High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 29: Failing Forward with Mental Skills Coach Carrie Cheadle

Episode Date: February 23, 2016

In this interview with Mental Skills Coach, Carrie Cheadle, she talks about the need for failure in our lives and athletic careers. We should learn how to embrace failure and seek it out. In her words, "You have to risk failure in order to risk success." She describes how showing up as yourself and bringing 100% of yourself to your work leads to success, happiness, and reaching your best. To learn more about Carrie's work, you can visit her website www.carriecheadle.com or on Twitter @FeedtheAthlete.  

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 thank you so much for joining me today. I'm glad that you are here. Today, I'm excited to provide an interview with Keri Cheadle. Keri is a mental skills coach, and she lives in California, just north of San Francisco. She's been working with teams, organizations, individual athletes, and exercises for almost 15 years. She's a certified consultant

through the Association for Applied Sports Psychology and is the author of a book, which I own. It's called On Top of Your Game, Mental Skills to Maximize Your Athletic Performance. She has been interviewed as an expert for publications including Shape Magazine, Women's Health, Men's Fitness, Runner's World, and Huffington Post. Her master's degree is in sports psychology from John F. Kennedy University. This is what I love about Carrie every time I connect with her is her energy. She is 100% authentic, and she brings 100% of her to every interaction, and this is something she talks about towards the end of her interview, is the importance of bringing 100% of your personality to your work. I can tell Carrie

does that, and I can tell that it's a focus for Carrie by the way she interacts with other people, and I think you're going to feel this and hear that in this interview. Now, my favorite things about this interview is Carrie and I's discussion about failure. She talks about how her primary question for herself is, how can I fail today? Wow, that's incredible. She talks about how we all make mistakes, but that we must risk failure to experience success. I think that you're going to like this interview with Carrie. I think you will feel her authenticity and hear it in her voice, and I can't wait to hear what you think about her interview and what stood out to you about this interview. As always, you can send a tweet or post a tweet about what you got out of this interview,

and I'd encourage you to tag myself, mentally underscore strong, as well as at Carrie Cheadle in your post so we can repost it and comment back to you and get a good discussion about this podcast. So without further ado, let's bring on Keri. Hi, performers. I am excited that you're joining us today for an interview with Keri Cheadle. Keri is a mental skills coach from the Northern California area. So welcome to the High Performance Mindset, Keri. Thank you so much for having me.

I'm excited that you're here. You and I have got to spend a lot of time together. I'm just excited for what this interview is going to entail and the nuggets that you're going to be able to provide the listeners. Nice. I've got lots of nuggets. Yeah. Keri, let's just start off and tell us about your passion and what you do in California.

It's funny. If you had asked me in my younger years if I ever thought that this was the career path that I was going to be doing, I wouldn't have thought that I was going to be working with athletes. I'm sure a lot of people can say the same thing about their career path. Growing up, participating in sport wasn't a part of my culture, my family culture. You know, and at that time it wasn't it didn't have the same place in the greater culture as it does now where I'm living now. It's it's much different. And so I a lot of my sports that I got into, I didn't get into until later in life, until until I was in college and then even later and continue to today. But I, you know, I remember the thing that really got me excited about it, you know,

in addition to kind of the path that led me here was I still remember my very first class and it was probably within the very first weeks of my graduate program in sports psychology. So it was like the very introductory class that we took through the program. And I remember sitting there and kind of reflecting on my own sport experiences and some of the things that made me recognize that there's a whole psychology behind performance. I remember sitting there and going, oh my gosh, everybody needs to have this information and I need to be a part of helping people get this information. So that's part of what made me passionate about it was knowing how much it helped me in my own performances

and some of the pretty debilitating performance anxiety I experienced in my life and how I've been able to work through a lot of that and the things I do now. There's no way I would be doing them without utilizing all of the tools I work on with my athletes. So the thought of being able to help someone else reach that point and come into a place in their life maybe where they're doing something that they never envisioned themselves being able to do and to be able to help them with that, I mean, that's really kind of a big, that's a big part of why I do what I do. Tell us specifically who are the types of athletes that you're working with?

