High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 349: Shifting Your Perspective with Zach Brandon, Mental Skills Coordinator for the Arizona Diamondbacks

Episode Date: June 26, 2020

Zach’s passion is studying human excellence and guiding others in pursuit of their own personal excellence. He serves as the Mental Skills Coordinator for the Arizona Diamondbacks where he oversees mental performance services for players and staff across all levels of the organization. He is also the Founder/Director of MVP Mindset Consulting, a performance psychology business that consults with performers and leaders across disciplines. Prior to his current role in professional baseball, Zach served as a Mental Conditioning Coach at IMG Academy (FL).   Zach is a Certified Mental Performance Consultant (CMPC) with the Association for Applied Sport Psychology. He received his Master’s degree in Kinesiology from California State University, Fullerton and his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Linfield College (OR). He was a starting pitcher for four years on the Linfield College baseball team including their national championship squad in 2013.   In this podcast, Zach and Cindra talk: · Why your perspective matters · What failure means to him · Strategies we can use to be more mindful · How stress can be a good thing

Hey, my name is Cindra Campoff and I'm a small-town Minnesota gal, Minnesota nice as we like to say it, who followed her big dreams. I spent the last four years working as a mental coach for the Minnesota Vikings, working one-on-one with the players. I wrote a best-selling book about the mindset of the world's best and I'm a keynote speaker and national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. And I am obsessed with showing you exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best so you can accomplish all your goals and dreams. So I'm over here following my big dreams and I'm here to inspire you and practically show you how to do the same. And you know, when I'm not working, you'll find me playing Ms. Pac-Man.

Yes, the 1980s game Ms. Pac-Man. So take your notepad out, buckle up, and let's go. This is the High Performance Mindset. Welcome to episode 349 with Zach Brandon. This is your host, Dr. Sindra Kampoff, and I am grateful that you're here. If you know that mindset is essential to your success, then you are in the right place. Hey, two quick things before we jump into the interview with Zach Brandon. First, we started a Facebook group to connect with you where we share behind the scenes of the High Performance Mindset Podcast, and we discuss each episode while also providing you more tangible strategies and inspiration i'd love to meet you head over to high performance mindset podcast

community on facebook and i'll see you there second if you haven't already heard we're giving away 500 in cash a free coaching session with me personally, two subscriptions to the Beyond Grit Academy, and 50 free best-selling hardcover Beyond Grit books. You can head over to drcindra.com slash giveaway to enter. It's really easy to enter. Head over again to drcindra, d-r-c-i-n-d-r-a dot com slash giveaway. In today's episode, I interview Zach Brandon. Zach's passion is studying human excellence and guiding others in pursuit of their own personal excellence. He serves as the mental skills coordinator for the Arizona Diamondbacks, where he oversees mental performance services for players and staff across all levels of the organization. He's also the founder and director of MVP Mindset Consulting, a performance psychology business that consults with performers and leaders across disciplines. Before his current role in professional baseball, Zach served as the mental

conditioning coach at IMG in Florida. He's a certified mental performance consultant with the Association for Applied Sports Psychology. He got his master's degree from California State Fullerton and his bachelor's in psychology from Linfield College where he was the starting pitcher including during their national championship in 2013. So in this podcast Zach and I talk about why your perspective matters, what failure really is, strategies to be more mindful, and how stress can be a good thing. And here is my favorite quote from this interview. Zach says, perspective is the only thing that can change the results without changing the facts. Gold right there. Now if you enjoyed today's episode, wherever you're listening,

head over and subscribe and give us a five-star rating and review. Each week I read the review of the week and this is from Man With An Afro. Man With The Afro says, I found out about this podcast from my internship at Northwestern Mutual and I love it. Each episode has great takeaways that I can use every day. Great podcast for anyone who wants to become better. Thank you so much for leaving a rating and review and I would love to read yours next week. So wherever you're listening, head over and leave us a rating and review

and I will make sure I read it. Be sure to share this episode with a friend. You can copy and paste the link wherever you're listening or take a screenshot and share it with a friend when you think of them as you're listening. I'd be forever grateful. And you can also share this episode on your Instagram stories and tag me over at syndracampoff. All right, here comes Zach Brandon. Zach, I'm so pumped today to have you on the podcast. How are things going?

