High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 400: Training Your Mind Proactively with Dr. Rainer Meisterjahn, Director of Mental Performance, Courtex Performance

Episode Date: January 9, 2021

Dr. Rainer Meisterjahn started Courtex Performance in 2013 and is the lead mental performance coach for their NBA and FIBA clients and also oversees many of our daily business operations. As a former collegiate player, skills trainer, and youth coach, Rainer understands the game from different angles. He has worked closely with numerous high level pros and prospects, as well as with some of the top coaches and executives in the game.  He has provided NBA Pre-Draft consulting services to multiple organizations, including the Miami Heat, Utah Jazz, and Milwaukee Bucks. Outside of basketball, Rainer has consulted with clients in numerous other sports, up to the Olympic level. A native of Germany, he is fluent in both English and German.  He is a Certified Mental Performance Consultant with the Association for Applied Sport Psychology, has a PhD in Sport Psychology from the University of Tennessee and a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology from Frostburg State University.   In this episode, Rainer and Cindra talk about: What is proactive mental training The process he goes through when mentally training an pro athlete How our core values are connected to our performance The best way to debrief performance Ways that playing in the NBA is different than overseas HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: www.cindrakamphoff.com/400 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 TO FIND MORE ABOUT RAINER: https://www.courtexperformance.com 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 the High Performance Mindset podcast. This is your host, Dr. Sindhara Kampoff, and thank you so much for joining me here today. I'm grateful that you're here for episode 400. I can't believe it. My mind is blown. You know, each week I just focus on the process, and I haven't really looked too much at the number until recently. And today I looked up as I was looking at the description of today's episode and I thought, oh my gosh, 400. You know, the podcast actually started from a message from one of you, one of my followers and listeners. And I've been on the local radio here on a country music station, believe it or not, for eight years, every single Monday morning, providing a short positive message.

And one of the listeners sent me a message on Facebook in 2015, so six years ago, and said, you know, I love your Monday messages. I tune in each Monday and I'd love a place that I can go and review them and study them. I love them so much. And you should do a podcast. And I followed her suggestion. We ended up adding interviews each week and now six years later, over a million downloads, typically two episodes each week since 2015, we are here. And I want to thank you so much for listening each and every week. I do this for you. And so I'd love to hear your feedback. Tell me more what you'd like on the podcast. Who would you like me to interview? What topics would you like me to talk more about?

Would love to hear from you. And I'm going to give you my personal email. You can send me an email at syndra at syndracampoff.com. We'd love to hear from you. Today in episode 400, I interviewed Dr. Reinhard Meisterjohn, who started Cortex Performance in 2013. He's their lead mental performance coach for their NBA clients, as well as oversees many of the daily business operations. He's a former collegiate basketball player, and he has worked closely with a number of high-level pros and prospects,

as well as with some of the top coaches and executives in the game. He has provided NBA pre-draft consulting services to multiple organizations, including the Miami Heat, Utah Jazz, the Milwaukee Bucks, and outside of basketball, Rayner has consulted with clients in numerous other sports, up to the Olympic level. He's a native of Germany and fluent in both English and German. He's a certified mental performance coach with the Association for Applied Sports Psychology and has a PhD in sports psychology from the University of Tennessee and a master's degree in counseling from Frostburg State University. I've wanted to have Reiner on the podcast for several years. I had a really in-depth conversation with him and I

wanted to have him on the podcast to showcase his work in the NBA and also to help you think about how you might train your mind systematically and proactively. And that's what we talk about in this podcast today. We talk about what is proactive mental training, the process he goes through when mentally training a pro athlete. And I want you to think about how you might mentally train yourself as you're listening, how our core beliefs are connected to our performance, the best way to debrief our performance, or we might use the same debrief strategy at the end of our day, and ways that playing in the NBA is different than overseas. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love for you to

leave us a rating and review. If you're listening on iPhone, you can just scroll down on the description of the podcast and way at the bottom is a way for you to click and leave us a rating and review. And if you haven't already, you can join our Facebook community to connect with me over on Facebook. Just search High Performance Mindset Podcast Community, and we'd love to see you over there. Without further ado, let's bring on Reiner. Reiner, I'm so excited that you're here joining us for the High Performance Mindset Podcast. How are you doing there in Charlotte?