Yeah, I, you know, I'm pretty fortunate in that I run the gamut between from, you know, recreational athletes and exercisers that are just trying to figure out how to make exercise and health a priority in their life, all the way to, you know, athletes performing, you know, professional athletes performing at national and international level. So I get to do a lot of different things in the work that I do. A lot of people know me through my work with endurance sports. So pretty early on, I was specializing in working with cycling. And so I work with a lot of cyclists and runners and triathletes.

But really, I've had the unbelievable privilege of working with athletes in many, many different sports. And then I also work with some collegiate teams as well at one of the universities that's near me. So I get to do a lot of different sports and a lot of different levels too. Well, you know, given your wide variety experience, Keri, tell us about what you see as the traits that separate some of the best performers from those that don't rise to the occasion. And what do you think that separates them mentally? I think one of the biggest things that I see really is discipline.

Like for me in the work that I've done over the years, I think if I had to pin it down to one thing, that's a pretty big one, is that kind of the unbelievable sort of discipline it takes to perform at that level. Like there are a lot of people that are very passionate about it. There are people that are unbelievably driven. There are people that are extremely confident, but if you don't have that discipline to really, um, uh, understand both kind of the art and science behind your sport, um, and do the work both physically and mentally, uh, it's just, you're not going to be able to perform to that level. I think that's probably one of the biggest ones.

Another interesting one, the very highest levels, I think, too, is their understanding of recovery and the place that that, where that fits into high performance. Not everybody quite understands that piece. That's probably maybe another one. So they understand when it's time to back off and to recover and not keep on pushing, but then they also are very disciplined in their habits. Yes. What do you see them doing, Carrie, in terms of their discipline? You know, do you think it's the little things like eating well and getting good sleep and what they're doing in terms of understanding their sport? What do you see them doing differently in terms of discipline?

I think it really is the full commitment to it and the understanding and acceptance, even though it's challenging at times, like the understanding and acceptance of what has to be sacrificed in order to perform at that most elite level, which so includes all of those things that you were talking about. That includes like getting the sleep, being just as disciplined with your recovery as you are with your training, being disciplined about your nutrition, you know, because all of these things at that level are going to play a factor. So, um, and so you really have to be sort of on top of a hundred percent or as close to that as you can with each one of those things that's going to impact your performance. And what do you see that your athletes really struggle with mentally? I think one of the biggest things probably is, um probably is self-doubt. Like as soon as

those sort of that little self-doubt starts to creep in, it really wreaks havoc on their confidence. I'm talking with my athletes right now and my team's a lot about the struggle between holding on to holding on to your feelings of confidence, while at the same time, knowing that you there are things you want to continue to improve. And also holding on to your feelings of confidence at the same time of maybe being having a disappointing performance, that it's okay to have both instead of feeling like it has to be one or the other. So that's something we're talking about a lot right now. But, I mean, man, that self-doubt. It's amazing how you could have performed exceptionally well in your competition

and done incredible things and then have that one error that you made, and that error weighs so much more heavily than everything else you did that was fantastic. And that error seems to, for a lot of people, be the thing that drives whether or not they feel confident versus all of those other things. We talk a lot about that. Yeah, I couldn't agree more with that in terms of, you know, we tend to focus on that one thing that went wrong instead of the 98 minutes that was excellent. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So stakes, failure all contributes to the reason that athletes or high performers, business people might experience self-doubt.

Absolutely. Yeah. Carrie, besides, you know, self-doubt and confidence, what would be a mindset topic that you tend to cover with a lot with your clients? Can you tell us about that? And why is that really important? Yeah. You know, I think that one of the kind of ties with what we were just talking about is that I talk about a lot with my athletes is how to define success. And when you're in your athletic life or even in your work life where a lot of success is defined by the outcome, one of the things I kind of talk about is how success can sometimes be fluid and how to open up our definitions of it. So along those lines, another sort of mindset topic I talk about a lot with my athletes is the thoughts that we feed ourselves. And sort of, you know, when you think about your

