High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 371: What the Best Do Differently with Dr. Ashwin Patel, Mental Performance Consultant & Professor

Episode Date: September 18, 2020

Ashwin Patel is a Professor and Program Coordinator for the Sport Management and Recreation and Leisure Services programs in the Faculty of Business at Humber College. He is also the co-founder of Sport and Wellness Consulting. Ashwin received his Ph.D. in Sport and Exercise Psychology from the University of Tennessee. Upon graduating, Ashwin spent seven and a half years as an Associate Professor in the Recreation and Exercise and Sport Sciences department at Western Colorado University. During his time there he worked with coaches and players in the Athletic Department. In 2014 he accepted a position as a Professor at Humber College.   Since 2003, Ashwin has provided Mental Performance Consulting to individuals and groups. His primary passion is working with hockey players. Since 2016, he has worked in this capacity with the Guelph Storm of the Ontario Hockey League. In 2017 he began providing mental skills services with the student-athletes at Victus Academy – a private hockey school in Kitchener. In fall 2019, he also began working with the Vancouver Canucks – with a focus on the AHL team in Utica, NY. In June 2020, he was selected to work with Hockey Canada's U17 team.   In this podcast, Ashwin and Cindra talk: What failure really means How we can think differently like the world’s best How to avoid having a $1 million dollar body and a 10 cent mind Ways we can use “Release, Review, Refocus” How the best are using COVID as an opportunity What to do if you feel like someone “stole your confidence” HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: www.cindrakamphoff.com/Ashwin HOW TO ENTER THE PODCAST GIVEAWAY TO WIN $500 CASH: www.drcindra.com/giveaway FB COMMUNITY FOR THE HPM PODCAST: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2599776723457390/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cindrakamphoff/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/mentally_strong Love the show? Rate and review the show for Cindra to mention you on the next episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/high-performance-mindset-learn-from-world-class-leaders/id1034819901  

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 371 with Dr. Ashwin Patel. My name is Dr. Sindhra Kampoff and I'm so grateful that you are here ready to listen to another episode of the High Performance Mindset Podcast. If you know that mindset is essential to your success, then you are in the right place. Before we head over to the interview with Ashwin, I also wanted to let you know that we started a Facebook group to connect with you about the High Performance Mindset podcast, to share behind the scenes of the podcast. We'll talk about more tangible strategies and inspiration for you to be

at your best. And next week, I'm going to head over there and do a Facebook live event and give away some free books. So I just wanted to make sure that you have joined us over there on Facebook. You can search for High Performance Mindset podcast to find us. And I just wanted to make sure that you have joined us over there on Facebook. You can search for High Performance Mindset Podcast to find us. And I look forward to connecting with you over there in the group. Now, today I interview Dr. Ashwin Patel. I've known Ashwin for several years now, and he's a professor and program coordinator for the Sport Management and Recreation and Services Programs in the Faculty of Business at Herbert College.

He's also the co-founder of Sport and Wellness Consulting. He received his PhD in Sport and Exercise Psychology from the University of Tennessee. And after graduating, Ashwin spent seven and a half years at Western Colorado University. And during that time, he was a professor and also worked with coaches and players in the athletic department, providing mental skills training. And in 2014, he accepted his current position at Hubbard College. Since 2003, Ashwin has provided mental performance consulting to individuals and groups. And his primary passion, as you'll hear in this interview is with hockey players. He's had since 2016 the privilege of working in this capacity with the Guelph Storm of the Ontario Hockey League and in 2017 he began

providing mental skills services with the student athletes at Victus Academy which is a private hockey school. He recently began working with the Vancouver Canucks with a focus on the AHL team in New York. And recently he was selected to work with the Hockey Canada's U17 team. And in this podcast, Ashwin and I talk about what failure really means, how we can think differently like the world's best, how we can avoid having a million dollar body and a 10 cent mind. Ways that we can use the concept release, review, refocus. How the best are using COVID as an opportunity.

And what to do if you feel like someone stole your confidence. Ashwin and I would love to hear from you and what stood out to you about this podcast episode. You can head over to your Instagram stories and take a screenshot of the podcast, post it to your stories, and you can tag myself at cindracampoff on Instagram and Ashwin and Ashwin J. Patel. We look forward to hearing from you. And if you enjoyed today's podcast, take a screenshot, send it to a friend, share the love and share with them why you're thinking about them and how you think the podcast could help them. If you haven't already, we'd love for you to leave a rating and review. This helps us reach more and more people each and every week and we'd be so grateful. I'd love to read your rating interview next week, such as this

one. Wind Upward said said this is such a great mindset reset i love the episode about reframing failure and what failure actually means and jack canfield's episode was so inspiring that's episode 351 you need to hear this thank you so much wind upward i'm grateful for your rating and review and would love to read yours next week. All right, without further ado, let's bring on Ashwin. Dr. Patel, I'm so excited that you're here joining us on the High Performance Mindset Podcast. So thank you so much for joining us today. I'm excited to be here.

