High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 383: Progress and Process over Perfection with Dr. Nicole Linen, Denver Broncos, Behavior Health Specialist

Episode Date: October 31, 2020

Dr. Nicole Linen is a Behavior Health Specialist with the Denver Broncos where she works directly with the team's players and coaches and consult regularly with the Broncos' medical, athletic training and player development staffs. Her job is to offer mental health assistance and provide them with sport psychology support. Nicole spent 2017-20 at Auburn University, where she focused on giving clinical and sport psychology support to more than 500 individual student-athletes.    Nicole is a member of the American Psychological Association (APA), the Association for Women in Psychology (AWP) and the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP). She also was the founding faculty advisor for Black Women in Mental Health, a graduate student organization that increases and promotes mental health awareness in the Black community. Nicole is a former collegiate basketball player who holds three post-graduate degrees from Wright State University: a master's degree in clinical psychology (2012), a Master of Business Administration in interdisciplinary business (2013) and a Doctor of Psychology in clinical psychology (2015).  In this episode, Nicole and Cindra talk: Why it is important to focus on progress and process over perfection How to address anxiety including when your body is in control, your brain is in control Ways to address your self-talk when it is not serving you Why it’s important for everyone to do the tough work related to social justice   You can find a full transcript of the podcast interview at: HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: www.cindrakamphoff.com/383 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 383. This is your host, Dr. Cinder Kampoff. And thank you so much for joining me here today. If you know that mindset is essential to your success, then you're in the right place, because each week we talk about various topics related to mindset to help you be your best self. And yesterday I had an awesome morning. I delivered a three-hour workshop with Shannon Polson. She is the author of The Grit Factor and was one of the first female Apache helicopter pilots. She is on episode 353 and we had a great time delivering a live workshop

on how to build resilience in difficult times. We talked about various things such as owning your story and how you can reframe your story to be proud of what you've overcome. We drill down our core purpose so that you can move forward with energy and passion. And we talked about strategies to build resilience and optimism during this time of uncertainty and change. If you would like to listen to this webinar, you can head over to my homepage, Dr. Sindra, so D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A..com and you can find more information about the training there. Now in today's episode I interviewed Dr. Nicole Lennon. She is a behavioral health specialist with the Denver Broncos where she works directly with the team's players and coaches and

consults regularly with the Broncos medical, athletic training, and player development staffs. Her job is to offer mental health assistance and provide them with sports psychology support. Before getting to the Broncos, she spent from 2017 to 2020 at Auburn University, where she focused on giving clinical and sports psychology support to more than 500 individual student-athletes. She's a member of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Applied Sports Psychology, and she's also a former collegiate basketball player who holds three postgraduate degrees from Wright University, a master's in clinical psychology, a master's of business administration, and a doctor of psychology in clinical psychology. And in this episode, Nicole and I talk about why it is important to focus on progress and process over perfection.

We talk about how to address anxiety, including when your body is in control, your brain is more likely to be in control, and we talk about what that means to her. We talk about ways to address your self-talk when it's not serving you and we also talk about her work related to social justice and why it's really important for everyone to do the tough work. You can find a full transcript of this podcast over at cindracampoff.com slash 383 for episode 383. Before I head over to Nicole's interview, I'm going to head over to our ratings and reviews for the podcast. This is from Giselle.

She said, A plus show. I've been listening to this podcast for the past several years and this show is my favorite so far. The host is really knowledgeable and pleasant to hear and the content is awesome. I highly recommend this podcast. Keep up the great work, Sindra. Thank you so much, Giselle. I'm so grateful that you tune in each and every week.

So I'm giving you a shout out. And thanks so much for the five-star rating and review. Now wherever you are listening, there's an opportunity to provide a rating and review. And when you do that, it just helps us reach more and more people each and every week with this incredible content. So wherever you're listening, if you're listening on an iPhone, for example, you just need to scroll up and you can leave a rating and review. And I would love to read yours next week. Without further ado, let's bring on Dr. Nicole Lennon. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast, Dr. Nicole Lennon. Thank you so

much for being here on the episode. How are you doing today? Hey, thanks. I'm doing really well and just thank you for having me. I'm really excited for this. I am as well and I'm just looking forward to having a conversation with you and I appreciate everyone who's listening to us today. To start us off, Nicole, why don't you tell us a little bit about what you're passionate about? Well, I'm passionate about sport. I'm a former college athlete. I played basketball. I'm also passionate about like social justice and mental health and how those all kind of meld together. And so I feel like my position now is pretty ideal, especially given the current social political

moment. So I love to see people start from a certain place and then watch them kind of grow and develop more and more of themselves and just be better versions of themselves. So that's what I'm passionate about. Tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are now with the Broncos and just tell us a little bit about your journey. So people understand a little bit about your background. Cool. Yeah. So I like to joke that it started in jail. Um, so my training in grad school was, um, a forensic psychology track. Um, and so, because my career goal was to be a deputy warden

