High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 352: Your Crucible Moments

Episode Date: July 6, 2020

Your “crucibles” are the moments of greatest adversity in your life. We have all experienced adversity and struggle. By connecting with your crucibles moments, you are able to reframe these adversities to consider how these moments led you to where you are today. This helps you see how these moments happened FOR you and not TO you. In fact, it’s not your experiences that have shaped your life, it is how you describe those experiences. It’s the story you tell yourself about yourself that matters the most!   This week’s Power Phrase:  “I own my story. I am in control of my perspective and my story creates my reality.”

Hi friends, my name is Dr. Sindra Kampoff, a national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. Every week I'm on the local radio sharing my top tips on exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best, so you can accomplish all your dreams. Get ready for a jammed, packed episode focused on practical tips to help you get after your goals and step out of your comfort zone. Let's go. Good morning, Sandra. Good morning. It's great to be here. The topic this morning is interesting.

It's called your crucible moments. What does that mean? Yeah. Yeah. What inspired that? So what inspired it is a few things. Right now I'm writing my second book. And so I've been writing about this. I've been thinking a lot about it. But also I think during this time period of COVID-19, it's been difficult for all of us. I heard someone call it the great pause the other day, which I think gives us the time to kind of step back and reflect. And, you know, some people might have lost their loved ones. Maybe you've had a family member who's been sick, but I think we've all been impacted in some way, whether it's through our work or travel or, you know, this fourth and

how we couldn't really vacation much. So it's been tough and perhaps it might even be considered a crucible moment for you. So let's break that down, Sandra. What Can you define crucible moment in terms where folks like I can understand it? So I first read about this in a book called Discover Your True North by Bill George. And it's really described as your greatest adversities in your life. And so it might be like a death or illness of a loved one or loss of a job or a personal illness or maybe a divorce or growing up in poverty, maybe early failures that you really remember or feelings of being excluded or discrimination, things like that. So why is it important to connect with our crucible moments?

So a psychologist named Abraham Maslow studied what it takes to self-actualize, or basically what that means is to fulfill your personal potential. And he actually found that tragedy and trauma were one of the most important learning experiences because these moments, like these crucible moments, provide deep reflection. It helps us really think about what matters to us, our values, maybe even questions our assumptions, or helps us find our purpose. And I also think about, matters to us, our values, maybe even questions our assumptions or helps us find our purpose. And I also think about, this is so important because leaders, right? I know there's a lot of leaders who are listening and being an authentic leader, it's important

to really consider what your story is and your crucible so that you also can connect with other people. You can share your story with others. So that's why today's topic is really important. So if we're going to talk about maybe reframing these crucible moments and kind of taking a different perspective on them, can you kind of tell us a little bit more about how that change in perspective can be important? For sure. Well, I think we've all experienced difficulties and struggles. And I really liked this Byron Katie quote. She said, life happens for you, not to you. And so to kind of think about this, like all of these difficulties have led us to where we are today. And we, when we reframe these crucibles, it helps us better

understand how we got here. We learn about ourselves. It helps us find our passion and connects us to our dreams and what we're doing now. And I think if we don't reframe them, we can feel like a victim. We can feel like we're powerless. And we may not really understand how our life experiences in the past have shaped us to do what we do today. I think about in my life, I had this really a struggle when I was in college as a college athlete that directly connects to why I do what I do today. Why is this so powerful and what would you tell us to do next with it? So it's so powerful because it's not the circumstances or experiences that we have experienced in our life.

It's really how we describe those experiences. It's really the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. I think that's powerful to know that when we reframe our stories, we can really think and act like a creator and take control of our mindset, just remembering that we're not a victim to our experiences. So the next step I would tell people is to take one crucible moment this week and reframe it. So maybe you write about your experience or maybe share it with a family member or a friend. Just describe what happened and how you coped and how it shaped what you do now or you shaped your worldview or your life or your work

now. So how do you summarize today, Sandra? I'd say your crucibles are your moments of your greatest adversity in your life. And we've all experienced adversity and struggle. But connecting with these moments helps you reframe them and consider how it led to where you are today. And these moments have happened for you, not to you. So it's important that we reframe these because it's really the story that we tell ourselves that matters the most. And what is this week's power phrase? I own my story. I am in control of my perspective and my story creates my reality. Start thinking about your crucible moments this week. Cinder, how do we get in touch with you if

we want to read more or learn more about your writings? Yeah, you can head over to Dr. Cinder, so D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A dot com. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Sindhra for show notes and to join my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindhra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A dot com. See you next week.