Great, Sindra. I've been really looking forward to this, and I'm glad we were finally able to find a time and more than anything, just talk with you more and talk high performance mindset. Absolutely. And I've been wanting to have you on the podcast for a long time now. I'm just starting to think like, has it been six months since we've been talking about this, but it's a while. So to start us off, tell us a little bit about your passion and what you do, Zach. Cool. Yeah, for sure. So before I maybe answer this, I actually want to take a quick

moment, Sindra, to give you some appreciation and gratitude because a few years ago, I started getting into kind of the world of podcasts and exploring it and just trying to learn more. And your podcast was one of them. And I noticed as you were interviewing different practitioners from our field, this was like a question you opened with for pretty much everyone or some iteration of knowing your why. And I had this moment where I realized that this is a concept or a principle that I talked a lot about with the athletes that I was serving, but I didn't actually define my own. And your podcast was a little bit of a wake-up call of like, I need to actually define what mine is. Spend some time trying to craft what that is. And I ended up coming up with this, that my passion is that I'm really passionate about studying human excellence, guiding other people towards their own personal excellence. For me, that's kind of broken into two parts. With the first part, the studying human excellence, I love watching, asking questions

and studying those who are really good at their craft, regardless of the sport, regardless of the performance domain. A quick example, I just watched this Netflix documentary called Losing Sight of Shore. Have you seen it? No, I can't wait to hear about it. It's amazing. It's about these four women who rode over the Pacific Ocean from California to Australia, an 8,000 plus mile journey over a nine month period of time. And just this incredible quest that they embarked on that they were also able to capture in this documentary. And it's, I think, just a remarkable example of, you know, managing psychological, physical stress, particularly in isolation, which it's kind of interesting how relevant that is right now, given what we're all kind of facing

and how a lot of us feel isolated at times, given what's going on in the world. So it was just a really cool film that I think shows the test of human will and spirit. So regardless of where it comes from, I just like to study people who are really good at what they do and pursue their goals and dreams. And then the second bit is it's really humbling to serve people in a really cool responsibility to be part of that support system for folks. And that's like, if you kind of combine those two different things, like that's really kind of where this passion and this why for me has kind of originates from. And I have you to thank for putting that down on paper. Well, that's pretty cool. So thank you for saying that.

And it's awesome that the podcast has also helped you just grow and develop. And I was taking a step back. I just did this new intro for the podcast. I was taking a step back and I'm like, oh my gosh, the podcast has been going for five years. And it's sort of, you know, when you kind of just get going with it, you don't really always take a step back and say, how long has this been going and how long have we been doing this? So pretty cool that it helped you, Zach. So thank you for saying that. And I like what you're saying is like studying human excellence and helping people get there. And now it is really humbling to help people do that. And many times we do it

without much recognition, right? So for sure. So tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are now. I think you and I connected first when you're at IMG. So I got my little IMG cup here. Tell us a little bit about, okay, how'd you get into the field and then how'd you get to where you are now? Yeah, like many others in our field, the more people I talked to, for me, it was kind of a blending of two passions. One was sports and performance. I grew up playing baseball, and that was kind of my primary sport, and went to college, undergrad to play baseball. And then I had this other passion of helping other people, and that's what kind of led me to pursue a degree in psychology. And I took a intro to

sports psychology class as an undergrad, I think I was a junior. And for me, that was the moment where I kind of had like the light bulb, where it was like, oh, wow, I can actually was a junior. And for me, that was the moment where I kind of had like the light bulb, where it was like, oh, wow, I can actually have a career or pursue a profession where I can kind of combine these two passions and things that I really care a lot about. And so from that point forward, I tried to go all in on trying to learn about sports psychology. I started exploring graduate programs in the field. And for me, I get a lot of people that will ask sometimes, you know, any advice looking at graduate programs or pursuing education in the field. And for me, the number one criteria was find a place

where there was faculty who were doing the type of work that you wanted to be doing. Yeah, the number one priority and the main thing I cared about. And there was there's a lot of programs that could kind of fit that. But for me, it was Cal State Fullerton. And there was a handful of folks who I was very eager and excited to try to learn from. One of those is somebody that I know we both knew really well, Ken Reviza. And, you know, given my baseball background, he was obviously somebody I was very interested in learning from. So this is a quick side story. I think too many people know it.

But when I was the spring of my senior year, I had just found out that I got accepted at Fullerton. And I reached out to Ken via email. I was like, hey, this is who I am. My background. I'd really love to enroll at Fullerton this fall and learn from you. So sent the email. And in like, okay, I'll give it a couple of weeks. I knew he was really busy. I sent another email, still nothing. And I was like, okay, I'm going to try one more time. And so over about a three week span, I had sent him three emails. And finally he responds back and he says, what's your phone number?

