High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 244: Proven Strategies for Peak Performance

Episode Date: April 14, 2019

Joining the Auburn family in October 2018, Dr. Adrian Ferrera provides individual mental health and performance counseling, crisis intervention, consultation and outreach on clinical issues important to student-athletes. He also develops performance enhancement workshops for small groups, coaches and teams.  Dr. Ferrera came to Auburn from the University of Washington, where he served as associate director of counseling and sport psychology. From 2014-17, he was a cognitive performance coach for U.S. Army Special Operations soldiers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. After earning his master's in counseling with an emphasis in sport psychology from Boston University, Ferrera earned his doctorate in sport and exercise psychology, and an additional master's in counseling, from West Virginia University. In this podcast, Adrian and Cindra talk about: His journey to Auburn How he has approached “failure” in his own life as an opportunity Why you should protect your pin number to your confidence bank How to have difficult conversations Process focused - Key messages that lead to Auburn men’s basketball run to the Final Four You can find a full description of the Podcast at cindrakamphoff.com/adrian. You can find Dr. Ferrera at [e-mail]

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, certified mental performance coach, speaker, and author. Now, the goal of these interviews each week is to learn from the world's best, the world's best leaders, athletes, coaches, and consultants, all about the topic of mindset to help us reach our potential

or be high performers in our field or sport now before i head over to episode 244 with the director of counseling and sports psychology at auburn university i'm gonna head over to itunes and read a rating and a review and this one is from karen the Interview Vault. She said, Dr. Cedra Kampoff interviews great guests, just like the one you're going to listen to today. And her favorite is athletes and mindset coaches. She said, I'm training for my first half marathon and really need to focus on my mindset to push through mental challenges and limiting beliefs. I highly recommend subscribing to this podcast. You won't be disappointed. So thank you so much for providing a rating and review, Karen. And you can go ahead and subscribe to the podcast anywhere that you're listening.

If that's on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, iHeart Radio, so you don't miss any episodes. Now in today's episode, I interviewed Dr. Adrian Ferreira. And Adrian joined the Auburn family in October of 2018. And what he does at Auburn University is provide individual mental health and performance counseling, crisis intervention, consultation, outreach on clinical issues important to student athletes. He also develops the performance enhancement workshops for small groups and coaches and teams. He came to Auburn from the University of Washington, where he served as an associate director of counseling and sports psychology.

And then from 2014 to 17, he was a cognitive performance coach for the U.S. Army Special Operations Soldiers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. So he earned his master's in counseling with an emphasis in sports psychology from Boston University, and then his doctorate in sport and exercise psychology, along with an additional counseling master's from West Virginia University. And we talk about several different things in this podcast. First, I asked him just to share his journey to Auburn. He recently came to Minnesota, where I live, and spoke at our regional sports psychology conference.

So I asked him to share a little bit about how he got to Auburn. He shares different ways that he got kicked in the face, which I really appreciate his realness. And then we talk about different proven strategies for peak performance. The first one that he talks about is how he approaches failure in his own life as an opportunity. So listen for that. The second proven strategy he talks about is related he approaches failure in his own life as an opportunity. So listen for that.

The second proven strategy he talks about is related to confidence. And he asks us to think about why we would protect our PIN number for our confidence bank. So I think you'll enjoy that. The third proven strategy he talks about is the importance of having difficult conversations. And he gives us some specific ways that we can go about doing that in our work or in our sport. And then last, he talks about his work with the Auburn men's basketball team, who just had a run to the Final Four, one of their best seasons ever.

And specifically, the proven strategy he talks about there is the importance of being processed, focused. So I know that you're going to enjoy today's episode. You can head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, iHeart Radio, wherever you're listening to the podcast and leave us a rating and a review. And we'd love to hear from you. I'm always on Twitter.

We'd love to engage with you as a listener. So you can head over to Twitter and I'm at mentally underscore strong. And if you would like a specific guest on the show, we'd love to hear your recommendations either on Twitter or Instagram. I'm over there as well. Or you can shoot me an email at syndra at syndracampoff.com. All right, without further ado, here is Dr. Freira. I am pumped today to bring you an interview with Dr. Adrian Freira. How are you doing? How is Auburn? Is it pretty warm there? I am pumped today to bring you an interview with Dr. Adrian Ferreira.

How are you doing? How is Auburn? Is it pretty warm there? Hi, Sandra. How are you doing? I am great. It is a lovely 70 degrees and blue skies in Auburn, Alabama today. That's wonderful. And we're getting in the middle of a snowstorm here in Minnesota. So, you know, you never know what April weather brings. Better you than me. Yeah, exactly. So today I'm looking forward to talking to you more about your work. You just joined us here in Minnesota for our Regional Sports Ecology Conference. And so I got to know you a little bit more there. And I'm really looking forward to diving into your work and sharing some nuggets and some insight with the listeners. So to start us off, give us a little bit of insight about your passion and tell us a little bit about what you do right now.

Awesome. Well, number one, just thank you so much for having me. It's great to be on the show. I've listened to a couple of the podcasts as well, heard some of my colleagues and people who I admire as well on the show. So I'm privileged to be here. So thank you very much. Of course. When I think about my passion, I think it's kind of very simple for me where I've always enjoyed just helping people and seeing people grow and develop.

