High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 27: Embracing the Suck & Thriving Through Adversity: A Conversation with Bernie Holliday, Pittsburgh Pirates’ Director of Mental Conditioning

Episode Date: January 27, 2016

Bernie Holliday is a master of the mental game. At the heart of his interview, is a phrase he has adopted from this work with West Point Cadets: “embracing the suck.” Bernie described how professional baseball players must embrace the suck, but also describes how he has used the phrase in his life and career. He believes there are 3 ways people approach times that are difficult: 1) by evading, 2) by enduring, or 3) by embracing. The best of the best approach times that are difficult in the 3rd way: embracing the difficulty. His mantra “BE BOLD” will inspire you to get out there with your work and take risks. He believes that a growth mindset and love is what separates good performers from great performers. Bernie also provides several other strategies you can use in your work, play and life including: 1) his 3 ups, 2 downs, and 1 takeaway strategy, 2) how he helps others “focus on the process,” and 3) the importance of redefining success and failure.

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, Sindra Kampoff, and I am delighted today to provide an interview for you with Bernie Holliday. Bernie has spent the last seven years as Director of Mental Conditioning with the Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Club. Before that, he spent four years at West Point working with cadets and in the Army's Center for Enhanced Performance. And I think what you'll find from

this interview is that Bernie Holiday is a master of the mental game. At the heart of his interview is a phrase he has adopted from his work with West Point cadets, and that phrase is, embrace the suck. Bernie describes how professional baseball players must embrace the suck, but also describes how he uses the phrase in his life and his career and talks about how he uses it to elevate his performance. He believes that there are three ways people approach times that are difficult or times that suck. By number one, by evading. Number two, by enduring. And number three, by embracing. He described it the best of the best approach times that are difficult in the third way,

by embracing the difficulty. His mantra, be bold, will inspire you to get out there with your work and take risks so you can perform at a higher level. Bernie also provides several other strategies that I think you'll find useful in your work, in your play, and in your life, including number one, his three ups, two downs, and one takeaway strategy, which I completely love. Number two, how he helps others focus on the process. And the third strategy I think you'll find helpful is our discussion about redefining

success and failure. So without further ado, let's bring on Bernie. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. This is your host, Cyndra Kampoff. And today, I am excited to provide you an interview with Bernie Holiday. Bernie is the Director of Mental Conditioning for the Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Club. Bernie, it's great to have you here on the podcast. Cinder, glad to join you. I'm excited to be a part of this.

Awesome. Bernie, tell us a little bit about your passion and what you do right now. Well, currently my job is to help baseball players and baseball coaches with the mental game of baseball. I work up and down the entire minor league and big league system. So from Pittsburgh all the way down, we've got eight teams and I've got two guys working with me full time. So between the three of us, we divide and conquer and help create mental toughness throughout the

organization. Excellent. Can you tell us a little bit about how you do that? Sure. We do it a combination of do a lot of chalk talks, which are team-specific and group-specific mental conditioning huddles that we do. We do a lot of one-on-one work with players, and we spend a ton of time with coaches. In fact, we probably spend more time with coaches than players. About 80% of our time is allocated to helping coaches coach the mental game with their players. Since we're in town with a team maybe five days a month and then we're gone with another team the rest of the time, we need our coaches to be incredibly good at coaching the mental game. Bernie, can you tell us a little bit about how you do that in terms of working with the coaches

and helping them implement the mental game when you're not there? Sure. Much of what we try to do is help them become really comfortable teaching concepts that are initially out of their wheelhouse. They've been doing this for a really long time, and they're already really good at it. They just don't know it, so we try to put a little bit of a framework behind it so they can explain it and articulate it to players better. Part of how we do that is we actually co-teach mental conditioning topics with the coaches to the players in spring training and in fall instructional league, our two camp periods. And we'll basically teach a chalk talk session. And the next one, we'll have our coaches teach it and we'll facilitate. And going back and forth like that, it helps the coaches get really good at being able

to teach and present on some of these mental skills that we hold near and dear. Bernie, I love that idea because, you know, the coaches are the ones that are around all the time. And as consultants, we're highperformance coaches, we're not. So I like that you're empowering the coaches to implement the mental game. Yeah, we'd be set up for failure if we had to do it all ourselves because we have over 300 athletes, probably over 100 coaches. And with three of us, we just can't be where we need to be all the time. So our coaches are our greatest resource in terms of making this successful.