It's good having a couple of conversations in the last little while, and I'm just excited to be able to be a part of this. I'm excited to talk with you more about what you do and just kind of dive into that, and I know all the listeners are excited to hear you as well. So let's just start off and tell us a little bit about your passion and what you do right now? Okay. Passion, like yourself, it's helping individuals kind of reach their definition of success in whatever that may be, whether that is in sport, which is primarily the avenue that I work in students and so in academia as well. So students that work really hard to try to get a 70 and that's their definition of success or business professionals as well. So my goal is to help individuals achieve the level of success that they are attempting to and then helping them find out roadblocks that may be in

their way and maybe faulty thinking and also positive things that they're doing that they probably should be doing more because we tend to always focus on the negative things when we're looking at our own self-awareness. So yeah, that's kind of... Have you found that people define success differently that you work with? Absolutely. I think those individuals that feel pretty confident in themselves will define success in more of a process way, because that's just how we can, you know, that's the one area that we can control. Some though, you know, the professional athletes that I work with will define it on securing a contract, getting certain numbers from a goals scored, save percentage, things along those lines. And if they don't reach that, then regardless of their team success, individually, they don't feel that it was a successful season. But yeah, for some students, it's passing a class. You know, maybe, you know, we, everybody comes, as you know, as a professor, that the number of times you have students that come in with varying academic abilities,

confidence can play a large role. And so my, my hope is that to help them obtain whatever measure of success that they want. Yeah, that's, that's great. I thought that you probably would give us some various examples of success. And you're living right now near Toronto in Canada. So just briefly tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are now. Sure. I'll save you from having to pronounce it. The city I live in is Guelph, G-U-E-L-P-H it tends to get mispronounced often but yeah I live in Guelph, Ontario which is about 45 minutes southwest of Toronto I

how I got to where I am right now it started out just like most of us I love sports and that's just what I did I immersed myself in sports stats when I was a little kid my mom and dad used to wake me up when they'd have their little parties and I would memorize the starting lineup of the Detroit Tigers in 1981. And I'd

go off Lou Whitaker and Alan Trammell and then I would just go right back to bed. It was like a party favor, but I just found that I loved it. I loved playing it. I loved reading about it. I loved watching it. And eventually, I started playing it quite a bit and I wasn't an outstanding athlete. I was a, I was a pretty good tennis player. I could have probably played division one tennis from what colleagues of mine have told me, but you know, in Canada, it just wasn't really many opportunities. But the reality for me is that I, I was really hard on myself. I didn't really lose many tennis matches until I was 13. And I didn't hit what people call puberty for a while. So I was rather small and my friends all got bigger and they all adjusted.

And I didn't know how to adjust at the time. I was pretty immature in my thinking. I just figured, well, I was better then. I should be better now, but I didn't put the work in. And so I was always fascinated by individuals I met in high school that had the, like the million dollar body, but then had the 10 cent mind. And then vice versa, someone that you looked at and you're like, there's nothing about this person that special. They were so gritty and hardworking and resilient. I was fascinated by that. And so that led me to getting my undergraduate in psychology and history at the University of Guelph, which is about two hours away from where I grew up. And then after that, I, I knew I wanted to do sports psych. I didn't know where I was going to

go to the university of Ottawa. Uh, and then I, it came down to the university of Ottawa and the university of Tennessee. And my parents at the time, you know, where we lived eight hours, North was Ottawa, eight hours South was Knoxville. And my parents encouraged me, you know, you might as well go to the country where everything revolves around sport and new experience. And so I, I was happy to do that. I was very fortunate to have a couple of really positive conversations with Dr. Krista Chandler Monroe, who is a professor at University of Windsor, a sports psych professional, and she provided a lot of insight for me, things, things to consider, et cetera.

And so I went to the university of Tennessee, you know, did my master's and my doctorate there. And as you and I spoke about yesterday, I was fortunate to come across so many amazing people, both Dr. Risberg and Dr. Fisher. And then my colleagues, Taryn and, uh, Noah and Amy Kimball and Vanessa Shannon, Duncan Simpson, the list can go on and on, Greg Young. And it was a phenomenal experience because it was one of the more collaborative working experiences, just working with other people, supporting each other. Both Dr. Fisher and Dr. Risberg gave us opportunities to teach, which I really,

like some of my colleagues went on the research side, I just fell in love with teaching, connecting with students, helping them out. And so from there, I was fortunate enough, I, you know, did some work with some teams while I was there, not with any of the university teams, but with some high school athletes, and then a professional hockey team, the Knoxville Ice Bears of the, they're called the SPHL. And then I worked with some professional motocross riders and all those experiences got me excited because I just like to say yes. And that's something that for me, you know, I, again, I didn't know anybody when I moved there. I didn't, I literally knew only one person in the United States.

And I just was like, I'm going to say yes to as many opportunities as I could. And then being able to teach and kind of get feedback from faculty, like Dr. Fisher was great. She'd review my PowerPoints ahead of time and give me feedback. And then after the lectures would give me feedback as well. And I was really receptive to that. And I think that helped me grow. And that led me to getting a position. I taught after graduation, I was able to get a job at Western Colorado University. That's what it's called now. It was called Western State College back in the day. But yeah, it was a

teaching university. And Dr. Risberg actually saw the job posting, called me into his office. He said, this is your job. And he felt confident in the sense that it was a teaching-based school, and it was going to be teaching a bunch of different subjects. And he kind of mentioned that you've got a good knowledge base across a lot of areas, kind of more of a jack of all trades and an expert. And I didn't take that as an insult. I took that as a compliment. And so, yeah, I was fortunate enough to get a job there and I earned tenure and was able to teach, I think, 13 different courses there. Started a sports psych minor and then was lucky enough to meet my wife and my have our daughters and then at that point we just decided that we wanted to be closer to

family because that's something that both her and I value a great deal and she's from your home state the beautiful state of Minnesota and exactly so I was I was happy if this is where she wanted to go, but we, we ended up moving to Toronto, well, to Guelph. And I took a job at a, at Humber college in, in Toronto. It's about 25,000, 25,000 students. And yeah, don't regret it. It's been an unbelievable experience. We're closer to all my siblings and all of my, my in-laws and my, my nieces and nephews, which is really important for us. And now we can go to Minnesota, hopefully again, sometime soon. But yeah, yeah. So that's, that's, that's kind of taken me to, to where I'm at now. So I, I actually taught sport management as well when I was at the university in Colorado, and that allowed me to start teaching in the faculty of business now at the, at, at Humber in sport management and recreation and leisure services. And so it's fascinating me. I'm, I'm not really teaching sports psychology anymore. There's a course that I created, but I've had other faculty teach it.