in the Bureau of prisons. Um, and so I was on postdoc in Chicago working at a juvenile justice facility. And I guess kind of some backstory, I used to coach AAU when I was in grad school, AAU basketball, and I missed being in sport. And so while working in Chicago, I met Dr. Wendy Bollaby, who is the performance consultant for the Chicago Bulls. And I said, what is this thing that you do? And how do I do it? It sounds really cool. So she kind of talked to me through her journey. And I said, what is this thing that you do and how do I do it? It sounds really cool. So she kind of talked, talked to me through her journey. And so I essentially quit my job. I had finished my postdoc position and opted not to stay on as full time. And so I tell the story that I moved home and lived with my sister for three months in her spare bedroom on an air mattress and was just looking for jobs. And I applied for a position at

Auburn University, which I got. So that's how I got into sport. I was there for three and a half years. And then I've since obviously come to the Broncos. So a little probably unorthodox for most folks. But here I am and I don't regret the decision at all. Yeah. And I love how you took a risk, right? You said no to one area so you could say yes to the other. And I love how you took a risk, right? You, you said no to one area, so you could say yes to the other. And I think that's an important message that I heard in your story. Yeah, it was definitely a risk. I was, I was scared. I didn't have, I obviously didn't have a job. I didn't have a place to live. My car broke down on my way back home. So I didn't have a car. And I was just kind of winging it, but I had the support of my family. And I also had this like

feeling in my gut, like, this is the thing I'm supposed to do. I don't know what the thing is yet, but I'm supposed to be moving kind of generally in this direction. And it all worked out. So yeah, well, that's great. You know, and I think that's a really good message for people just to hear as you're describing that. When you think about this time period of COVID, and there's just so much uncertainty, I think in sport, in the NFL, with athletes and coaches, what are your thoughts about how to best deal with all the uncertainty that's happening right now? Yeah, I think it's maybe cliche, but really it's just control what you can control. There are so many like unknowns and, you know, positive tests

and doctors are finding out new information every day. We don't, we don't ever know what's coming around the bend necessarily, but what we can control is how do we spend every day? How can we be intentional about finding joy each day? How can we be intentional about taking care of ourselves, whether that's exercising or spending time with family members the best way we can. I know that folks talk a lot about social distancing. Really, it's more for me about physical distancing and but staying socially connected, because that's usually super helpful if you have a support system around you. But I think the, again, the biggest thing is to control what you can control and be intentional about taking care of yourself. I think there's so many things that we can't control. You know, I feel like, you know, since March, at least for me,

it's, it was a good eye opener on, you know, how to stay focused on what I could control because you know, and my, my son actually tested positive for COVID, um, at the end of June, early July. And that was a really stressful time. There's so many things that we had no idea about, and so many things out of our control, and just in terms of how long this is going to last, and, you know, what's going to happen next. Yeah. What are your thoughts about, you know, the space in pro sports, and now that you're working in it, one of the observations I've seen is just, you know, there's so much pressure in terms of that your performance is always evaluated. You know, you could be cut or traded pretty quickly without even kind of getting any heads up.

How have you seen kind of the best of the best deal with that kind of from your perspective and maybe advice that you give others for people to how to, you know, maybe who are experiencing similar pressure if it's in sport or in their job or life. Yeah, I think, um, well, one thing I like to kind of remind my athletes is that you're here for a reason. You didn't get here because you didn't have the skill that isn't going to be the best all the time. And it doesn't mean that you're going to be the best even on the team. Um, but what you can do is be really, really good at the things that you're good at. Right. And so why were you, why were you brought in in the first place? Okay. Let's focus

on that thing. And then just do that really, really well. If you can make yourself kind of irreplaceable, then it's hard. Coaches love consistency. So that if they know that I'm always going to get this thing from this guy, so we can count on him for that. Then be really, really good at that. And that doesn't mean don't be nervous about evaluations. I think having a little bit of anxiety can be motivating, right? It makes you want to do well. If there's no motivation, no anxiety, then you're probably not going to care about your performance, but having a little, a little bit of a performance anxiety thing can be a little bit healthy. You know, it pushes you to continue to, to be better, to hone your craft, um, and

to keep practicing. And so I'd say kind of embrace the, that low level anxiety. And if it gets to be too much and like, let's figure out a way to bring that down. But I say, embrace the challenge and then just be really good at what you're really good at. Yeah. So double down on that. Maybe people who might feel pressure

might be trying to do too many things, right. Instead of just focusing on what you're really good at and continuing to develop in that area. And sometimes I even challenged my athletes to go be average because really, if you think about it statistically, you're going to be what your average is. So if you try to go out and be a hundred percent, the best you've ever been every single day, you're probably going to be disappointed quite a few times, but if you can go out and just be your average self, there's a good chance you're going to hit average. And then there are other times when you're probably going to be even a little bit better than that. And that also feels more attainable. Like that's something that people can do like, Oh, I can just go be okay. Yeah. And sometimes being great feels