Doing well. It's been an interesting year, but, you know, still standing. Business is going well and can't complain. That's great. And usually we catch up at the ASP conference. That's where I talked to you last was about a year and a half ago, I suppose, a year and a couple of months ago. And I remember learning more about your business there. And I'm really excited just to have you on and have you share your wisdom with us. I appreciate you having me. So to get us started, tell us a little bit about your passion and what you're doing right now. Yeah, so my, obviously my background is in

sports psychology and I run a business called Cortex Performance where we primarily focus on proactive mental training for basketball. So basketball, I mean, I've dealt with a number of different sports, but basketball is the one I'm most passionate about. And that's where we've, as a company decided to put our focus these past several years. So, you know, that's, that's what I deal with each and every day. And it's become a year round thing, you know, used to be you know more of a you know like fall to spring type of thing but now you got um you know you got the NBA draft in the summertime you have other leagues the WNBA plays in the summer you know where we're getting more into women's basketball for instance so there's a lot of

stuff going on that we're getting into and and I'm loving it you know I love being my own boss trying to figure out how to run a business you know. Yeah that's wonderful so tell us a bit about your journey to where you are now you grew up in Germany and then you came over here in 2005 if I got that right so tell us a bit about how you got to the U.S. and just a little bit more about your background. Yeah, yeah, so 2005 is when I pretty much moved over here permanently. Prior to that, I'd already spent some time in the States, but I'll take you all the way back. So, grew up in Germany in a super small, tiny village of about 300 people, and it's interesting, I actually started out in equestrian sports, so my dad is big on

equestrian, on show jumping specifically. So that's what I did as a young kid and got pretty good at it, was even competing against adults, you know, and whatnot. And, you know, eventually decided, though, that I wanted to get into basketball because some kids at my school played. So I got into that at about age 13, I want to say. And that's what then kind of motivated me to come over to the states so I did like a student exchange program when I was in 11th grade came over

went to a small high school in Vermont spent a year out there and you know I had a chance to play some basketball and then go back to Germany finish up school there um then eventually come back over i made a chance to do my undergrad up in maine small school there you know played sports for um i was able fortunate that i was able to finish my degree in three years because i had a bunch of my high school credits transfer in actually wow yeah and that's when i actually came across sports psychology because I was a psych major and we had a sports psych elective one semester. And that was probably my first formal introduction to the field. So, you know, fast forward from there, you know, went back to Germany, played semi-professionally for a year, did some coaching, came back, did my master's in counseling psychology, and then eventually my PhD in kinesiology and sports psych and then started my business about three years after that.

Yeah, so fun. So tell us a little bit about, you know, I'm just thinking about your work with basketball players and even pros. I'm specifically thinking about even your experience as a semi-pro. what do you think the best of the best do differently? Like, what do you see them doing from a mindset perspective? Yeah, it's a great question. I wish we saw as much consistency mentally as we want to see across players. You know, the mental part isn't always the reason they make it to that level. But for players that, you know, that sustain a high level of excellence, I believe it's, you know, it comes down to having a process that they can go to, you know,

each and every day when it comes to, you know, just finding emotional balance. You know, several of my players have committed to meditation, different gratitude practices, just simple you can do to stay even killed in life and then you know manage everything that's coming at you i i also think that those players that that are you know at the top typically have some type of uh tools that they utilize around games so whether it be you know pre-game routines as i'm sure you taught many of your athletes you know visualization going in pre-planning for mistakes having specific uh tools focus cues different things to go to end game and then also having a way of processing the game so you don't get you don't get too caught

up in in uh great or in bad performances because you got to move on especially when i deal with nba players in particular they have so many games that you know if you lose a night of sleep like there's another game waiting for you and honestly you gotta figure out to get your rest and recovery mentally emotionally and physically so i think those are some things and then i think also the the pros that have the most you know or the longest and most stable careers are oftentimes the pros that have the most, you know, or the longest and most stable careers are oftentimes the ones that understand how to navigate life off the court and manage, you know, environmental factors, because it does get tricky when, especially once you start making that really big money, you know,

it does get tricky when you're an American player, for instance, that goes overseas and now you're away from your family potentially for nine months out of the year um you know it's a lot of factors you got to be able to manage just to be able to to play at a high level for 40 or 48 minutes a lot of stress that's uh could potentially happen with people asking you for money your family maybe bugging you um or just and thinking overseas as well and if you don't have the social support absolutely i like what you said about all right they have a process um they have tools in the game and then they have like a way to process the game afterwards see them do in terms of process the game? And do you have any