And it's, but I, you know, get to do my consulting now, which helps kind of fill that void. Yeah, that's wonderful. And I think about, you know, just all the names that you just mentioned and people might not know those names, but they're all doing incredible things in the field. So it's pretty fun that, you know, where you're able to really develop and get introduced to the field in that way, where we see, you know, such incredible people. So Ashwin, let's like kind of dive into a little

bit about your work and your perspective. And I always ask people about, tell us about a time that you failed and what failure is to you. And I want to ask you that question because there is a wide variety of definitions of failure, which I think is interesting, but would love to hear yours and an example. And so that way we can learn from a difficult moment in your life as well. Yeah, there's a number of times I've failed. It could take up your entire podcast and continue to do so. But I used to think it was not achieving one's goal. That was my initial thought that you set a goal, you don't reach it, then you're a failure. But I realized over time that that was really an outcome based focus. And over the years I've shifted to think about failure in terms of like

process growth opportunities. Yeah. Okay. For my dad and my mom and you know, there was my two people I idolized, you know, growing up and all they asked was that, did you try your best? And then my dad was big on, did you respect the game? And by that is like, did you, did you show good sports, you know, sportsmanship? Did you treat the game with respect? And did, were you true? Like for us, it was like the, for the family name, like, can you come off the court or the field or whatever,

and say that you represented the family well. My dad never cared. My dad was not an athlete. My mom was. My dad just wanted us to respect the games that we were playing, be respectful to the coaches, your opponents, et cetera. And furthermore, did you have fun? Yeah. And if I could answer those questions, then regardless of the outcome,

then that was a success. And, you know, as my wife and I, you know, as, as you know, as a parent, like you, you have these conversations about how we're going to parent our children. Yeah. And we, we started coining like, like fail with the acronym, like frequent attempts and learning. Awesome. And so the FAIL stood for that. And I like that because then it's a continuous process of trying to improve oneself

and that you're going to make mistakes and you're going to screw up. And my favorite, you know, I use this with the athletes I chat with is watching my daughters first learn how to walk and how we encourage as parents. And for those that are as coaches that really good coaches do this as well, you, you know, you shape, right? They, they, they start acting in ways they're standing up. They're on the row and you start clapping and you're getting really excited about them doing it. And you can see your facial expressions positive, and then they fall down, but you never see a baby you know try it they fall down they're like no I'm good like because most people that have the ability to stand up are able to do so over time so that notion of

like failure it's just it's just frequent attempts in learning and trying to figure things out and so that's how I use it, both for myself personally, as a parent, as the husband, but also as a, you know, as a professional in this, in this field. Yeah, I like that. I think that's helpful. And just to realize that, like, we have to fail if we're really learning and like a baby, we wouldn't just give up. So why, why give up now? When you said like you first defined it as like not achieving one's goal. And sometimes a goal is out of our control, you know? And I, I was thinking a lot about how, when I feel like I fail, it's time to write, just didn't go for it.

Like I held myself back in some way. Usually it's like my own mindset or, you know, thinking that I can't do it, you know? And so that's, that's when it really feels like a failure to me. But I like that frequent attempts and learning. So I know Ash, when you do a lot of work in hockey and you help, you've assisted a lot of athletes to help them, you know, get to the major leagues. And that's impressive. As I heard more about those stats, when you think about, um, what are the best of the best do from a mindset perspective? Like, what do you think that they do differently that allows them to really thrive? And I was thinking about what you said about in high school that maybe they have

like, you know, a million dollar body, but a 10% mind. So what does it look like when you got a million dollar mind? Well, as you know, it's easy. It's easy. Like, because they are so driven, and I think they're agile in terms of how they think. And they are almost always, like some of the most elite people that I've worked with, they actually look forward to the challenges. They embrace and acknowledge that this is going to be difficult, or this is going to be challenging, and this is how I'm going to pivot. So they have like a mental plan for various what-if scenarios that arise during the course of a practice, during a game, et cetera. It doesn't mean that they're not frustrated. It

doesn't mean that they don't have like anger bursts and things along those lines. But I think they do a much better job getting back to the present. Really, they don't sweat as much the things that they can't control. It is a continuous search for a solution. And sometimes it comes easier during certain parts of their game. So like certain goalies that I've worked with, they have a different way of kind of figuring out ways in which they can become, get back to the present. And, but it's, they're dedicated to finding that edge. And I think that's that unrelenting kind of desire for, you know, I know we use this quite a bit, like the 1% gains every single day.