nutrition, you need to think about how you're fueling your body and that there's a way to fuel optimally for your performance. And then there's other things you can put in your body that are going to be detrimental to your performance. That's sort of how I talk about thoughts with my athletes. So we talk a lot about how there's a little monster on one shoulder and a little athlete on the other, and whichever one you feed is the one that gets stronger, and we're very, very good at feeding the monster and not so good at feeding the athlete sometimes. And so just having those conversations about the language that we use and how that affects how we perceive the world around us and how we perceive ourselves

and that we all, after a performance, will tell a story about that performance. So in our memory of it and in how we talk about it, we're telling a story. And that story that we tell about the performance has a very significant impact on how we feel about our confidence and motivation moving into the next competition. So that's one I talk about a lot with my athletes is sort of those thoughts and feeding the athlete and and also kind of redefining or opening up our definitions of what it means to be successful in sport. Yeah, Carrie, there's a few things I want to follow up with there. I really like the the analogy of feeding your mind, just like, you know, you feel your body. I think athletes understand the importance of nutrition.

Yeah. So I'm sure that really hits home with them. Tell us more about what you mean by how, you know, success is fluid. So I was just talking about this with someone else. I work with a lot of adult athletes, although I get to work with youth athletes as well. A significant portion of the population I work with have been adult athletes. And as we age, sometimes, and we get to the point where we recognize that we might start, that some of our PRs might all be in the path because we're just kind of aging out of our sport. You know how. And PRs are personal records for those who don't know. Yes. So, you know, that's a struggle for athletes. So with the athletes I have the opportunity to work with through this kind of transitional period, that's one of the things we talk about is, well, if, you know, that's a kind of an outcome based way of viewing success. success and feeling good about ourselves and good about our performance, it can be pretty

devastating to get to that point. And so that's one example of how success could potentially be fluid depending on where your life has taken you. Or, you know, I've worked with some athletes where they're starting to question whether or not they want to continue in their sport. And some of their life goals might be conflicting with some of the goals that they have as an athlete to perform to their potential. And maybe that means that they're in a place where success is fluid and success might mean more in terms of for that person in terms of their life balance versus performing their best as an athlete. So that's one another kind of example of that idea that success can be fluid. Yeah. And it's less about the number is kind of what I hear you talking

about and more about the process and how really we define it and thinking about that in terms of how does that keep us motivated? How does that keep us going? Yeah. Carrie, tell us about a signature technique that you use to help your athletes master their mindset. I have. That's a great question. I have a few. A lot of them are in my book, actually. And I wrote a book for athletes called On Top of Your Game, Mental Skills to maximize your athletic performance. And in there, I put, I wanted to be a really athlete friendly, like, here are things you can actually do and apply to yourself and, and work on your mental game. And so at the end of each chapter, there's two different tools for each topic. And so a lot of my not all of them, but but I've got some great ones in there. And one of the ones that I use with a lot of my athletes that's in there, that's in that book, is called Weight of the World.

And so when I work through it with an athlete, we'll do a little exercise where I'll have them draw a little, you know, grab a piece of paper and draw a little stick figure of themselves at the bottom of the page. Draw a little picture of yourself at the bottom of the page, which sometimes gets some eye rolls for people who feel like they can't draw. But it's like, it doesn't matter. It just has to be a representation of you. Just draw a stick figure. And they're like, okay. So they draw a little stick figure. And I said, okay, on top of that, we're going to write down all of the things that feel like pressure right now. What are all the things you're carrying on your shoulders? So then above the little stick figure, they just are brainstorming. Like, what are all the things that feel like I'm carrying on my shoulders right now in terms of pressure and performance? And then they'll kind of write all of those things down.

