High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 4: What #1 Draft Picks & Tennis Pros Learn from Dr. Angus Mugford about the High Performance Mindset

Episode Date: September 4, 2015

Dr. Angus Mugford discusses how to train the high performance mindset. As Director of the IMG Institute, Angus works with elite athletes, corporate leaders, and US military populations. He has provided mental training to 2 #1 NFL draft picks, a #1 WTA pro, and too many other grandslam, NFL players, and elite athletes to even count! In this episode, he provides numerous applications to high performance in sport, business and in life.

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. Welcome High Performers. ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. Welcome high performers. This is your host, Sindra Kampoff, and I'm excited that you're joining me today for the High Performance Mindset. Today's episode is sponsored by Worldwide Access Solutions Incorporated, a 24-7 clear advantage, a call center providing inbound and outbound services, and a licensed life and health insurance agency.

You can visit them at wasi.com. I am super stoked today to provide an interview for you with Dr. Angus Mugford. Now, Dr. Mugford is a super stud in my profession of sport and performance psychology, and it's an honor that he is on the High Performance Mindset. Today he's going to be talking about how to train the High Performance Mindset. And Dr. Mugford is the director of the IMG Institute, which is part of the IMG Academy. It is an elite training facility in Florida.

And he leads the mental training division at IMG, which is a staff of eight consultants who work with athletes, corporate leaders, and U.S. military participants. Now, Dr. Mugford's resume is very impressive. He has worked with multiple NCAA Division I programs, athletes from the WTA, the ATP Tours, the NFL, the NBA, and the MOB. He's regularly at the NFL Combine working with his athletes. And this is the most impressive to me. He has worked with two number one NFL draft picks. So many first rounders that he can't even count. And he's worked with a number one WTA pro.

And again, too many tennis grand slam finalists that he can't even count. Clearly, Dr. Mugford is a stud and we can learn a lot from him. He was recently, just a few months ago, elected as a new president of the Association for Applied Sports Psychology, which is the leading president of the Association for Applied Sports Psychology, which is the leading professional organization for applied sports psychology consultants in the world. He is our new president. He will take office in September. You know, what I love about Dr. Angus's interview is how he talks about how he is a performer and how that was really an aha moment that he

realized that he could use the skills that we talk about on High Performance Mindset to improve his own performance. He also talks about getting out of your comfort zone and the importance of that. And there's so many important tips and strategies that he provides that I know will help you in sport, business, and in life. So without further ado, let's bring on Dr. Mugford. I'm really excited to welcome Angus Mugford today to the podcast. Angus, can you just kind of start us off and tell us a little bit about your passion and what you do? Awesome. Thanks. Well, first and foremost, thanks for inviting me to be on here. And always great to reconnect with you and the great work that you're doing out there.

For me, my passion is really fueled by, I think much like you, it's about helping people get better. Specifically here at IMG, our mission is to help people excel by training what we call a high-performance mindset. And never a day goes by where I don't think back to, as a kid, being fascinated with the fact that sometimes the best players, and I always loved sports, but somehow the best players didn't always win it was much more about people being at their best when the best was needed and seeing that

difference and that just is something that burns for me all the time and that these things and skills that are appropriate in sport are actually applicable to life, and we perform in so many different ways.

So that's what I'm really passionate about. Excellent. Angus, it sounds like your philosophy of high performance is very similar to mine. So you get an opportunity to work with so many different successful performers in general, and tell us what you see as the differentiation. What do you see as the difference between those who are successful and do well and those that don't? Sure. I think certainly you have to acknowledge like success looks very different, right? That we all come in different sizes, shapes, colors, personalities and all sorts. But something that we've really learned here and seen a lot in high performance

is something we developed into a model we call a high performance mindset, like I mentioned. And there's three main kinds of things that we see across the board. And the first one is that high performers grow, that they simply, they're hungry to get better. They look at all opportunities they can to learn and improve and get better. The second is that high performers love to perform. They love to compete.