If they're able to nail it, then they get to have that kind of consistency every single day with the players, whereas we just can't have that consistency without them. Nice. You know, I know there's a lot of coaches listening to this podcast, so I think you are inspiring them to learn more about the mental game so they can implement it themselves. Love it. So, Bernie, tell us, you know, you have an incredible opportunity to work with some of the nation's best performers.

What do you see that separates them, you know, really the best from others mentally? Yeah, when I look at our big league team and the success we've had over the last couple of years, I guess two things really come to mind. The first is from our big league manager in our front office all the way through our coaches, all the way down to our players is this growth mindset, this hunger to maintain this white belt spirit. So we've got guys who are like fifth degree black belts in baseball skills and abilities, but they bring this beginner's mentality to everything, trying to learn from everybody and trying to seize every opportunity to get better and grow.

And I haven't been around a lot of organizations that are like that. A lot of times you see the exact opposite, guys that aren't really that good, but they've got a black belt mentality like they know it all. And I think with their guys, at least in Pittsburgh, it's the exact opposite. Guys who are extremely talented and skilled and able, but they also bring this white belt spirit of just trying to learn and have this beginner's curiosity about everything. The second thing that jumps out at me is love, if you want to use that word.

It's kind of a funny word when you think about mental toughness, but they love. They love each other. They love playing for each other. They love the game. They love all the challenges that go into the game. And we've actually used the differentiation that a lot of people love to play the game of baseball, but very few love baseball and all the crap and all the challenges and all the adversities that come with it. And I think when you look at our guys, they love everything that comes in with baseball,

not just playing it at 7 o'clock, but every aspect of it and every aspect of the team part of it. So love. Love it. So love. Love it. Love it. Love it, Bernie. And hearing that word quite a bit just appear in conversations about the high performance mindset and loving what you do, loving the difficulties, loving the people around you. There's so many things to love. And I love hearing about that. So Bernie, what do you see that your clients kind of struggle with mentally? Baseball is a crazy sport. It's extremely difficult mentally. And over the years, I've kind of put my thumb on why I think it's so hard for our players to really nail the mental game of baseball. And it's because baseball is one of the only pro sports that you play every single day. In fact, it might be the only sport in the world that you play every single day you compete

every single day so what does that mean at the end of the day it means you've got a box score staring at you with results and every night your process is threatened by these results and oftentimes those results aren't that good so you've got about 12 hours to recommit to your process before you have another result staring at you. And every night it's the same thing. You prepare, you compete, and you get some kind of a result that either confirms or challenges your process. I mean if you look at other sports, you may play one day a week like on Saturday or Sunday, then you get six days to recommit to your process before you're challenged again. Other sports, you might play three or four nights a week, and you've got three or four nights to recommit to your process, whereas in baseball, every night,

your process is threatened by a box score that either says you're on the right track or you're off. So I think with our guys, the big challenge is being able to maintain and sustain trust and conviction in their process, in their approach, when the box score every night may not be showing favorable results. And, you know, Bernie, it's so easy to get focused on the outcome and the box score like you're talking about instead of trusting themselves. So how do you teach an athlete to do that? Early on in our process, we really focus on how they view and define success and failure. In fact, coming up as a youth athlete in America, oftentimes how our young athletes define success and failure is based on the outcomes. Failure is losing and success is winning.

Failure is going 0 for 4. Success is going 3 for 4 with two or three RBIs. So really early on in their rookie development as professional ballplayers, we helped them to reestablish and redefine more sustainable methods of success. We help work on a healthier definition of success. We use a lot of the John Wooden stuff. When you look at John Wooden's definition of success, based on more of the effort, the mentality, the attitude, the persistence, the fight, as opposed to just the results.

And then it becomes the everyday review process of how do you make sense of what the heck just happened that night we actually have a process that that we call the 3-2-1 it's one of my i guess you'd call it one of my signature techniques that i like to use where the 3-2-1 is at the end of a series no matter how good or bad it goes what are three ups and the process that related to them what What are two downs in the process that could fix them? And what's one takeaway that you can carry forward in the next series? And I think over time, doing that over and over and over and over again, they're able to sort of readjust how they define and how they view success and failure so that they can maintain more stable confidence. And I hear you talking, Bernie, about how you have three ups.