And then after that, I have them assign a weight to each one. So I'll say, you know, if zero is – this actually doesn't feel like any pressure. It's weightless. It weighs nothing. It's zero pounds all the way to 100, which is kind of the biggest sort of weight that you can feel and pressure that you feel. And then they do that. So they assign then a weight to each one. And I said, okay, well, now let's add them all up. And so they add all of them up. And then I say, okay, so that's, you know, you're carrying that much weight into your shoulders every time you go to bat or every

time you swim in your race. And so I just did this with one of my swimmers recently. And I said, what do you think is going to happen if you're carrying all that weight on your shoulders and you jump into the water to swim? I'm going to sink. So it's interesting for them to kind of conceptualize it in that way that they think about this pressure in terms of how much it might weigh on them in terms of like mentally and sort of stress wise and that that's going to have an impact. So when they think about it in that way of it actually carrying weight, they're like, oh, huh. OK. And then we talk about how to shave weight off of each one. And you're not going to get to zero because that's not realistic and might not even be something that you would want. But can we shave some of that weight off and free up some of the things that you're doing that's putting pressure on yourself?

And I think people seem to really connect with that idea and sort of seeing it in that way. I love it. I could see how that could be a really good awareness exercise in terms of what are the things that are weighing you down and how can you relieve some of those so they're not, you know, so heavy. I like what you're saying, Carrie, about that they might not get to zero because that's just unrealistic. But how can you reduce some of that weight on your shoulders? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Shaving five pounds is five pounds. Like that on your shoulders? Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Shaving five pounds is five pounds. Like that's still significant. Yeah. Yeah. And for a lot of athletes, shaving five pounds can really have a significant impact on performance. I have your book right here. Oh, nice.

On top of your game, Mental Skills to Maximize Your Athletic Performance. I'm sure you can find it on Amazon. Any other ways that you would suggest that we find it? That's probably the best. There's a Kindle and paperback version, and you can get them both on Amazon, yeah. So, Keri, tell us a little bit about why you do what you do, you know, because we believe here at the High Performance Mindset that keeping your why front and center is a really powerful motivator.

So tell us why you do what you do. That's a great question. performance mindset that keeping your why front and center is a really powerful motivator. So tell us why you do what you do. I, that's a great question. One of the reasons I do what I do, I'm good at it. You know, so we're, you know, this is sort of a sports psychology, you know, kind of tenant as well is that we, we tend to be motivated and drawn to things that we're good at and feel confident in. And although it's certainly like any job comes with, with challenges and times where I feel like I'm performing really well in times where I feel like, man, I did not hit that one out of the park. So, but I feel like overall I'm I'm I'm very good at what I do and I really enjoy, you know, I enjoy talking to people and I enjoy connecting with people. And I have in my nature, I'm a very I'm a very curious person.

And I think that curiosity and sort of authenticity and the way I engage with people makes me even better in the work that I do because each person comes to me and they're kind of like a puzzle and I really want to figure out what's going on for that person and what can we do to help, you know, together to help that person accomplish their goals. So, you know, a lot of why I do what I do is because I feel like I'm really good at it and then it's also I really get quite a bit of enjoyment out of having people take some of these things and learn about themselves and accomplish goals that maybe were lifelong goals that something they always wanted to accomplish or see themselves in a different way that they never saw themselves before. So any way that I get the opportunity to help someone else in their own growth, I mean, that's a pretty big reason why I do it as well. Awesome. So I hear a lot of reasons in terms of, you know, internal reasons, because you're great at it. Also external reasons that you really like helping people

and the enjoyment of seeing them accomplish their goals. And, you know, do something that they perhaps didn't believe that they could before. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Tell us about yourself as a high performer, Keri. And what I'm specifically interested in is a time that didn't go so well for you, maybe a failure.

You know, tell us about a story about that and what we can learn from it. There's so many to choose from. Oh, gosh. One that comes to mind would be, it's funny because I don't know that I would define them as failures, but I think that maybe I would in this particular case, but my very first client, so it's funny when you go through your graduate work or your undergraduate work and you're learning these things in the classroom and then you're sitting across from the athlete. You know, it's one thing to kind of learn these in the classroom. It's another thing entirely to sit across from someone and do it in the applied setting and help this person. And so my very first client that I had, he was a cyclist and he was getting ready for a really big bike event.

And, you know, we did some great work together and, you know, just in a pretty short amount of time, he was feeling much, much more confident about this event and feeling prepared and ready. And we'd worked on some pretty big things and I was feeling pretty good. And actually in the middle of his event, ended up having a heart attack and was taken away by an ambulance and ended up having surgery. And so when I met with him after, you know, I think some of the ways that I addressed that, you know, so my first thought was like, oh, they did not teach me this in school. I didn't know the situation. Oh, my gosh, this is my first client.