Sure. As cliche as that may sound, I think that's the way that a lot of growth can happen is that you just focus on, can I win the day? Can I get a little bit better today? And even for, can I be 1% better at meditating, 1% better in my self-talk, 1% better in my being present. And then they find that those gains will gradually come and understanding that it is a, it's a, it's a long process. Every elite athlete, it wasn't all of a sudden, they're like, I'm just going to be great. And then they're just great. It takes a long time. And going back to the failure component that we talked about a little bit earlier, it's learning from that. You hear all the time, I had to learn how to lose before I learned how to win. You watch the last dance

with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. They talked about that quite a bit, that they learned from losing against the Boston Celtics. They learned from losing against the Detroit Pistons. And then they were able to take those examples, work on the areas that they needed to improve upon, and that they were able to then be successful. Like University of Virginia, the men's basketball team was a great example of that, right? The first number one seed in a tournament two years ago to lose in the first round. The next year they came back and they didn't run away from it. They didn't shy from it. Tony Bennett got them to embrace that. And I think that's important that, and that they're willing to make tinkers and adjustments to their game in order

to get better. That's what I think the elite people, I see, it's a continuous opportunity to learn. Yeah. And that's in every field. That's like, you know, friends of mine that are CEOs, you know, police department chiefs, things along those lines, those individuals that have that mindset, they're successful because they're just relentless on trying to get better. And not just for themselves, but to help other individuals. Awesome. I have two follow-up questions on what you said, Ashwin. So like when you're saying that they, you know, do a good job of like getting back to the present, they don't sweat the things that they can't control. What are some of the ways that you see, you know, I know you gave an example of a goalie. What are some of the ways that you see like a goalie or just an athlete in general get back to the present yeah it's part of that is that is this helping like you know you make a great save okay that's fantastic uh but like if you're still thinking

about that great save when the puck's dropped and the face-off's in your own zone it's going to be difficult to be able to then be present that's the only thing that we can control. And so part of that is just like, what do we have in terms of a routine to kind of flush or let go of what has happened to return to the present? I know, you know, Dr. Revisa talked about like, you know, flushing the toilets. You know, I know that's something that Adam, you know, Adam Theon, like your guy embraced. And I thought that was a fantastic way of like, we, regardless if it's good or bad, we've got to flush it, then move back to being present. So that's it.

A lot of the hockey players, what seems to resonate with a couple, you know, with, with them is taking the water bottle. Okay. And you place your frustration in the water bottle. And this is your release, excreting the water bottle and this is your release, squirting the water bottle up in the air. You see the water droplets and then as it comes down, then that's your release. So then what do I do next? Well, I take a deep breath, whether it's a box breathing or anything along those lines. And then they do a figure eight around the net or the, for the skaters, they'll go back to the bench they'll do their release

whatever that may be i don't you know i kind of help guide them but you know allow them to the freedom to choose what's going to be helpful for them a slap of the leg a kick of the bench a bang of the stick you know maybe a bad word under their under their breath and then it's just a quick so that's their release and then it's a quick review and then it's just a quick, so that's their release. And then it's a quick review. And then it's a refocus, you know, obviously with an actionable behavior that is on it. And for the athletes, you know, to be able to kind of get back into the present, it's just when you're an effective hockey player, what is it that you do? Okay. Well, I move my feet really well. Okay. So MF move feet. Yeah. Some of the players will

put it on their blockers, their gloves, the stick handle. It really just is a personal thing for them. But if we're just kind of using hockey examples, that's some of the, those are some of the things that we do to help them kind of release and then get back to where they can actually have some form of an influence on the game. Awesome. I think real concrete examples. And if you're a hockey player or not, even if you're just like, you know, I still consider myself an athlete, although I only compete in like running events right now. Marathons. I think you can count yourself an athlete. Yeah. I'm still saying I'm an athlete. Right.

But even I have to let go of things that happen throughout my day and get back in the present. So this is a skill that you can use no matter what. But I really like these three release, review and refocus. Ashwin, do you think it matters if like the release is more negative in nature, you know, like a slap on the set or like swear, you know, like, do you think it, do you think it matters versus if it's like something that's positive? I don't think it really matters. And by the way, those three hours I got from Dan check 2000 in my, when I was doing my master's at university of Tennessee, he gave that to me. So I want to give him a shout out for that. No, I don't. I, because it him a shout out for that no I don't I because it's for some individuals that's going to be the effective way for them to do it and it may actually become more uncomfortable for them to like not kind of lean into that emotion sure and

then try to be like I got to be positive or whatever like for some of the people, like letting out a swear word can be a release for them. Right. Slapping a thigh can be a beneficial way of then, as long as it's helping them trigger to what do I need to do next? Sure. So as long as it's leading to some sort of actionable behavior that they can control, I think it's okay. Now, if it's continually happening and then the ability to be able to get back into the present is delayed, then that might

be a conversation to be able to say, is this working for you? And is the release like, is that I mean, is it a review? Like you look back and you see what you'd need to do differently or what's the review yeah the review could just be simply you know what I didn't move my feet or I cheated I cheated I thought I was going to get the puck and instead of paying attention to the person I'm supposed to be defending or the area of the ice that I should have been I was elsewhere and so again it's non-judgmental It's just kind of stating if someone was watching this on video and you see this now more in hockey, like you see Sidney Crosby after a shift, he goes immediately to the bench and he goes right to the tablet or whatever

the device that they have. And he looks at his shift. The running joke is, is he going to have a drink of water first? Or is he going to look at his, at his iPad? And often it's the iPad. And then he looks to see what his shift happened to review, not to beat himself up, but like maybe to gain some more other information. Oh, you know what? This is what they're doing now. They're putting an extra person higher up, you know, to, to force the defenseman, a defense woman to make a pass across the ice whatever it may be yeah the review is something relatively quick yeah and it's you know one to two things because you know do they have that mental plan when they hop over the boards and that's when I said with the refocus sorry

release the review and the refocus the refocus from when I work with the athletes it's often like what are the one to two things that you can control every single time that you're on the ice? Yeah. Well, I skate hard. I finish my checks. I communicate well to my defenseman or my D partner or make sure that I back check, whatever it may be. What are the actual behaviors that they do?