So you have not just two, right? So you have more ups than you have downs. So it's helping them focus on things that went great in the day as well, not just what they'd like to change. And early on when they start doing that 3-2-1 review process with me, you'll notice that even the three ups are results. I went two for four today or I stole two bags today. And through that coaching process, we even have to help them recognize that those three ups have to be process-driven. What are the three good things that happened in the series and the process that led to those? But yeah, that three to two is a very important ratio to me.

I want you to be focusing on things to build confidence and things to build competence. But I want the confidence to be slightly outweighing the competence builders, the downs. And are the downs things that you would like to improve on? Yes, and or things that didn't go well and a strategy that could fix them or make them better. I love it. I love it. I think so many times we have to unlearn what we've learned growing up. And, you know, our society is such a results driven society. Whenever you turn on ESPN, that's all they're talking about. And even if you think about,

you know, 18 years of a kid getting in the car with his parents and the very first question they ask is, what'd you win today? Yeah. So that kind of socialized thought process that we then have to go and sort of unlearn before we can relearn, you know, one that's building more stable, controllable confidence over time. And tell us about a mindset topic that you cover most with your clients. Tell us about that and why it's important. One that I actually borrowed from the military world during my previous work at West Point. It's something you hear a lot of Army people talk about, embrace the suck. And that's something that we use as one of our core convictions with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

It's something that we teach every year to our players. And basically, embrace the suck means when you come across some kind of adversity, some kind of a tough time, some kind of a challenging moment, you typically see players go one of three ways. At the lowest level, and I think about these as the three E's, at the very lowest level, they just evade. They just try to get away from the experience. They don't want to be a part of it. I think where you see the majority of pro ball players is they'll endure it. They don't like it.

They don't want to be going through it, but they'll endure it. They'll tolerate it. And where you truly see the separation is there's a few really great players learn to embrace the challenges, the adversities, the suck moments where things get really hard because they recognize that within that there's a chance to reflect and gain self-awareness. There's a chance to grow. There's a chance to see where my limits lie and try to extend and push those a little bit further. In baseball, you always hear the phrase, baseball is a game of failure. Well, we like to think about baseball as a game of adversity and compensation and adjustment, as opposed to a game of failure, because that gives us an edge over other teams who see it as a game of failure. So embrace the suck is really something

that we hit, that concept, that phrase that we borrowed from the military. Cool. How do you see the best embrace it? What do you see them do differently compared to the ones that evade it's because it's imposed upon them. It's something that they're forced to do. It's the idea of I got to speak in front of 100 kids today or I get to speak in front of 100 kids today. And those few that are really good at embracing it, they see things as I get to rather than I got to. And they go out there and are proactive in trying to put themselves in challenging situations so they can grow from them. You know, Bernie, I had a really interesting marathon last September where I was at about mile 22 and we are approaching this humongous hill called Summit Hill. And the pacer I was with said, embrace the suck. And my first response was like, that's kind of negative. But then I thought to myself, oh, gosh, this hill sucks. But it really helped me embrace it because I was like, you know what? I can

either give in to this hill or I can just conquer it. So it made me run faster. So I love that phrase. It's a hard one for people to really get behind sometimes because it does have that initial gut reaction of, well, that's negative. But as they start to dig deeper and they start to recognize how hard this game really is and how hard these challenges really are, it really is can you do hard and can you do hard better than anybody else? Nice, nice. So, Bernie, tell us about a signature technique that you use to help your clients

kind of master their mindset. The 3-2-1 is something that I love to go to because I think it creates a way of thinking about and reflecting on what's happening to you from day to day and from series to series. I would probably say a second one that I like to go to is coming into a series with one specific goal or one specific objective. To me, what happens in a three-day series is going to happen.

That middle-of-the-road stuff, you know, the three games or the four games and the ups and the downs the game creates. But to me, if you're coming in with one specific process goal in mind and you're walking out, having gone through three ups, two downs, and one takeaway, I think it really drives home that process mentality, even though those three days in between, anything could have happened. At least you're starting the series in a process mindset and you're ending a series in a process mindset. And that helps maintain that stability over 50 different series over the course of the season, you know, 162 to 180 games when you

look at playoff baseball as well. You know, that keeps guys on an even keel coming in with the goal that's process driven and coming out with a reflective moment, 3-2-1, that's process-driven. Bernie, for those who are listening who might not understand what a process goal is, can you give us some examples of the process goals that your guys tend to set? To me, it's the way that we like our guys to understand it is something that's within your control and right in front of you. So the idea of be where your feet are, it's something that you can accomplish within these next three days since that's what's right in front of us. And it's something that's totally within your control. So a lot of guys might come in with the goal of they want to try to hit two for four over the course of each of the three games. So for the series, they might want to go, you know, let's say six for 12.