I can't believe this. So I wasn't, I didn't have enough, I think, life experience maybe at that point to know how to handle that situation. And so I feel like the conversation that I had, the meeting I had with him after probably led to us not continuing our work together. And I think one of the things that I did in that situation was assume how he must be feeling instead of really having that conversation and exploring how he was feeling. So that was a pretty big lesson for me. And I, you know, part of me feels it's, and it's, it's interesting sometimes where you, in those moments where you have to be okay with the fact that you let someone down and maybe in order to learn this lesson. So it took me a while to get

to that point. I know athletes go through that kind of thing all the time. And then in other ways, as a high performer, I've had different projects fail. And that's been an interesting experience in sort of doing the same thing for myself and my work and my career that I have athletes do, where it's like this one thing that didn't work out the way you wanted it to doesn't mean that you should quit your job. Like if you're still good at what you do, you can still maintain your confidence. You can still move forward. It's not going to be the last opportunity, you know, so all those things from just little failures that have things that just don't end up working out. I think that's another kind of a great lesson that I've learned as well.

Yeah, I think that's so true, Carrie. So many times I'm applying these skills to myself and my business and my relationships and obviously my clients, but just shows you how applicable the skills are. And you know, one thing that I wanted to mention is, you know, you and I are in the same mastermind group. And during this call or this week's call, you said something really profound I are in the same mastermind group. And during this call, or this week's call, you said something really profound at the beginning. And you said something about how, you know, every day you're looking to fail. And, man, I was just thinking about how that's such a really a growth mindset approach. So tell us about, you know, what does that mean for you?

And tell us about how you how are you really trying to fail every day? Yeah, you know, it came about when I was thinking about my New Year's resolutions. So I love doing New Year's resolutions. And I usually, well, I do them every year. And I'm actually usually much, much more specific with them. And for some reason this year, I felt like I needed sort of a guiding principle instead of something specific. And so my New Year's resolution for this year is to make more mistakes. And so that's where that idea came from of perceiving failure in a different way and actually proactively trying to work towards that failure because I know now that on the other side of that failure at some point is the success.

And that's a lesson that's taken me a very long time to learn because of my tendency to be a perfectionist. Like failure was something I was terrified of and was absolutely unacceptable for so long that I didn't understand the beauty in it. And so that's actually something I'm talking about with some of my athletes right now as well, is how to really embrace that and seek out the failure and that you can't, you have to risk failure in order to risk success and to be okay with that being part of the process instead of, you know, we tend to internalize

it and feel like, you know, it hits our, it can hit you at your core and kind of affect your self-worth and that's where that idea of you've got to figure out a way to hold on to your confidence at the same time of having failures because you need those failures to get better at what you do. So watch out for Carrie Cheadle making all kinds of mistakes this year. I look at so many times even, you know, I catch myself in this mindset where it's like, ah, you know, I really shouldn't do that because I likely will fail or, you know, or I shouldn't do that because I likely will fail or, you know, or I'm afraid of making mistakes. And it just shows you how that really,

really holds us back. So I really love your approach this year of making more mistakes. Excellent. Well, tell us, Carrie, about an aha moment that you've had in your career and how it can help us learn something. I think one of the aha moments I've had, you know, I've had, I'm sure I've had quite, I've had many, but one that stands out in particular is sort of on the business end of, of the work that I do. And this, the moment when I realize I had like a, it was a very specific moment in time and a very specific realization that I had where I realized, oh, in every role in my business, I'm the owner and I am the CEO and I am the CFO and I am the marketing department and I am the manager and I am the employee.