And then when they get back to the bench, then it can be, well, did you evaluate yourself on those two things? And then it just starts kind of taking away a lot of those other elements that you can't really control. You know, this, like you could have had, you could have had the best race like plan, but then the weather is off or you get bumped early or for whatever reason, like you may have to stop to use the restroom. And all of a sudden you're like, well, my plan was fantastic. There's things that are just going to happen during the course of the, you know, of a race, a performance, et cetera. It's just about getting you back to the one to two things that you can control is something I really try

to focus on with the people that I work with. Awesome. I really like that release, review, refocus. And you were talking Ashwin about how the best athletes can pivot, they're agile. And I'm thinking about this during this time of COVID, there's so many reasons and ways that we need to be agile. So how are you seeing some of the athletes that you work with? how are they pivoting and adjusting and how are they adapting to COVID and just like the lack of opportunities even in sport right now? It's challenging. You know, for some as well, though, it's also a welcomed break. Not for the last five months, mind you, but at least for a couple of the months, some of these individuals, this is all they've been doing for 15 to 20 years. And they've never had this long of an extended break. So part

of it is like asking them to lean into it. Like, what haven't you been able to do? You know, you've been playing professionally overseas, or maybe, you know, your, your significant other is staying in the home province or the home state while you're playing in New York, what haven't you been able to do? Well, we haven't been able to watch movies. We haven't been able to go for walks. We haven't been able to do whatever. Okay, it's now that time to reconnect.

Yes. Reconnect with your significant others. Reconnect with your parents. Reconnect with some of your friends. Maybe there's a course that they wanted to work on. Maybe there was some yoga or something along those lines that they felt that they could add to their repertoire and to become maybe a more mindful athlete or maybe a more relaxed or stronger, whatever it may be, and to use that as an opportunity, like what they haven't prioritized.

And so some of the teams that we're working, that I work with, we spent the last three months doing team building, culture, like the mental side, you know, for some individuals, it's the spiritual side, you know, for, and I think that's an important area. I'm sure you've experienced this in your work with teams, like there's always the best intentions for the mental performance consultant to come in, but then things tend to get in the way. Sure. And, oh, you know, Cinder, we would love to have you in today, but we have to do this now. And so when I've been talking with the coaches and the general managers of teams,

I'm like, let's use this time. The players aren't on the ice. Let's focus on our culture. What are our values? As an organization, what do we value? And are our behaviors aligning with our values? And when we bring other people in, like let's spend the time on leadership development.

Let's spend some time on like really getting to know teammates and then setting the the standards as to what's going to be acceptable and what's not going to be acceptable i know urban meyer has come up with the uh above the line below the line john herdman who's this brilliant uh the national men's uh soccer coach for canada has used that concept of like what are the behaviors that we're going to be that are going to be acceptable and having the players okay what's acceptable and what's not acceptable for a meeting time what's acceptable and what's not acceptable for living with billets for our hockey young hockey players that are living with other families and then they can have

those conversations as you know is a big one phone use in the locker room, what's going to be acceptable and what's not going to be acceptable. And once everybody has the conversation and the dialogue and we agree upon it, then it's a little bit easier to move forward. And it's similar to what, you know, Josh Liffrack did when he was with the Chicago Cubs and him and the other NPCs, they kind of came up with that, like that's cub, like the, the C for courage, the U for urgency and the B for belief. And all of a sudden, then it just started

kind of catching up. Like, that's Cub. Well, you didn't run out of ground out. Well, that's not Cub. So for us, it's an opportunity to be able to see areas that we can improve on. Where can we make those marginal gains until we're actually back physically together with each other? Yeah. I think that's such a great point, Ashwin. This is a time where as a team and no matter what sort of team you are, you can step back and really think about what is the culture, our behaviors aligning with that and what, how can we best use this time to develop ourselves with leadership or the mental game? Is there a topic, you know, when you think about your work with teams, is there a topic that you

kind of see yourself or hear yourself like saying over and over again? You know, what would, what would you say is one of the topics that you hear yourself talking about a lot? No, that's, yeah, it's just how the last five months for some of us may be like Groundhog Day, that fantastic Bill Murray movie in the early 1990s. Yeah, the, one of the main things that I hear quite a bit is, well, confidence. And it's tends to be someone stole it. I had it. Now somebody, and I always like, I'm trying not to be sarcastic on your podcast, but I tend to be sarcastic with some of the athletes that I work with. I was like, well, is it like you had a wallet and somebody took it from you? Right? No, no, that's not the

case. And you know, the, you know, Dr. Revisa, are you that poor of an athlete that you have to feel good to play good? No, but I think that's one. And, you know, confidence is one where for a lot of individuals, so for example, one of the teams that I work with, which is the main feeder league into the NHL. So about between 40 to 60% of all NHL players come from the Canadian hockey league. So I work with one of those respective teams. And it's a challenge for a lot of individuals that are 16. So 16 is the age that they come into the league, unless you're exceptional. And then you're at 15, but almost all are 16.