They rally to that occasion and they're focused and confident and that they really love to compete. The third, though, is an interesting one because we also see that high performers lead. Now, it might not be as a captain or something in that kind of form or nature, but they are a positive influence on people around them. And those three elements are really pretty consistent across the board when we're talking about the very best. There's a lot of good performers and good athletes out there,

but those are the things we see in the truly great performers. Angus, I love that. So number one, they grow, so they're hungry, and they're always interested in getting better. They love to perform is the second one, and then number three, they lead in various different ways. Absolutely, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Excellent. So Angus, tell us, let's kind of focus the attention a little bit on yourself

as a high performer, which might be, you know, different than what you typically talk about. But we know the best learn from their failures. They see it as a learning opportunity. So tell us about a time that you failed and what you learned from it. Sure thing. Well, thank you for the compliment. And this is a tough one because I've never failed, Cinder. Nice. Clearly, you know, we have failures every day. So this was, but this is a tough one to think about.

And, you know, honestly, I think one of, you know, one of my roles that I love, that I'm passionate about is also as a leader and mentor of other sports psych or mental coaches. And one of the toughest things for me is, you know, a couple of years ago that I, in a new venture role, that, you know, I got disconnected a little bit from my team. And I think one of the key things I really learned out of that was making assumptions about how others think and feel and having good intentions but not communicating my assumptions and I think being on an island a little bit and then and then much later realizing that the you know where those miscommunications had really just set us apart so I came across a book that someone recommended to me and I actually saw this as one of your old favorites too, but a book called The Four Agreements. And the Four Agreements, the first two were a steadfast part of my philosophy anyway, which is number one is always do your best. And number two being impeccable with your heart, with your word. And that's not an easy thing. But, but those two were really kind of

central to the way I think and try to live my life every day. But the third and fourth were really interesting and challenging. The third was don't think things personally. Yeah. And then fourth is don't make assumptions. And what I found really helpful about that is that we have to make assumptions all the time, but the key part is acknowledging what they are and then sharing those with others. And that was powerful in terms of making sure I was keeping myself in check and then making sure that I was communicating that and understanding what others' assumptions are as well. You know, Angus, thank you so much for being real.

You know, I think it's hard to think about and just describe what you think is, you know, a personal failure. But what I heard from that is it got you back to the four agreements, which I agree are so incredible to live by. So if any listener hasn't checked out that book, they should. But you learned something from it, and you're a better person today because of it. I'm always trying. Yeah, aren't we all, right? So let's flip it, and let's talk a little bit about success in your career. How about you paint a picture of the best moment in your career and why it was so awesome?

In thinking about this, there are so many little moments. I think a lot about my team and the staff we have here are unbelievable. And just whether it's personal celebrations of people having kids or milestones and things that they are doing and impacting our students here. But if I think of one powerful occasion for me, fairly early in my career was it was watching one of our students here kane ishikari um at the us open you know and he'd had a lot of injuries and a you know a long road with different things different challenges but um he was playing against the number three on the ATP Tour, so number three in the world, David Ferrer, at Armstrong Stadium at the US Open in New York. It was a late-night match. And

I'd gone up to New York to help support some of our student athletes from the academy. And it was just one of those sporting occasions that was i think everyone in that stadium will remember um five sets down or five sets and k had won the first two and lost the second uh two and david frere is known for um being able to grind and compete and and as a champion in his own right okay at this this point was very early on in his career and it was kind of like a dream for him, for many

of the people around him. Seeing the fans from Japan just going crazy and the atmosphere in the stadium. I don't think it finished until maybe midnight or one in the morning. Kay ended up being victorious. And it was just a very, very special moment.

Thankfully, I'm very thankful to have had a lot of different highlights and things, but that one was certainly very special. Wow, Angus. You know what I love about that is the best moment in your career wasn't you. It was about an athlete that you worked with yeah well and I think that for for people in our profession I think that that's always the way often the way that it's it's having an impact and supporting other people to do great things and you know I think that that's it's important to recognize where your rewards are and what fulfills you, for sure.

Absolutely. So tell us about an aha moment that you've had in your career, perhaps working with a high performer or just an aha moment you've had personally. The previous one was focusing on honors. I think for me that my aha moment actually came realizing that I'm a performer. Yeah. I was very fortunate to get the opportunity to intern here back in 2003. And at that point, I was a doctoral student at the University of Kansas and loved, you know, applied sports psychology and, you know, all the wonderful things that come with that. But I came here to work throughout the summer.

I think it was 10 weeks and very challenging, very hard, but a huge learning curve, a lot of supervision and big sessions where, again, probably lots of failures, a hundred student athletes, you know, in a room who are glad to be in air conditioning in a Florida summer and maybe probably want to go to sleep more than they want to hear me talk about the mental game. But it was there that I really realized that being mentally prepared, being confident, mentally rehearsing what I was going to do, setting goals, dealing with adversity, all of those factors that I was talking about, I had to really live.