And recognizing that each one of those things has a specific skill set and that at some point I was going to need to get support and get some assistance with someone else that was an expert in one of those things, because you cannot be an expert in all of those things or you just, or you maybe you can't, well, I don't know that you can, but, or you just wouldn't have the time to really be able to fulfill each one of those roles, those roles to its potential. So I think that was a good, it was a pretty big aha moment just recognizing, oh, I am all of those things, and they each take dedicated time, and they're each a different skill set. And that at some point, it might be good to seek out expert advice and get support in that way. So talking about proactively seeking out, understanding the support you need, so knowing what kind of support you need, and then also proactively asking for the support you need,

I work on that with my athletes quite a bit as well. Yeah, and so for you, Keri, what are the tasks that you ended up asking for to help with just so that you could focus on, you know, what you're really great at? Because you're right that it's really difficult to to be able to fulfill this in your business and all these different areas. And some of us have, you know, strengths that align with marketing or, you know, that align with the invoicing, you know, some of us don't. So tell me, what did you end up doing? I, you know, I delegated some of my or, you know, outsource some of the work on my website. So I used to do all of it on my own. And I finally was like, all right, I'm just gonna,

I need to hire someone else to do this part, because it's going to take them less time than it will for me to figure these things out. So that was one of the things I got assistance with. And then I've just reached out to people that through my network, I will ask them questions. So instead of trying to do everything on my own, even in terms of my approach to my business or those sorts of things. Now I'll, I'll ask for, I'll get people's opinions, which I never really did before. So that's why I'm, you know, part of our mastermind group and a part of another sort of practitioners group so that I get the support that I need.

And I ask the questions and get, and allow myself to get help when I when I need help. So, you know, so some of it, some of the support is more like, I guess, maybe motivational, emotional support. And then sometimes it's more informational support of, you know, asking someone, you know, what's the best, you know, instead of doing all the research on my own, getting some opinions on what's the best microphone to get if I want to record a podcast or, you know, just like little things like that. So it's and I'm still kind of doing that process of starting to to get some more expert opinions on certain things because you don't know what you don't know. You know, so it's it's a it's been a really fun experience actually kind of doing that. I think in my career too, you know, Carrie, I've learned to really ask for help, rely on other people and recognize that I don't know everything. And that's okay.

Not beat myself up for it. But, you know, reach out to people who I know can help me grow and continue to learn more so I can better myself at what I do as well. Yeah. I think you've thought maybe we fall into the trap of, well, I'm a smart woman. I could figure this out. But just because you can doesn't mean you have to. You have to. Yeah, it's really hard.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, Keri, we believe here at the High Performance Mindset that if your dreams don't scare you, they aren't big enough. Yeah. So tell us about a dream that scares you. That's funny because I usually have quite a few. And I think I've actually been working on the opposite of knowing how to say that's good enough. Yeah.

I usually am like, you know, kind of like always pushing myself out of my comfort zone. So I think I'm in this place just in this moment in time where I'm like, I just need to like kind of back off a little bit and be okay with I'm not quite sure where things are headed right now. So I'm in this and that's actually kind of scary in and of itself. I'm in this transition place where I'm about to dream some really big dreams, but I'm not sure what direction that's going to be going in just yet. So, you know, the story I share with my athletes a lot is this story about a trapeze artist and how you're swinging on, you know, when you're swinging on the bar as a trapeze artist, at some point you have to let go of one bar before you can catch the next one.

Excuse me. And so in that space in between, a lot of times we want to get through that space as quickly as possible because it's scary when you have nothing to hold on to. So that's the space that I'm in right now. But I do know I would like to write another book, and that's a little bit scary because I know how much work it took to do the first one, but it's also really exciting. And then I have a personal dream that I'm thinking about for 2017. I would like to take a four to six week trip on my own.

And Carrie, where would you like to go? I will be heading to New Orleans. That is the plan. Yeah, my plan is to is to head there and for a four to six week trip. And originally, I was actually thinking about that trip and thinking, Oh, I'll, I'm going to go to New Orleans for a month, I'm going to start writing my book. But now, I'm not really sure I might just go have fun. So I'm not sure. I don't know what it's going to look like just yet. And then I added on the possibility of doing a road trip on the way there and on the way back, which is a little intimidating to think about the possibility of doing that on my own. But yeah, so it's all kind of the seeds have been planted and I haven't started watering them yet, but I'm planning to start watering them in the next month or two.

