotions at the Olympics or at an international competition or an important competition, are they able to, you know, direct their attention back to where it needs to be? Or tell us a little bit about that. Well, again, this is where practice comes in. Right. Jon Kabat-Zinn has this wonderful, wonderful quote, and I paraphrase here, is that mindfulness

is the work of digging trenches. And unless you dig those trenches, the big moment will overwhelm you, right? So we want to practice this. And again, I want to normalize, I want to normalize this experience of unpleasant emotions. So what does it feel like when you're overwhelmed? Where do you feel that in your body? Right? Is a question I might ask. And then again, we'll come back to the practice and one of these sort of skills of practice, the idea of dropping an anchor, right? Dropping an anchor in a storm, in our case, dropping an anchor in an emotional storm doesn't make the storm go away, but it holds you steady. So I'm not interested in making the storm go away

as opposed to can I hold myself steady by dropping an anchor, noticing what's going on, and then taking charge of my attention. And Peter, where do they typically direct their attention to? Tell us a bit about that. Well, there's always something that they direct your attention to. That's the beautiful piece of this, right? So as you and I speak right now, right, you direct your attention to what I'm saying. The moment you do that, I'm present.

Let's come back to the Chris Hoy example, right? Feels like the gallows the moment before the race. He is describing his emotions prior to the final in an event called the one kilometer time trial, the 1K on the track. So in track cycling. So in track cycling, you race against the clock. It's you against the clock, right? He was the reigning world champion, which means he gets to go last. Well, if you get to go last, you see everybody else's time.

And three of the last four guys, they all broke the Olympic and the world record. They were super fast, right? When you see those fast times, guess what shows up? Well, uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. Hence, he's like the gallows. So what does Chris Hoy do as he sits in the saddle? He says he listens to the clock counting down. So listening, I can focus on that.

As I listen, I'm present. He says he gripped the handlebars on the bike. Well, as I grip the handlebars, it's a tactile sensation. I can focus on that. As I focus on gripping the handlebars, right, I'm present. He says, I stood up on the pedals. All right? So he can feel his feet pressing against the pedals.

I can focus on that. And then again, he goes back to listening, listening to the clock counting down, nine, eight, seven, and so forth, right? As I listen to that clock counting down, I'm present, I'm in the moment, and it's much more difficult then for the thoughts and the feelings to get in the way

because I give my mind something to do that's relevant to the task at hand. Absolutely. So I like that example that he's feeling it in his hands and feeling the tactile sensation, as you were suggesting, and then getting back into the present. So there's always something to focus on, right? There's always a task to be executed. The task might just be seeing, for example, or again, in our case,

hearing, like listening to each other. And the moment I do that, I am present. So let's say, Peter, you might introduce this topic of mindfulness or this mindful way of being and performing and maybe even living, right? Tell us what the next step is for an athlete. How do they work to practice this more often before the actual Olympics or a big competition? Yes, there's two ways to practice, right? One was called formal mindfulness practice, where I might engage in mindful sitting, using the breath as an anchor of attention. I might do mindful walking, using the sensation of movement as the anchor of my attention. I might do mindful eating, using the sensation of eating as an angle of attention, right? And there's informal mindfulness practice

where I use an everyday activity to notice what thoughts are present and as an angle of attention. I can use the shower to practice mindfulness, for example. So in the morning, when I step in the shower, right, before going to work, my mind always travels to the office. Mm-hmm.

I can notice that and come back and just be in the shower, just notice the water in my back, right? It would be one way of informal practice. For athletes, what I want them to do is bring this mindful attitude to their sport, to their practice. So, at practice, and then also always at competition, can I notice what thoughts and feelings are showing up? And then can I practice putting attention where I want it to be? And again, come back to an athlete example is Novak Djokovic in his autobiography,