I think when I'm at the college level, I get to see student athletes who come in at 17, 18 years old, they're going to leave 21, 22 in that four years, sometimes three years. I can see like so much development that happens in a short span of time, or for some people it feels like it's ages for them. But I love to see freshmen come in some of the struggles or trials and tribulations they may have some high points, low points, but then also like when they get to that graduation point as well, or if they have the opportunity to go pro it's like, okay, great.

Like that's awesome as well. I take joy in those moments. To tell you a little bit about my work now at Auburn, I'm the director of counseling and sports psychology. And here we do performance enhancement with our athletes, but then also handle the mental health aspects as well. I oversee a staff of two currently. So myself and Dr. Nicole Lennon, who was here previously before I got here.

I've been here for the past, coming up on six months, so time is running out. It feels like it's been going slow at the same time. But I love what I do. I work with athletes and coaches probably primarily throughout my day. Don't do any research, no teaching. It's all the applied work. So a lot of one-on-one meetings with our student athletes and then also some team presentations as well. Wonderful. Outstanding. So tell us a little bit about, you know, your journey to get there. And what I love that you spoke about at our regional sports psychology conferences,

you know, that it wasn't always easy, right? and I think sometimes people here you got these big high profile jobs Auburn you know that uh that we don't realize that that it took a lot to get there so just tell us a little bit about your journey to get there at Auburn. Oh definitely 100% I think when I was at the conference that I think the phrase that some of the students who were there they mentioned to me after it was like oh it's great to hear that I may get kicked in the face. Love it. I think that was the theme. And it's been a theme of my life or like my journey as well, where I found out about sports psychology in 11th grade. And there I was committed to the track of like, okay, undergrad

for psychology, played basketball at the University of Luverne, which is a small liberal arts college in Southern California. I think I applied to about five schools. I got rejected from four and then somebody at Boston University, Dr. Len Zajkowski and the staff there, they actually took a chance on me. I was like, holy smoke, got kicked in the face by four others, but like one person or one university like took that chance on me. Knew I wanted to do my PhD. So as I'm finished up the one-year program at Boston at the time, this is back in 2006, I applied to PhD programs. I think I applied to five as well and then got rejected from all five. It was like one of those eye openers. Okay. Like here's an

opportunity for me to grow and figure it out where I left the country at that time. I had a friend who was down in New Zealand working on his master's so I got to live with him for three months and then just kind of worked my way and staying in sports I worked a couple youth sports camps while I was there did a guest lecture at the University of Auckland and then retook the GRE again for the third time and finally got into PhD programs that I applied to again and then I actually had the opportunity to go to West Virginia was one of those places as well. So loved it there. And from there, once I graduated, I started working with the United States military special out population out at Fort Bragg, was there for about two and a half years, and then got to work at the University of Washington for about a year and seven months with one of my good friends, Dr. Cassie Pasquarello. And then I was there for about a year and seven months. And now here I am

at Auburn six months into the job and loving it. Love it. Well, a few things that I'm thinking about after just hearing that first, I didn't get into my number one graduate program, you know, and it kind of came full circle for me a couple of months ago because I interviewed the director on my podcast, you know. And I told him, did you know that I didn't get into your grad program? And he said, you know, I've been following your career for a while. Just you're really complimentary. But, you know, it kind of just shows you that you can be resilient. And even if it doesn't work out the first time, you know, you stuck with what you wanted.

And I could imagine that's what people saw in you. And I'm also thinking about, you know, just your career in the last five years, I think it also reflects a lot of resilience going from the military to Washington, and now, you know, Auburn. So what do you think has been important in your mindset, you know, in terms of being able to deal with that transition and just being adaptable despite, you know, moving across the country, North Carolina to Washington to Auburn? When I think about my mindset, it's, I always kind of had like the, I don't want to say the end in mind, but more so the purpose. I knew of what I wanted to do. I knew that I wanted to work with athletes and do either more individual, more teamwork. So I was like, okay,

how do I get those opportunities to do it? And I think a lot of that started for myself when I was in grad school or maybe, yeah, I think probably in grad school, even when I was at Boston university as well, where I started doing the work. I was a student athlete mentor when I was as an intern at Northeastern University in Boston. But then I also worked with Youth Enrichment Services, which is an inner city sports camp and sports organization for kids in Boston. And I took them snowboarding and taught them other life skills. And like that was where I started

doing the work when I was at West Virginia, had the opportunity to work with a sports team that was there, but then also knew that I wanted more. And because I think I shifted and I started working at the career counseling center as well. And I did my internship and practicum there, but I think I started working basketball camp as well. I think that was a shift where I've always worked basketball camp when I was an undergrad. But this was like a slight twist. Once I did one basketball camp, I had Billy Han, he kind of signed off on me. He was like, I don't know like who you are. But like you do good work. I was like, okay, great. And he was like, the champions on my side. So but the next year comes around. I want to do basketball camp. But then I also talked to Billy and I say, Hey, I also want to

do like this mental skills training program with our campers as well. He was like, sure, go do it. So from there, I just continued like building on what I was learning within the classroom and also with working with the college sports team, but then now teaching it to younger athletes. So just continue like building that, I guess, like, I don't want to say a resource, but just building my resume of my body of work of what I've done. And when you think about like, when you said, you know, just keeping the purpose in mind, you know, that helped you be resilient, despite, you know, the changes and moving across the country. Do you mean like your purpose? Do you mean the purpose of what you do? Say more about that. I think it's the purpose of me. I? Say more about that. I think it's

the purpose of me. I've always had like this calling of I'm supposed to help people. Yeah. I don't know where it started. Maybe it was in high school where people would always ask me questions or ask me for advice or guidance. I'm like, why are you asking me? Like I have no clue. And I think along with it, not to sound sound pompous but I think I have this gift of kind of just making things simple for people um I I think I do that within the counseling and therapy work I do with our athletes now like how do I take this big problem and just narrow it down to really what it is and the way my brain works is I'm very solution focused and just like okay what's the outcome that we really want with this thing? What are we really trying to get to? And what's the work that we have to do to get there?