recommendations on how you think? And I'm just thinking about, we can apply this to sport, but we can also apply this to life, right? You and I perform in some way. So if we have like a, maybe a debrief routine that could be even helpful for us. Yeah, for sure. So I think you threw out full process real quick, because I do think with some tweaks, you can actually apply it to everyday life as well. So one thing that we do with our athletes at the start of our process is we help them develop out their on-court core values. And we typically condense it down to three key areas that the athlete wants to build their identity around. So going into a game, you know,

obviously we have the athlete look at the core values, incorporates those into their pre-game visualization, just like you might at the start of the day, you know, you visualize executing your core values and you want to see specifically what that looks like in action, right? So attaching tangible definitions and behaviors to it, I think, is really crucial. So pregame, typically, we have our athletes come up with a few short focus cues for that particular contest. So it could be something like compete, you know, just a single word that they want to focus on and emphasize that game along with the behavioral definition. Post game, we have the athlete come back and essentially rate themselves on their core value execution across their three core values and then also on their mental game or their game plan execution, so to speak. So if they

had two or three focus cues going into the game, they rate themselves on how well they feel like they executed that game plan, which is typically built around controllable factors. Okay. From there, we like doing a quick, we call it an S3 analysis. So strength, struggles, and strategies. So we have them identify a few things that they did well, a few things, a few areas that they feel they struggled in or definitely want to improve in towards the next game. And then we have them kind of pre-plan their strategies, which essentially corresponds with the pre-game focus cue setting, so to speak. So that way you have continuity game to game and you have a way of kind of looking back and also seeing how you did over the past five games for instance and we're actually in the process i'd add this real quick

we're in the process of actually partnering with a tech company to where athletes are going to be able to just jump into a into a web platform or an app real quick pregame and post game and they have it all in one place you know awesome that's great and what i really like about that is that it is focused on the process and it's focused on you know how they implemented their core values i didn't hear you say anything about goals you know like and uh maybe you know uh i'm thinking about how sometimes particularly high school athletes might go into a game and they might be focused on how many, you know, how many shots they want or points they want to score, right? But if it's like implementing your core values, that's controllable. Yeah, for sure.

And I think as far as goal setting, we do use it selectively, I would say so so athletes that benefit from from statistical goals we certainly incorporate that into the definitions of their pre-game focus cues so you know being so if again if compete or like or be aggressive if one of those is is one of your pre-game cues then a behavioral goal that might go along with that or a statistical goal could be to score at least 10 points. Now, some athletes, it gets in the way of their confidence if they don't reach that goal, as you know, right? And that's where we might still set more tangible process goals that are not as much about whether or not the ball goes in, but maybe, you know, maybe a goal is to attack the paint at least five times per half, or to at least accumulate

30 positive touches as far as connecting with teammates. Again, making the mental game as specific as possible, but then also allowing for some flexibility, depending on to what degree does that level of specificity actually benefit the individual athlete, because it's all personality driven. Yeah, excellent. How would you describe kind of your philosophy of mental training? Yeah, so we look at it in terms of what we use three terms. So one proactive, secondly, it should be personalized. And thirdly, it should be personalized and thirdly it should be systematic and so what i mean by proactive is that you know we want our athletes to look at at the mental game just like they do with strength conditioning it's essentially strength conditioning for the mind it's something

that you engage in regularly and not just you know when you're in a slump or something like that. You know, as you know, too many athletes still come to us only when they're, you know, struggling with confidence or they're going through a slump or like something is going wrong with their coach or something like that. So proactive, you know, the second part is personalized in the sense that we, we do personality assessments with our athletes on the front end then we like i said we develop out customized core values for them and we want to have a really intricate understanding of what matters to the athlete well what are you know the things that really pull on them in terms of motivation what are the things that really matter for them what

is their vision for their career you know um and then lastly systematic just simply means that you know you do those evaluations you do you meet weekly or whatever the case may be that there's a certain structure to it and a way of you know measuring uh progress in a way as tough as it is in our field admittedly but you know again there is a you know a kind of a very specific process to it that we don't really see enough in my opinion in the field of mental training you know too often it's too reactive and just sort of you know the intuitive part is important but it's it's not how I envision it if that makes of you know the intuitive part is important but it's um it's not how i envision it if that makes sense you know and always like the metaphor that always comes to mind for me is and i've actually like i've talked to nba organizations about you know their hire of a