Serve to Win, talks about doing formal mindfulness practice 15 minutes every day. Okay. So mindful sitting, focusing on the breath, noticing when the mind wanders, come back to the breath, right? Okay. So he does that in a formal way, so formal mindfulness practice. But then he also obviously takes this into his tennis practice. And it is perhaps my all-time favorite athlete quote, okay, from Rafael Nadal. Nadal says in his autobiography, what I battle hardest in a tennis match is the quiet devices inside my head

to shut everything out but the contest itself, to concentrate every atom of my being on the point of playing. If I made a mistake on the prior point, let it go. Should a thought of victory suggest itself, crush it. So this is a perfect, perfect description of A, what's going on in the mind of an athlete, and B, it's a perfect description of mindfulness in sports. What I battle hardest in a tennis match, he says,

is to quiet the voice inside my head. Now, the other understands there's an internal dialogue going on in our head, right? Because again, the mind is a thought and emotion is a factory. My job as an athlete is to not get distracted by the internal dialogue.

So he says, I want to quiet it down and turn down the volume, right? Well, I do that by concentrating every atom of my being on the point I'm playing, as he's putting it so poetically, right? So he's talking about concentration here. He's talking about attention. What do you attend to as a tennis player? Well,

most likely seeing the tennis ball, right? That's a great anchor of attention for a tennis player. Then he goes on, if I made a mistake on the prior point, let it go, right? So a mistake tends to keep us stuck in the past. It's generated thinking, right? I want to let that go again by coming back to the present moment. Then here's the thing, the really interesting one is for us in sports psychology, should a thought of victory suggest itself, he says, crush it. Right. Well, why would you want to crush a confident thought? Because thinking about winning is a confident thought, right? Right. Well, Nadal is wise. He knows in the moment that thought of victory is about the future. That won't help me play the next ball, right?

So he's very deliberate to even let go of thoughts of confidence and come back and concentrate every atom of my being on the point of playing. That's really good. So Peter, I'm hearing that example focused fully in the present, not on the victory, not on the confident thought, not on the future, not on the mistake or the past. What about the people who are listening and are thinking, well, gosh, maybe in sports agagio we've heard that a confident thought is, you know, it's powerful

because it might build your confidence in the moment to be able to do well. But yet Raphael, you know, is suggesting that it's a distraction and not, you're not able to be in the full present moment. So tell us a bit about your thoughts on that. Yes. So I have a bit of a radical position with regards to confidence. Okay. And what I mean by that is, you know, often athletes will come to me and say, hey, you know, can you help me with my confidence? And my answer will be, no, I can't.

Or actually I could, but I don't want to. Why do you not want to help an athlete with their confidence? Because I think we're barking up the wrong tree then. Okay. Because then we're pursuing that you need to have the right thoughts. Right. The right emotion. What I'm saying is you don't have that much control over the right thought

or the right emotion. All right. So, so again, here's an example. Okay. This is not one of my athletes, but it's one of my favorite athletes to just sort of follow in the media. This is the American skier, Nikita Shifrin. Yes, love that.

As an 18-year-old in Sochi at the 2014 Olympic Games, in slalom, her favorite discipline, they have two runs. She's in the lead after the first run. So in the second round, she gets to go last, right? This is her telling this to the media. As she skis down the slope, the thought pops into her head, I'm about to win the gold medal. That thought is full of confidence, right? But as she has that thought and entertains it, it disrupts her concentration and she almost wipes out. Now, fortunately, she is so skilled that she noticed,

hears thinking, come back to skiing. She's able to quickly, quickly refocus, focus back on skiing and no longer caught up in that thought, right? So that thought at first sight, super nice, right? Very pleasant, but it's a distraction. Very often prior to competition, right? Athletes, they want to be confident. But sometimes what those confident thoughts do is they actually allow you to sleep and you get ever so slightly a bit complacent. Take the Super Bowl a few years back between the Falcons and the Patriots. And the Falcons, I think they were up 21-0 at halftime

and I think 28-3, three quarters into the match, right into the game. You could watch those players and they looked supremely confident. They did, for sure. the owner came down i think in the third quarter and he was just so happy you could see it on his face they were going to win the super bowl right and the players afterwards talked about too is is you know we thought we're going to win this game very Very confident thoughts, right?