My dad has always talked about like, make sure you have a plan of what you're doing. So I think a lot of that came from him, but I think also like my faith plays into it as well. When I think about my transition where like, I just try to be anxious for nothing. Yeah. like I just try to be anxious for nothing yeah no where I think we teach our athletes these skills about how do you manage like your anxiousness or like the the thrill of the game of what's going on and we can like make it bigger than what it is but like really I'm just I'm just here to like be a guide like I'm a small piece in this entire universe or within this world, however people may see it. And my purpose is just impact one person for the day or like the next person who I see always be

a good person. Absolutely. And how does like anxious for nothing, because I think that's a really powerful takeaway from what you just said. How does that play in, you know, maybe your own mindset and maybe your work with the athletes that you work with there. Cause that's really powerful. Like, I think what you're saying is, you know, there's no need to be anxious. You're just like one person in this big universe. Right. I think it always goes back to in the sports like, well, we always talk about control and controllables. Right. If I can't control it, why should I worry about it? Number one, right. Why should I worry about something I can't control so I just have to think about okay things are going to happen what can I influence what can I

impact and let me focus on those things like all the other things that are happening in the world like I don't need to worry about all it's going to do is give me more stress more anxiety and then I'm in this bad cycle of negativity and I it was going to be harder to get out of it so that's why I think about that like even as I was going through graduate school and on this journey as well like I think it's given me just a sense of peace to know that there's a higher power out there for me where things are going to happen the thing is going to go bad things are going to go great as well I think I was talking with I was talking with Nicole earlier and trying to figure out this analogy of like, we're all, we're all going to get dealt cards if we're playing a card game, right? We have to decide what we do with those cards. We get to fold them. We get to play

them. We have to think about the best strategy possible to like win the game. There's going to be times where we're going to lose, but guess what? We get another hand. Okay. Here's like another cards that I'm dealt. Okay. How do I figure out what's in my hands and play those cards appropriately? Like if I get anxious at any time, I'm just going to be giving away more energy, wasting time and it's not productive. So how do I just focus on what I have and then use those to the best of my ability? Love it. Love it. Outstanding. One question I want to start with kind of, as we dive into a little bit more about your work. You know, you've told us a little bit of already about the journey you've been on and how things haven't gone perfect. Right.

So I always like to start with a question about failure because I think it helps you like relate to the person. And so. So, Adrian, tell us about a time you've been kicked in the face and what you learned from it and what we can learn from it as well. Oh, man, there's been multiple. So, and I think the way I look at failure is completely different. Like, I don't think I fail, really. I just think there's opportunities for me to learn. I think that's hands down, like how I just think where, okay, I just learned something. How do I learn from this event that just happened? I think one of the big ones that really stands out to me and really clicked for me when I was in graduate school at West Virginia, where I was also working at the Career Counseling Center and some of my dissertation work was on student-athlete career development. And there was a job that came available to be the director of career development within an athletic department at a very prestigious school.

Okay. I get the opportunity to go there and I'm like sky high thinking this thing is going to go great. And then I sit down in the interview. They have my resume in front of me and then they ask me the first question. And literally I freeze. And I don't have the answers to the question and I'm like I I don't know what is going on right now I know the answer to this but I don't know the answer and the question that asked me was literally they wanted to know about my research that I did in undergrad this is back in 2006 when I did that, my senior thesis. Okay. Mind you,

I think I did this interview maybe like 2012. Right. So six years before. Six years before. And I'm like, wait, like I haven't even touched this. And I've done so much other work like before that. And I think from there, I struggled to recover. The next question they asked was about my research in 2007. And I was like, wait, what? I didn't prep for any of those questions, but it was on my resume. Sure. I should know this. I'm working in a career development center. Like people are going to ask you what's on your resume. Like, oh, like, like, what are you doing, Adrian? And here I am, like trying to interview for a career development job and then from there um just other questions where i stumbled and then my i get a buzz in my suit jacket and it's my phone oh no i'm like who's

calling me at this time and i thought i'd turn my phone off but apparently i didn't as i checked the voicemail later it's my mother-in-law calling me saying hey I wish you the best on your interview but even at that time right like I know the buzz is happening but I'm focused on the buzz yeah someone asked me a question at that same time yeah and you missed the question I missed the question so it was like all the skills we talk about being in the moment being present I did none of that so it was like, like I knew that if I got the job that it'll be an act of God. But I talked with the head of the committee of the search committee after that, maybe like a week later. And they said like, right when I left that first meeting, and even though I had extra meetings to go to, they knew that I wasn't their person. I was

