High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 285: Solve your Problems like Puzzles

Episode Date: October 30, 2019

“Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.” Deepak Chopra   High performers solve their problems like puzzles. This perspective keeps them creative, energized, and calm. They are more likely to reach their goals when they can experience adversity head on instead of advoiding it.   Phrase this Week: “I solve my problems like puzzles. Nothing is too hard or impossible for me because I tackle difficulties with gratitude.”

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 Syndra. Time for High Performance Mindset on the Country Club today with Dr. Syndra Kampoff. Good morning, Syndra. Good morning. It's great to be here. You have offense and a defense for a Division II football team

pretty tuned in, dialed in, right? 81 to nothing. A school record 81 points in that game against Crookston this weekend. And I know that's one of the teams that you happen to do some work with. And they've been doing a very good job the last few years. And this season

is not much different. I've got computer things happening over here today. Are they doing things on their own? I don't know. Maximum overdrive. Seriously. Quit messing with the computers while we're live on the air, please.

That would be much appreciated. Today's topic, Cindra, solve your problems like puzzles. I think that's what they're trying to do here with our computer system in the building, for sure. But it's definitely puzzling. But let's start with our quote today. This is a quote by Deepak Chopra. He said, every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.

Nice. All right. So an example to start with today. So I just spent four days at the Association for Applied Sports Psychology Conference in Portland. I realize I've been going 21 years every year. I'm like, wow, really fun. But I heard Karch Karai. He was one of our keynotes.

And he is the U.S. Olympic head volleyball coach and actually a world champion himself in beach volleyball. And he was talking about his mental model of how he leads, really from a mentally strong way. And he talked about a few things, like actually how he leads, really from a mentally strong way. And he talked about a few things like actually how he chooses athletes who respond well to failure. He talked about how we all have unproductive thoughts. So some of the same kind of things that we've talked about in here. But one of the really cool things that he said is when he sees the team across the net as

a puzzle to be solved, and that it's not just like performance, but really an experience, and it allows them to be more calm under pressure. All just like performance, but really an experience and it allows them to be more calm under pressure. All right. So solving your problems like puzzles. What are we talking about today? And this is something out of your book, right? So if we want to get a little bit more info, we can dive into the book. Yes. I thought it was pretty cool how something I talked about in the book and he mentioned, and you know, when you have a problem solving mindset, you're really inquisitive, you're calmer under pressure thinking more creatively and not feeling like a victim when you're experiencing a problem and he gave an example of when he was actually performing at

the Olympics you know himself as an athlete their setter couldn't play and so you know seeing that as a problem to be solved he was like well okay how great would it be went to be win without a setter instead of getting frustrated he's like all right, okay, how great would it be to be a win without a setter? Instead of getting frustrated, he's like, all right, let's go. So why is it important that we see our problems or our adversity like a puzzle? I think when you live a life of high performance, you tackle difficulties with gratitude, and you recognize really the struggle is necessary. And instead of saying, why me? It's like, well, not why not me,

you know, that I can really problem solve and solve these puzzles. And I can learn from the difficulty rise to the challenge. And so really, with a good mindset, nothing is too hard or impossible. So what prevents us from seeing problems as puzzles then? Yeah, I think it's because we're human. And so I know, I know, we can overthink our decisions and doubt ourself, sometimes blame, we can experience kind of paralysis by analysis where we're overthinking in the situation. But you know, when you see it as a puzzle, you can figure it out, you're more creative, and you'll have more energy, a fresher perspective to take on the challenge. So do you have some examples for us? I do, yeah.

I encourage everyone who's listening to think about, you know, what's one problem you're experiencing right now? And how can you solve it like a puzzle? You know, so perhaps your business is not generating the profit that you'd like. Or maybe you're playing less on your athletic team than you'd like. Or maybe you're having difficulty losing weight. Or you're telling yourself that you don't have time to reach your goals. I think if you turn these puzzles into really challenges that you can figure out, and that's going to work better.

Well, that makes sense. Do you have a final point? I do. You know when you're actually trying to solve a puzzle, like a real puzzle, you probably start with something really easy, and it's like the corners. Yeah, or the border. Yeah, the border. And so I think the key is is to is to try it just try something and you just like when you're you know you're solving a puzzle you might take a piece put it

in if it doesn't fit you know that's kind of like a failure so the key is is you got to keep going and the better you know you work at solving problems the better you get at it and the better you you know work at how often you work at solving a puzzle the better you get at it so the better you work at or how often you work at solving a puzzle, the better you get at it. So the key is to keep going, keep persisting, keep trying through the failures. I like that analogy of the puzzle because, I mean, when you think about it, if anybody sat down to do a puzzle and they put that piece in and it doesn't fit and you're like, oh, okay, no big deal. You put it down, pick up another one. Your problems seem much bigger than that, but it's essentially the same exact thing,

right? Absolutely. That didn't work. Put that down. Pick it up. Try something else. So just get started. Yeah.

Just try something that way and really kind of tone it down a little bit. And it's not the end of the world. True. Absolutely. Isn't that so true? All right. So summarize this topic for us today. The solve your problems like puzzles.

I'd say high performers solve their problems like puzzles. This perspective keeps them creative, energized, and calm, and they're more likely to reach their goals when they experience adversity because they experience it head on instead of avoiding it. And our power phrase to wrap up with this week. I solve my problems like puzzles. Nothing is too hard or impossible for me because I tackle my difficulties with gratitude. If you stop at the big yellow barn on your way up 169, they have like the world's largest jigsaw puzzle on the side of the building. It is massive. It looks like it would be impossible to do, but someone put the whole darn thing together, right? So they solved it. Excellent, TJ. Like a puzzle. Like a puzzle. Love

it. So if we want to get the book and learn more about that, that was practice. Which practice was that in the book you were talking about? It was within practice number seven, empowering emotions. And there are 10 practices in the book total. And a lot of the stuff we talk about comes from that. So if you'd like the book and the workbook that goes with it, or you want to listen to one of the podcasts or any of the things Sindra is doing, how do we get in touch? You can head over to DrSindra.com. So D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset.

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