So later that week, I'm talking on the phone with him and he'm, and he's kind of, he's kind of like helping advise me on how to look for grad programs. And at this time I already knew I wanted to go to Fullerton. Okay. But I was, and he, so he was like, you know, if you need anything, let me know. I was like, well, I'm telling you right now, like I'm, I'm coming to Fullerton, especially if there's an opportunity to shadow you and learn from you. And I said, I don't care what it entails, whether it's buying you coffee and holding that coffee for you and, and whatever that entails, I'm all in. So I lucked out for two reasons. One is Ken agreed and he allowed me to spend, it was his last year of teaching at Fullerton and it was my first year. So I got to learn a lot from him, but two, I lucked out because he didn't drink coffee. So I actually never had to buy him any coffee. That's awesome. And yeah, listening and maybe even don't know who Ken is, but a legendary

person in the field, last helped the Cubs win the World Series, but has spent decades in professional baseball working as in within mental conditioning and mental training. So, so Zach, tell, that's a great story. Tell us then, you know, then you went to IMG and now you're the Diamondbacks. So give us a little story of like how you got to the Diamondbacks and why you chose this. Yeah. So as I was going through grad school at Fullerton, learning from Ken, as well as all the other faculty that I had there, like many people, I started to fall in love with the applied side of our profession and wanted to explore as much of that and get as many, as much experience as I could with it. I knew, I learned at the time that IMG had a summer position, kind of like an

internship. So that first year, I really wanted to kind of pursue that and was fortunate enough to get an opportunity to do so. And then had that experience and learned a ton, went back to Fullerton, got a chance to apply it there in my second year. And then the following summer had a chance to return to IMG. And next thing you know, it was two and a half years later, and I was still there and still learning just as much as I had when I started. And so IMG became an incredible place for me to grow and just develop not only professionally, but personally. And you'll notice, like, I think one thing that I really believe in is that nobody gets to where they're at alone. And along my path, like many others, I've had countless people mentor me and help me

in my development. So that started at Linfield as an undergrad with my professor in sports psych to time at Fullerton to IMG. And then at the end of the 2018 season in professional baseball, the Diamondbacks were looking to create a mental skills department and bring something new, a new resource to the players and coaches in our organization. And one thing led to another and it was just a mutual fit. And so I spent the last year and a half here.

Awesome. What a fun journey and a great people at all the places you've been doing work. So Zach, I'd love to hear about how you define failure and to give us a time that you failed. And it's super interesting asking this question to people because what's great is that we all have definitions of failure and different definitions. So what does it mean to you? It's a great question. I think the challenge with failure is we experience this like visceral reaction to it.

And since childhood, we've been told that failure is this bad thing. It's this thing we should avoid. And we kind of develop it a fear or even like an aversion toward it. And I think this carries on into adulthood. But I think how I kind of define it is failure represents this violation of expectation. Product of our expectations and the gap between how we expect an event to go or how an event itself occurs and how we expected it to go. And so I think there's two parts to it.

One, the event itself and two, our response. I think we focus a lot on the event, but it's the response that I think we actually have some influence over and that we can actually control to a certain extent. And I think this is where perspective is really important in how you view failure as an opportunity to learn you know do you treat a failed event as a devastation or an education and how do you kind of learn learn from that so for me that's kind of where my mind goes when I start to think about defining failure and what it means a time where I failed I don't know how much time we have we could could spend a lot of time right here, but I'll go back and forth between maybe a more current example or I was going back and forth between a current example

or maybe something else. And I'm going to go with the latter. This was actually my very first consulting experience. And I was in the second semester of my first year at Fullerton. And again, I was all in, invested in the applied stuff. I was learning, I was shadowing, and I was ready to, I was eager to apply it. And at the time, as I knew, my goal was to go to IMG and do their summer position. As part of that application process, I had to submit a video of me working with a group. Well, I wasn't working individually with a group at the time, so I needed to come up with something. So I reached out to all these local baseball coaches and that was again, my background. So I was like, we'll, we'll start there, a comfort zone. And I had one coach respond and he said, yeah, I'd like love for you to come in and do a workshop

with the team. So I go in, I do this workshop with the team and it went really well. Like the coach afterwards came up and said, Hey, like that was great. Like if you're at all interested in continuing to work with our team, we'd be happy to have you. So I'm thinking like, everything's great. Like this is the start of the journey. And like, you know, I hit a home run on the first pitch so kind of flash forward and we get into it and I very quickly realized about a month in as I'm spending more time with this team doing some sessions but really even just observing and being a sounding board I realized that I'm in over my head and I know what I'm doing like that's kind of how I felt and

one of the challenges I think we sometimes face, I think in our field, you referenced this earlier, is that we don't always see the impact or the final result of the work that we do. And for me, I confuse where I'm going to come in, do these workshops, and the team is going to start having success. They didn't exactly have a lot of success prior to that. Right. And unfortunately, it just, you know, sport doesn't always reward us for the hard work that we put in. And this was an example of that. And I started to get discouraged. I started to get, you know, I just started to realize like, gosh, like maybe I don't know what I'm doing. At the same time, again, I had my eyes set on IMG. Ended up getting accepted into it.