like, man, okay. But it was like, if this happens, like, I don't know what's going on. But I knew at that point, I kicked myself in the face. So I think that was the one that hurt probably the most because I didn't focus on the things I was doing at West Virginia in the Career Development Center. It was a reminder of there's still work that I have to do. I did some things, but I wasn't ready for that job yet, which was okay. And that's why I say I don't think I failed. It was just like an eye opener. And I had to learn from it. And, and I think I went back to West Virginia, and then started just doing way more work and trying to become a liaison to athletics as well, within some of the career development work. And it was like, all right, cool, let's hit the ground, let's run and let's go and figure it out. Absolutely. And I think, you know, that my phrase that I use a lot is like how things happen for me, not to me. And it's really hard in the moment to see like, okay, that happened for me or that happened for you because it made you, you know, go back to

the career development center and really help you kind of hone your craft, right? And it's really hard, I think, in the moment to see that maybe there's a reason for this, you know, to teach you something or help you get the job you're supposed to be in now and not take that one. You know, it's like, you never know, but how did you rebound from that? It was good to just take that feedback as well. I think some people can shy away from the feedback, but I just, I took it as a loss. Okay, great. Let's see how I can learn from it. I don't think it was anything that hung my head about. It was one, I still have a job. I'm still in grad school and I know that I'm marketable and I think that goes

back to like my purpose as well and I know like what I'm doing and why I'm doing it maybe it was a shot and a risk for me to take that opportunity but I'm glad I took the shot because if I did it like I don't know what would have happened and I can just sit here and wonder like okay like should I have done it this is gonna be like this this would be great I would have been at this university and it's like no so I'm glad I took the shot going to be like this. This would have been great. I would have been at this university. And it's like, no. So I'm glad I took the shot. I think it's just like anyone who in a game where we talk with our athletes or in business

where something may not go our way, we have to like rebound from it. Absolutely. I think part of it is having that mindset of continue to go forward. It's only one. I think I talk about this with my athletes as well, where their lifespan is so long,

maybe they're going to live to 40, 80 years old. Like the one shot you took, it doesn't define you. The one shot you missed, it doesn't define you all the time. It's one part of what happened in your life. There's many ups and downs that you're going to have, but just realize this one is only one. Well, and I go back to your analogy of cards. Like we're all given a set of cards and we can decide what we're going to do with those cards. And I think it's those moments of adversity or rejection or failure or, you know, a big mistake where you have to really search inside you and decide what you're going to do.

Yeah, it's a decision. I had a similar situation, similar but different, but I interviewed for a job right after grad school that my dad really, really, really, really, really, really wanted me to take. And yeah, no pressure. You know, it was like his favorite school of all time. And, you know, when I told him I was interviewing, just this big old smile, like so proud of his daughter. And I knew like in the first 30 minutes when I got there, like it wasn't the job for me.

Like it just wasn't a good fit, right? What? And you probably still had more meetings to do as well, right? Yeah, right, right, right. Yeah. And I remember just having, it was a really big struggle for me that weekend telling my dad it wasn't, you know, wasn't the job. So when you think about like you work with a lot of top performers. So Adrian,

when you think about those who can deal with maybe the pressure, I think it's a lot of pressure at that level, maybe, you know, being confident in their abilities. What do you think separates the best from others? When you think about the people who can really thrive at the highest collegiate level? That is a great question. I think some of that ties back to my time working with special operations soldiers or those trying to be special ops soldiers. I think one of the things that sets them apart is they really know their craft. That is a big piece of it where they really understand the basics of what they're supposed to do.

And they do the basics very well. As I was at Fort Bragg and I got a chance to observe soldiers and see how they did, what they did. And in my eyes, I'm looking at it. I'm like, Whoa, like, how did you do that? That looks so cool. And then they'll turn to me and like, Oh, this is just basic. I'm like, what?

They're like, yeah, like this is basic is basic and we're gonna drill down the basics so we make sure we know it backwards frontwards sideways left ways whichever way it's gonna happen so whatever may present itself they already know how to respond so they've been training at that high level and they've really mastered it and they understand the craft i think the same thing with our athletes here the ones who like really put the work in and put in their time they're really good um and and they're able to separate i think even when we talk about failure as well they're able to see like it's not happening to me it just happened okay so how do I process it and they have ways and strategies to cope with it and they how do they use it as learning opportunities I think that's one of the biggest things where I see with some of our athletes who are like super

successful here which is many of them and and I think one of the things I've been talking about with some of them is how their sport is not them. Yeah. Like, if I fail, maybe on the mound, or I miss the shot, like, I'm not a basketball player. I'm a person who plays basketball. Yeah. I'm a person who plays softball or who runs track. It's not my full identity. It's only a piece of my identity. So when I do

mess up or I fail, it doesn't hit them as hard, but it still allows them to realize that it wasn't their best. And how do they continue to, I don't want to say go back to the drawing board, but go back to the drawing board, continue to work on their craft and go forward. As opposed to I took a hit and now my ego is destroyed. Why do I even go play my sport anymore? I should quit and hang it up. Wait, what? I think that's one of the biggest separations that I've seen. And a lot of our athletes have played at a high level

and played against the best competition for a lot of their life as well. So I think it just puts them in a different category. Yeah, and I think it's – I'm interested to hear about your reaction or their reaction when you talk about that, because you think about how, you know, maybe the way they got to Auburn or to the military or to Washington or wherever, you know, they had to really dedicate a lot of time to their craft and getting really, really good in their sport and how it can become so much a part of your identity. So what's the athlete's reactions?

