High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 267: How to Lead with the Heart, Dr. Jerry Lynch, Way of Champions

Episode Date: August 5, 2019

While most would consider him simply a sport psychologist, Dr. Jerry Lynch is a coach, mentor and teacher who guides and coaches athletes and parents to explore the meaning and purpose of sport.Dr. Lynch has a deep calling, one where his success is not measured by "making a living" but rather by "making a difference". He is the author of 13 books in as many as 10 languages. Dr. Lynch is the founder and director of WAY OF CHAMPIONS, a performance consulting group geared toward helping others master the inner game for peak performance. He maintains a private practice and an extensive sport psychology consultation service for athletes, coaches and parents around the world. Several of his clients have participated in various summer and winter Olympic Games. Most recently, he has established a consultancy with Steve Kerr, head coach of the World Champion Golden State Warriors. In the past 30 years alone, he has been part of 54 Final Four and 36 National Championship at the collegiate and professional levels. In this podcast, Jerry and Cindra talk about: What he has learned from the world’s best leaders and coaches His RIVER acronym which represents human needs How we can each win the day Why leadership is a relationship game 3 strategies to build others up 3 reflection questions he suggests we each ask

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, and thank you so much for joining me here today, ready to listen to episode 267 with Dr. Jerry Lynch. Now, if you know that mindset is essential to your success, then this is the podcast for you. And thank you so much for joining me.

My name is Sindhra, and I am a certified mental performance consultant, speaker, and author. In today's episode, I had a delightful conversation with Dr. Jerry Lynch. I read one of his books several years ago, studied it page by page, and it was just an amazing conversation to have with Dr. Jerry Lynch today. So let me tell you about Jerry Lynch. While most people would consider him simply a sports psychologist, he considers himself a coach, a mentor, and teacher who guides and coaches athletes and parents to explore

the meaning and purpose of sport. Now, Dr. Lynch has a deep calling, one where his success is not measured by making a living, but rather by making a difference. And I think you're going to be able to tell that in today's conversation. Jerry is the author of 13 books and in as many as 10 languages. He is the founder and director of Way of Champions, a performance consulting group geared towards helping others master the inner game. He also maintains a private practice and does extensive consultation with coaches, athletes, parents, and performers all around the world. So several of his clients have participated in summer and winter Olympic games. And in this conversation, we talk about

his most recent consultation with Steve Kerr, the head coach of the world champion Golden State Warriors. So in the past 30 years alone, he's been a part of 54 Final Fours and 36 national championships at both the collegiate and professional level. And in this conversation, Jerry and I talk about the things that he's learned from some of the world's best leaders and coaches. We talk about his river acronym, which really represents our human needs, how we can actually each win the day. He talks about why leadership is really a relationship game.

And then we talk about three strategies to build others up and three reflection questions he suggests that we ask ourselves. My favorite part of this interview is when we talk about love and how we might not think love really fits with sport, but he says, quote, love is magical and when you feel love, anything is possible. All right, without further ado, let's bring on Jerry. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. I'm really excited today to welcome Dr. Jerry Lynch, one of the people I've been following for a long time. I have several of his books, one in front of me right here that I've read front to back, Jerry,

called Thinking Body, Dancing Mind. So Jerry, I'm really excited to welcome you to the podcast. I am so honored and privileged, Cinder, to be asked to come and speak with you. That means so much to me. And that book that you just held up, this morning I was talking with my co-author, actually. He's in China, and we're getting together in November to celebrate the 30th anniversary of that book. Wow, I can't believe it's been 30 years. I can't either. Yeah, I've been, I found it to be fascinating and really helped me inform my work in the field and so I'm grateful for all the work that you've been doing and sometimes you don't even know the impact that you're making, I think, you know, until times like this when you know that practitioners who are doing the work are

reading your work and it's informing what they do. So I'm grateful for the work that you've been doing. That brings chills to me when you say that. I'm so blessed. Thank you. Thank you. So Jerry, tell us a little bit about how you came into the field and your development of your philosophy in the field. I came into the field at the age of four. That's awesome. I didn't want to prepare anything, right? But I did. I've always been a gym rat. From the time I'm four or five years old, I remember my brother bringing me to the gym. And I remember the dust and the smell of the gym. And I always felt comfortable there. And I have great memories about being in gymnasiums. And, you know, up through

high school playing three sports. So I always really related well to people in athletics. I get it. I understand the language and I understand the cultures. And so when I got into psychology, it was pretty generalized into a clinical format. And I got my doctorate, my PhD, and actually when I finished, I dropped out. And I dropped out of my profession for three years because I didn't love it. Okay. I liked it, but I didn't love it. And I have a rule of thumb in my life. And I pass this on to my four kids, which is, you know, there's only one mistake you can make in life. And that is to not follow your heart. And my heart wasn't into it. And I decided that I'm just going to wait. And I picked up some menial jobs with a Ph.D., you know, waiting tables and things like that.