And when I was really executing the mental skills I was talking about, I grew so much. And so, again, now becoming more of a mentor and leader in the field, it's one of the things I actually enjoy the most is seeing these young practitioners go through similar learning curve where they really understand what it is to be a performer and to develop mastery in some of those skills themselves and how that impacts others. It's really huge. Absolutely. When we're in this profession, if we don't perform and you don't act confident

or we're really nervous, it makes it really hard to deliver a message that is effective. Exactly, exactly. We believe that if your dreams don't scare you, Angus, they aren't big enough. So tell us about a dream that you have personally that scares you. Yeah, well, you know, it's funny. I go back and forth with goal setting, and I do think it is one of the most challenging things in applied sports psychology

and it's very personal so for me in a lot of respects I don't set many big goals I really focus on like we said with the four agreements you know always doing my best at every moment and so so I've really, I'm very process driven. And I've always found that great things happen as a byproduct of doing that. But certainly, you know, WMEIMG is about being is about being big, and it's about doing big things. And so that, to me, right now, the place where I'm at,

and developing a new institute for our external consulting platform, that's big. And that is a little bit scary, because you're talking about the very best in sport and entertainment, and the resources of being with a huge corporation like this is an amazing opportunity. So it's important to think big and then live up to that. On the other side of that, though, I think outside, you know, being a professional is being a dad. And so I'm a dad of a two-year-old and a six-week-old. And I think as any parent knows, that's scary, but in the best possible way. So, you know, I'm excited to give my all and follow that journey. So, excited.

Absolutely. Angus, tell us a little bit more about what you have going on at IMG and what you're developing there as far as the external entity. Sure. Yeah. So we, you know, over the last 30 years of developing our program with young and elite professional athletes and coaches here at the Academy, we've really recognized these things. I mentioned that a couple of times already, but this high performance mindset and the way that we teach and focus on developing mental skills, not just seeing whether they're there or not. It's about recognizing them, but developing it. And so more and more, we've been asked by people, whether it's in the special operations, military, community, corporations, medicine, coaches, corporate executives, people all over, to help share some of the lessons we've learned in sport and apply them to performance. And so we're putting our resources where our mouth is and actually focusing some time and energy into helping people

in other performance domains and outside to share our lessons and help coach people in that area. So we're excited to be at a point now where we're launching our website and our platform to be available for workshops, for consulting, for our book coming out shortly too, and making a bigger impact. Sounds like exciting stuff over there. So Angus, one of the things I sent you was the top 10 traits of high performers. And you can get this on my website, cindracampoff.com. Tell us about which of those traits that you think that you exhibit the most.

Sure. And, yeah, again, tough. Wonderful ten and very challenging and things that you kind of grapple with every day. But at first I thought grit stand it out, and I know that was number one. But I actually think that number eight, they consciously practice authenticity daily. I think of all of the things on there, I think that's really what I try to do. And much like we've already said with the four agreements, that idea of being impeccable with your word and always doing your best, I really try to make that part of the daily

routine. And again, maybe an indication of how process-driven I am, you know, in terms of just being authentic and consciously, you know, undergoing each interaction I have with people or with each project or each moment and things that I'm working on. You know, Angus, that's one of the things that I can see in you as well. You know, every interaction I've had with you, you've been real in yourself. And I think people gravitate towards that energy when people are honest and, you know, they don't try to be somebody that they're not. Yeah, it's I think in a world of distractions and hurry up and different things we have, It's sometimes a hard thing to do, but certainly it works for me. And, you know, I think that's each of these blocks that you've kind of put together and presented like that.

You can see how important they are in the bigger picture. Yeah, and which one of those ten would you say, gosh, you know, I'm still working on that one? Because we're all a work in progress, right? Yeah. It was actually quite easy to see because I think it was being comfortable with the uncomfortable. And it's a cliche, something that we talk about all the time. But by definition, mental toughness or being uncomfortable out of your comfort zone means that it's not very nice. You know, it's a struggle. So, you know, I think for me that that's absolutely one of the harder parts and then something that I try to push myself and then just be comfortable with that.