Do they get why, you know, maybe when you're so invested as sport is your identity, that's when your ego is tied in? You know, what's their reaction to that? I think a lot of them get it where it hits home or it's that light bulb moment for them. It's like, oh, like, because sometimes no one's ever asked them that question or they've just always been seen as an athlete or that's what's highlighted in the media all the time. Even if I think about our our final four run that recently happened. Yeah. As I went to practice, there's just so many more cameras here.

Yeah. And yes, they're in the gym. But I think I heard that there were some cameras also like going to classrooms and just seeing other parts of their life. But most of what we saw about either the Bryce Browns or the Jared Harpers is going to be them playing basketball. But how often do we see the other things that they do in their life? We never see that. And even like some of the kids who look up to our athletes, I see them at games like the fans don't go to see them in class. Right. No. No one goes to see that, but that's another piece of who they are. And, but we just magnify and glorify the sport aspect of it so much. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's one thing I

wanted to ask you about. Tell us a little bit about like your involvement in basketball there. They had, you know, a historic season going to the final four. I was cheering for him as I was watching at home, but I'd love to hear what you think it took to get there, like from a mental standpoint. And then, you know, there's just such a big stage and so much pressure, you could feel the pressure, you know, so much adversity to cope with. And, you know, these things that, you know, are kind of what you said, maybe a little bit more involvement in your life than just you know regular season so tell us about that yeah I'm not sure how much I had to do with it to be honest I got here right when the season started um but I had a privilege to be around them a lot and some of the things that I just observed which was pretty cool to be privileged to

is one just our staff that we have and our support staff as well and just Bruce Pearl like I think his mission was the same throughout the entire season where we're one of the few teams who probably plays like eight to ten guys a game so with that there's only 40 minutes in a basketball game and all of our athletes are pretty good who are on our team so a big thing of what he said at the beginning of the season was we want to make sure we're playing our best basketball in March. So I heard that as that's a very process oriented, like how do we just focus on the process?

What are we doing right now to continue to mold and shape each other and to continue to have that buy-in and trust with one another? The other part was how do we put our egos to the side because since we're playing eight to ten guys, that doesn't split up 40 minutes very easily whatsoever. Yeah, for sure. So there's sacrifices that have to be made, right? And there's sometimes that somebody off the bench

may have to show up more than one of our starters. Late in the season, we saw that Chuma Okiki went down with an injury, but then we still continue to go forward. And people are like, how are you guys going to do without Chuma? But no, we, we can, we've done this all year. Other guys have stepped up into big roles and they, I think they fulfilled the roles is what they're supposed to do. Everyone is not going to have the opportunity to start,

but those people who are not starting, they knew what their role was and they contributed, and they contributed when it meant the most as well. So I think that's a big piece of it. And Bruce Burrell always talks about, like, one person is not bigger than the other. And it's documented. If you guys go through any of the interviews of things that he's talked about this year, it's like we have a bigger purpose as well.

Like, this is only basketball. So I think he also sets that stage of it's only basketball and what are we doing to like really impact the greater society in the greater world. If we can show that I can sacrifice my ego for the big for the betterment of the team, and how many other people can learn from that as well. Yeah. It's very powerful. Yeah. Yeah, very value-based. You know, like how can I show up for the betterment of my team, being a good role model for others, you know?

So what did you watch in them in terms of their ability to believe that they could get that far? But then, you know, once they got to the Final Four or even the games leading up to the final four you know there's millions of people watching on tv so what did you see them do in terms of you know maybe the mental skills that they used or their ability to stay composed like that's what i was most impressed with just watching the final four in general because there was some you know controversial calls and all those kind of things that are outside of your

control I think those are like those are the big pieces of I think you said it right where just keeping your composure we know the way we play number one like we know our we knew our purpose I think that ties back to that so we know our purpose and we know how we play we're not focused on so much how the other team is going to play, whether it's Kansas and Kentucky. We have to trust what we do. And if we can trust what we do, we can execute that way better than worrying about, like,

we've got to make sure we do this for this team and this. Like, no, we've approached every game the same. Like, run our system, run our offense. I think a lot of the commentators were trying to wonder, is Auburn going to do it differently when they play Virginia because Virginia has a slower pace but Auburn's so fast paced we just played our game that's all I think that's one of the biggest pieces of pieces of it and with that when we played our game part of that is we just continuously fought all year there was doubters that we had throughout the season but but we just fought. And I think they did a good job of just trusting the people who were in their

locker room and their staff and really did a good job of like blocking out the outside noise. Yeah. Yeah. There can be a lot, right? That can distract you from your purpose. I think they did a good job of just managing one, the expectations. And then they also just believed in themselves that they could do it yeah yeah i agree yeah and you know when i think about um belief and confidence you know i know i know you've said before that it's like a fragile thing and that's one thing that i see as well that even even the athletes in pro sport i see that they have to really continue to be in touch with their confidence because it can, it can waver.