I think that writing a book and going on a four to six week trip is definitely something that would be uncomfortable. But I like what you're saying in terms of that sometimes, you know, you just have to say enough is enough and I'm good with where I'm at for now. It's a really good, delicate balance. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Keri, which of the traits of the top 10 traits of high performers do you think that you exhibit the most? I think one of the ones I exhibit the most is having high self-awareness. You know, I love the study of human behavior. And since I happen to be human, I have used myself as my own subject, so to speak. So I think that's one of the reasons I feel like I'm very good at what I do as well, because I know how to sort of tune in and be self-aware about the certain assumptions I have or the way I perceive things and question those things and have this ability to have this sort of metacognition or like this ability to separate myself in a moment when I react a certain way to also at the same time be able to go, well, that's interesting.

I wonder why I did that. So I think that's probably, that's one for sure that I exhibit quite a bit. And then I think probably that being, I don't know that I would say I'm comfortable being uncomfortable, but I'm pretty good at feeling the fear, but doing it anyway. So I guess that fits in with that one. So that definitely fits in that. You know, one of the traits I think that you exhibit the most is that you practice authenticity. I mean, whenever I hear you present or talk, I know it's you. I know you're showing up as you and you're not thinking about what other people are thinking about you. You know, I can sense it by the way, by your energy and your passion. So that's one of the traits I would

say you exhibit the most, Carrie. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's a continual work in progress. Tell us about which of the traits you see yourself still working on. I would say, well, you know, what's funny is I would say that one. Okay, Awesome. You know, and I, I think I, I agree with you actually, but it has taken me a while to get to that place. And part of it was because I've done the, I do all of the work that I have my athletes do. And that's gotten me to a place where I'm able to do that and bring, bring more of myself into the room. And I think people really respond to that. But it's, you know, I think that, I think it kind of goes, that goes hand in hand with that having high self-awareness.

So that's, so those two things in general, even though I'm good at them, it's something I'm always working on at the same time. I think the other one though, that probably is the biggest one is dominating the moment and staying present. You know, and I, my brain enjoys time traveling into the future quite a bit and I have to rein that in and I, and that's a constant struggle that I have of not overthinking and going so far into the future to like really bring myself back. And so that's a, and it's a practice and I need to continue. Yeah.

And that's the part I need to work on is being consistent with that practice. Yeah. And you know, one of the reasons I asked you both of these questions, Carrie, is because I think that we all are a work in progress, you know, and at times maybe we're really strong in some of these traits, some of it sometimes we're not, you know, and I like part of that, you know, practicing authenticity. The word I use there is consciously practicing authenticity. And I got that from Brene Brown's work, who is a beautiful researcher and writer, because

people who really work to show up as themselves, you know, experience a deeper connection with the present moment. So that's cool. If you if anybody who's listening would like to get that list, you can do so on my website, cindereccampoff.com. And there's a way that you can just put in your email and you get it directly to your email box. So thanks for, Carrie, for just being really

honest about that and open. Yeah. So let's go to the speed round. First thing that comes to your mind, Carrie. So tell us about a book besides your own that you'd recommend. Or maybe somebody that you follow, you know, or a podcast, something that you listen to. What would be your go to choice for information or for content or inspiration? Sure. In addition to my book, of course, because it's fantastic and I highly recommend it. Another book I really enjoy is actually Brené Brown is The Gifts of Imperfection. I love it. It's a really, really good one, and I highly recommend it. Yeah.

What is it about it that, you know, you really like? Well, I really enjoy the fact that she's a researcher and a storyteller at the same time, and that she does kind of study herself and is into, you know, that idea of self-awareness and authenticity and is honest about her struggles with it in that book in particular. And then just, you know, having struggled with perfectionism quite a bit, it was a, you know, it's a pretty profound book to read personally and professionally and sort of bringing some of that into the work that I do with my athletes and recommending that book. So I just loved the research behind it. I liked that part.

I did as well. You should see my book. It has lots of highlights, lots of tags. I go back to it frequently. So that's The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown. Yeah. So, Keri, what's one word that people describe you as? Oh, many people describe me as kind.