I would argue that perhaps when they were that certain they were going to win the game, their intensity got dialed down ever so suddenly just a little bit. And that's all the Patriots needed. So I'm really interested in not how you think and how you feel but do you notice what you think and what you feel so my colleagues say I'm the meanest sports psychologist out there yeah because I don't I don't care I don't care how my athletes feel I don't care how my athletes feel. I don't care what they think.

I care that they notice what they feel. And I care that they notice what they think. Because once they notice what's present, right, they get to choose what they do with their attention. Absolutely. So, Peter, one question I have that you were just talking about, you know, prior to competition, what might you suggest an athlete that you work with in terms of, tell us a little bit more about what they do prior to competition to get their mind in the present to be aware of what shows up, right, mentally, whether it's pleasant or unpleasant, just to observe, to notice this. And then this is where this idea of a pre-performance routine is so helpful, right?

So every athlete prior to competition has a pre-performance routine. So instead of physical things they do, warm-up, stretching, and so forth, right? And the pre-performance routine is, from my perspective, is this ideal place to anchor your attention in the present moment. So if I'm stretching or warming up or getting my equipment ready, I can focus on all these tasks. And when I focus on all these tasks, right, it's much more difficult for the thoughts and feelings to overwhelm me. Particularly, prior to that, I understand that it's normal to have all kinds of unpleasant thoughts and feelings in the moment. So I want them to focus on their pre-performance routine and be aware of whatever shows up in the mindscape and then come back and get focused on that routine.

So, for example, many athletes will listen to music, right, prior to competition. Right. Well, wonderful, right? So if I listen to the song, I'm actually in the moment, right? And then perhaps my mind will travel again towards the future.

Okay, that's fine. I notice, bring it back, the song right now in this moment. Does that answer your question? It does, yeah. And Peter, do you see that most of the athletes or the teams that you work with, do they adapt the mindfulness idea or concept pretty easily? Or do you see some kind of pushback or tell us about how you see them reacting to what you're talking about?

Well, a couple of thoughts here. When I share these athlete examples, right, like the Chris Hoy example, okay, one of the things that he says, for example, is those final moments are so terrifying. You want to be anywhere but here. Right. Okay. And when I share that with athletes, you can sort of see, it's almost like this relaxation has showed up. It's not just me. Mm-hmm. Okay? So, again, they understand, I think, what's going on here. They can relate to it, right?

But the challenge comes in, for me, is that this is a practice. This is digging trenches, right? And so we're talking about acquiring a new habit for an athlete to practice this mindfulness piece, right? Formally and informally. And to make it a habit. Because then once you make it a habit, you indeed give yourself the best chance down the road, right? But it's not always easy to pick up a new habit. Yes. Yeah. right but it's not always easy to pick up a new habit yes yeah and how long do you typically see where someone is practicing you know mindfulness uh let's say you know formally every day and then informally in practice how long you know do you see that it takes for them to for it to become a

habit uh well that greatly varies right But I think we have some nice research from Amishi Jha, who did this eight-week program with football players at the University of Miami. And I think it was like 12 to 15 minutes over an eight-week period, already had scientific results that were beneficial to these athletes

in how they dealt with the stress of training camp. Also, so if you can get to 15 minutes a day, you know, that's, I think, a great start, right? Right. I see some athletes take into it very quickly. Okay. And immediately being able to implement this in competition. And I see some athletes, they have to practice more, right? It's harder for them. There's no one size fits all, I guess what I'm trying to say, right? And then some athletes, you know, take the athlete, for example, who is a clear medal favorite at the games.