And I did that for a few years. And I read a Sports Illustrated article. And on the cover, it said shrink of the drink, shrink of the drink. Yes, that was the title of it actually and what that was was it was somebody in the university of iowa's name was gene gorin who was passed long past since now and gene gorin was a psychologist at the university and he was this is way before like sports psychology became popular right and he was helping the swim. So that's the drink in the pool to perform at higher levels. So it was the shrink of the drink. And I read that thing and I said, oh, wow. OMG. I contacted, this is before cell phones, internet and everything else.

And I got on the phone to the department and I called him and he said, oh, I was in Boulder at the time. He said, I'll be out to said, oh, I was in Boulder at the time. He said, I'll be out to Boulder. I'm having a conference there in three weeks. Let's meet face to face. And that was the beginning. Wonderful. And I was sold. I was sold at that point. And then one thing led to another. And, you know, I started getting connected with different people and reaching out and constantly networking and finding out how I can help people. And it all came from a place of wanting to make a difference. And I was frightened about making a living because

I was told you wouldn't be able to make a living as a sports psychologist. But I said, you know what, it's just fun. I love it. And I'm making a difference. So I'm going to keep doing it. And I did. And I'm happy to say that, yeah, I did make a nice living and, and continue to, but I continue to make a difference. And that's why, that's why I do it. And that's why it's so important for other psychologists out there to realize that if you're going to do this work, you've got to want to help people. I mean, really help people and put aside everything else

and just make that difference and change the status quo, which is what we're all doing. Absolutely. And I know that you can make a living in this field. I think that's one of my pet peeves when people say that you can't take a lot of hard work, but obviously you've been doing that phenomenally for many years. So Jerry, was your training then in clinical psychology? Or tell us about what your training was in and then how you sort of developed this approach that you have now in terms of working with the teams and clients that you work with? Boy, you asked such amazing, global, pertinent questions. We're not going to have enough time, are we? I know, maybe not. We'll have to have you on for a second time.

Okay, I'm open to be continued, right? Right. Yeah, so my basic background formally, I mean, in psychology was I did a lot of clinical work. So I have a dual degree in psychology and the dual degree is partial clinic and partial school because I couldn't make up my mind what I wanted to do. I wound up doing neither. But so I wanted to make sure I had both going on so I could walk into a school district and say, you know what, I can serve this population, or I could set up a private practice, or I could go into a mental health center and say, I can serve your population. But then I realized once I got out there, the first year,

after the first year, I dropped out because it wasn't me. It wasn't my love. And I didn't have passion for it. So I went into my training mode of running and competing, got back into that. And that just reignited my passion and my love for being around athletes and the whole scene, everything, everything about it. And I was a international competitive distance runner. I was sponsored by Nike and, uh, I did that for as long as I could and then, uh, had to get, uh, I guess serious about a profession. And I, that's when I read that article. And I realized, okay, I can get back into this on this way. So I did all,

I just read like a crazy person, just kept reading and reading and talking to people and learning. And then I went back and did some studying in different places. I've done some work with these different cultures and philosophies. And I started to see in my own running that, for instance, the Tao, the Tao Te Ching says, one of the passages in the Tao Te Ching says, we lose yet in this way win. And that was written 2,500 years ago. And I'm thinking to myself, yeah, you know what, I just lost that race, but I learned so much from it. I'm a better runner because of it and a better competitor. I guess that's what they meant. You lose, but yet in this way win. And sure enough, the philosophy of the Tao and Buddhist thought just jumped off the pages

at me. And I said, I could help people really understand this stuff. And I can get it translated so that we can use it for Western sports. And that's how that came about. And very, very fortunately, I moved to Boulder, Colorado, and started training there. And I met a wonderful man, John Visveda, who was a professor of Chinese philosophy.

