High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 40: An Optimist Sees the Opportunity in Every Difficulty

Episode Date: April 11, 2016

High Performers are optimistic. They see obstacles and difficulties as happening for them not too them. They find the opportunity in every difficulty. They stay the course committed to their goals and dreams. They are gritty! In this episode, Cindra describes why we should expect the journey to reach our goals and dreams to be difficulty, but see the opportunities in every difficulty. She shares a strategy she calls “3 OPP” to help us do that.

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 to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. This is your host, Sindra Kampoff, and I'm grateful that you're here today. I appreciate that you're here, and we're going to start with a big celebration. We just found out last week that the podcast has been downloaded in over 70 countries. 70! When I found out that stat, I was like blown away. So I just really want to thank you. Thank you so much for coming back

each week to listen to a message about your greater potential and a message about mindset. I'm so grateful that you come back every week and that you spread the word about the podcast. So thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. And as always, if you come back every single week and if you like listening to our podcast, one of the things that we would so incredibly appreciate is an iTunes review or a rating or a posting. That would be amazing because it just helps us reach more and more people. So you can go over to iTunes and just post a five-star rating would be amazing. So let's get into the topic today.

Today we're talking about how we should expect difficulties but see the opportunity. There's a few things that we're relying on. One of them is as a quote by Winston Churchill. He said, a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity and an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. So that's what we're talking about today. And the how is we're going to talk about a strategy called 3OP or 3-O-P-P. This is a strategy I've been writing about in my new book that is due to the publisher at the end of next month. So I'm almost finished. So we're going to turn to an interview that I did this morning with TJ and Lisa. The feedback from this radio interview blew me away. And that's one of the reasons I'm putting it on the podcast today, is right away on the text line, we got somebody reaching out to us that said, TJ and Lisa, thank you so much for having

Cinder on today. She really helped me see that the issues that I'm having at work, that I really need to see them as an opportunity, not a difficulty. And then by the time I got home, which is like a 10-minute drive from the radio station, I had an athlete reach out to me that said, you know, Cinderella, thank you so much, because I haven't really been playing that great. And now I know that I really need to see what's happening as not a difficulty, but as an opportunity so that I don't get down about it. And then I can stay excited about my sport. And then I had a person reach out to me via email that said, you know, your message really hit home because I experienced chronic pain. And she said, I realized that my mindset is everything. So I hope today that this message finds you in a spot where you

can use this message, that you can see the opportunity and the difficulties you're experiencing right now. Because my friends, high performers are optimistic. They see obstacles and difficulties as happening for them, not to them. And they find the opportunity in every difficulty. They stay the course, committed to their goals and their dreams, and they're gritty. So I would love to hear what you think about this podcast and this message. And as always, you can shoot me an email at syndra at syndracampoff.com or you can reach out to me on Twitter at mentally underscore straw. So let's turn to an interview that I did this morning with TJ and Lisa. It's time for High Performance Mindset this morning.

Dr. Sindra is with us in studio today. Sindra Kampoff, good morning to you. Good morning. It's great to be here. Good to have you in. Bringing that sunshine with you, too. I can see the shadows on the ground through the window. Finally. The outdoors. I know.

Finally, right? And it looks like warmer temps come with it later in the week, which is nice. Although the cooler temps have been good for training runs, right? Yeah. You're putting in Uber miles. I know. And getting ready for June. What is it? Like 10 weeks?

10 weeks. Yeah. I started counting down. Yeah. That's crazy. It's going to be exciting. Today's topic. Well, before we get into today's topic, first of all, congratulations on podcast downloads.

I saw this stat and even got a text message from you last week about it. And it has been downloaded over, we're going to say, almost half the world. I know that's probably a little bit askew as far as that stat goes. But really, a lot of countries have decided to jump on board with high-performance mindset. It's been downloaded in over 70 countries. I just found out that this week. I messaged you and I just want to thank you both for your help in making it even better than it is. I love to see the responses.

I just got done listening to the Fader interview on the podcast yesterday. I wrapped up my long run for the week with that podcast. It was a good one. Yeah. Clean your fish tank. Yep. It was a good one. I'm a sports psychologist from New York who works with the Mets.

Okay. So pretty cool. Yeah, it was a good one. Today it's three op. I don't know what that is. What does three op mean? Well, today we're talking about how we should expect difficulty, but see the opportunity in every difficulty.

And the strategy we're going to use today is called three op. Winston Churchill said, Okay, I see. So what do you mean by expecting the difficulty then for us? I mean, we just have to assume it's going to be hard. We should believe that it's going to be hard. And what I mean by that is thinking things will come easy will actually not allow you to succeed as well as if you expect the difficulty because you won't necessarily have the grit and passion and excitement to do it. And one study I can give you to show you what I mean. study on weight loss. And the women who expected to lose weight easily lost an average of 24 pounds

less than those that imagined that it was going to be hard resisting the temptation. So, and the study has been found in similar populations, such as students who are looking for good paying jobs or people who are looking for romantic relationships or even like recovering from hip surgery. So the point is, is that we shouldn't believe that, you know, pursuing our goals should be easy. We should expect difficulty and we're going to have more excitement and confidence to go after and to keep on going because we know it's going to be hard, right? We're not expecting the worst case scenario, but we just know that there's going to be bumps along the way. Kind of back to that thing,