I think for someone like that is, I would sort of advise extra practice, extra work in the trenches, because you can almost guarantee it for those athletes, it gets more difficult the closer they get to that competition. Because the mind is saying, I should win this. It's a done deal. But deep down inside, you know the outcome outcome is uncertain and it's not a done deal. And then again, those uncomfortable thoughts and feelings will arise that will try to hijack your attention. Yeah. And my guess is that some people might need to be reminded to practice mindfulness. I just think about some of the athletes I work with who I've introduced this

idea to, and sometimes they might get away from it they might practice it for a couple of weeks and then you know they don't do you see the same thing Peter yes yes and again like it's actually helpful to practice you know in a group and to hear other athletes talk about how they practice and what they get out of it or don't get out of it. Right. Uh, it's helpful I think to have regular reminders, like maybe an email at the beginning of the week, just to prompt, you know, athletes to practice. Some of the things I've tried with athletes again,

so to prompt them to keep them engaged, right. To practice together. We actually have a room here at the training center that I can use to that end where there's no tables, no chairs, just cushions on the floor. And what do you see over time the benefits of practicing mindfulness in not only formal and informal practice? What do you see the benefits are, Peter?

Well, to me, the benefits are a more flexible mind. Okay, where I can more skillfully relate to whatever the mind has to offer uh in a high performance environment do you have any recommendations on what the athlete should bring their attention back to you know you're kind of explaining that the tactile senses and uh feeling the handlebars i think that's what you said in your hands you know is that kind of the best um idea to your attention back to? Or what are your thoughts on that? That depends. Right. And this is where the work kind of gets fun, because it's a bit like a dance, right, with a partner, where actually the athlete, to me, is the expert on where to put their attention to.

One exercise I like to do with my athletes is I ask them to give me a very detailed description of their best performance and a very detailed description of their worst performance. And I have an action plan that called a basic idea. So the A stands for attention, the B for behavior, the A for affect, emotions, and so forth. So I've worked myself through these different modalities to get a very

clear picture of what's an athlete like when they're at their best, and what's an athlete like when they're at their worst. And again, the common denominator here always is when they're at their worst. And again, the common denominator here always is when they're at their best, they're really focused. Right. And then I ask them, well, in your sport, what is it you focus on during the activity itself, right? And then they tell me because they are the expert on their sport. All right. And then

when they educate me, then I can turn it around. Okay, let's practice focusing on this. So for the tennis player, right? Again, taking Nadal and Jokowi as an example, is almost always the anchor attention is the ball or the hand of the server when they serve, right? So there, the anchor attention will be visual. If you're a diver, right? If you're an Olympic diver,

it's going to be a little bit different, right? Because there is going to be a mixture between the kinesthetic sense, so what's happening in your body, but also spotting the water in the sky, right? So they spot with their eyes, they see where is the water, where is the sky, right? That then triggers certain movements. So it really depends on the sport. And I want to use the athlete's expertise in that process to have them educate me what you focus on, and then can we make this a conscious process? And Peter, you know, when you think about your

implementation of mindfulness and just being at the core of what you do. Tell us about that process where you came to this realization, or has this been something that you've always incorporated since your doctorate there at Boston U? No, no. This was an evolution for me that began, well, it goes way back, right? But this is not something that I was taught in grad school when I was at grad school so back in the 90s long time ago to me it sort of crystallized itself at the Olympic Games in my experience working with athletes but I had one had athletes who were very confident seemed to be you know on a clear track for a medal and then something changed in the competition.

And that change brought forth a change in their emotional state as well. And I thought that traditional sports psychology tools simply weren't enough to prepare the best for that moment. So I felt like something else was needed. Okay. so I felt like something else was needed okay so we I thought you need to train awareness and you train then your ability to take charge of your attention and mindfulness offered that right and so so as I went sort of along in my career as I started digging deeper into mindfulness and you know reading more about it it, getting more training in it.

It just became clear to me that this, for me, this is the way to go in my work with the athletes. It's my job to help them prepare the right way. I think that it's necessary to take a mindful approach to this and to dig the trenches, right? Because otherwise, I'm not doing my job the right way, I felt based on my experience working with athletes at the games. And Peter, how many years ago was this? I started to make this change starting in the first athlete I worked with. The mindfulness was in 2000.

Then in 2002 kind of got slapped in the face at the games, same in 04. And then I said, okay, I'm going to change now. I'm going to do it really differently. And what do you see in terms of the differences in the athletes and teams that you work with since implementing this change in your own work? Well, I think the difference I see is greater consistency in being able to produce your best performance at the games, irrespective of how you feel. Excellent, excellent. And I'm sure, Peter, you have a mindful practice.