We would go for five-hour runs, picking berries off the bushes like the Taoist, observing the water streams and the high country. Okay, so I'm getting a little romantic with this, but this is really what feeds me. And this is what created this deep passion, because I was really deeply connected to it personally. And then along the way, I wrote to this wonderful man, Jung Leong Au Wong, and he's well known in his own right. And he was very close friends of Joseph Campbell, very close with Alan Watts. And so I wrote to him and I said, I have this idea for a book.

Tell me if I'm crazy and shoot holes through it, right? This guy's an expert. And he got back to me in four days. And he said, Jerry, he said, your concept, your idea for this book is brilliant. He knocked the socks off me. I get tears in my eyes. Just thinking about that 31 years ago, telling me that I had a brilliant idea. Never thought of my ideas as being brilliant. And one thing led to another. And it was he I wrote the book, Thinking Body Dancing Mind. I wrote the book, he did the calligraphy, and he hooked me up with amazing publisher Bantam Books. And once that book was launched, my life changed forever. And it was that book that you held up that was my third

book I had published two books without him but that was my third book we went on to write six books together and I want to write several more I now have like 13 books in more than 12 languages and that book was just that's why I am where I'm at right now. And, you know, I hear stories that you're telling me often, and it's so humbling and reassuring that I'm on the right path. And it drives me to continue to make a significant difference in people's lives where I can. Absolutely. And I think this approach that I'm hearing is that is really informed by Eastern thought. And when I read the book, Thinking, Body, Dancing, Mind, that's also what I took from it. You know, that maybe this less traditional way of being informed and thinking about maybe mindset from a different perspective.

So how would you give somebody who isn't familiar with that approach, like how would you describe it to them? And how do you think that informs the way that you do the work? Okay, let's start 30 years ago, because I've been at this for over 45 years. So 30 years ago, I got introduced to a team and a coach asked me if I would be willing to work with them. Well, I was kind of hesitant because it was all new to me. And I really truly didn't know what I was doing. I wonder sometimes today if I do, but I think I do. But back then, I certainly didn't know what I was doing. But I

gave it a shot and I gave it all my all and my heart. And we wound up winning a national championship. And it was like, I'm going to score this, you know. And so one thing led to another. Since then, I've been with 115 championship teams. And I've learned a lot and a ton. So what I do is I learn what I need to know so that I can go back and teach you what you need to know in order to work that you wish to do, which is to make a difference in the lives of these people.

I quickly began to see that working with teams was no different than me being a father with four children working with that team. And, and, and what I wanted to do, my, my most important work is my family. And it is truly, if I screw up with my family, then all those books I'm writing are a sham you know that they're meaningless really if I can't do it in my own life so so I'm looking at my family I'm looking at that as an organization I'm looking at as a team and I thought wow if I can create a functional team at home maybe I can create a functional team on the basketball court or on the pitch or in the pool or wherever it is. And so I start to see the parallel between that. Now I'm going off on

the tangent, but I've got a point here. And that is anyone, to your point, anyone out there that's interested in the work I'm doing, this latest book that I just published, it just came out this week, Cindra, it's called Win the Day. And the subtitle is The Ultimate Coach's Guide to Building and Sustaining a Championship Culture. And I've got 12 Hall of Fame coaches there. Steve Kerr at the Warriors knows something about winning. From the Bulls, San Antonio Spurs, to the Oakland team, the Golden State Warriors. He writes a forward to that book that's just astounding in terms of his journey and what he's learning. I really encourage people to look at that book because honestly, I could retire now, which I'm not going to do. But if I retired and I handed that book into anyone that has the question, how do I do this work? And that's to your point. And how do

I get this stuff done? You read that book. It's a template. It's like I bared my soul in that book. That's my heart and soul. It really is. It's probably my best book because it's totally from my heart. It's not other people's stories. It's my story based on live experiences from these 12 Hall of Fame coaches like Steve Kerr, Anson Durant, who I worked with at Carolina, won 22 national championships, Cindy Timschel, who won eight national championships. You know, I have an interview in there with Pete Carroll, with Brad Stevens for the Boston Celtics, Bill Walsh going back with the 49ers, on and on and on. It's a hall of fame. And what I've done is I've taken all of their ideas that are related to the work that I'm doing and I brought them

together. And that's the template. And basically I say, if you're interested in doing anything like I've done, you have a book now. You don't need me. And you can do that. And you're not going to have the same style as I do. You're going to have your style. And that's what's beautiful. And you can take that book right now. And I give everyone permission to take that and to really discover what the cutting edge is all about and what great coaching is all about and how it all boils down to the relationship game. And that relationship game is what all the great coaches are talking about these days. Because the only way to win the basketball game is to win the relationship game. If you don't have that relationship with others, then nothing happens.