like too much pressure. And so like, we'll just go be average and coaches would probably hate that I'm telling their athletes that, but it works, you know, um, if I, if, if you're not afraid of being average in terms of like going and just doing well, as opposed to doing great, um, you're more likely to be able to stay motivated and find the small wins in your performance. And perhaps when you're feeling like you have to be great, that equals perfection. So average might emphasize more of like progress over perfection. Absolutely. Coming from athletes too, especially if they've done youth sports and then through, let's say high school and maybe in through college, you're probably like the best at definitely the youth sport level and most likely at the high school level

too. And so once we get into like the college arena and the professional sport arena, there's, you know, the field kind of evens itself out. And so you're maybe stressed out that you're not the greatest anymore, you're not the best anymore. And so you're right. If we can focus on your, your process and your progress, as opposed to your perfection, you'll probably fare a whole lot better. Yeah. Yeah. I like that your progress and your process over your perfection. I work with a lot

of just perfectionists in general. They tend to experience a lot of anxiety and pressure, and that's usually why they come to mental performance consulting so I like that I think that's hard to practice right uh process and and focusing on progress versus perfection but yeah uh really important to keep in mind yeah and that's how we break down our goals right when we're talking about like what are your athletic goals for the year and and and so instead of saying like I want to go win a championship. Okay. It's like, that's an outcome.

But like, what are the specific things that you can be doing at practice every day that can ensure me you're going to be going, you know, moving a little bit closer to your outcome goal. And so it's like, well, I want to make sure I get 10 good reps of blank in, or I want to make sure that I make, you know, 85% of whatever skill. And so those are things that we have control over. But we don't have control over whether we win the championship or not. Because even if we play our very best, if the other team is playing even better at their best, there goes the championship.

But if we can hang our hat on the fact that our process and our progress was excellent and the best we could make it, that's something to be proud of. Absolutely. And I think about people don't necessarily know when to think about and focus on the outcome and when not to. And I find that, you know, even when I'm training, it's like, okay, I might focus on the outcome to stay motivated to get up early, right? I'm training for a marathon and it's like, okay, I don't really want to get up at 6am, but finishing that race and doing well at the race, I really want that. Right. So focusing on it, then it could be beneficial, but most of the time it's, it creates more

anxiety or pressure. At least that's what I see. Yeah, no, I see the same thing. And so if we can just like break that down into baby steps, like we can totally attack the baby steps, the big, huge kind of goal that's looming in the future sometimes feel like it can feel insurmountable, but if we can just break it down to smaller things that you absolutely can accomplish, that helps us feel a little bit more motivated, a little bit more confident. Yeah, excellent. So, Nicole, I know one of the

topics that you mentioned that you're passionate about is identity. So as we kind of dive into this idea and this topic, tell us just first, like, how would you define what identity is and why do you think it's important to consider in sport, but in, you know, in your work and in your life in general? Yeah. So I, there's probably a million ways to define identity. I guess the way I see it, I don't know if this is an actual definition, but just the way I see it is how do we show up in the world and like what parts of us influence who we are, how we see other people and how we see the world. And I think it's important because yes, we may be athletes or former athletes for some of us, but we're also

the other things, right? So I'm a woman, I'm black, I'm a former athlete, I'm a sister, I'm a fiance. So I'm all these other things in addition to this, this thing that I do. So I think identity is like how we show up in the world and who we are, as opposed to let's say sport is what we do. And I think it's important to consider that because who we are and how we see the world can impact how we approach our sport, how we approach relationships with our teammates or our coaches or other folks who we come in contact with in this kind of sport arena. I think that's so important because what I see sometimes is that, that sport becomes who we are, not what we do. Yeah. Yeah. And what, what, what issues do you see when that maybe gets out of

balance? Yeah. So it kind of goes back to the pressure, right? So if we think about an athlete who's been injured and if they see themselves as they are an athlete and not just something that they do, it takes a huge toll on them. It can slow progress in terms of getting better over the injury. But we also think about there comes a time when every athlete has to retire. No one does their sport for their entire life until they die. Right. And so it's coming to terms with maybe when you're transitioning out of sport, who am I, if I'm not an athlete, what am I supposed to do with my life? I've tied everything that I am into this one thing that is maybe not

going to be a thing anymore. And so what I try to do is let's look at the bigger picture. Like, let's look at the whole pie. What are the other parts of that pie that maybe got sliced a little too thin because the athlete was taking up too much space. And unfortunately, when people get injured, they have to deal with that. But I like to think of it as an opportunity to give more space to other pieces of the pie that maybe you didn't have time for before, because you were so invested in being an athlete. And I think that when we can be more balanced in viewing who we are versus what we do, it takes some of that pressure off of being a perfectionist and making sure that we perform at a hundred percent every single day. If you can figure out how am I coming into this