And this is where I made probably one of my most regretful mistakes in my career is I kind of ended up just fading into the background with this particular team that I was working with because my goal all along was to go to IMG. I was so focused on what was next that I quit serving the people that was in front of me. And I realized in retrospect, unfortunately, that like, it was this tremendous disservice to the coach, the players, my professors, the field of sports psychology. Like I felt like I had let a lot of people down. And I ended up reaching out to this coach a couple years later and being like, one apologizing, because I felt like I had

done such a disservice. And and to just offering if there's anything I could ever do to help, even if it meant finding somebody who could work with their team ongoing, I wanted to do that. So it was a really valuable lesson in the person in front of you is the most important person or whoever you're serving in the moment's the most important person right now. But also it's helped me shift more from being driven towards values rather than goals. And my, one of my values is service and, and relationships. And, And that was a prime example of me not living up to that. And so that was a tough lesson, tough pill to swallow, but it's had a really influential impact on my development. What a great story. And a couple of things that I just got out of

that story, Zach is like, okay, failure to you means when you don't reach your expectations and how that's so interesting because we can manage our expectations, you know. But then I think sometimes when we are just getting started that we want to make a difference. So we just kind of dive in and we're not quite ready. And I think when I was really early on in this career, I thought that everything that I did would help people win. Yes, same. Until I had the situation that like literally I did everything that I possibly could and we didn't win, you know, and then it made me take a step back and say, this isn't magic.

Like this is something that we all have to practice every single day. And there are things outside of our control. So I've learned to not define my success on if a team or an athlete wins. And I think that was hard for me when I started. Still is hard for me sometimes when like the athletes I work with or the clients I work with have a big fail, you know, so I have to take a step back and this is not about me kind of thing. But also the most important person is the person in front of you and how many times we can want what's next. And then we're not really giving great service. So lots of different like take home points.

I just heard you talk about. Yeah, no, that's that's very cool. Yeah, I am grateful. And I wish it had gone differently, but I'm also grateful from what I've, I think, learned from that experience for sure. And it sounded like a really low stakes environment. So, and I bet the coach, what did the coach say when you emailed him? Was he just like, no problem? Did he even notice? Yeah. You know, that's one of the, I think the interesting things

is how quickly we create all these stories, you know, that's one of the, I think the interesting things is how quickly we create all these stories, you know, about the experience that we have and, you know, in head going into it, I feared sending that email. And, um, thankfully like he, he took it in stride and he was very appreciative of just what me originally even just reaching out. I probably still cling to it more so than, than he or some of the players do. But yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's ironic how quickly our mind can just spin us in circles. For sure. And then maybe we make a story up that's not really there. Yes. That can all happen to us. So, Zach, I know you talk about like three levels of the mental game. Tell us a little bit about what those three levels are.

Yeah, so this is in reference to Ken Reviza's work again. And, you know, he wrote Heads Up Baseball. And they have two copies. And in their second version, they describe these three levels of the mental game. First level is learn it. First level is learn it. Second level is do it. And the third is own it. And this is one of the concepts from that book that I really loved. And I thought I enjoyed the clarity, the simplicity of it. And I think it's something that I think about a lot when I'm, how I'm envisioning developing and progressing mental

skills with the athletes that we work with. I think one of the things that's been really cool is as the receptivity and the openness towards sports psychology and the mental game has expanded in our society, more and more people are getting a chance to learn about it and do it. And they're bringing folks in like ourselves to, to teach people. And I think that's awesome. To me, the, the level that I love the most is the do it, the practice it phase. And I think that's something that I place a lot of emphasis in is it's great to talk about these different mental skills, these, you know, things like breathing, things like attention, things like visualization, whatever they might be. But learning about them is only one step. And there's a lot more to it than that, to it than this. And so one of my favorite examples of this was actually one of my all-time

favorite podcast episode is an interview you did with Colleen Hacker. Oh, so good. It's the number one episode I recommend to people. And she had a quote during it where she said, sport isn't a multiple choice test. And she was like, it's not about what the players know. It's about what they put into action. And in addition to Ken's three levels of the mental game really resonated with me. And so it's something that I try to prioritize in helping players understand is we can talk about these skills all we want, but I want us to be able to develop them and to practice them. Because much like, you know, we have hitters in this game whose swings evolve so much over the course of their career. The mental game often works kind of the same way and it takes constant practice and refinement. So for me, that's kind of what the

three levels represent and something that I think drives a lot of my approach and how I view mental skills training. Yeah, that's awesome. Learn it, do it, own it. There's a couple of things I'm thinking about, Zach. I'm thinking about like how people, everyday people, you know, I don't play baseball. You might still play baseball, but you know how we can really apply that to that learning these skills, especially during this time is so helpful, but we have to practice them and we might know it, but we don't do it. And then there's, you know, no way that we're going to see the benefit. What, in your opinion, is like own it and how do we own it? Yeah, that's a really good question. I think of own it as, I made this comment to somebody once that as we were kind of starting to build our mental skills program within this organization, where we're really going to start