And truly nothing happens. And whether you're a corporate CEO or whether you're a leader of a church group or you're a professor or an athletic director, you need to know this. You need to know what I've learned. Because it's not Jerry giving. I'm not giving you Jerry. I'm like a I tell people I'm like a, uh, I tell people I'm like a hole in a flute, you know, and the breadth of these great coaches and the breadth of these wise people, even from 2000 years ago, from the philosophies that I lean on, that breath is coming through me and my, the hole opens up and then that's what you get okay love it i'm

i'm not at all unaware of the fact that uh these brilliant ideas in this book are not jerry lynch basically it's jerry lynch gathering this stuff and and i've used them and and ah well you know the one thing i'm going to do after we get off the interview is go buy that book. It sounds amazing. So tell us a bit more, Jerry, what, what you're saying in terms of, what did you learn from them in terms of the relationship game? Tell us about the kinds of relationships that these, you know, high level of coaches have developed and how they developed them. Yeah. I, what a great question. So relevant. Gosh, I love what you're asking. And the thing is that these coaches are all telling me, I mean, they hire me into work. Like I work with Steve because he knows that I have something to offer him. But meanwhile,

I'm all ears and learning from him. Let me give you just a quick example. Like one time I was at a game and he was talking to Steph Curry on the sideline. And I'm listening intently with all the noise and everything else. And I see him give Steph a pat on the butt. And Steph goes into the game. And the last words out of Steve's mouth is, I love you, big guy. Awesome. Now let's use that as a launching pad.

The greatest success strategy of all time in building relationships is love. No question. When the great iconic coach, John Wooden, was retiring from UCLA basketball after 10 national championships, everyone shoved a mic in his face and they couldn't wait to get an answer to the question. So coach, what do you attribute your success to? And he said, guys, it's not going to take long for me to tell you that it's real simple. I had a lot of love in my coaching. And if you just hold on for a second, in our unconventional way of doing these podcasts, This is the book that I'm talking about. Love it.

This Steve on the cover. Jerry's showing it to me. It's beautiful. I thank you so much. Like I said, my heart is into this book. But Steve is one coach, but let's get back to your question, which is brilliant.

I'm going to turn to page 212. And in 212, it's love, the greatest success strategy of all. And there's a quote. I open up every chapter with a quote. And this is Phil Jackson, who's a friend of mine. I've had relationship with him over many years. And it says here, it takes a number of critical factors to win an NBA championship, talent, creativity, intelligence, toughness, and luck. But if a team doesn't have

the most essential ingredient, love, none of those factors matter. And so love, you know, this book here, it's about connection. It's about caring. It's about unity, closeness, giving. And as you know, in your personal life, love is magical. When you're loved, the world's your oyster when you feel loved anything's possible and this is true of athletes and it's a question of honoring them respecting them communicating with them listening with them so the relationship game what I do in this book is I teach the specific strategies that are successful with these coaches that I have learned in my own life and my own coaching. And by the way, I'm only halfway there. You know what I'm saying? Right? I mean, I got a ton to learn

about this relationship game, but I didn't want to wait till the end. I wanted to do this now. It's enough. It's enough. I have enough in here. And so this idea of love, it's not a romantic idea of love. It's the capacity to open up and be present and be available and be vulnerable. Right. You know, to be vulnerable, to show up and be seen and be real and authentic and genuine. That's Steve Kerr. That's Anson. That's Dean Smith. That's Pete Carroll. I mean, that's who they are. And we can be that way. It's a choice. It's something we can control. And in this book, Win the Day, I effect. And the river is an acronym that I made up. Because I love the river. You know, the Tao is the water course way. You know, you follow the water.