sport and it's not going to be the end of the world if I don't perform well, because I'm also a mother or I'm also an uncle, or I'm also someone who enjoys reading or painting or there are other things about me. It won't hit you quite as hard if maybe that, that part of your identity isn't going as well as you'd like it to. Yeah. I think that's so good. And I'm wondering about, you know, maybe conversations that you've had with your clients about understanding their, and maybe this is the right word term, different identities or the different parts of their identity. How might you approach that conversation? I'm just thinking about people who are listening, who maybe over-identify in one area and want to make some, some shifts or adjustments there. Well, first I'd say, um, let's not beat up, let's not beat ourselves up for maybe having

over-identified before, because I'm sure it got you where you are today, right? Like if you had put everything into being an athlete, it probably got you some successes. So like, let's praise, um, your ability to work hard and put your all into this one thing. Um, but what I'd like to do instead is like, let's add some more to your toolbox and so that we can be other things when the time presents itself. And so really it's about integrating our whole selves instead of putting so much into one part of ourselves. And so that might be, let's explore, you know, if you have a creative side, let's explore that a little bit and how can we integrate that into even how you practice, right? So if you're a creative learner, how can we apply that to you being a better athlete? Or how can we keep that separate and just see, this is just a fun thing that I like to do.

And it keeps me full. It keeps me kind of creatively engaged with other parts of my life. And so a lot of the conversations I have is like, how can we shelve being an athlete once practice is over and give more time and space to the other things about you that maybe have gotten pushed on the back burner a little bit. Yeah. Excellent. And what do you think gets in the way of people being able to kind of show their full self or their full identity? If it's, you know, all of these different things. I think the two things that pop into my head are one, they've not really had practice at being able to be their full selves. And maybe the other part of it is being afraid, right? And so if I'm in this space, let's say where, you know, especially in sport where it's a lot of like

be tough and don't show emotion and be stoic but there's this other really human part of me that we all are um that has lots of emotions and has thoughts and feelings and um can have my feelings hurt I can be upset but if there's no crying in baseball how do I let that show right um and so I think having practice at it having having the space to just say out loud, like, these are the other things that I am. And then giving the space to be able to practice that and be able to kind of get more familiar and more comfortable at being those things as well. I think it takes a lot of vulnerability. Absolutely. And maybe acceptance of yourself in terms of this is who I am you know um and I find

in conversations that I have with men that it's a little bit more difficult for them to show vulnerability for sure in sport because then it's like well what if I what if there are consequences or I get cut or what if um uh you know coach doesn't like this, or I'm thinking about leaders too. And it's like, well, when I, I have a client who is an executive and we were talking about showing more vulnerability. And actually when he's done that in the last six months, it's really led to more deep conversations and deep relationships, but it's hard to do, you know, because especially if you're the only one doing it, because it makes you feel like maybe you're in the twilight zone and you're doing something you shouldn't be doing when everyone around you and the environment around you has been telling

you over and over, don't do those things. Don't show those emotions. Don't be vulnerable in that way. Um, when in truth, like you said, once you allow you to take that risk and you allow yourself to be those things, it's often, um, positively reinforced Like, oh, that wasn't so bad. It wasn't the end of the world. And I got some good feedback from it. Yeah. Excellent. You know, at the beginning, Nicole, you said that you're passionate about social justice and I'd like to have a courageous conversation about that today. And so kind of tell us what led to that passion. And then I want to ask you some questions about how that connects with identity. Yeah, sure. So I don't know that there ever been a time in my life where I wasn't kind of aware of social justice issues. I grew up as

a black person. I've been black my whole life. I come from a family of black people, specifically my grandfather, who was also an athlete. He played in Negro League baseball. And so I've always been kind of keenly aware of how the world views me and how that's often different from how I view myself and how the people who know me best and those who love me. So it's always kind of been, I guess it's just in my blood, right? My grandfather was pretty vocal about social justice issues. My parents were super supportive of me kind of getting involved in learning about social justice issues. And so it's kind of always just been a part of who I am, but it's just been, I guess,

more recently in the past, let's say five to seven years where I've kind of dove in like headfirst, like, let's do this. Let's be vocal. Let's learn. Let's teach other people. Let's unlearn some of the things that maybe I had learned about myself and other people. Um, and let's treat people like humans. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, something we should all do, but always happen. Um, so lots of different ways I could follow up on that conversation. But as a white person, tell us, you know, tell me or, you know, the listeners who might be, you know, really intrigued on this conversation, what are some things that maybe would be helpful

for somebody who is white to understand about social justice? So I hear the word ally a lot, and I have a little bit of a challenge with that. And usually the word ally is given or taken by someone who sees himself as in the population that's not necessarily being marginalized or oppressed. And I like to flip that on its head because I like to think of it as if you burned your friend's house down, you wouldn't be an ally in helping them put the fire out because you started the fire, right? And so I like to think, I like to push people to take ownership of this problem.