And, you know, that's a goal that's largely out of your control because the enemy gets a vote. The pitcher gets a choice in what's going to happen. The umpire gets a choice in what's going to happen. So to then ask the next question, okay, how can you accomplish that? Gets it to more of that process-driven level. And you might get a player that says,

well, early in the count, I want to commit to looking for the fastball on the outer half of the plate. And I'm going to attack the fastball on the outer half of the plate. Anything else, I'm going to take it. Whether it's a ball or a strike, I'm going to take it unless it's a fastball on the outer half of the plate. And that's what I'm going to attack. And that's just taking that 6-for-12 outcome goal for the series

and made it more of a process goal of here's my approach for my at-bats. Here's how I'm going to try to attack each pitch in the at-bat. So just getting them to understand whatever the result is they want, how are they going to get to it, what's the method? What's the strategy? And then to commit to that strategy goal. Right, because the outcome is out of our control. Winning is out of our control. The result is out of our control. But what you're saying is the how, the little things, the approach is really within their control. And helping them recalibrate after three or four games, especially when three or four games don't go that well, to be able them recalibrate after three or four games,

especially when three or four games don't go that well, to be able to recalibrate back to that how, back to that strategy, back to their approach, and help them recommit to it for the next three or four games. Excellent. They're not really sexy. It's not really glamorous. It's some paper and pencil work, actually, giving them a notepad. But the guys that do it and commit to it,

you see tremendous consistency across a long, long season. In terms of their performance? Yeah, in terms of their readiness, their performance, and their results. Excellent. Awesome. Because they're focused on the process, not the outcome. And then refocused on the process, then refocused on the process again, then refocused on the process one more time. And it gets so repetitive, but that's the key is repetition builds strength. Yeah, isn't it? And that's what builds consistency and performance. So Bernie, tell us why you do what you do. We believe here that keeping our Y front and center is a really powerful motivator. So why do you do this with the Pirates and what fuels you every

day to keep going? Yeah, we're actually a big Y-driven organization. From our front office to our manager and coaches to our players, we actually have everybody reflect on and commit to and recommit to their Y each year. So I've thought a lot about mine over the years, and the thing that I've landed on that gets me up and gets me charged every day is I kind of see myself as a tour guide to help people explore the outer limits of human possibility, to really kind of figure out where those human limitations are and try to push them further. I dig when people try to do something that has never been done before. I dig it when people try to do something that they've been told can't be done, and that gives me the biggest thrill is to be on that journey. And the tour guide part is more – it's their journey. It's them trying to push that envelope further and further beyond what anybody thought was possible. And me as a tour guide, I just get to point out cool things along the way.

Nice. So you're there helping guide their journey but providing them the skills that they need to to keep going and pushing the limits. Yeah, just point out a couple things I see and a couple things they go through and experience, but ultimately letting them take the wheel and charge forward with their dream, their aspiration. And I could point out some things along the way.

That's a very clear why. I love it. So, Bernie, how about you tell us about yourself as a high performer? Can you tell us about a time that you failed? You know, because we know that failure is part of the journey to success. And obviously, if you didn't make a mistake here or there, you wouldn't be at the Pirates. So tell us about a time that you failed and what you learned from it. There's a ton. So it's kind of hard to narrow down to one that's worth sharing right now.

But my embrace the suck moment where I've had to learn to sort of embrace this this thing that happened to me and grow from it is uh probably when i got fired from my first real big gig in sports psychology and i was brought on to work with olympic athletes and olympic team and we went through one season and i was looking forward to the next three years leading to the olympics and they weren't thinking the same thing and fired me decided that we had to go separate ways and uh it was ego crashing it was heartbreaking I felt miserable I felt like a failure and and looking back that was probably one of the most important moments of my career to date is because several things happened as I learned to embrace that suck I learned to embrace that moment that challenged me after I got through all the emotions of just feeling crappy about it. But I was too consumed

with playing within my comfort zone. I wasn't willing to take enough risk. I wasn't willing to be bold. And I had to learn how to take more risk, be bolder in what I do, and work on the fringes of my comfort zone in my profession a lot more as a result of that experience. And ultimately, I think now I ask the question all the time, what are you willing to get fired over? Now I've got an answer for that. So it doesn't, doesn't scare me anymore as much as it did before I got fired. So it's almost, it's almost empowering that I've been through it. I came through it. I'm okay. I still got more cool opportunities to work with really cool people. This didn't destroy me.