It's flowing. You're not forcing and pushing and making something happen. You know, as a sports psychologist, you don't go in and force and push yourself on people and tell them you have the answers. You go in, you blend in with what's going on there and you offer your heart and you open up and people start to listen. Because when people feel the river, I'm going to marinate you in the river right now, okay? Okay. What does river stand for, Jerry? That's exactly what we want to come to. So I'm going to marinate Cinder in the river. I'm going to bathe you there. I'm going to baptize you in the river. And the river stands for

when I work to make you feel relevant, R, I as you feel important, B as you feel valued, E as you feel empowered, and R as you feel valued. E is you feel empowered. And R is you feel respected. Sindra, here's my question to you. When you feel relevant, important, valued, empowered, and respected, what are you willing to do for me? Anything.

Everything. And anything, anything, everything, you know, especially if I'm feeling that from a coach or a leader, if I'm feeling that from my teammates, even as I'm thinking, as I'm listening to him thinking about my parenting. Right. I know you wrote another book. Let them play about the power and the joy of parenting. So I'm applying it to that as well. Right, exactly. So what you just said is spot on. So when I walk into a room like the San Jose Earthquakes, it's an MLS soccer team. Okay. When I walk into that room, I have athletes in there from seven different cultures, seven different countries around the world speaking different languages, I can't communicate in English to all of them. But what I can do is communicate with my heart. Absolutely. And when they feel, which they do, when they feel the river, and I go out of my head and into my heart, and I stay there,

they can feel the connection, the caring, the love. And guess what? Just like you said, when they're feeling that way, they're going to go the distance. Yes. They're going to work harder. They're going to be more loyal and a whole host of other things will happen. And that's true of you and me and anyone listening to this podcast. It's think about your life when you're feeling equals function. You function at a high level when you feel fantastic. It's up to the coach. You know, I'll walk into that room next week, my conference in Denver, we'll have over a hundred coaches from four different continents. I'll walk into that room and they're going to feel who I am.

They're not going to hear what I'm saying. Absolutely. It's, it's, it's not important what you say and what you do. People will forget, but they will never, ever, ever forget how you make them feel. And when they feel that way, their function is much higher. So Jerry, what about the coaches who are saying, yeah, that sounds really good, right? The river and be relevant, important, valued, empowered, respected. My guess is that some of them are saying, well, how do I do that? What know, what do you see that the best do besides the way that you just kind of described, like they show up from their heart instead of their head, which I think can be really difficult for some people because, you know, being vulnerable is what you, in one

word you said, I think it's difficult for leaders to be vulnerable. So what's a way that you might start? And then, you know, like, what do you see the best of the best do? Okay. So again, I want to make it real clear to those people listening here. I do not need to sell another book in my life. I have sold more than I ever need. I don't need another job. I don't need more work. I got plenty of stuff. I'm telling you that in this book, I, I, I bore my heart. I, that question is answered. This book is filled with techniques and strategies. Awesome. You become vulnerable to be more genuine and to be, there's a whole chapter on authenticity, how to be more authentic. It's not what you're going to do when you walk into that team. It's how you're going to be. And my suggestion, real loud and clearly, is you've got to be yourself. And you've got to embrace, you've got to love yourself first.

While you're at it, love yourself. Because if you don't, there's no way in this world, you're going to be able to demonstrate love to other people. So what we do is we look at these strategies, and I'll give you an example, and then people can decide whether they want to go further or not. Perfect. Specifically strategies, what I do is I use the rule of one. This is just one example of many in the book. The rule of one is this. I tell coaches, if you want to establish that relationship game, then what you do is in the book. The rule of one is this. I tell coaches, if you want to establish that relationship game, then what you do is in the beginning, one day, one athlete, one comment. Today, you're my athlete, Sindra, and I just saw you today. And so today, what I'm going to do is I'm

going to do the rule of one. I'm going to say, you know what? I love the work you're doing. I could not do my work without you. And I'm so glad you're a part of my team. Then I leave you. I don't have to tell you that for another three or four weeks because you're going to just like, oh my God, coaches really, you see what I'm saying? Absolutely. And then tomorrow I'll pick another athlete.

And the next day I'll pick another athlete. And the next day, I'll pick another athlete. And if I have a staff of coaches, we'll get all the coaches to do that. And we'll all be able to hit every one of these kids with these kind of comments. When I was in college, I was a C student. I'm not defining myself that way. I'm saying that's what the outcome on the scoreboard was in my major, which was English literature, by the way. And I had an English teacher who came up to me one day after I wrote a paper. Mind you, I have all C's in my major. And he said to me, Mr. Lynch, you really can write awesome right one time yeah person me one day yeah you still remember that now

yeah right and and i just finished my 13th book and and i believe i can write you know so it's amazing what you can put into the into the soul and the spirit and the heart of these young people by just making that one comment because the power of your influence is so strong it's never neutral your influence is like outrageously powerful and and so i use the rule of one to your point how do i do I do this? That's an example. And there are more. There's the love example, L-U-V. Right?