So black people didn't start racism, right? And so we shouldn't be the ones who have to educate people and protest and do all the things to put this fire out. We need our white sisters and brothers to take this fight up as their own, because this wasn't an issue that we created. And so I want to do away with the word ally, because I think it's been overused and misused, quite frankly, but I'm not sure how to replace it. But what I do want the sentiment to be is take up this fight as your own and do the work, the tough work.

And I think an easy way to start is just when your BIPOC friends or family members or folks that you love tell you that things are happening, just believe them. You may not have seen it firsthand. You may just think it's unbelievable. You can't imagine that ever happening. But if anybody wants racism to go away and it not be about race, it's us. And so when we're saying that it is about race, just believe me. You know what I mean? Right, right.

I think that's just powerful right there is like being a listening ear and believing. And I think we were both part of a sports psychology women's group that got together two weeks ago. I'm trying to think of like how long ago that was. But also I'm thinking about how that relates to sexism, just like believing. Yeah. It's like, how many times does a woman have to say this thing has happened to me before someone believes her? And it's like, why would we want, why would I make that up? It's terrible. Yeah. I appreciate that, Nicole. And so I'm thinking about your work in the NFL right now and how this is a time where there's more conversations about social justice.

And I'm thinking about the kneeling, right. And how people feel about that. But tell us why now it's a really important time to consider maybe social justice within sport in general. Yeah. Well, I think it's always been an important time to consider social justice in sport and social justice at large. I just think now people are thankfully striking while the iron is hot,

while people are listening, while people are paying attention. And so just like, you know, all athletes are human beings, they come with their own set of challenges, and especially folks of color or folks who are non gender conforming, or just folks who are in marginalized oppressed populations, they bring all of those identities to to this place of work that we call sport. And so like I said, it's always been important to pay attention. And so now that folks are paying attention, people feel more empowered to speak up and to talk about their experiences and to speak their truth, and then also to ask

for help. Yeah. So I go back to the conversation we were just having about identity, and I'm thinking about, I know one topic that you said that you were just having about identity and I'm thinking about I know one topic that you said that you were you know really passionate about and I want to explore this more is really how specifically a black man or a man of color would develop their identity so tell us a bit about where this particular passion comes from and we can talk more about this and I can ask you some follow-up questions well Well, again, having grown up in this body, right, and seeing how the world treats folks who look like me, it's now, I feel like a really cool opportunity for me to step into this role and with my full self and to help

other folks who look like me and folks who don't look like me to understand what this experience is like and also help them to feel a little bit more comfortable talking about their own experiences. What I found is that lots of folks have had these experiences but just have never had the space to even say it out loud or they have said it out loud and it was met with backlash or resistance and And so they felt like, well, maybe this isn't a safe space for me to do that. And so I'm definitely using my role to have more conversations so that it doesn't, so we don't feel like we have to be courageous.

We can just talk as if we talk about anything else. I wanna have conversations that make people uncomfortable because I think in the discomfort is where we grow. I wanna use my position to have other folks educate people about, you know, what is, you know, what are the isms, like racism, sexism, homophobia, like what are these things that are happening

and what can we do to combat them? And so when we talk about our guys and their identity and kind of developing that, it's not that they didn't know. It's just now that they know um let's give them the tools or develop the tools to have them have the language for it and and have the language to have conversations with other people or have give them um the power to to fight back whereas maybe before they didn't have have those opportunities yeah i could see how you are um a safe person to have those conversations with, you know,

I'm just thinking about kind of you're bringing your whole self into that conversation, but also because of confidentiality, right, that people are more likely to open up and with you to have those conversations. Yeah, and I hope so. And I think part of what makes me good at what I do is that I, again, I bring myself, but I also bring my experiences. Like I've been through some of the things that these guys have been through. I witness all sorts of oppression and microaggressions every single day. And so I'm not it's not foreign to me. And so not that I'm glad that I have gone through those things,

but it absolutely helps me be empathic when we have these conversations. And it's like, I totally get what you're saying when you feel, you know, what you feel about this certain experience. And so really my job isn't to be the expert on their experience. My job is to be the expert on what can we do to kind of combat that, bring some equity into the room, empower you to make change if you choose to. Because that's the other thing is some folks will become aware of what's going on, but maybe choose not to do anything about it, or maybe they don't feel comfortable and now is not the time. And that's

okay for me too, right? As a feminist, you know, I strongly believe that folks should have the choice to, you know, pick what's best for their lives. And so it's really my job to present the options and then we can discuss what feels like the best option for you. What are some of the things that you've seen just so far kind of in sport in general and how kind of issues related to race may play out there? Maybe can you give us an example or two of just what you've seen? So, and this again, keeping in mind that I've worked in multiple places but I've seen some folks who so most of the athletes that I work with are folks of color specifically they're black folks and so that obviously comes with the set of you know worldview and being black is not a monolithic experience but there are certain things that lots of black folks have experienced. And so I think sometimes what happens is this world, this sport world, and actually the