seeing the impact of it and whether or not it's working or not working. When we start seeing players talking about it to each other, like that for me is I think a great indication. And part of that goes into owning it where it becomes something that the individual takes ownership and brings into how they just prepare themselves. It's no different than how they might prepare themselves physically to be at their best. Every person can kind of find what works for them is from a mental skills standpoint. And I think when you take ownership of it, it's something that you showcase the same amount of discipline that you do for how you

develop physical skills. And I think that's where the ownership piece comes in and recognizing that it's not just this one-time thing. It's something that we continually work on and recognize that it's, you know, you see all the visuals about how learning works, right? And it's all these squiggly lines that go all over the place versus linear process. I think mental skills work the same way and ownership is recognizing that and just taking that in stride wherever that line goes. So ownership can share it. And that's what I'm also thinking, like you're not just doing it, but you're sharing it. And like when you said your players might be talking about it and you're, you know,

you're really living it. That's what I'm also hearing from the own it piece. I like that. Yeah. I like that a lot. Cause I think it's, it's like we talk about, right. With like goals or anything that you set out to aspire to. It's like when you share it with other people, right? Like now you have accountability. So I like that connection for sure. So give us an example of how you might apply, like learn it, do it, own it to your work with the players and to some of these mental skills you think that are important. Yeah. So, you know, one of my favorite, I think skills to talk about is like attention and focused. And, and so for me, I think that that can look a lot of different ways and, and, you know, kind of from the beginning stages, it's just helping people

understand like what focus, you know, kind of represents. And it's, it's kind of like this, as if you were shining a light on something that you're, you're trying to concentrate on, you're placing all of this energy and attention into, you know, whether it's an object, a feeling or whatever it might be. So I think that's the initial learn it piece and helping people understand the importance of focus. Right. In a baseball game, a starting pitcher might throw, you know, 90 plus pitches in a particular game. The quality of their outing a lot of times is going to be determined by the quality of their focus on those 90 pitches, right? Like what percent of those pitches are they able to have trust, conviction, intent, all those different things in. So I think that's

obviously the beginning stage of helping them understand the importance of it. And then from there, it's giving them an opportunity to kind of practice that. And I think that can come in a variety of different ways. We do a lot with meditation and just helping them understand that when you notice your mind wandering and you can bring it back to something, whatever that is, whether it's the breath or an object or whatever, it's kind of like the equivalent of lifting a freeway in your kind of mental mind gym, if you will. So I think meditation is one of those ways in which we can practice and refine our ability to sustain and redirect attention. The other one that kind of comes to mind is, as we know, there's, you know, research around these different attention channels.

Our focus ranges from broad and narrow and then external to internal. And I think one of my favorite exercises that I've started to do a little bit more is having guys shift from those channels. So in baseball, you have about 15 seconds or 20 seconds between pitches. So we have them, you know, set a timer where it's okay for 20 seconds, focus on something, you know, maybe narrow and internal. You might focus on tension in a specific part of your body or your heart rate. And then as the bell goes off after that amount of time, like now shift your focus to maybe an external target in the room, something very specific. And then you shift it to something more broad and you might take in, if it's internal, you might start planning out your day and kind of thinking through what that might look like or noticing just any overall feelings that you might be experiencing. And then finally,

broad external is noticing just the entirety of the room or whatever space you might be in. And so it gives them a chance to learn how they can kind of shift between those. But then also, we connect that to, okay, well, where do we want to be on the field? And so an on the field example might be as a pitcher, you want to have a very specific external target a lot of times when you're trying to execute certain pitches so we haven't done this with the diamondbacks but where i was at previously one time we put a piece of tape on the catcher to signify to the pitcher what his target might be for a particular pitch and And we had four different pieces of tape because he threw four different pitches and had four different targets, if you

will. And that was a way for us to take this concept that we first introduced and we helped them learn it. And now let's bring it, practice it in a controlled setting and then practice it in a on-field setting. So that for me is one example that might come to mind. And I can hear a lot in that like answer about practicing so that you can do it when you play. When you think about owning it and how like I'm guessing a pitcher, you know, thinking about my work with pitchers, they have to own it because it is such a mental game. So how do you see them kind of use that third level of own it? Yeah, that's a really good question.

A good friend is a gentleman who is really well known in the baseball world. His name's Alan Jaeger, and he talks a lot about meditation and the mental side of baseball as well. But he's kind of defined it down to, you know, every player hitter or pitcher has this process that allows them to execute to the best of their ability for each pitch. And it's again, how many times can you execute that process? So I think ownership to a certain extent,

one starts with defining what your process is, what allows you to have your best focus as consistently as possible. And then once you've defined it, it's again, how disciplined can you be to it and learn through that experience? What are the things that hook you away from that process? What are the things that derail it? And again, just take ownership of that experience. And I think it all kind of stems back to just being more aware of it and defining it. But then it's, again, about action and how do you do it. So to me, that's kind of where I think about the ownership piece. And just knowing that it's always going to be this ongoing development.