That's how I, L-U-V. Listen is L. U is understand through questions. And V is to validate them when they give an answer that really makes sense. And it's in the direction that you want to bring them that's love excellent yeah you know one thing oh the whistle when you see someone doing something right see the whistle has become this awful thing around the neck of a coach and and they

blow the whistle when something's going wrong. And I'm saying, blow the whistle for two minutes every practice and just catch someone doing something right. Awesome. So powerful. Jerry, one of the things I wanted to ask you about was failure. And I have lots of different tabs in your book right here. Again, first one I read was Thinking, Body, Dancing, Mind. And you have a chapter about fear of failure. And here's a part that I highlighted. Okay. It says, feeling failure is shameful, creates unnecessary anxiety, tension, and pain. Failure cannot be avoided. The greatest of the great have failed at times and so will you. When I think about what you're talking about really, you know,

with coaches and your new book, Win the Day, how do you think that the best coaches, and maybe you could even describe athletes or performers, but how do you think that they approach failure? The athlete, the coaches that I work with will hire me because they want to get out of the trap, out of the box, out of black and white thinking. They want to think outside the box. And that's why I get hired. So it's a setup for success for me all the time. So I know going in that these coaches want a new way of looking at outcome, performance, results, whether you're failing or succeeding even.

Because I have a whole thing about winning versus success. You know, John Wood never talked about winning, never. But he talked about success. And so to your point, when we're talking about these kind of things, I know that the coach is open and receptive and is willing to be vulnerable because this is who I am. And they know that by hiring Jerry, this is where we're going to go. You know, it's like if you hire Brene Brown. Right. You know, you know, you're going to be talking about vulnerability. Yes, you are.

There's no way around it. Right. And so, you know, you're going to be talking about failure when you're, when you're working with me and, and, and fear and all of that. So what I do is I, I educate the coaches. We do coaching clinics. We do coaching seminars. I do one-on-one coaching. I have coaches that call me once a week, all during their season. And so I'm on the phone with the coach for an hour once a week. And the subject that you bring up comes up all the time. And basically what I'm trying to tell them is, you know, fear is the number one cause of all athletic problems.

That's it. The opposite of that for me is love. Love is the greatest success strategy. But the opposite of that, you can't simultaneously have love and fear going on at the same time. You can't. Think of the last time you were afraid. You're not at all close to the idea of love, which is giving and opening and sharing and being selfless and all of that. You're afraid. You're afraid you're not getting enough. You're afraid there isn't enough. You're afraid you're going to lose, look silly, let your team down, let your coach down, let your family down. You're afraid you're not going to make the team. You're afraid you're not going to

get enough minutes. You're afraid you're not going to win and all of that. So fear itself is the cause of all, not one or two, all athletic problems. So when an athlete comes to me, if they're bringing some kind of a problem, I know before we even talk that the umbrella is fear. It's fear-based because if we're love-based, there wouldn't be fear. And okay, so I know that fear is going to happen. And it's true in life as well. I mean, sports is just a microcosmic classroom for all of life. And I love it for that reason. Everything that happens on a basketball court in 40 minutes, all those emotions happen in most people's lives within the span of four weeks, for sure. But anyway, I'm getting off track with that. So, so, so this idea of fear, fear is an interesting word and I don't know where I read this, but I'll

pass it on to you. FEAR is an acronym too. And FEAR stands for false evidence appearing real. Yeah. And yeah, you knew that. And that's good. What we what what what these coaches need to know and what the athletes need to know is like when I'm coaching, if I'm feeling fear, you're going to pick it up unless I address it to myself. And when you feel it, you're going to have fear. And so we look to a coach to not have that fear. And fear will weaken you physically. It will weaken you emotionally. And it will weaken you spiritually. The other thing I know about fear is this.

I guarantee you if someone has fear, it's all about results and outcomes. All the time. Yeah. I'm afraid going into the interview. Why I might not get the job and if I don't get the job I'm not gonna have enough money I can't pay my bills on and on and on an athlete the same thing you know I'm afraid to go into the game now why because I might be in a position where I can screw it up and and and do things wrong and on and on and on. And it's always based on outcomes and results.