Tell us about what your thoughts are on that. And like, how do you build the confidence or trust in yourself despite that it can waver? In myself or with some of our athletes? Either way, maybe both answers to both of that. Some of the, some of the analogies is thinking about like your confident bank right so if we think about currency like you go to work i go to work every time i go to work

i'm gonna get paid right and then i use that money to go buy whatever i want or pay my bills or do the things that i need to do when we think about confidence and athletes the work that they have to do is their reps So you have to put the reps in number one, you can go watch people play a sport or do your sport. And yes, you can learn a little bit vicariously from them. But if you don't put it in the reps, it's going to be hard for you to be confident as you go do that task. I kind of break it down and make sure you do the work. Reps is one observations. It's just like like film yourself there's so much video and everyone has an iphone or android or some type of video you can always go back and watch film and study

and continue to learn grow but then there's a another aspect of taking feedback as well some people i think they get either discouraged when they get feedback because it's like too harsh or Not being what they want to hear. I started talking with our athletes that feedback is only information We used to label it as good or bad or negative or positive. It's just information So if we just take the information and use it the way we need it and that's how we get better So so when you do the work, which is your reps, your observation, or you're taking the feedback, take all those things of what you've done and you put that in your confidence bank. Right. So whenever you have

a slump, there's uncertainty or there's big games. Like what do you draw back to? You go to your confidence bank. You can go make a withdrawal or you can just like check your, you can check your bank account. Right. I see my bank account and that shows me how much money I have. You can go make a withdrawal or you can just like check your bank account, right? I see my bank account and that shows me how much money I have. I can go back to like my confidence bank and I can see what I've worked on. For some athletes, their confidence bank may be in a journal form and they actually get to write down like all their workouts that they've done, the reps that they put in, the time that they put in, or some people put it in their phone, in a note where they can like briefly glance people put it in their phone in a note

where they can like briefly glance at it check at it some people may look at it maybe before a game or competition or a meet just like a quick fix and like remind like hey i'm good here's what i've done i worked i belong here maybe some of those even positive self-talk as well but then with the fragile part of it you see where someone may not have the best game or a coach or a parent may say something and it's like, oh, all my confidence is lost. I'm like, really? It was that easy? Like it was that easy for someone to take your confidence? So even if I ask you this question right now, Sindra, like you have a bank account, right? Yep. Can you tell me your pass, your pass

code for your ATM card? For my ATM card at my bank? No way. Why do you not want to tell me that? Oh, because then you might take all my money. Oh, so I may like take all your confidence. Same way, right? Like, yes. We have to think about that. yeah it's so easy for someone just to come into my bank of confidence and just suck it out and take all my monies out like that makes absolutely no sense so there is a pin code that everyone has that we are told never to share with anyone so i think that's the other part with our athletes that are trying to teach them is yeah you have to put that barrier around your bank why is it so easy for mom and dad or coaches or the internet and social media just come in and suck your confidence out? Like that shouldn't be it. So

you have to protect it in some way, shape or form. So everyone can just withdraw from it. I love that. I love that. When you think about other things that might impact confidence, like I think about how self-talk and just the way that you're talking to yourself, how are you making sense of events that have happened? And I was reading this weekend, I was trying to figure out where I read this, but I can't, I can't locate it. But it, this author was talking about like, would you allow someone you're dating to talk to you the way that you talk to yourself? I was like, that's so good. Like you would never allow whoever you're dating or who you're married to, to talk to you the way you talk to yourself. So, you know, I think that has a big impact on confidence as well. What do you think about that?

Oh, I agree with you a hundred percent. I have a whiteboard in my office, which I think is, I think pretty unique. Some people always ask me what's the whiteboard for it. I'm like the right people's lives on there. We can talk things things out we can actually see it for some athletes i'll have them like write down all their self-talk that they have yeah and then i kind of think like logically okay like this these are all the things that you say i suck i'm the worst i i can't do this i shouldn't be able to do this what type of performance does that usually leads you for you right and then if you take all those sayings of what you're saying to yourself do you usually perform at your best or your worst as they add all those statements up it was usually like their worst performance sometimes and it's like okay like if we know that we want better performance

what things should we be saying to ourselves so we kind of start at the end of, I want to perform well. What do I need to hear? Let's add those things up. Let's write those on the board. Let's figure those out. And how do we maximize the amount of times that we can hear those things as opposed to all the negative aspects of it? Yeah, that's really good. How do you get them to describe negative things they might say to themselves instead of the positive when you're asking that question? I think you just ask really like, Hey, what do you usually say? Or like, what do you typically say? Or what have your coaches heard you say? Or what have like their parents heard them say,

or sometimes their partner or people who may be close to them. I think in this age where I think we do a lot of, I want to not feedback, but yeah, there's a lot more coaches meetings that athletes have with their coaches. So they have those opportunities to hear what's actually like happening from like another perspective. Sometimes as athletes, they may never have thought about it. So even when I just asked that question on the front end, it gives them a second to really just think about it. I don't know what I said to myself. Okay, great. Part of your homework for this week is when you're at practice or your competition, when it's over, like make note of some of those things, or if you have a break, like take note of it. So then we can actually discuss it the next time around. Awesome. Awesome. So we've talked a little bit about confidence, how it's fragile. What are the things do you find yourself kind of talking to the athletes about when they come in, you know, when you, when you maybe just share with us a little bit about what

you see them struggling with in general. And then, you know, what are some other things that you might just hear yourselves talking about a lot? Within this age of either texting all the time or posting things on either any type of social media, I think communication has been lost where I find myself talking with athletes of how to have, which I think they perceive as difficult conversations. But in my mind, it's just a conversation. It's only difficult because I haven't done it often enough. So now it's harder for me to do. Right. So some of these conversations that they can have can either be with either