In fact, maybe I'm a little stronger because of it. So that was probably my moment is getting fired from that first Olympic gig that didn't go well at all for me. It's great to hear you just talk about that, Bernie. I think so many of us, you know, we can feel your pain when you're talking about it. A big moment, a big team, and then,, and then it didn't work out. But what I hear you say is that what you learned from that experience was to really be bolder in your work and push your comfort zone. Tell us about how you do that now and how you are different as a consultant from that experience, how you really do push past your comfort zone. I've reflected on that a lot and I've kind of come to the realization that in that moment, I was so worried with keeping my job that I wasn't doing my job.

And through that experience and going into the parts of that idea, I'm okay now if they want to fire me because they don't believe in what I teach. They don't believe in the principles that I bring to the organization. In fact, I think it was in 2012, a lot of those principles were tested and challenged in the media. And it was one of those times for me where I'm like, all right, I'm being tested and challenged again. And you know what? I'm okay if I get fired over this. If ultimately ownership decides that these are dumb ideas, these ideas aren't flying with what the pirates are all about, I'm happy to shake hands and walk away. And I don't think I could have said that several years ago. So it helped. and it's helping me come up with my own non-negotiables in my work, my own core convictions, the things that I stand for that I'm not going to budge on.

And if the Pirates or any organization comes and says, hey, we love what you do. We want you to be part of the team, but you can't talk about that, and you can't teach that anymore, I'm going to say thanks for the opportunity, but I'm going to have to part ways because that's what I am and that's what I do. And that conviction has only come through the hardships of having lost that job and having to sort of reflect on what do I really stand for. What are some of the things that are non-negotiable for you that you stand for that you wouldn't budge on. Some of the core convictions that we bring into the work, one of them is the idea of championship thinking 24-7, that it's not just about what happens between 7 and 10 o'clock at night,

but championship thinking is a habit and has to happen all the time on and off the field. Embrace the Suck is another one that has become one of our core convictions when it comes to how we teach the mental game to players and to coaches. Having something to go to. It's going to get bad. It's not if it's going to get bad. When it gets bad, do you have a strategy in place? Do you have something to go to when it goes bad?

Because it will. There's another one, Hookah Hay, which is the idea. It loosely translates to today is a good day to die. Are you willing to be totally invested in something, totally committed, sell out to it, knowing that you're willing to accept whatever fate comes? Those are the core convictions that we stand behind. Those are the core convictions that I bring into my work. And if somebody said those are wrong, you can't do them, don't do them here. I'd have to be like, I'm out. I love that you know that and you're very clear about that and how just that decision alone guides your work every day just to push past your comfort zone. So, Bernie, tell us about an aha moment that you had in your career besides this one.

It sounds like it was pretty aha, but tell us about something that you learned from it. This is kind of a strange one. I'm not sure how relevant it's going to be to the people listening, but to me, it changed the way I viewed the work that I do now. It was my very first meeting with my very first big league player when I first joined the Pirates, and I was shown my office. I sat down. I had one of the trainers come in within a few minutes and say, there's this player here who wants to talk to you. He was looking forward to when you finally came on board. Can I send him over when he's got some free time? And I said, sure thing. I'd love to talk with him. And he disappeared, and I didn't expect within 30 seconds this player to arrive.

But he sat down in the chair in my office and just started chatting, telling me a story. And meanwhile, I look at the door, and the door is wide open in my office. And there are players and coaches walking back and forth and people peeking in and waving to me and saying hi to this guy. And he's continuing to go on and on, and I had this big moment of, well, do I get up and close the door because this should be private, and we need to make sure that we keep this all low-key? Does he want the privacy? Do I ask him if he wants the door shut? And meanwhile, he just keeps talking. And I decide, you know what? Heck, I'm just going to let him go, and if he wants to close the door, he will. And it was neat because that was the moment that I think defined what mental conditioning culture is in the Pirates because the coaches and the players that walked by and saw him, there was a pride that developed as a result of that. They didn't feel like there was anything to hide when they talked about the mental game.