sports psych person and you know i ask them hey like so what does this individual actually do for you guys you know and they're like well you know he uh he or she they they mostly just hang out in case somebody wants to talk and i'm like okay like would you tell your strength and conditioning coach that you're paying you know two hundred thousand dollars a year just to hang out in the weight room in case somebody wants to get a lift in right really good point yeah yeah yeah and i think one of the issues is that it is hard to measure. Right. And there's so many variables that impact performance. And, you know, I also think that's kind of dangerous. So what are your thoughts on, let's say, if you were having a conversation with the front office person in the NBA team, how do you think we could, we could measure our work and the impact? Yeah, it's such a great question. And it's a complicated answer. And I'm not sure there is

one that's as clean as we all want it to be, because a lot of what we do, it's more, you know, like an athlete, you know, I've certainly had athletes that I, you know, they come in and they lack confidence. They don't enjoy playing anymore. Right. Whatever. And then, you know, maybe a couple of months later, they're like, well, I feel great up there. You know, things are going well. Like I'm loving my sport again. But it doesn't mean that their points per game is going up necessarily. Exactly. But their happiness is increased in their confidence, you know, their being in general. Yeah, for sure. And I mean, that that's where I think self assessment is, is useful as well. You know, the athlete says, well, this month, I'm a, you know, eight out of

10 in terms of my confidence when I was only six out of 10 last month, you know, it's meaningful, you know, maybe it's not meaningful in the way that we want to do a you know a research study around it but it's meaningful to the athlete in other cases obviously you can you can see tangible increases in statistical numbers but there's also a lot of confounding variables so i'm always really hesitant to claim or to take credit for an athlete improving a certain area because maybe, you know, during the stretch that they improved, you know, that maybe they put in extra time with their shooting coach and the shooting coach really helped them. So. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Tricky, tricky subject, tricky. And so thanks for just being open with your thoughts on that. Tell us a

little bit about your work kind of in the pro basketball space. And I'm specifically thinking about like, what do you think a pro basketball player needs from the mental game? Yeah. What do I need from the mental game? I think they need consistency from the mental game because as a professional athlete, and especially in a, you know, in a high visibility sports here in the U S in particular, you know in a high visibility sport uh here in the U.S. in particular you know whether it be basketball football baseball you do need consistency you do need a process and you do need for the the mental game to be tangible you know I think that's really important like us as as um you know mental performance

coaches we need to be able to give athletes we give professional players in particular hands-on tangible things that they can go to whether it be you know like i said a 10-minute visualization routine to do pre-game or specific focus cues that they can ride on their shoe during the game and look at and it automatically triggers uh certain behaviors and actions and um i think that's where we really got to be careful not to be too philosophical and too fluffy with what we do you know because a lot of especially with the nba where again like there's so many games yeah you don't have a lot of time so the stuff we give them they got to be able to do something with it right yeah and I also think about my own experience you know as a college athlete myself and ran cross country and track and

there's a point my sophomore year that I really struggled mostly with my own confidence and just letting go of a poor race that I kept on kind of replaying in my own mind. And I saw a sports psychology practitioner and it was great, but I didn't know what to do afterwards, you know? So I am very tangible sometimes, um, too tangible, I think, because I didn't get it, you know, and it was like, okay, I don't know about all this stuff here, you know, like, just tell me what to do. That's what I needed. So I appreciate that perspective. What are your thoughts on the difference between kind of consulting with players who are in the US versus overseas? Yeah, I mean, that's one of my favorite topics, you know, one of my favorite parts of my job now is to, you know, have, I mean, I have a number of players,

like whether it be in the NBA or college here in the States and whatnot, WNBA, but then we also have players kind of all over Europe, and again, having grown up in Europe, I have a kind of a different appreciation for it, so I think for a lot of players, you know, having grown up in Europe, I have a kind of a different appreciation for it. So I think for a lot of players, you know, US players, for instance, going over, getting accustomed to new culture and figuring out the language barrier in some cases, I think that's really fascinating

that the game is played a little bit differently so that can lead to some challenges early on. You know, travels might be called differently your minutes might look different you know you could go over there and be a star player you know and like here in the U.S. we know if you're a star player in the NBA you're probably going to play you know upwards of 32 minutes a game and you'll probably score 20 plus points you know over in in Europe you might be a star player on a team and play 20 minutes a game and maybe score 15 and it's it's it's more team oriented there