Oh, completely agree with that. What's the best advice that you've ever received? Oh, the best advice I've ever received, actually, was advice from a friend of mine who also knows my work. So it's someone that I met through diabetes training camp, which is I run their mental training program. And it was someone I met through there. And I remember him giving me advice about being authentic, actually, and bringing not be to not be afraid to bring 100% of myself and my personality into my work, because that he felt like that's what people were really attracted to that, that kind of authenticity and

the my in the way I brought myself into the room. So that was a big one. Yeah, I completely agree with that. So tell us about a success quote that you live by and how does it apply to us? My all-time favorite quote that I live by is, a ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for. Nice. Right? So I was introduced to that quote as a freshman in college,

and it's just stuck with me ever since. And it's that idea of kind of can you be comfortable being uncomfortable or the idea that you build this beautiful ship and you put a lot of work into it and you don't really want to send it out to sea to sink and it's safe right there docked at the harbor, but that is not what that ship was built for. So anytime I feel afraid to do something or to try something, I think of that like, well, a ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are built for. I love it, Carrie. And so let's have a final question. What advice do you have for those high performers who are listening? The biggest piece of advice I have is remember to enjoy

yourself along the journey. So when you're working so hard to work towards a particular goal and you really have to have that kind of discipline that we talked about in order to work towards that goal, sometimes you lose sight of enjoying yourself along the way and staying present. And a story came up recently in one of the classes that I'm teaching about one of my students who was in the Olympics and one of his teammates and his experience of going to the Olympics and coming away. And he his biggest regret was that he didn't enjoy his time there. And he doesn't remember any of it because he was just, you know, as an athlete focused on on doing what he needed to do in order, which is sometimes what you need to do. But he wishes he had come back and he wishes he had been there in moments as well.

So I think to do that to every once in a while, it's okay to stop and just really breathe in how amazing it is what you're doing and that you get to experience this thing that not everybody gets to experience. So don't forget that sport is supposed to add to our life. So you should try and enjoy some of that. Yeah, absolutely, and enjoy the present moment. It easily just goes by so fast when you didn't even love what you were doing and really into the moment. There are so many things, Keri, that you talked about that I think could really, really help those who are listening. Two things that stand out to me is our discussion about authenticity and really showing up as

yourself. I love what you said about bringing 100% of your personality to your work and how that's so important. I think you are an excellent role model for that. Seriously, every interaction I have with you, I know this is Carrie Teetle. And the second thing I really thought was valuable was just the importance of, you know, your New Year's resolution of making more mistakes this year. And I love what you said about we must risk failure to experience success. So thank you so much for joining us today, Carrie. My pleasure. Awesome.

Tell us more about, again, about your book and any other ways that we can follow you. Sure. So my book, again, it's On Top of Your Game, Mental Skills to Maximize Your Athletic Performance, and you can get a Kindle version or a paperback version on Amazon, and I also have, I publish a blog, so you can go to my website, which is my name. It's www.carriecheedle.com, and there's a great blog on there, a mental skills training blog that has all kinds of great content on the mental aspects of performance. And through there, too, you can connect with me on Facebook and Twitter, so I have all kinds of great sort of social media tips and things to think about for your own performance.

And then I also have an online goal setting program. So if you are looking to work towards accomplishing a specific goal, this is a great program that really takes you step by step through the process of how to set a goal effectively. So a lot of times I think people think they've failed at their goal, but what they've probably failed at is how to effectively set that goal. They failed at goal setting, not failed at accomplishing their goal. So this is a great tool to kind of walk you through that process. So all kinds of great stuff. And you can sign up for my newsletter too and just kind of practice,

put into practice that idea of feeding the athlete by using all of these tools. Excellent. Carrie, what's the name of your goal setting program for those who want to check it out? It's called On Top of Your Goals. And we would love to hear what stood out to you about this interview. So please, we'd encourage you to send a tweet or a post what was important to you and then tag myself. My Twitter handle is mentally underscore strong. And Carrie, what's yours? Mine is at feed the athlete. So excellent.

Thank you so much for joining us today, Carrie. Have an outstanding week. Thanks. You too. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset. Are you signed up for Sindra'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 SindraKampoff.com.