There wasn't anything to be afraid to share about the mental game. And it's like this is a part of getting better. And he wanted to get better. And players would just come in and think that's the expectation now. As I just come in, I talk about getting better. And the door stays open. There's nothing secret. We still have the whole confidentiality thing.

If they want to share something that's confidential, we'll close the door and we'll chat. But for the most part, that one meeting and that one moment where I was kind of determining whether or not I should get up and close it for him, I left it open. It sort of set the whole stage, you know, it was just your decision not to close the door, but how that really shaped the culture. Because I completely agree that mental conditioning and sports psychology is not something to be ashamed of. We can all use mental strategies to help us improve our game. Even if we don't play baseball. I remember wrestling with that for like the first five minutes i didn't hear half of what he said because i was in my head trying to go should i close the door or not i don't know if i should close the door maybe i should maybe i shouldn't but just like you said that one moment

where it didn't seem like a big deal then but it shaped the entire culture behind mental development that this is something that there it's it's out there it's what we do we're proud of it we take pride in trying to get better in all aspects of the game, and the open door is just a testament to that. You know, Bernie, we believe here at the High Performance Mindset that if of which I haven't done yet because they scare the heck out of me. One is I'd love to write a book. I'd love to be able to capture the things that I've learned from the coaches and the players I've had the opportunity to work with and work alongside and capture some of those stories and illustrations in writing for the next generation, for my daughter and for those athletes and coaches coming up that are still young right now, I think that would be really cool and it's something that I just haven't yet done. And then physically, along the same lines as some of your passions, I would love to run 100 miles in a day. Oh, sweet.

I'm scared to death to do that. I don't know if I can do it in a day, but I would love to go to do 100 miles in a day. Tell us why 100 miles is something you want to go after, Bernie. Well, you get this really cool prize if you're able to do it within an organized race. They give you a belt buckle for all of your hard work and effort, and I want to get one of those belt buckles. But I guess more it comes back to the whole embrace the suck idea and working outside your comfort zone. Probably for 35 years of my life, I've lived the mantra i'm just not a runner and i remember when i would try to do a 5k for a sport or for something and i'd be exhausted after that third mile i'm like

this is horrible i'm horrible why am i doing this oh bernie you're just not a runner and this morbid curiosity started to grip me with well if i'm just not a runner a runner, how far would I go before I quit, before I quit on myself? And that's where this 100-mile idea came into play. I would love to see how far I could get before I'd quit on myself. I hope I wouldn't quit on myself, but who knows? I mean, I would love to find that out. Yeah, that's awesome. One of my really good friends just started and worked to finish a 50-miler,

but it was in Iowa in December. So it was really tough. And she made it 30, 30 miles. But you know, just to go 30 is just incredible. That sounds brutal. That is embrace the suck. Yeah, I know. It wasn't, I think only one female finished and a handful of men. So most people decided not to finish. But I think the long races, every race that I've ran, let's, you know, over 20 miles, I always learn something more about myself and just become more aware of what I want and who I am. So those are really cool moments. I wish you best of luck going after that journey of 100 miles.

You'll be there first before me. I'm not sure I'm going to go after the 100 miles yet. Well, when I've done the really long things, not that long, but some of the longer ones, man, you're just talking to yourself and you're either talking yourself into it or you're talking yourself out of it the entire time. And it's both horrifying and fascinating, the self-talk that I have when I'm doing some of these longer things. And like you said, it's a very self-reflective moment where you learn a ton about yourself and you get to practice your own craft, which I think is really cool. Yeah, I've learned a ton about myself just racing marathons and trying to run them as

fast as I can and using the strategies to get there that I teach. So I love it. So Bernie, tell us which of the top 10 traits of high performers that you exhibit the most. Coming back to that goal and coming back to some of the things that I've learned over the years and had to embrace, I think the comfortable and uncomfortable. I'm really good physically at embracing discomfort. I've learned to become increasingly good at embracing discomfort socially and emotionally in my work. A big league clubhouse is a very tough place to live, especially if you're not a big league player.

So learning to be comfortable being uncomfortable around, you know, some of the best ballplayers in the world, guys who are making millions of dollars doing what they do under extreme stress to produce huge personalities in the room and tons of talent. You know, stepping in there is very uncomfortable, especially if you haven't played the game like I haven't played the game. So that's something that I think over the years I've gotten increasingly good at is being comfortable being uncomfortable.