Tell us about that or tell us about how you might incorporate this into your own life. Because there's some people who are listening who might not be athletes or coaches or sports psychologists that are just interested in mindset. And so I think we can also help make the connection to how this can be implemented into your everyday life and maybe your work or your business or the way that you do your work. Well, yes. So, yes, I do have a practice, right? So every day in the morning when I get up, I try to sit for, you know, 15 minutes to half an hour, depending on how much time I have. So that's the formal practice.

And then I always try to practice informally throughout the day, right? So when I, for example, meet with an athlete, it's really important for me to be present. Right. And focus on the athlete. So that's when the informal practice comes in. Because again, in my mind, thoughts will come up. Thoughts that can take me away from the present moment. Can I notice those thoughts and come back and be present?

So it obviously applies to my work as well, but also to my private life. So when I'm at home with a family and the kids, so we have a meal together, am I focused on being with my kids or do I get pulled into the cell phone? Right, exactly. Can I notice that addictive pull from the smartphone? Because again, once I notice, I can choose not to get into it. So there are obviously all kinds of ways I think what applies in everyday life, not just for elite athletes. on a formal practice and if people have a hard time maybe right when they start having no guidance on how to do it you know is there any maybe apps or recommendations that you'd have on how to get started with the formal mindfulness practice yeah there are a number of excellent apps out there it's 10% happier calm insight meditation is a free one I think the insight timer is free and they have a whole bunch of

free mindfulness tracks on there plus there's a tool where you can monitor how much you practice so it's a nice sort of motivating to see how many days you have of consecutive practice and so forth

waking up from St. Harry's is also a really good course. Lots of stuff. Lots of really good stuff there on the internet, I think. Some of the athletes I work with use an app called Stop, Read, Think. And there's some free meditations there that they like. So that might be another one people can add to their list. Yeah, I don't know about that one. That sounds really good. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, Peter, you and I were on the same panel at ASK this year,

the Association for Applied Sports Psychology about resilience with Mustafa Sarkar, the researcher who does a lot of work on resilience. Tell us, you know, how do you think being mindful connects with resilience? And how do you think what we talked about today connects with that idea of just bouncing back? Well, the way it connects for me is that when you have a setback, all right, invariably thoughts and feelings will show up. And those thoughts and feelings, particularly if they're very judgmental, all right, have the potential to keep you down. So where mindfulness comes in is, can I notice where my thoughts and feelings are showing up in this situation? And then with that awareness, I can understand how those thoughts and feelings might try

to control my actions. And then from this noticing perspective, from this observing perspective, right, I can choose my actions rather than have my thoughts and my emotions choose them for me. And I can use my value system to actually guide my behavior rather than the emotion in the moment. For me, mindfulness is actually crucial when it comes to resilience. Hmm. And I would think that the first step is stepping back and noticing how you're feeling, noticing what the thoughts that you have are and the ways that they might be holding you back

or keeping you down. Right. Yeah. Take Olympic athlete, for example, right? That is a favorite to win a medal. Things don't go well. What do you think the thought that comes up then? Well, the thought comes up is very often is I let my coach down,

my family down, and I let my country down. Well, those are very judgmental thoughts. And heavy thoughts. And heavy thoughts, right? And I think that's a nice metaphor. Those heavy thoughts can weigh you down can keep you down so from a mindful perspective can i just notice okay here are these heavy thoughts interesting wow fascinating right and here's me being weighed down okay and now i can again use

my awareness and my values to choose the next action that might need to get back up. What have you seen in terms of those athletes who are able to bounce back after a disappointing Olympics? How do they respond or how are they choosing to, you know, use their values to bounce back? Tell us a bit more about how they might react to that. Well, one thing that happens there is the ones who ever do it successfully is they can decouple their performance from their sense of self.