So the beauty of that, knowing this, I train athletes and coaches to not focus on outcomes and results, to put the focus on what we can control. You can't control winning the game. That's an outcome. But you can control winning the day. Absolutely. And the way you win the day, we can specify, if I'm working with you, the 10 top ways that you can, things that you can control, Sindra, which will help you to win the day. And when you go to bed at night, you look at that checklist and you say I did everything on that checklist I won the day or I did seven out of ten and and and so the whole thing is it's all about outcomes and results and and I help coaches understand that outcomes and results losing failing are our biggest teachers right so how do we learn from that? Well, here's three questions. The three

questions are, after a loss, I'll always ask these questions. What went well? The second question is not went wrong, because that's reactive. We want a proactive question. So what needs work? Let's get specific. And the third question is the clincher. Why are we a better team? Because we lost that game this weekend. Oh, that's good. We can figure that out. We can come back to making the improvement and the adjustments, and we can have the confidence that every opportunity, every failure is an opportunity to learn and forge ahead and be better than we were before we went into this weekend. This is how I look at it. And I

ask the question, do you want to feel free or do you want to feel fear? Free is love. It comes from your heart. Fear comes totally from your head, your ego. All about outcomes and results. Free is about winning the day. When I focus on winning the day, I feel free. When I focus on having to nail the outcome or get that job or pass that test, I'm feeling tight, tense, and tentative. And when I feel tight, tense, and tentative, it's not pretty. When I'm also thinking about those coaches who maybe, you know, the athlete fails, they miss a shot, they foul when they aren't supposed to, right? And maybe the coach has an outburst of anger. That's not necessarily coming from love. And then I think that creates more fear of failure in the athlete. So what advice would you give to maybe the coaches or leaders who are listening in terms of how they can come from a place of love instead of fear or outcome or results oriented? And there's no pill for that.

And there's no secret sauce. Yeah. The thing is it's practice. And I made a statement before and I really meant it. And after 40 plus years of working in this area, if I tell you I'm only halfway there, the good news is, boy, there's a lot to learn. And it's so exciting. And I'm going forward. But the other part of that is, God, this is going to

be hard. So it's not easy. It's not going to come overnight. But if you desire, you have to have the desire and the passion and the interest to be able to say, I want to be a John Wooden. I want to be a Steve Kerr. My response to that is, you can be. You can superimpose your spirit, who you are as a person, and you can adapt and adopt those behaviors that Steve has learned from Phil Jackson, one of his mentors. I actually goes back to to Lute Olson at the University of Arizona. It goes back to his father, who we admired. It goes back to Greg Popovich from the San Antonio Spurs. Sure.

It goes back to all this. I have played a small role in that as well. And that's why we have this consultancy. And the thing is, it's all about learning and desire to be a championship level coach and to win the relationship game. And there are strategies, tools, and ways to do that. And that's why I'm so excited about this book again, is because I know it'll make that change and that difference in your life. It's life changing. And I think we all, honestly, Cinder, I think, I believe we all crave to be that coach, but our fear stands in the way because we're afraid of this thing called love. Sure. Absolutely. Especially in sports, right?

Like I'm just a love the athletes that I coach, right? Yeah, for sure. And that means, that means I can't get in their face. And that means I can't tell them what to do. And that, no, no, no, no. Steve Kerr still gets upset. Phil Jackson would yell at his guys. Look, it's not usually exclusive. You can love your team and you can still be upset. Phil Jackson would yell at his guys. Look, it's not usually exclusive. You could love your team and you could still be demanding and you could still be pesty and get in their face and demand something. And what's interesting is when I demand from my kids literally at home, it's only because I love them and I want the best for them. So I'm going to demand that they do that.

And at first they might resist, but later on they'll realize, you know what, that really makes sense. Now that one of them's 35, all of a sudden I became brilliant. Yeah. Right? It's like, Jenny, I've been here since the time you were born. After 34 years, I know nothing. But now all of a sudden, you know, so, so, so the whole, the whole ball of wax comes down to, I want to be the best coach I can be. It's going to require you to be vulnerable. It's going to require you to open up and admit that you're wrong. It's going to require that you, you invite people to holes in what you're doing and not be afraid of losing control. Again, that's the fear thing.