And how do you, what are some strategies that you use to be comfortable in those moments when you stand out, you're different than everybody else, but you know that you are there for a reason? A big part of it for me is seeking feedback, and what I've realized is I seek feedback from people who are in those environments as well. What goes through my head is very rarely the real deal. How I feel and how uncomfortable I think I look is never really the way other people tell me I look. I'll ask for feedback from our big league manager or from one of our coaches after I give a talk with the big league guys, and I'm like, man, I felt really out of sorts. I felt like I was uncomfortable.

I didn't feel like I was saying anything clear. What did you have on that? Bernie, I thought it was great. I thought you nailed this point and that point, and you looked really confident and composed. I'm like, oh, that's good because I didn't feel that way at all. And as I started to gain feedback from the coaches and the staff that were in that environment with me, it allowed me to realize that I think I'm a lot worse than I am in those situations. I'm often better than I think I am, better than I give myself credit for. Yeah, so true. I just had an experience last week where I gave a talk to some young professionals

and afterwards I thought, man, I just wasn't quite on my game. And everyone was like, that was the best I've ever heard you speak. So I was like, huh, maybe we're not always very honest with ourselves. Yeah, our A game is often not the game that they're looking for and enjoying when we share ideas with them. Absolutely. So Bernie, which of those traits of high performers do you see yourself still working on? It's probably that very same thing that you just shared. The authenticity piece and the idea of the self-compassion piece I think are both. I'm probably my worst enemy, and like you said, I'm the one going, man, I wasn't really on my game. I was kind of crappy today.

I wish I would have been better for these guys. Everybody else seems to have gotten something productive out of it, and I'm beating myself up for the next three days about it. So that's probably a big part of it. The other one is with the authenticity piece of there's a tendency in that environment when you get to a big league clubhouse and you're around big league ballplayers and coaches is that you feel like you have to be more. You have to be better. You have to be a bigger personality because there are a lot of big personalities in the room. That you got to be the big leaguer because you're around a bunch of big leaguers. And that's always tripped me up is when I try to be more, do more, or work outside my personality. So it's brought a magnifying glass to me recognizing who I am and what I do and trying to stay there as opposed to try to be a bigger personality, try to be more. Yeah, Bernie, when you're at your best,

what does that look like and feel like? It feels very natural. It feels like I'm not trying. It feels I'm not doing the heavy lifting. I know when I'm working outside of that, I'm doing all the heavy lifting and it feels like the players, the coaches, the staff, they're not doing any of the work, and I'm doing all the work. It feels like when I'm at my best, I'm just in the environment. I'm taking in what they're saying, and they're doing all the heavy lifting, doing all the work, and I'm just shaping and guiding and facilitating where they go. Sounds a little bit like flow. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. Conversational flow. All right, Bernie, we're going to go to the speed round. So what I want you to do is just tell us the first thing that comes to your mind. So if you had to recommend a book or a person to follow, what would that be and why do you choose that? Book, that'd be easy. Golf's Secret Journey, Seven Days in Utopia is a fantastic book. The movie is not that great. Don't watch the movie, but the book is incredible.

I would strongly recommend reading that one as well as I go to Ken Revisa's stuff all the time when it comes to peak performance skills. Ken's got some books, and you can find him in various forms of the literature, and Ken's a rock star at what we do, peak performance. And I know one of those books is Heads Up Baseball. Does he have any other books? I know Heads Up Baseball as well, and I know he's doing a bunch of more journal articles on the science-y side of things, but that's a great starter for him.

It's just a Heads Up Baseball book. Excellent. What's one word that people describe you as, Bernie? Crazy, and I'm proud of that. Hey, you're getting out of your comfort zone. Exactly. And why do they say crazy? Just my desire to do the really hard things, my desire to push the limits physically and see how far I can go before I break, and that kind of comes into all aspects of my personality with my workouts and with the way I approach different things. People see it as a little bit more to the extreme side of what they would want to do.

And what's the best advice you've ever received? It came from our third base coach, be bold. And again, it's because of my tendency at times in my past to try to work too comfortably and not take enough risks and not be bold enough. So that's simply, as he put it, he just talks about be bold. And the simplicity of it rings true to me. My own personal challenges, it rings true to me. I could hear that could be your mantra throughout the day, just be bold.