Ah, really good questions that I'm thinking about right now. During this period of COVID-19, how like this is a wide variety of reactions. Some people are really fearful and anxious. Some people are really unfocused, you know, and just these three questions that you just said, what is my process? What will allow me to have great focus? And then how can I be disciplined with that process? And I'm thinking about how this relates to a client I was just on the phone with who's like a financial advisor. You know, he has to have a process right now to make money. Yeah, absolutely. Discipline with

that process. Like, you know, he's not making money. I'm thinking about how this relates to my writing. I'm writing a new book and it's like, well, what is my process of writing? And what can, how can I have great focus and how can I be disciplined with that process and focus? So a lot of different ways I think we can apply that, not just to pitching, which is pretty cool. No, that's, that's a very cool connection. Yeah. I like that a lot. It's been, I've had a month plus of, of working remotely where I've had to try to remind myself of my daily process every day. It's easier said than done. Isn't it? It's hard. So I know you like to read and I think about how leaders are readers, right? Maybe you've heard that before. Tell us about a book that you're reading or that you've read recently and something that might help us in terms of learning more about just how

to be our best self? Yeah, I'm really grateful that a few years ago, I decided to create a habit around reading. And it's something that I found super influential in my work now. And there's countless times where I have an individual conversation with somebody or something is brought up day to day where I can reference a book that I had just read. And, and one of the books that I just read is called the upside of stress. Have you read? Oh, I've heard it. I don't have it though. Okay. So Kelly McConnell, right? Yeah. Yeah. So one of my, I will first say one of my big pet peeves, this is me going on a bit of a soapbox is when people say that they're reading something and they just finished or they're in the middle of it. And they say it's life-changing because I think it's a little early.

Like I like, I think you got to give it a little bit of space, a little bit of time before you see that, that this particular book is definitely an incredible like perspective and paradigm shifter for me. And what I mean by that is I realized that how I've been communicating and talking about stress with players has probably not been the most productive. And she's really kind of shifted my perspective on it, talking about the importance of embracing stress rather than trying to reduce it is one of her really central tenets. And so similar to the role of how our perspective influences our views towards failure, how we view stress is really essential for our health, our well-being. And when we can view stress as helpful rather than

harmful, it actually can strengthen us. There's a lot of good that comes with stress. And one of my favorite parts from the book is she connects the dots between stress and purpose and meaning. And the research on stress shows that those who live meaningful lives tend to experience more worry, more stress, and that changing our relationship with stress may not give us a life free of it, but it can help you live a life that is more meaningful. And we don't stress over things that we don't care about. So living a life that meaningful really is synonymous with living a life with some stress, but that's okay. And it's good for you. So that book in particular comes to mind as, as one that are a recent read that has really redefined kind of my, my views towards stress.

Yeah. I never thought about embracing stress and instead of trying to reduce it, I think particularly right now, even athletes who can't play the game, or at least not formally, and for us everyday people who, you know, there's a lot of stress. So can you explain a little bit more, Zach, how do we embrace it instead of reduce it? You know, I think reduce it means like, okay, I want to feel it less, but does embrace it mean like, I want to feel it more? Or give us a little insight in that? Yeah. One of the things, like part of this is some of the work that she talks about. And then some of it's, I guess my own interpretation a little bit is I think it starts with seeing it

as helpful and understanding like, what does stress bring us? And really it's, it gives us energy that we can use and that we can mobilize. I just saw this interview with Tiger Woods, and he talked about not only is he nervous before a round of golf, he's nervous throughout the entire round. But in his words, he actually learns how to leverage it and how to harness it and use it towards his focus. And so I think that's one aspect is understanding that some stress is actually really good for us that like it can actually help direct our attention and and be productive. I think the other thing too is to recognize like there's not too many successes that we experience in life, or we probably didn't go through at least a little bit of distress and discomfort. And so I think kind of just keeping that bigger picture in mind, knowing that stress can may not always feel great,

particularly in the moment. But what it's doing for us in the long run, long run, I think is a really important component of how we shift that perspective towards it. And then the last thing is just normalizing it, understanding that, again, like anything that you care about, you're likely to experience a little bit of stress towards. And so knowing that that's very normal and acknowledging it and that it's something that we can all kind of cope with and accept. And I think about the times that I feel stress is usually things that are important to me, right? So I'm thinking that's how it connects to meaning and purpose.