world in general, is set up for rich white men. I think we learned that last week, right? And so when we put black folks into positions where they're supposed to thrive, but the rules are set up for that white people will succeed. And so sometimes if a black person is put into position and they're not doing as well as folks around them would want them to, it now becomes an issue of race as opposed to,

let's look at the system that they were put in that wasn't set up for them to succeed. And I'm thinking about, let's say college athletes, especially who might come from lower income families or just a system where they didn't have access to much, right? Maybe their education wasn't that good. And then they're put into a college situation where they're expected to achieve in the classroom and also be stellar in the playing field. But because we know that socioeconomic status and race often intersect,

now it has become, well, they're just not doing well. It's these Black kids that aren't doing well. And it's like, hey, let's think about where do they come from? And that's not to say all Black people come from low SES backgrounds. But there's often a correlation, not a causation, but a correlation. And so if we can maybe stop and look like, first of all, what is this system that is set up? And who set the system up?

And who is the system for? And, and let's make sense about, well, it, it's no wonder that the folks that we put into the system aren't doing well because the system wasn't, wasn't made for them. And so they're in that sense, they're destined to fail. Um, and so I like to think of my job as being the one to point out the system is flawed, not the guy. And it has nothing to do with his race. It has to do with what system he's been put in that wasn't made for him. I could see that sometimes just having conversations about the system can make people feel uncomfortable, right? Because maybe they're the people in power. And so I got to examine the system that I created, right.

And so I could see that sometimes that can be a really difficult conversation or just a difficult thing to point out. Yeah. And I think another thing to, to point out is that just because we're questioning the system and, and hoping to change it in quite, you know, to be transparent, it doesn't mean you have to lose power. It just means can we, this isn't like a literal pie. Like if I make myself a bigger piece, you get a smaller piece. Like, no, power can be equal, right? If those in power are willing to either look at what the system is and kind of distribute

power more equally, or if folks who are disempowered fight for it and get loud and protest and do all the things that they have to do to have their voices heard. And so, yes, it's uncomfortable because I think change is uncomfortable, especially if we've always done the things we've done because we've always done it that way. But again, growth doesn't come from being comfortable. Growth comes from being uncomfortable. And if you're willing to kind of take a look in the mirror and see what part, what role you play in either setting up the system or being complicit in the system or perpetrating the system, then we can make some real change. Yeah. Thank you, Nicole, for just providing that courageous

conversation and helping us think about just social justice issues in general. Yeah. I want to make sure that I ask you a few questions that maybe would be considered kind of mental performance topics. And there's one question I wanted to ask you about self-talk. You know, I know you've worked with a lot of different athletes and performers. And that's a conversation or a topic that you've talked about a lot. Tell us about maybe how you might teach that topic and some of the principles around the topic of self-talk that you can help people to embrace.

Yeah, so one of the things I start off with is that we talk to ourselves more than we talk to anybody else. And so there's a lot of conversations going on and some of them are helpful and some of them are not. And so my goal is to like, let's kind of look through what are the things that we're telling ourselves and let's pick out the stuff that's really good and helpful. And let's, let's keep that. And then maybe the stuff that needs a

little bit of work or that's not helpful or that's ineffective, let's tweak that. Let's change that. Let's throw it out. You know, let's make some changes. So the second part that I like to talk about when I'm thinking about self-talk is we often have a hard time understanding that we can impact ourselves, but we do usually pretty well in understanding how we impact other people. And so I usually go through a scenario. So let's say someone's self-talk is, you know, super doubtful. They've been beating themselves up. And so I said, let's put your closest friend in the same scenario. Let's say that your closest friend wasn't performing that well. They're having a having a really hard time and you walk up to them and say,

man, you are terrible. Like, I don't even know why you play this sport. And so they look at me and they're like, I would never say that. And I was like, why not? Why wouldn't you say that? And they'll say, well, cause it's mean. And I said, okay. And how might your friend feel if you said that? And they're, they're able to say like, oh, they'll feel terrible and they won't have confidence. And I said, exactly. And that's exactly what you do to yourself. And so my like takeaway for them is always talk to yourself like you would talk to a teammate.

And sometimes it takes practice because a lot of athletes have really, really good, like lots of practice at bad self-talk. And so they're experts at it. And so what we got to do is unlearn that negative self-talk and relearn some good stuff, some stuff that's going to help you stay motivated and stay accurate. And that's another part is I'm not trying to get you to think that you're perfect and you never make mistakes and everything you do is sunshine and rainbows. What I am trying

to get you to understand is we spend a lot of time focusing on the negative stuff and not quite enough time focusing on the positive things that we do. And so I just want your self-assessment to be accurate. And so even if that same friend were to mess up and you said, man, that was terrible, but you also did blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, really, really well, that's probably a better way to approach your friend, which means it's probably a better way to approach yourself. And so if they can't remember anything else, I try to just have them remember, would I say this to my teammate? Because if I wouldn't, I shouldn't say it to myself. Yeah. I'm thinking about, there could be lots of ways people could apply that if they're not an athlete, right? Like, would I say this to my partner? Would I say this to my kids? Or would

I say this to my coworker? And most of the times we wouldn't, you know, I think, Nicole, that we lie to ourselves a lot. So what I appreciate what you said is like, what is your self-assessment accurate? I thought that was really good. And it's like so many times we're telling ourselves things that aren't necessarily true or we're exaggerating it, right? Sometimes there's like a nugget of truth in there, but then we, like you said, exaggerate, like we blow it up and it's not usually as bad as we make it. Right, exactly.