you know in a lot of ways so I think that's that's a big difference um in terms of status I I don't think you know you're you don't like you don't receive the same type of recognition as an individual or playing overseas as you do in the states whether it be at the college or at the pro level i think being away from family is a big deal for a lot of athletes that go over so if you can't in some cases you can you know obviously take your family you know if you're if you have kids if you're willing to take them out of school and maybe put them in a local school or if they're young and they're not in family, you know, if you're, if you have kids, if you're willing to take them out of school and maybe put them in a local school, or if they're young and they're not in school yet, you know,

that's one thing. But if you have older kids that already are established in their local school system, you know, now you're not going to see them for most of the year. Right. And now you've got to figure out how to use technology and different things. And it's tough, you know know this year I've had athletes I'm thinking of one particular then that went out to Eastern Europe and because of COVID he's not married but he's in a serious relationship with a kid his family hasn't even come over

because they're not married you know the country just doesn't allow it so it's extremely extremely difficult you know what are the percentages of um you know the people that maybe play overseas that actually make it to the nba ah wonderful question i wish i had an answer for that it's um i almost don't even look at it like that anymore you know it used to be that everybody just wanted to go to the NBA. And, you know, sometimes we deal with young prospects now that are looking to make that jump. And it's extremely difficult. I mean, the percentage of players in the U.S., even at the college level, that make it to the NBA is incredibly small, like one or two percent or something like that. I mean, it's nothing. But now we actually see that a lot of players that have been in the NBA

end up going to Europe by choice because they can make more money or they can get more playing time. So it's a bit more of a mix. I mean, you can probably take, say, like the quote-unquote like bottom 50 or 100 players in the NBA and just swap them out with like the top 50 or 100 that are playing overseas and it's not going to be much of a difference I mean that's global now so and I you you had mentioned COVID and I'm curious when you think about the athletes that you're working with now or the coaches you know there's just a lot of differences in the game in terms of all fans can't be there right their their family can't

necessarily travel um what are you seeing in terms of kind of the toll that it's put on athletes and their ability to be resilient or bounce back it's been really tough i would say on a lot of athletes because even when things are not going well off the court and you know you're you know away from family and you're in a foreign culture like if you're a first year player you're in a foreign culture and you're not really that comfortable you know um basketball is one thing you can typically rely on now this year i've had a number of players that uh that had games canceled and they had to go into quarantine because they tested positive or where, you know, games got canceled, like kind of scratched at the last minute or something like that.

I mean, it's just been a mess. You know, it's been a real mess overall. Yeah, so it's been really hard. So I felt myself doing a lot more kind of life skills, coaching and counseling, if you will, this season, you know, and a little bit less performance based. Yeah. Right. Cause if they're, they have a lot of stress and anxiety in general, it's, you know, I think it's almost impossible not to bring that to the court in some way. Right, right. Yeah. I know you also do some work in the kind of draft, in the pre-draft. So tell us a bit about that work and what do you see those athletes need? Or just tell us a bit more

about what you do there. Yeah, so we've been doing this for about the past four or five years now with different NBA organizations. We're starting to get into the WNBA space a little bit, which is really exciting. And what we do for organizations typically, and it's looked differently for different organizations, but kind of a full scale approach would typically include a combination of doing personality assessments with the players that come through along with one-on-one interviews that I'll conduct just to understand them at a personality level understand them at a mental game level in terms of what are some of the skills and tools that players have what are some of the struggles that they go through what are some of the resources that they have thought about or have utilized we're also starting to look more at bringing in athletic intelligence testing so looking at things like reaction time and processing speed and whatnot memory and then at the end of the day

the idea is to form as comprehensive a picture as you can as far as who an athlete is and then we also always look at their cultural context so what is the organizational culture and what are players that they like based on you know based on on their head coach for instance or based on how they want the the organization to to be perceived you know So that's been really fascinating because, you know, to us, it's not really as much about is somebody good or bad mentally, but it's more so about, you know, are they the right fit for an organization?