And they've all been used to their entire playing career being the best player on their team. And not unlike, you know, the star high school athlete when she goes to a university and all of a sudden is not getting the playing time. The thought is, well, you know, my confidence is gone because I used to get 20 minutes of ice time and now I'm getting three sure and I can only help out the team if I'm scoring goals and so I really help I try to challenge them on so are you saying the only reason that you're worthwhile on the ice is because you scored goals well no no I mean what else do you do well well I'm pretty good at face offs okay so if you're gonna only get three to five shifts a game right now as a 16 year old, which is not uncommon,

there are people that are making millions of dollars in the NHL that played two to four minutes their first year in the Canadian hockey league. Sure. It takes time to kind of grow, but where are those areas where you can strengthen your confidence? Well, I think I'm pretty good at face-offs. Okay. Then let's just focus on focus on your face-offs. Like what does it take to have a good face-off like mindset? What do you do?

And well, I got to make sure that my hands are nice and low, that I've got a good, wide, strong base. So they kind of go over those things. Then once we start going over those areas that they can start to control and they can build up right they can build up their confidence and then it's okay we'll watch other people that are really good at it well what else can you do well i'm pretty good at you know at finishing my check okay so how about we build up our confidence on those areas because you know the other example

that i'll give is that how many times have you played where you've made the best shot you've taken the best slap shot wrist shot etc and then it just gets deflected by a defense person's stick or the goalie is able to use their blocker and knock it away well yeah that happens okay did your confidence go down well maybe a little bit because i just thought i can score but the reality is that we can't control all of those things, right? The outcome is never really going to be determined. Not all the time. So we have to build up our confidence in things that we can actually control. Can you be confident in your ability

to play five shifts in a game in which you are focusing on one to two things? And if so, fantastic. So that is kind of an area. So confidence is one big one. The controllables and the uncontrollables, that's another really, really big one where we're focusing our attention on,

where we're giving our energy. That seems to be one. We, you know, especially when they're younger, it's the focus is on, well, it's the coach's fault. It's my stick's fault. It is my, you know know the game plan uh various things and once we kind of come up with what are some things that you can control what are some things that you can't you know and there's no sense spending any more time on the on the

uncontrollables let's just put our time in the in the things that we can control and then the the most recent one and it's I've been fortunate enough to be able to do some stuff with Hockey Canada over the summer, it's this focus on self-awareness. Really just kind of delving into that. Again, non-judgmental, just kind of understanding your thoughts and your behaviors and how that influences how you perceive the world. I think that has been really interesting. Like, are you aware of your body language? That's a massive thing with youth athletes is just the, they always want to look good, but then not recognizing that what are they putting out there to the opponents? Are your shoulders slumped? So

your head down? Are you aware of how you communicate with your teammates when they make a mistake? Are you aware of how you receive feedback from a coaching staff? Are you aware of your mindset and your ability to kind of adapt when you experience an injury? And so I think that has been something that has been a focus for myself and with a lot of teams recently has just been that how do we increase individuals um ability to become self-aware and i'm doing that even with five year you know grade five or fifth graders yeah that's fun i'll take a cooked spaghetti yeah and i'll have them and they'll throw it against the wall. And then I'm like, okay, so when you are like relaxed and kind of in the moment, you can adapt accordingly. Right. But,

and so you're kind of like it cooks spaghetti, but when you are tight and when you are nervous and you're thinking about failure or other things, you're brittle, you're brittle in your thoughts, you're brittle in your actions. You can't really move all that well. You're not very pliable. So the uncooked spaghetti. So with the little kids, that works. And then it's funny because some of the older guys or some of the older women too are like, can we do that? I'm like, well, no, that's for the kids. But yes. But no, that's another one that I think can be really helpful is just increasing their awareness because that can go for so many other things in life, right? Like that's one of the things I think that you and I love doing what we do is that this isn't just sport. Like hopefully these are tools that they can become

better significant others, better parents, better employees, leaders in the industry or whatever industry that they're in. Better like people that will follow as well. Absolutely. And I, I think about even for myself, I'm still increasing my own self-awareness of me. Right. And I've been, you know, I just think about, we do this work and there's just, you can always continue to improve. So confidence, controllable, self-awareness. I was just thinking about, you know, at the beginning when I asked you this question, you said, well, someone stole my confidence.

It's like that statement is really interesting because it's like, well, confidence is their responsibility, not mine. And that, you know, we really do have the power on if we let someone else steal it or not. That's a great point to us. And I, you know, even just what you said about like really good athletes who play pro and go professionally, they still lack confidence sometimes. So, you know, I think for us to think that it's you might share or describe the mental game or teach the mental game besides like the spaghetti idea? Which, by the way, I once heard about this from Terry Orlick's work. I don't know if you've heard about it, but he was teaching athletes about, or actually it was cancer patients. He was doing a relaxation exercise with young cancer patients. And he was, there's like this video, this audio I have of like, picture your body like a cooked spaghetti noodle. Okay. So I should share it with you. Oh, please do. I would love that.

And so it doesn't just relate to athletes, right? I was thinking about how we use it with cancer patients, but tell us about a unique way that you might teach the mental game. So one way, again, I like to do a lot of applied activities and I'm fortunate enough that I can, I attend, you know, the teams that I work with, their practices, and we can actually kind of engage in some fun activities to actually bring about some of the physiological reactions they might otherwise experience when they're playing. One of the ones that I found to be pretty helpful, and, you know, I give credit to Dr. Amy Kimball, who, you know, worked with the Penguins when they won their last two Stanley Cups, and now is the,

I think, the Director of Player Development for the New Jersey Devils. She in graduate school, I think it was like 2003, gave me a healing imagery script. And it's a fantastic document. And it really just kind of outlined an injured area of the body. And then through, you know, breathing, you breathe in through the blue, you know, I mean, so you breathe in the red and you exhale out the blue. But what I thought was really interesting and how it kind of modified it a bit is that I started incorporating the athletic trainer, the team physician for the correct terminology.