Or we generalize, you know, just because I performed terribly in this stadium, I'm going to- I've always had to perform terribly. Right, Exactly. Um, I know you mentioned earlier that anxiety was also a topic, um, that you talked to a lot of performers about, um, tell us a little bit about what you've seen in terms of anxiety or stress and, um, let's kind of get started there. Okay. So when you, when you say, you know, anxiety and stress, it immediately makes me think back to what

we talked about with perfectionism, because you wouldn't be anxious if you, you know, didn't care about your performance. You would just go and do it and whatever. And so often what I try to get our athletes to do is everyone, let's, again, let's evaluate our self-talk because anxiety is usually perpetrated by the things that we tell ourselves or how we're interpreting the situation. If the situation didn't matter, you wouldn't care. You wouldn't be anxious. And so what are the things that you're telling yourself that makes this anxiety keep going? And then let's also figure out what is happening in our bodies that makes this anxiety

kind of maybe escalate. And so I try to attack performance anxiety in two ways. One, cognitively, like what are we saying to ourselves? What kind of things go through our minds? And then the second kind of part of that is how does it affect our body? And so if we can get our bodies under control, it's often easier to get our brains under control as well. So that might be something as simple as breathing, like figuring out how to get our breathing under control, managing our heart rate. If we're jittery, like if we're kind of jittery, how do we get that?

How do we get that under control? And so, um, when, when we can get them, when I can get my athletes to focus on what's happening in your body right now, it often doesn't leave a lot of brain power to focus on all the terrible things that you've been telling yourself. Like we could just kind of hone in and be grounded in this one moment on let's get my heart rate down. Let's get my breathing more even. Um. And let's focus on getting myself in like an optimal performance zone. Physically, there's not a whole lot of room left to be anxious and have the ruminating thoughts and the unhelpful things that we tell ourselves. Because you're thinking about breathing or you're thinking about your body in control. So you're not thinking about whatever's making

you anxious. And then when we can get our body under control, then now let's tackle like what's, what's going through our brains. And so, um, again, going through like our self-talk. Okay. So that thing popped into my head. How am I going to combat that? What is, and then I kind of go through, um, what is the evidence that you have that that's true and evidence that you have that that's not true. And then if you had a really good friend who gives you really good advice, what might they say about the situation? So we often, we like, I'll ask them, well, what's another way to look at it? And it's like, I don't know, like, this is the only thing I can think of, but they, they can tell you what their friend might tell them or what their mom might tell them or what

their coworker might tell them. And so that helps them kind of get out of their own box and their own way of thinking and pushes them to challenge their own thoughts. Yeah, so good. So I appreciate what you said about when your body's in control, then your brain is likely to get under control more often, right? Yeah. And this idea of that, asking yourself, like, is there evidence this is true or evidence this is not true? I think those two things can be so helpful for anybody who's listening because we can all feel pressure or anxiety. I do sometimes when I'm speaking, you know, it's like, okay, body under control, then brain gets in control. I appreciate that. Exactly. Are there any other tips or strategies you might have related to the topic

of self-talk or anxiety in general? Let's see. Well, so I know I talked a little bit about like the evidence for and the evidence against. Sometimes what I'll have my athletes do is kind of a practice journal. And so let's say, you know, they go to practice. And then if they're typically ones who have a lot of negative self-talk I'll have them kind of rate their practice on like a stoplight right so green yellow red I don't want them to get too into details but like oh that was a seven and a half like let's just keep it simple and then then I want you to be intentional about pointing out the things that you did either just fine or really really well I don't want you to point out the stuff that you did bad because you have enough practice at that. Let's just point out the stuff that went well for you. And once

you have practice at just paying attention to something, you're more likely to pay attention to it later. And so I make this analogy, it's kind of silly, but if we were sitting down eating and I said, Sindra, you chew really funny. You may not have been paying attention to it before, but now that you're paying attention, you're probably gonna start changing the way you chew because just because I said something, just because I pointed it out. And so if we can get them paying attention to something

that they maybe not have paid attention to before, they're gonna automatically start making changes. And that's usually my first intervention, just pay attention. And so once you force them to pay attention and they know they're gonna have to report back to me about their findings, they're gonna start making changes immediately, even without me having to

ask. Yeah, I like it. Nicole, one of the questions I ask almost everybody on the podcast, and so this one, tell us what failure means to you and about a time you failed. And I asked this question for a couple of reasons. It's really fascinating that everybody defines it a little bit differently. And that kind of shows you, I think, just an important point in general, like how we define failure is essential to if we feel it and if we experience it. But I'd love to also hear about a time that didn't go so well for you. You know, as people are listening, they're like, wow, Nicole's so smart. Tell us, but it's also like, okay, we're all human. We're not perfect. Tell us about a time that didn't go so well for you and how you would define failure. So, you know, I like to think I'm super smart and I'm an expert at what