partners, siblings, coaches can be with parents. When I think about either coaches, like athletes may struggle with playing time. Like I'm not playing enough or my coach pulled me out of the game or my coach said this and I want to address it, but I don't know how. Yeah. out of the game or my coach said this and I want to address it, but I don't know how, how do I go talk to my coach about this? Or how do I talk to mom and dad about this? Or how do I talk to my partner about this? So I think that's where I try to walk into like, how do we have a conversation with another human being? Right. So when I think about, if we use the example for

maybe playing time and the athlete want to talk to their coach okay some of the big things that they have to think about is one timing you have to think about the timing when do you approach your coach is it right after the game do you take a day to think about it put your thoughts together and then go talk to your coach because if it's like right after the heat of the moment right probably not trying to hear that at that time maybe they're not ready like the coach isn't ready right so even with timing you may have to craft an email or a text message say hey coach i would like to talk to you maybe about these couple things and give them some time to digest it as well so they're

also prepared for that meeting because i think some athletes are maybe maybe scared or even youth athletes, maybe they want to have a conversation with their parents, they're not sure how it's going to go. So it's always that uncertainty. Right. So with that, there's also uncertainty on the other person's part for either coach or parent. So make sure they're prepared as well. The last thing they want is anything to blow up in their face. Tone is also a big part of it. Oh, for sure. That is a big piece of it. And sometimes we always hear the saying, it's not what you say, but how you say it.

Yeah. I can say, oh, I love you. Or I can say, I love you. Like, that's not usually how people say I love you. So just thinking about what's your tone going into that meeting. And then also think about what do you hope to resolve once you leave that meeting and kind of have that plan. I think those are some key things that I think about. And also when people get to that meeting, they should have probably prepared ahead of time. So if you got got to like practice with one of your

friends or we always talk about imagery within sports psychology if you got to visualize yourself how that conversation is going to go how people are going to react plan for anything that could happen or sometimes you know the tendencies that people usually have so you got to plan for like some of those tendencies as well and have your contingency plan. On the opposite end, I think about coaches or parents or loved ones who know that someone's going to have that hard conversation with them. I think in positions of power, people do a great job of saying, if you have an issue, come talk to me. If you want to tell me something, talk to me directly about it. But if someone comes to you and they tell you something directly, I don't want to hear it. So it's like this complete opposite. But we also

have to realize that if someone's coming to you, one, it may be hard for them to do it. Like hands down, it could be difficult for them to do. But you've also told them to come to you. So we have to remember, if we want behavior to continue, we have to reward the behavior. So in that position of power, when someone is coming to you and they're being direct, you should probably like start with, thanks for being direct with me and coming to me. Like I've asked, I appreciate it. Absolutely. Right. Because I think that also just changes the mood for the entire conversation. And that's also like what you've asked. But if they're met with resistance or defensiveness, the likelihood of them coming back for another

meeting or trying to be direct with you probably diminishes tremendously. Absolutely. Just thank them on the front end, be appreciative. Second thing is probably just listen, listen to what they have to say before you butt in. And then when you do want to respond, we talk about this in sports psychology and counseling is how do you summarize what you've heard and to confirm that that is what you heard. So a way to do that is, so what I hear you saying in your conversation is this am i correct because

if you're correct great you're spot on you show that you've been listening you're tracking everything they're saying if it's a no okay maybe you have been listening but you heard something a wrong way but it also gives that other person the opportunity to actually clarify what they meant and now we're actually having dialogue and discussion as opposed to a one way conversation. And I think once people kind of get over those hurdles and even continue to reapply that method of, so I hear you saying this and correcting, now we get to have some of that dialogue and that's where the conversation,

I think the hardest part for people in the conversation is starting the conversation. Then we start to have a better conversation. There's flow to it. There's common ground. There's understanding. I think that's some of the things I talk to some of our athletes and even coaches through as well. I think about how, you know, you're talking about difficult conversations and I liked your strategies, you know, like as a person who needs to initiate or wants to initiate the conversation, you said like timing, give the other

person time to digest, like may tell them what you're going to talk about, what you want to talk about, consider your tone and then plan, right. Plan for it. I think about how not just can athletes use that, but I mean, I have difficult time having difficult conversations, you know, and I've been at this for a while, but sometimes, you know, when it's really important to me, you know, that's where it becomes more difficult, but I like what you said about how it's difficult because maybe I just haven't done it enough, right, or I haven't done it before, and so there's so many different populations that can relate to what you just said, right? Not just athletes and coaches, but I think it's like business owners, you know, it's people working, working out there in their careers that have to have difficult

conversations to maybe even parents. Yeah, 100%. I even think about just a little bit self disclosure. I think about my marriage, like me and my wife, we figured out that after 10 p.m so yeah the timing we don't have difficult conversations at all like it just doesn't go well for us so we think about that like okay it's getting close to 10 o'clock we should probably not have this conversation we're probably both tired uh so let's move on for another day and then we're even mindful just about our tone i think about how i say this to her, how is she going to receive it. She knows a little bit about my tendencies as well. And we've even discussed that, hey, if you say this to me in this manner,