So they get to a place where they're no longer defined by their performance. That's the first thing that happens, right? And then again, they come back to a value system. Like most athletes see themselves as competitive. So when you're a competitor, you like to compete. And then you might come back to the Latin root of the word compete, right? It's to seek together. What is it we seek? Well, we seek excellence. Well, in order to seek excellence, I want to compete against someone who's really good, right? I measure

myself, okay? And I use that value to guide my behavior and then again so what's what's an action i can take that is in service of that value well an action is to go back and train and prove right and uh peter i guess one last question i'd have is you know when you just said decoupling their performance with their sense of self do you see that as a as one of the characteristics of of a of a great athlete, is that they're able to decouple their performance from their sense of self and that they're not so wrapped up into their performance as who they are? Tell us a little bit about your perspective on that.

Yes, I do see that as important for the athletes. That's not an easy place to get to, and again, that requires some work. In many ways, it's an ongoing process right so easy to fall into that trap that you know i am my performance right right in fact i'm so much more than my performance yeah how might you help an athlete move beyond that that they are their performance well i think one thing I want to have is a conversation about the difference between goals and values, right? A goal is a destination. Once I get there, I can check it off. I'm done with it. A value isn't a destination. A value is more like a direction. It's not something I can check off. So if I want to be a good dad to my kids, it's not enough to say, hey, I got you a great Christmas gift, right? I'm done with being a good dad. That's not enough to say, hey, I got you a great Christmas gift, right? I'm done with being

a good dad. That's not how it works. I value being a good dad, and that applies every minute of every day, right? And I can have then my behavior guided by those values. So it's very important for me to have a conversation, not so much about the goals, because it's almost a no-brainer, but about what do you value? What's important to you? What do you want to stand for in the face of this, right? And to sort of pose those questions and tease out the values and then use those values to guide the behavior. Excellent. Excellent, Peter. I feel so much more calm just talking to you. I'm pretty high strung typically, so I appreciate this interview. Is there anything that we've kind of missed in terms of, you know, at the base of your work, how you incorporate mindfulness,

or is there anything else that we, you know, haven't talked about you think is important? Well, on this last comment, right, you said I feel so much more calm, okay? Yes. That's nice, but that wasn't the goal. Right? So our goal here was to have a conversation, okay? And because perhaps we were both very focused

and engaged in it, right, right? Calmness settled in. It's a nice side effect, okay? Very pleasant, but that wasn't the goal. And the reason I bring this up is because sometimes when I do the mindfulness work with the athletes, right? They come back the next week and say, I was so much calmer in the competition. Again, that's really nice, but that wasn't what we're after. The reason most likely they were calmer in competition is because they didn't fight their own mind, and they were really good at putting attention where attention needed to be. So again, I'm not pursuing the right feeling.

I'm pursuing a flexibility of mind and this ability to aim attention. Excellent, Peter. I'm going to have to re-listen to this one a couple of times myself. I really, really appreciated your comments and your guidance today and your wisdom. Here are a few things that I got from the interview. First of all, at the beginning when you were talking about that attention is the currency of all, at the beginning, when you were talking about the, that attention is the currency of performance, I think it's a very strong statement. And really what you've been talking about today is being in charge of your attention so you can be in the present and having this outcome of a flexible mind and noticing these uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. I appreciated that you described that mindfulness can be more of like

this formal practice and then an informal practice. I think that's really helpful for people to understand and distinguish that. And then I also appreciated at the end when we were talking about how to decouple our performance with our sense of self and that a goal is a destination where a value is really a direction. So thinking about how you can use your values to guide your action, your behavior. I'm incredibly grateful that you spent some time with us this morning. And I know all the listeners who are listening right now are grateful as well. How might we reach out to you or what's the best way if we have any questions, what should we do? I try not to be found. I know, exactly, exactly, exactly. I get it. I get it. Well, perfect. Is there any kind of final advice or thoughts that you might have for us, Peter?

Well, I appreciate the time to share my thoughts with you and your listeners. I think you're doing an amazing job with this podcast. So I'm envious of what you put out here. So this is great, great stuff. Thank you. Thank you, Peter. 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.