I think I've said to my kids a million times already, if it was easy, everybody would do it. Everybody would do it. Exactly. That kind of thing. So what should we do instead in, I guess, in our minds to prepare ourselves? Because we know what's going to be difficult,

but maybe if we are prepared for that, mentally we're a little more prepared for the difficult situation. You know, about three weeks ago, we talked about this concept called like everything happens for you, not to you. And it's a quote by Byron Katie. And the idea is that, you know, everything, even pain and difficulty happens for us. And it leads us to, you know, a course for our success. It shows us how strong we are and, you know, our true potential and power. And we really, when we believe that

the difficulties are part of allowing us to get to where we need and we start seeing the opportunities, we can be more creative and excited even when we experience difficulties. So do you have a strategy for us then that we can use that will help us to kind of see the opportunity in the difficulty? So this is something I'm writing about in my new book. So it's called 3 OPP, so 3 OPP for Opportunity. And I want people to think about a difficulty they're experiencing right now. So maybe, you know, if you're an athlete, you might be experiencing like a slump in your

performance or you just feel like, you know, you're not playing as well as you could. Or maybe you're having a difficulty in your business or your kids are acting up at home. That never happens. So I need a different example. So perhaps it provides you with an opportunity for you to like strengthen your relationship with your son or daughter or make your business stronger or maybe reconnect with your desire and your excitement and your hunger for your goals. So, you know, think about the difficulty you're experiencing. It can be any difficulty.

And then I would encourage people to write down three opportunities. Because when you write it down, boom, you see it right there. You know, it's like it becomes a lot more concrete. And I'll give you an example. So I've been talking about this in several, like the last couple of weeks, whenever I speak to businesses or teams. And people really, really like the strategy. I think it's like really concrete. And one business I was talking to several weeks ago in a different state, they had a really difficult situation where an employee stole a lot of money from a company.

But their management kept on asking, what's the opportunity? What's the opportunity? And it was really cool to see that it actually was bringing the company closer together. And when I asked them, when I told them about this three-op, and then we talked about it as a large group, I said, well, what are the opportunities from this difficulty? And they said, well, it's allowed us to better segregate our duties so the company could have more success in the future.

Or it actually brought our management team together. They felt like it happened to all of us. So everybody was working together despite this difficulty. So I know that this company will be stronger several years from now because they were seeing this difficulty as an opportunity. It's kind of like writing down the three positives to the one negative. The difficult thing happens to you. You got to come back with the three opportunities. Similar in a way. Similar like i like what you're saying i like your connection tj and when you start seeing the opportunity what happens is you start being a lot more creative you start being excited about the possibilities you know and you you get energized even though you're experiencing the difficulties you're starting to see the good that can come from

the difficulty and that it's going to lead to something better. So instead of being upset or disappointed or depressed, you know, or just kind of staying and not being creative and making any changes. At least you're progressing forward. Exactly. Exactly. So one thing that's been really frustrating me is I have all these exercises I could put in the book and I'm like, I don't know where this goes. Where does this go?

Maybe this isn't even going to go anywhere, you know? And then all of a sudden I asked myself, OK, what's the opportunity here? This is frustrating, Cinder, but what's the opportunity? And then I had this aha moment that I was like, oh my gosh, I could write a handbook with this book that people could just complete as a reading. Like a workbook. Like a workbook. OK, I like it.

Good idea. So when you start asking yourself, what's the opportunity, you start being a lot more creative. Absolutely. And a great idea with the book, by the way, is the workbook. I will be filling that out when I get my copy. What other ways can we apply this to our lives and to the things that are difficult to us? I would encourage all of you, as you're listening, to think about a difficulty you're having right now. It could be something small.

It could be something large. And then ask yourself, what are three opportunities? Because I think you can start seeing that those difficulties are really helping you to put you on the course that you need to, and you become more creative and work to solve the difficulty and see it as a problem to solve instead of something that's going to weigh you down. I was just thinking to myself that there's probably someone laying there right now thinking my main difficulty is getting out of bed right now. You know what?

Apply it. You can, no matter what you're doing. It's the most basic. What are the three opportunities that are presented to you by getting out of bed today? That's a great example because I'm sure that is happening.

Exactly. We do an affirmation every Monday with Cinder Kampoff now, too, and she'll put those on Twitter and Facebook and all of the places where you can follow along with her. And then, of course, she'll tell us what the affirmation for the week is on Mondays here on The Country Club. What do you have for us this week? I am an optimist.

I see the opportunity in every difficulty. I expect the journey to reach my goals to be difficult, and I will stay gritty and passionate for what I do. There's that word, grit, again. It always turns up, doesn't it? We want to follow along with you, be one of those folks that are one of the many in 70 different countries that are listening to the podcasts

and getting the email updates and just generally staying in touch and learning about what you're up to. How do we do that? You can go to my website, drcindra.com. And actually, the video I'm sending out tomorrow has this strategy in the video, and it's really, really powerful. If you want to listen to this kind of message again to sign up for the videos, you can do that on my website. There's just an opt-in form where you put your email in. The podcast. You can go on iTunes and search High Performance Mindset or it's also on my website. All right. Sounds good. You should lead in with Naughty

by Nature's. I know. You down with OPP? You down with 3 OPP? Let's do that. Yeah, you know me. All right. Dr. Sindra Kampoff with us today for High Performance Mindset. Good to have you in. Thank you, Jay and Lisa. Have a great week. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset, good to have you in. Thank you, Jamie. Have a great week. 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 SindraKampoff.com.