So we started coming up with this healing script. So, you know, we'll give you an example. One of our star athletes on our team a couple of years ago, he sustained a broken collarbone and was out for a while and he gave himself a day to feel bad for himself. But then afterwards he texted me. I was just like, how are you doing? And he's like, I'm fine. I'm ready to get back to work. Okay. So I, we, we came up with the, the healing script. And again, like, so, you know, we took a picture of the broken collarbone, and then we took a picture of the healed collarbone. And I had to, again, I had to ask my father, you know, back in the day about what the correct terminology was with his medical background. And so was able to then take that script and have him imagine himself again, slowly healing, right? Feeling the ligaments around the joint kind of merging together, kind of strengthening and whatnot. And he would sit down and read the script.

And then we recorded it as well so that he had the audio. So he would kind of sit down and kind of see that area slowly healing. And then we started implementing and adding other aspects of it. So then it was like, now I want you to imagine, you know, a couple, like when the doctor said, okay, it's okay for him to now start thinking about maybe getting hit again. So then we started imagining, you know, putting his equipment back on, going on the ice and then absorbing hits and recognizing that, you know, his shoulder has never felt better. It felt strong. We were able to kind of incorporate that. And then while we were doing that, he said, Ash, I kind of want to do more. Now, again, this, I love this young man, because just his mindset of just like unwillingness, like just willingness to kind of get better. And so then what we started to do, I said, well, let's start thinking about while you're injured, what are some things that you could be working on? Like, so that when you step

back out on the ice, then you're going to be confident in your ability again. Well, I want to start working on my face-offs. He's like, okay. So we got our video person to just get five minutes of his best face-offs and various scenarios when you're trying to win when you're trying to lose when you're trying to tie up uh the opposing Stenerman uh to so that your wingers can get the puck all of these different scenarios so then he started kind of imagining himself all those scenarios and what got him was like the one big term I love to use you know the psychoneuromuscular theory it's one of my favorite theories to use just because I like the big word, but just it, it's, you know, when you vividly imagine an event, your muscles fire at almost the same rate as physically doing it. And for him that got him,

he loved it. So he's like, okay, so if I just imagine myself doing some of these things, it can be helpful. Like, absolutely. And so he took that to the next degree. Then he said, Ash, I want to get a bunch of like my best shifts. And it wasn't the shifts that he was necessarily scoring goals. It was shifts that he was blocking pucks, was just in good position around the ice, making good passes, whatever the case, and obviously some of the highlight goals. And so then he started watching those videos over and over again, and then kind of closing in his eyes and then seeing himself do it. And then he added it once his conditioning was able to start ramping up even more. He started sitting on a bike and we had like 30 minutes of

his best shifts and he would go on the bike because he also knew what his heart rate was like when he was on the ice. And he would starticking he'd he'd pedal as hard as he could so that his heart rate was at the same kind of level as when he was actually physically skating and so he was able to do this over time and then the the cool part of the story was that he was able to return for the playoffs so he did see he sustained three different injuries that season and he came back in the playoffs and it's game two and it's us against the number one seed and a team that we ultimately ended up defeating on to win the championship uh but there were 19 players on the ice that game that were NHL draft picks. He was 19 on both teams. He was the best player on the ice that game, which again, the first time him playing a game in over two

months and that number of individuals. And he felt, he's like, Ash, I just, I knew instinctively what I wanted to do. And he used that imagery healing script. Now all the credit goes to that young man for doing it, but he just was all in. So it's something that being able to kind of tailor that to other athletes that I work with, and then using the resources of the really bright athletic therapists and the physicians to get the terminology correct and the actual images of injured and healed areas, I found that to be really, really helpful. So again, thank you again for Amy, uh, for passing that along to me and, uh, and for that athlete to be so, uh, so excited to be able to use it.

So what a cool story of like actually how imagery and these different types of imagery really did help him. What did he say? You know, when you think about like, what did he report? Like why, how was he able to be so confident back on the ice? Cause sometimes athletes can, you know, get injured and then they hesitate when they get back on the ice or the field. So what did he report was like the benefits of the imagery? Well, what helped was that it was kind of constant communication between the physicians and, you know, and this athlete, myself, our athletic therapist, and he placed his trust in the medical staff. And once the medical staff said, you're ready to, to, to receive some physical contact,

he leaned into it. And so he asked a couple of the guys on the team, I want you to hit me, like not take to receive some physical contact, he leaned into it. And so he asked a couple of the guys on the team, I want you to hit me. Like not take me out, but I want you to, if I'm going to play, I need to be confident that I can absorb a hit. And once he was able to see it heal, like when he was physically able to get the MRI

that showed that he was healed, then everything was okay. Because he had done all the work and he had known in his mind that the ligaments were going to get stronger. The muscles around that area were going to help support it. He felt ready to go. And I think that was what I was so excited about, about that. But he just, he was very determined. He knew what he needed to do he got the timeline about you know best case scenario being being healthy and then he was able to to play cool awesome well what a great example of like a really applied example of how somebody uses

imagery and use it to to be at his best um ash, a couple questions and then we'll wrap up. So when you think about just being successful in this field in general, what do you think it takes to be successful? I mean, I think like with everything, it's work. It's putting in the time. I think, and it's also being, showing enough humility that we don't need to know everything and that you want to surround yourself with other people that are going to bring you up. Like, I know that you visited IMG's campus. I know, you know, I go there, I take our students there every year with Noah Gentner. And it's, you know, there's eight to 10 people there that are mental performance.