I do, but sometimes the interventions that I have or the advice that I have doesn't go really well. And so there was a time when I was working with this athlete and I just thought I had like this super great game plan. Like this is how we're going to attack this anxiety. We're going to do this, this, this. And it was also relatively green at this kind of sports psych thing. And so I came up with this game plan and then like, okay, go do this. And then I never saw the athlete again. And I was like, well, they must be fixed because I gave them this really great intervention. But I think my failure was I didn't listen

to what they were bringing to me. I wanted to like have the full game plan and like, this is what we're going to do with no room to be able to kind of change paths if we needed to. And then also not listening to myself because part of me was like, well, you know, maybe if this doesn't work, we could do something else. And so I kind of thought to myself, like, nope, this is what we're doing. This sounds good. Let's go with it.

And so I think what I learned is number one, obviously listen to your client. So I like, whenever I start sessions, I like to tell people that you're the expert on your life and your experience. And I'm the expert on like mental health and sports psychology. And so let's put our expertise together and make a great game plan. And that's not what I did. I was very much about, I had this great idea. It's going to be wonderful and it's going to work. And my guess is it did not work. I never saw them again. But I also didn't trust my gut and my gut told me maybe step back, listen, take some feedback. And so that's been helpful even up until this point in my career is like learning to listen to other folks and what they bring into the room, but also

trust my gut. And so knowing when to give a little bit and knowing when to kind of stay firm in what I know to be true. Yeah, that's great. I had a similar experience, but maybe a little different, but I worked with an athlete, uh, like two days before the state championship. And she, she kind of like explained all these things that were going wrong. And, um, I gave her too much. I didn't know that, but I didn't necessarily follow her. And, uh, and, and then she didn't really know what to do at the state yeah you know and she just performed average and so uh now always before like a really big meet I'm gonna just like just just a sliver right like I don't want to one thing one thing right I might have given her two and a half things but it was like too much so

I think I was just so excited because like there's a sport thing and like this is my my chance to shine like I'm going to show you everything that I know at once. Yeah. Yeah. And I think what I've learned over time is just if you just keep it simple, that's saying it in a simple way and then kind of honing to the very just one or two things that I need you to know to take away from this conversation has been a godsend. Yeah, that's wonderful.

So hopefully people listen to that and like learn from Nicole and I. Don't do that. Nicole, I'm so grateful that you spent some time with us today. And so I'm grateful for everybody who's listening. And here's a few notes I wrote down to kind of recap what we were talking about. At the beginning, we were talking about perfectionism and progress and process over perfection. I think that's like a great takeaway people can use and like implement right away. We talked a lot about identity and, you know, is it what you do or is it who you are, right? And just the importance of having like a holistic identity. I'll use that word. And I appreciate the conversation about social justice and, you know, moving forward,

doing the tough work. And that's on us too, right? Or on me, that's what I heard in that. And then just the importance of looking at the system, that system might not be set up for everyone equally to succeed. Yeah, absolutely. And at the end, when we are talking about anxiety and self-talk and just, you know, like when you get your body under control, that helps your brain get in control. And just asking yourself, what evidence do you have that this is, you know, for or against? This is true or not true. So, Nicole, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast.

If people want to reach out to you, how might they do that maybe on social or different ways? Yeah. So I'm on Instagram and my Instagram is Nicole since forever. And yeah, that's probably the easiest way. I have a Twitter, but I don't, I'm never on it. So that's not helpful. If you have questions though, like you wanted to reach me, like you have questions about what we talked about or just like other things that seemed interesting. You can absolutely email me. My work email is nicole.linen at broncos.nfl.net. And so that's my direct email. Feel free. I, you know, I think I'm on LinkedIn too. You probably could find me there. Yeah. And

I love taking questions. I always say, if you, if you don't ask, you don't know. And somebody asked, answered my questions before. And so I love to be able to pay that forward. Love it, Nicole. And if people enjoyed this conversation, you're listening still right all the way through, we'd love to hear from you. So you can take a snapshot of wherever you're listening. You could post it on Instagram, tag Nicole and I. I'm just my name, Cinder Campoff. So Nicole, thank you so much for joining us. What kind of final advice or thoughts would you have for people to close up? I say trust your gut. If you're gut is saying to do that thing, absolutely do it and be the absolute best at it that you can. Your gut is rarely wrong.

And if you trust it, I think you'll go pretty far. Awesome, Nicole. Thank you so much again for being here. Thank you. 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 over to Dr. Sindra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A dot com. See you next week.