But say a little bit more about how stress, particularly when we embrace it, connects back to our meaning and our purpose. Yeah, so like I really, as I mentioned earlier, I really resonate with this notion of finding values and living a kind of authentically to your values. And I think of it along these, this context of how important it is to define your, your values, because what it does is it gives us awareness around what we, what we truly care about. And, and so it's a reminder that when we start to experience stress, that it's like a radar in our, an internal radar in our bodies of reminding us, like, this is something that's important to us. This is something that we want to make sure that we're focused says, that's the upside of stress is it can reconnect us or strengthen our relationship to those things that we truly care about, rather than viewing stress

as this toxic thing that we should avoid. And so I'm thinking about you and how this likely relates to what's happening in baseball right now. And maybe even how you're helping your athletes with this kind of loss, right? Like, we're not sure when the season's going to get started. And right now, it can feel a lot of, I think, loss, like there's a little bit of maybe denial at first, maybe some depression. I think about Kugler-Ross's, you know, stages of grief. So tell us a little bit about how you might help your athletes during this time and, and then how what you've talked about so far would help them? Yeah, one of the things that kind of comes to mind is I think

routines have become something very synonymous with baseball. They're not exclusive to it, but everyone talks about routines. And right now, that's, I think, what our players and coaches and staff are experiencing is a disruption in that normal routine, if you will. And so, you know, comparatively to some other sports, we were kind of right on the cusp of starting our regular season. And now it feels like we've kind of transported back to the off season. And yet we're approaching this starting line that's also moving away from us, which is really weird. And it creates a lot of uncertainty. I think one of the things that has been an important reminder through this time for me,

at least, has been I think when you work in professional sport, everyone is trying to hunt ways to optimize human performance. But given the current climate and situation, it's a great reminder that the word human comes first. Yeah, as human beings, we tend to prefer certainty. And again, going back to this way of how we view stress amidst all of this, most of our successes in life are born out of discomfort, uncertainty, and stressful moments. And I know this is something that I've heard you speak a lot about, and I think you're 100% on point with it, is that this is a great chance to kind of see the opportunity that we've all been afforded in the midst of the situation. And so to your point, like we have players across all levels of our organization that have been

affected in different ways, and everybody's experiencing their own level of uncertainty. So some are getting after it physically and finding a way they're adapting and adjusting and preparing for the season just like they were before. Others are adjusting to a new routine and a new in some, even role within their families where they might be homeschooling or they might be trying to find time to work out while quickly, they have to quickly find a time to work out while their kids go down for a nap or whatever it might be. Now we have all these new obstacles that they may not always be experiencing in the midst of a season. And so, and then we have some who are anxious about what might possibly

come and trying to cope with it. So as a department, the three of us in our organization, we're trying to just meet our players wherever they're at on that spectrum. Some that involves more consistent communication and support. Some want space and need space. Some need resources, whether it's services that maybe somebody else could better provide or it's books or videos or podcasts or content. Some need encouragement. And so regardless of where every person is, we're just trying to be whatever we need to be for that individual. And my last thing with this is I think it's a great reminder that there's all these mental game phrases that get tossed around, like control the controllable, slow the game down, focus on one pitch at a time, breathe. Those are all just as relevant now as they are when we're on the field and we're actually performing. And so in the midst of some of these conversations with now. And I think for people in the world, because all of our lives have changed in some way.

When I think about Zach, the things that we've talked about so far, and I think about like your conversation about failure and giving us an example, one question I want to make sure I asked you at some point today was I, I really enjoyed your presentation and your panel at the association for applied sports ecology conference last October. And you shared a really like powerful story there that has stuck with me.

And it was about, I think maybe a little bit, what you're saying, not necessarily keeping service front and center or what can be what they need me to be. But I'd love for you to tell the story and then what you learned from it. Yeah. So, you know, before I maybe share the specific of the story, I'll maybe just acknowledge a couple of reasons for why I shared it. It was to that point, I think it was a really humbling reminder to meet people where they're at. And like you said, and I also acknowledge the fact that every, there's a, there's a variety of different ways that we can build trust with people and has in relationships

have to be first and centered. But also to recognize that how I might build trust with one individual might need to be different than, than somebody else. And that was a really important reminder in the midst of all this, as well as how often I've become more aware and tried to lean into the discomfort of working in a profession where sometimes you feel like you don't have all the answers, but you're in a role where sometimes you're expected to. There's something about that, that tension, if you're in a role where sometimes you're expected to, like there's something about that, that tension, if you will, and trying to just be aware of it and lean into it more. So that was what made this story come to mind. So I had just started, I was like a month

and a half into this role with Arizona. And we have a space at our spring training facility where it's kind of like our offices, but it's also a place that players can come in and meet with us and we can do sessions, et cetera. And one day we were sitting, I was sitting in there and one of our players walked in and this was one of the players that I hadn't had a chance to meet with yet. He was on our major league roster and I knew who he was as soon as he walked in. And I had discovered that somebody within our organization had told him based off of some of the things he had shared that he might benefit from coming and talking to us.