I don't know if there are places in the world that have more people in one location, but they talk about this all the time, about this just sharing knowledge. And it's not about being like the one person that has all the secrets. It's about that collaborative kind of effort. And for me, I'm a big believer in that. I, I, I, I think I'm pretty good at what I do, but there are millions of people out there that are more intelligent than I am and have better experiences.

So why wouldn't I want to learn from those individuals, right? The best athletes will look at what other athletes do and try to take some of those things and then put their own spin on it. And that's something that I try to do as well. You know, Vanessa Shannon, she's my, she's, since I've known her, she's the number one person I go to. I have any questions, I have doubt, I have, like, I think I'm going to try this, what do you think? And she'll give me the honest feedback. This works, I think you might want to try this. Have you thought about this author? I don't, she reads more than anybody else that I know. And so having those individuals around me, I'm very fortunate to be,

again, coming from the University of Tennessee, having those great faculty and mentors and my colleagues and my classmates, like I'd even mentioned Melinda Frey and Camille Rex and so many other fantastic people that we could bounce these ideas off each other. And I think that's what's really exciting. And just to be okay with putting stuff out there. You see recently like Lauren Johnson, who works with the New York Yankees, Tana Hoosman, who's working with the Phillies.

Both of them are phenomenal. Nicole Gabbana, who's doing some work now at the University of Massachusetts Athletic Department. These three fantastic individuals are just putting out great content. And they share it. They're open and transparent. They have a lot of takes when they do it. But it's just, I'm going to try stuff. I'm going to converse with other individuals. And I'm going to be my most authentic self. And I think that's where those people that have done really well will do it. And just, you know,

my favorite movie of all time is the Shawshank Redemption. Nothing to me is as good as that movie. But one of the things that I love, a lot of the quotes I love, but Morgan Freeman's character Red said, geology is the study of pressure and time. I think to be great at anything, it takes pressure. So you have to kind of get uncomfortable and it just takes time. And I think if we take that mindset and recognize that it may take a while to get where we're at. You know, for my intro class I taught last week, I created an infographic timeline. And I showed, like, I was born in 1975.

My first job in sport was 1992. I was 16 and a half years old, the tennis instructor. But I showed the timeline of all the different jobs and all the times that I said yes to opportunities to where I'm at now in 2020, right? So you've got 28 years, and so many times I think we can get caught up of, well, this person is working with this team, and they're only this year, you know, this age group and they've only been out of the academia for two years. I think that's when we get in trouble. I think that the people that are really successful,

they're not spending much time worrying about what other people are doing. They're just doing, and they're collaborating with other people that are also just doing. And I think that goes across any industry is surround yourself with people that are smarter than you surround yourself with people that are smarter than you. Surround yourself with people that are going to be honest and will tell you the truth. And then put the time in. And don't be afraid to make mistakes. Like if you can lean into like, I'm going to make mistakes and you're honest and transparent with the population you're working with.

You know, I've said this to the teams I've worked with. Hey, I'm trying something today. Let me know. Like, you know, know that I have my best intentions when I'm trying this and sometimes they're like and sometimes they're like no we kind of like that that was kind of fun I think the advice that you just gave really fits with every profession Ashwin you know like surround yourself with good people have people that you can call, but put yourself out there. And also like I heard like this abundance, right? And I think sometimes, particularly in our field, it's like, maybe we do get so siloed because we don't believe that there's an abundance, but I come from the belief that, and the more I've adapted it in my life, the more successful, to be honest, I've been. It's like, you know, there's opportunities

everywhere instead of that it's limited. So Ashwin, thank you so much for joining us today. What is a way that people can reach out to you or tell us where you are on social so that as people are listening, I know that they'd love to reach out to you about today's episode. So how might they do that? You can reach me at, so my website, it's sportandwell.com. So Dr. Noah Gentner and I, who again, I went to graduate school with 20 years ago, we created a website and the partnership we both teach at humber together uh kind of a fun small small story um but yes sportandwell.com is is our website i can be reached at ashwin at sportandwell.com i'm on twitter and i'll be honest i always tend to forget what my twitter handle is uh but uh i can send that to you i think it Oh, it's at Ashwin underscore J underscore Patel. Perfect. But yeah, I'd be happy to have any answer, any questions that any of your listeners may have.

Awesome. And I'll make sure to put that in the show notes so you can, so wherever you're listening, scroll up like on your phone, if you're listening on Podcasts and it's right there. Ashwin, so I'm going to attempt to summarize what we talked about today. So we talked about how you really help people move towards their definition of success and then we talked a little bit about how people's definitions of success are different. We talked about failure in your perspective is like frequent attempts and learning and then it used to is like frequent attempts and learning. And then it used to be like not achieving your goal. I thought that was really helpful.

I thought when we were talking about what the best of the best do, and you're kind of describing it, they're so driven, but agile. They're always looking for challenges and they can pivot, but they get back to the present moment focused on what they can control. So just this idea of like continuous learning and improvement. We talked about three R's, release, review, refocus. I thought that was really awesome. And just, you gave us some examples, particularly in hockey.

I thought that was really great. And at the end, when we were talking about confidence, someone stole your confidence and just the controllables and this idea of self-awareness. So I'm so grateful that you spent some time today and you shared your wisdom with us. So thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. It's always a pleasure, Sandra. Thank you so much. 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. Sindra 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 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.