I would probably hear it differently as opposed to if you said it like this. Because sometimes I know when I get questioned, it just puts me on the defensive. But if she were just asking my thoughts about it so she can understand it, I'm like, oh, that's like so much more welcoming. Absolutely. I like engaging in the dialogue. Absolutely. Great example. Because it is relationships, right? Any relationship, you can use those strategies that you just mentioned to have the difficult conversation. And I like what you said about being ready for it on the other end, like being ready to listen and then confirm, you know, is this is, this is what I heard so that you can seek to

understand. Well, Adrian, before I kind of wrap it up and tell you what was helpful and what I loved about the conversation, do you have anything else that you want to share with us for sure? When I think about your, your audience and the listeners, and it sounds like there's a variety of people in your audience, either business owners, graduate students, people in the field, I really think about just doing the work and keeping it simple. I think that's some of the things that I really try to hone down for our athletes, but even myself. I think some people may look at my career and they're like, how'd you get to Auburn so fast? But I feel like I've done the work. Yes, I've had some opportunities, but I've also like been kicked in the face a long time ago. And many times I'm sure I'm getting kicked in the face

of Auburn sometime here. But you really just have to trust your purpose. I think is a big piece of it. That's awesome. Be anxious for nothing. And really just do the work and like, keep it simple. It doesn't have to be bigger than what it really is. I think sometimes in our minds, we can blow things out of proportion. But how do we really just take a second and think about it? What is it really? All the things we talk about in sports psychology and just go out and trust it. I think that's part of my process of what I do. So I can really say I trust my process. I know what I've done. So I can be more confident.

I can go to my confidence bank and like I can show you journals of things that I've done. Everyone doesn't see those, but I know they're there. Absolutely. That's what really matters to me, you know, and what I do in my work is really not who I am. It's just, it's my work. And I go home and I'm a dad and I'm able to separate. I'm a dad, I'm a husband, and I just do this work. It just happens that sometimes it parallels like things that I do in life as well. Outstanding. And so, you know, before I wrap it up, I think I'd have one follow-up question to that is like, how do you think when you say like, my work is not who I am, how does that help you in your job or how does that help you be a better performer?

What do you think about that? Yeah, it's like, this is a job. At the end of the day, it's a job where I don't know like how long I'm going to be here. As you've seen in four years, I've lived in three States already and had three different jobs. I thought I was going to be at certain places longer. I really think it just helps me sleep better at night where I know I go to work, but like work is not me.

Yeah. Helps me separate my life just a little bit more where yes, I'm invested in to work, but like work is not me. Yeah. Yeah. It helps me separate my life just a little bit more where yes, I'm invested in the work that I do when I'm here. But I think that also goes back to like being present. So I'm work when I go home, then I means that my kids are not getting the full person who I am. Absolutely. Who I am. And I'm just consumed with work. When I'm at work, I do work to the best of my ability. When I go home, I'm trying to be the best dad, the best husband as possible. So, and when I go to sleep, my wife always jokes that I never hear our kids when they wake up in the middle of the night. I go to sleep and I'm like, don't worry

about it. Love it'll go back to sleep. Love it, Adrian. Well, thank you so much for your time and your energy today and taking time out of your busy schedule to connect with us. And here's some things that I, if I could summarize it today, I really appreciate what you talked about related to your confidence bank and how you wouldn't give anybody your PIN code, right? So why do you also let other people impact your bank that way in your confidence bank? I appreciated what you said about the final four

team there, the men's basketball team at Auburn and how they're really process focused and they really put their ego to the side. I thought that was like a really good take home point for like what led to their success. And then when you talked about that we all have this set of cards and that we have to decide or we can decide what we're going to do with those cards. And even in moments of adversity where you feel like you're getting kicked in the face, that you decide if you're going to trust your purpose, which I think is an awesome final way to kind of summarize today and trust that that you're there for a reason. So how can people reach out to you if they have any questions or comments or just want to connect with

you in some way? Gotcha. You can reach me by email by Dr. Adrian Ferreira. That's just D-R-A-D-R-I-A-N F-E-R-R-E-R-A at gmail.com. I really don't use social media. So if you happen to find me on social media, don't be offended if I don't respond back. Just probably shoot me an email. That would probably be best. And if I don't respond to your email immediately, I apologize in advance. But if you want to send me a gentle reminder, not a harsh one, that would be definitely appreciated. And I'll try to get back to you as possible.

I'm really a human connection person I think one of the best emails I received this year was a young man in a graduate program and he asked me if we can have a conversation for seven minutes oh wow there we go not 10 not 15 it was seven minutes and when we had that conversation um as we got to the seven minute mark he started to wrap up the conversation i was like oh okay cool this is great so we had seven minutes but i was enjoying the conversation i gave him an extra seven so we went for almost 15 so like it was great loved it nice and is that what is that one of the reasons why you said seven minutes because you knew it wasn't going to take like three hours? Or do you think that's a tactic?

It was so easy. It was like seven minutes. Yes, I can give you seven. Can I give you an hour? Probably not. That's so hard. But I can give you, yeah, seven. Got it.

Let's go. Let's get to the point. Let's move on. Excellent. Excellent. Well, Adrian, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm grateful for your time and wish you the best of luck there at Auburn. And have a great week. Thank you so much, Cinder. It's a pleasure to be here. 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 Cinder's free weekly videos, check out drcindra.com.