Excellent. And what's one or two things that you do to kind of mentally stay at your best, Angus? You know, it's funny. Mindfulness has obviously become a really topical thing in the scientific community, and I think it's becoming more popular in the radio world probably because of the way we are connected to technology all the time. You see people walking down the street and they've got their heads in their phone or something. So I really try to practice mindfulness daily. For me,

it's actually not about dedicating um 10 minutes of my day to meditation which i thought i should do and try to do um so instead i actually try to to be mindful and use opportunities just in in in the day to be connected and present to now, whatever it is that I'm doing. So I really try to carve out time where, whether it's I'm sitting or the shower or just little opportunities that I have to really be present and connected. And maybe one step beyond that too

is that I really try to be deliberate and purposeful with what I'm doing or what I'm trying to do and have a plan for my day of what I want to achieve. But having said that, I'm always open to change. We're in a very dynamic environment here and my schedule might look empty at the beginning of the day, but it is chock full by the end. So, you know, I like to have a plan, but have the flexibility and freedom to adapt and change at any given moment. And guess we're going to go next into the speed round. And so what I'd like you to do is just think of the first thing that comes to your mind. Sure thing. So if you could recommend one book for the audience,

what would it be and why would you choose that book? Well, I wish I could show you my library here because I literally have hundreds and hundreds of books. So this is a really tough one. But I think an easy read

for a lot of people I recommend is The Little Book of Talent by Dan Coyle. I think he talks about struggle makes you smart and just really practical, small things that you can do any given day to be better, especially as a learner and improving. So that would be my one recommendation. And what's one word that people describe you? You would have to ask them, Sindra. That's enough for me to say. It may be boring, but thoughtful, I think, would

be a word. I guess I am a thinker and I try would be a word. I guess I am a thinker, and I try to be thoughtful and deliberate, so I would say thoughtful. And what's the best advice you've ever received? You know, fairly easy. I think my mom maybe gave me the best advice. I don't know if she really realized that it was advice at the time, but she said to, in terms of a career or working,

to make sure that it's something that you love to do. You spend so much of your time, if you were to add up the hours and years of your life at the end of the day, working to make sure it was something you enjoyed doing. And I'm very grateful that things have worked out the way that they have. But that always steered me, not knowing exactly where my studies and things would take me. But I'm extremely grateful for that. And is there a success quote that you live by or that, you know, you think applies to you or that could apply to us?

One that always seems to come back and was shared by one of my old mentors, Trevor Moad, there's actually a John Maxwell quote, is that change is inevitable, growth is optional. And so I think it's never more appropriate than now, but that's life. We are always in a changing environment, and whether that's personally or in our work world or wherever, we're always going to encounter change. But we choose how we look at it, and that growth is optional, and we have to figure it out. And is there any advice that you would give to those listeners who are seeking high performance and reaching their potential? I think that Carol Dweck's work and the growth mindset and coachability, it's part of the reason for our high performance mindset too,

that coachability is the first thing. This idea of growing is key and i think people are hungry for that um you know that that's that's the first step right there and then being able to engage that hunger and coachability with with coaches mentors resources that will help you do that. And that's not always easy because there's a lot of things out in the marketplace and it's very easy to want to try and do a thousand things all at once. So really challenging people to go, rather than the inch deep, a thousand miles wide, go the other way and go a thousand miles deep, you know, and focus that energy on how you want to improve and get better.

Yeah. And when you're working with a high performer, how might you encourage them to do that, Angus? A great question. I think the, I think it's really understanding big picture, you know, what, where do they want to be or what, what, what is it that they want to improve? And then to really develop their awareness about and ownership over where they want to go and then help engage them with the right resources and a game plan of how to get there. Angus, you have given us so many gems. I'm writing on my piece of paper over here, and the things that stood out to me were the four agreements

and encouraging listeners to go to that book if they haven't read it again or just to revisit those four agreements. I loved what you said about the three traits of high performers that you guys really emphasize over there. And then I loved your quote about change is inevitable, growth is is optional i thought there were so many gems that you provided us so thank you so much for taking the time to connect with us today all right no problems my pleasure they were great questions and challenging and thoughtful so i'm sure i'm fascinated to hear uh some of the other responses and thoughts you get awesome thank you angus all Angus. All right. Thank you, Sindra. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset. Are you signed up for Sindra's weekly email with free mental tools and strategies for high performance? Why the heck not? Text mentallystrong, all one word, to 22828 or visit sindracampoff.com.