I'm sure you say that to yourself quite often. It was my mantra last year, absolutely. We actually had baseballs and we had to write down on the baseball what we're working toward that year. And on my baseballs, I've written the words, be bold. Nice, nice. I can hear it in our conversation. And Bernie, what about a success quote you live by? And tell us how it might apply to us.

Success quote, it's got to be more of a success paragraph, I guess. Teddy Roosevelt's The Man in the Arena. Have you heard of that one? I have not. Tell us about it. Okay. I actually have it on my screensaver on my computer, so Roosevelt's The Man in the Arena. Have you heard of that one? I have not. Tell us about it. Okay. I actually have it on my screensaver on my computer, so it's right here in front of me. The Man in the Arena by Teddy Roosevelt. It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who's actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows the great enthusiasms, who spends himself on a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least

fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. I guess the part that hits me the most is the idea that I don't want to never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. I guess the part that hits me the most is the idea that I don't want to be one of those cold and timid souls that was too afraid to take the risk that never experienced true success or true defeat. And I can hear just as you read that, it was very motivating as you read it, but I was just thinking about a lot of the athletes that I work with who have maybe struggled

and failed and even myself,'s perfect right I think we can all use that that quote to to get us by there's a there's a theme that's happening with the 21st century athlete 21st century performer that I think we'd all prefer to sit on the sidelines and criticize rather than get into the arena and risk the chance of being criticized and that's why I love the thing so much it's about being that guy or that gal that gets into the arena, is willing to take the criticism and still strive to do the worthy deeds as opposed to being the person that wants to sit on the sidelines and be the critic, be the skeptic, be the naysayer.

Yeah, I'm seeing that a lot in the NFL right now in terms of just us criticizing players on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram who've made mistakes. It's we do want to kind of sit and I say we society want to sit and watch and we want them to be perfect, but nobody is so easy to go there. It's so much harder to be the person willing to get into the arena and put yourself into that position of receiving that kind of criticism. Love it, Bernie. So, Bernie, one final question. What advice do you have for those high performers who are listening? I'll have to steal from George Leonard. He wrote a great

book called Mastery. And in there, he talks about the spirit of the fool and the true masters, those who really master their craft, embrace the spirit of the fool, meaning they're willing to play the role of the fool and feel foolish in order to grow and learn and stretch. And it kind of comes back to that quote, comes back to the whole theme of, I guess, our conversation with me is the willingness to put yourself in a position that might make you feel foolish knowing that you're going to grow because of it. And I think that's where we need to live. That's where our biggest successes come from.

That's where our aha moments are, is when we risk feeling foolish to learn something or do something new. Love it, Bernie. There's so many things I got out of this interview, and I'm sure those who are listening did as well. There's three things that stand out to me. I love your three, two, and one takeaway. So helping athletes think about three ups, three downs, and one takeaway. I loved also our conversation about focusing on the process and how you help your athletes focus on one process goal before the game, but then to get refocused afterwards and how that's the cycle of process and refocus and process and refocus. And I loved our conversation about getting out of your comfort zone, and I thought you provided some excellent examples

of how you've done that in your life and your work. I, too, am feeling I'm pushing past my comfort zone every day, and it's not always comforting. It doesn't always feel great. But I think that you're a great role model for us to do that and just to be bold and get out there with our work and make a difference in a unique way that is authentic to us. I appreciate that. It's always a passion of mine to talk with like-minded people. So the fact that you and Julie are passionate about the same things, your followers are as well, trying to bring these things into their lives.

So this kind of opportunity to share some of the things that I've learned from my ballplayers is thrilling for me. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time, Bernie. And all those high performers who are listening, if you would like to get the list of top ten traits of high performers, you can do so on my website, cindracampoff.com. And we would love to hear from you in terms of what stood out to you about this interview. What is your takeaway from this interview? And you can send us a tweet, post it on Twitter, and tag myself, mentally underscore strong.

Any other ways for us to follow you, Bernie? Actually, I try to stay as low-key as possible at this point. So I'd probably say get it to you and you forward it to me, and we'll get back to you for sure. All right, perfect. Thanks so much for your time, Bernie. Absolutely, Cinder. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset. Are you signed up for Cinder's weekly email with free mental tools and strategies for high performance. Why the heck not? Text MENTALLYSTRONG, all one word, to 22828 or visit sindracampoff.com.