So many coaches are afraid of losing control. But the irony of it is, if you're that kind of boss, if you're that kind of pusher and enforcer, you will lose control. You know, as the Buddhists often refer to the cows, if you want to control the cows, the story is move the fences back. Give them more space with certain boundaries. You don't want to run wild. So coaches, coaches, listen, you can show love and demonstrate caring. You can establish connection while at the same time you can be demanding and expect things from them and you can get in their face with love and say you know what I love you too much to let you go right now you've got to do this for me yeah love it love it yeah Jerry there there's so much

more we can talk about I first of, I'm grateful for your time. I'm grateful just for your presence. I think you inspired me today to lead a lot more with love. So I appreciate that. And I appreciate just the way that you are. And what I mean by that is I can see that you're coming from a sense of gratitude and love and that you do your work from this place. So I'm grateful for everything that you've contributed to our field. And I'm grateful for

your book right here, Thinking Body, Dancing Mind. And I'm going to go pick up Win the Day. It sounds awesome. Tell us how we can reach out to you. Let's say we want to follow you. I know you have so many different resources, 13 books now, and you have different videos and podcasts on your website, wayofchampions.com. Is that the best way? Yeah, I think so. And email is, you know, wayofchampions at Gmail. That's the best way. I'd give you a phone number, but I never answer it. My office assistant will answer it probably, but I can't spend a lot of time on the phone, but I can shoot off the video or something like that. Perfect. And I always get back to people.

And yeah, people don't understand this. You know, I just know that most people out there that are listening to what you're, if they're tuning into your program, they want this, right? Yes. I mean, you don't, you don't, there are certain people that we know of in this world that will not listen to you. Sure. Maybe. Yep, for sure. And that's okay. But the people that do need to know that we're all in this together. I might have these books and I might have these hundreds of championship teams and I might have all that, but we're on the same path and we all crave the same thing. And we all want, we all want love in our life. We all want to be, and this is how I'm defining love. We all want to be respected, revered, relevant, important, valued, and empowered. We want to feel that way.

And when we feel that way, our game goes to another level. If a coach out there that's listening to you and they don't rock that, then they need to talk to me because they're confused. That's all it is. They're just confused. And I'll help them understand that they crave that. And they'll say, God, I do. How did you know that?

Because we're human beings. Yes. And that's my whole point. Thank you, Jerry. Is there any kind of final advice or thoughts you have as we wrap up today? Win the day. Win the day. Win the day.

And that's controllable, and it's within your power. And as Steph Curry would say, all of it is a choice. If you're not choosing it, you're choosing against it. If you're choosing for it, it'll change your life. And so yeah, win the day. And let's do this again sometime, because we just touched the tip of the iceberg. I know. I think so. And I have so many other questions I could have asked you. So we will have Jerry back on. You know what I would love to hear is like what questions people have for when we have you on next time. So we could do a Q&A. Yes, we could do 20, 25 minutes of Q&A. We could just interrupt what we're saying and then say, okay, so here's some questions from

someone from Syasset, New York, you know, or here's someone from Bonnstable, Cape Cod, or here's, you know, and I'll address those questions. But as I began this session with you, I just don't want to know what the questions are. Because in order for me to come from my heart, I need to spontaneously respond to how I'm feeling about those questions. And that's what we'll do. So let's do that. Awesome. Okay, perfect. So you can send the questions to wayofchampions at gmail.com. That's Jerry's email. And I am at cindra at cindracampoff.com. We'd love to hear from you. I'm also on Twitter at Mentally Underscore Strong. So if you want to send a question there, I will have Jerry back on. So Jerry, I'm grateful for your time. I loved the rule of one. I loved your acronym for LUV and then your acronym for river I thought was really

sticky. And just the idea of winning the day is really about the relationship game. That's something else you talked about today that was really powerful. So thank you again so much for your time. Let me echo your wonderful, kind words to me. I'm in this for people like you too. And I know that when I'm talking with someone like you, that it brings out the best in me. So I think we were kind of bouncing off each other here.

And I really, really appreciate and value the opportunity to share what I've been learning all these years of my life with others. So thank you so much for all the great work you're doing too. Thank you, Jerry. We'll talk to you soon. Talk to you soon. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset. If you liked today's podcast, make a comment, share it with a friend and join the conversation on Twitter

at Mentally Underscore Strong. For more inspiration and to receive Sindra's free weekly videos, check out DrSindra.com.