And so we start talking and trying to unpack a little bit of what he was experiencing and where we might play into that and help. And in retrospect, I did way more talking than I should have in that particular moment. And I threw the kitchen sink at the poor guy and it ended up not working at all. It was not, I wasn't what I needed to be in that particular moment. And it was a good reminder that one of the characteristics that I think I really value in quality practitioners in our field is the ability to ask really effective questions. And that was a particular moment where I was more focused on telling versus guiding and trying to use their experience and their expertise. And I think that's something that I lean on a lot more so now than ever before is recognizing like we're working with players who have been honing their craft for a very long time. And in the grand scheme of things, I haven't even been studying

this field in comparison nearly as long as some of them. And so it's been humbling to just remind myself that they're the experts and to ask those questions and use that as a way too to also foster that relationship before you kind of just jump into, you know, telling things. And I think for me, I shared that story because I learned how uncomfortable it can feel at times when you feel like you should have an answer and you don't. And it's actually, it's okay. And it's really normal. Yeah. I appreciate the vulnerability there. So grateful for you, Zach. And I'm thinking about people who are listening and just coaching in general, right? When you're guiding someone, even somebody that you lead at your job, let's say you're a supervisor or a vice president, you know, and sometimes we don't want to be told.

So I like the idea of guiding, not telling, and how powerful is that? I think about even when I talk to my sisters, they don't want me to tell them what I think. They just want me to listen. That's a great example. My sister might be listening right now. I love it. I appreciate your vulnerability then, then acknowledge it. That's awesome. Wonderful. Well, there's so many things that I got from your interview. What I'm going to do is just kind of summarize it today. And I appreciated what you said at the beginning of like, no one gets where they are alone. So just acknowledging the people that have helped you get to where you are and the three levels of mindset or the mental game, learn it, do it, own it.

I appreciated what you talked about related to that. And even Colleen's hackers comment about like a sport is not a multiple choice exam. So really this idea of like continuing to practice these skills every day if you're in or out of sport, but obviously they help you a ton. And the person in front of you is the most important person. And sometimes we can like appreciate that about your story of failure that so many times we can want what's next instead of kind of being where our feet are. And really appreciated what you talked about related to stress and the upside of stress and embracing stress, not reducing it really mind blowing. So the upside of stress would be the book by Dr.

McConnell. So definitely recommend people checking that out and just this idea of like what stress can bring us. So Zach, I love following you on Twitter. Tell us the ways that we can reach out to you on social as well as any other ways that we can connect with you. Yeah. Yeah. Social media, Twitter, LinkedIn, those are kind of the main two that I have. So feel free, you can communicate that way. Email is great too. And I can share that with you, Sindra.

So that way people can touch base if they like. But yeah, anytime. Again, I think one of my values is relationships. And so getting a chance to just connect with people from all different walks, whether it's mental performance and sports psych related or elsewhere, anyone is always encouraged to reach out. And on LinkedIn, you're at Zach Brandon. On Twitter, you're at MVP Mindset. Yeah, MVP Mindset. There's technically like an underscore. I think that's what it's called. I actually don't even know. I probably should know that. But yeah, it's MVP like underscore mindset. Okay, perfect. Well, what final advice would you give to people who are listening, Zach?

Advice or thoughts or, you know, just as you close, what are you thinking about? So one of my favorite quotes, and I apologize, because I don't know the source, but it has really resonated with me is this idea that perspective is the only thing that can significantly change the results without changing any of the facts. And I think of that message being very timely right now, given kind of what we're all doing. And I think for me, every day, I'm kind of having to redefine success and hunt little victories in my day and try to avoid fixating on when our, you know, quote unquote, normal returns, and if it even does. And I think it goes back to something we talked about at the beginning of, I think as humans,

we live in anticipation of what's next. But I think in order to see things as an opportunity, like we often encourage and empower people to do so, I think that requires having the perspective to be in the present moment moment without the desire to go anywhere or make anything better or different. And so for me right now, I think it's timely. I think it applies certainly beyond just the current situation that people are confronting. But that for me right now is maintaining perspective and seeing things from a different vantage point. I'm trying to maintain discipline and ownership on a daily basis, moment to moment basis right now. Me too. So thanks for being a good role model on that.

Perspective is the only thing that can change the results without changing the facts. Boom, mic drop right there. So Zach, thanks so much for joining us today on the facts. Boom, mic drop right there. So Zach, thanks so much for joining us today on the podcast. I'm grateful for you and I'm grateful that you're here today to share your wisdom and your knowledge. Thanks for having me, Sandra. Always fun to talk with you and hopefully we can do it again soon. You know it. access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.