And if they end up there, what are the resources you got to put around them to maximize their mental performance? Yeah, that's great. Can you give us an example without saying names of like, you know, maybe what an organization, the culture, and maybe how it's not a good fit for an athlete or is a good fit? Yeah, absolutely. So, and I can just say, we've dealt with the Miami Heat some and without getting going into too much detail on

internal stuff with them but everybody knows everybody that follows basketball knows that Miami likes players that are tough that are nasty that like to compete that love to practice which is not something that's being done in the NBA a whole lot to be honest

players that are smart and unselfish. So we look for those type of attributes to, you know, determine whether or not somebody is the right fit, you know. So what I've learned, you know, in doing this process with different organizations is that while some organizations like players that are, you know, really polished in a way, you know, other organizations prefer guys that are maybe a little bit rougher around the edges and come with a toughness and have maybe been through some hard stuff in life. That's shaped their character.

Yeah. I could see how that's so powerful because then you're really helping the athletes get to a place where they can thrive and be successful versus a place where, you know, that they it isn't set up for them to really be at their best. Right, right. Fit is such a big deal in sports period. It really is. And it's so overlooked. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I wonder from a coach's perspective and a GM's perspective, they might be thinking about that, but you and me who are just watching the game, it's probably not something that we necessarily consider. Tell us a little bit about how you might work with coaches and what role do you think that coaches play in just like, you know, mental training in general? I think they play a big role so essentially their performance as well you know just like we all are so one thing that we do with

coaches is we uh you know if they're open to take them through a personality assessment as well and try to understand you know what what drives them motivationally you know what are the things that make them tick what are the the things that that really you know make up their value system and their identity as a coach and how much flexibility is there within that right and then we look at well if this coach's personality is that way what does it mean for you know working with this type of player or that type of player, you know, where like what's the right type of fit. And if it's not a clean fit, you know, how can a player and a coach compliment each other?

How can different coaches on the staff compliment one another and where are the places where there might be some friction and disagreement, because look at the end of the day, Senator, you know, we all have our own value system and it feels right to us. So we automatically have a tendency to want to apply that to everybody else. Yeah. And I think that what I like about what you said is, all right, the coach better understands themselves, right? Where they understand their personality, their values, their identity.

And I don't think very many people kind of take a step back and really spend time getting to know themselves very much and maybe do a values assessment or consider what's part of their identity. How do they want to shape their identity intentionally? Right, right. If I can add this real quick, like I think self-care is is such a big deal as well when it comes to professional sports periods so i know in the nba there's way too many coaches that deal with uh sleep deprivation you know that that's a huge issue you know drinking too much you know you're constantly out on social functions team dinners you know meeting this person meeting that social functions team dinners you know meeting this person meeting that person having a glass of glass of wine here a couple beers later it's uh

it adds up and and you know it's poisonous you know for your mental and physical health and it's it's really rough on the families as well because these coaches are already stressed out as is and so when you make bad choices on top of that, it just exacerbates it. Yeah. I am thinking about how there's a rise in like drinking in general during COVID. People are kind of using that as maybe a stress relief, which isn't good. Yeah. Can you give us some examples of, you know, when you're talking about identity and values, what are you seeing some of the athletes that you work with? What do they say their values are? Or a little bit more about how they might consider their own identity. I'm just trying to

kind of help people understand a little bit more in depth. Yeah. So starting with the personality assessment, that's where we look at things like, to what degree does an individual value being independent versus interdependent? To what degree do they value being structured and routine oriented versus kind of going with the flow and being more spontaneous? There are a number of categories that we look at with that, but ultimately when it comes to the core values, we, we you know, typically find that athletes tend to identify with things like competitiveness, aggressiveness, toughness, you know, though that's typically one bucket that stands out. The second bucket that stands out when, when we kind of condense their core values down that they initially map out on paper, a second one that stands out is we kind of condense their core values down that they initially map out on

paper. A second one that stands out is along the lines of, you know, focus, like being locked in, being smart with my decision making, you know. And then a third bucket typically has to do with, you know, like your presence, your body language, your communication, your leadership, well, whatever you might want to call it, but it's about, it's about the way you act, you know, on and off the court. You say those, all of those traits, I'm thinking, well, you know, typically to be a really good basketball player, you need all those, so perhaps they develop them over time. Right, and that can look differently for for different players i think you know um yeah i think that that's important to understand as well when

you think about coaches and when you even think about our roles so you might have you know two players that that are both competitive but for one their competitiveness is driven by their sense of you know vengeance like wanting to get back at their opponentiveness is driven by their sense of, you know, vengeance, like wanting to get back at their opponent. For the other player, their competitiveness, they might not care about vengeance whatsoever, but their competitiveness might be driven by a, like feeling a sense of responsibility towards their teammates or towards their family that's put them in position to be a pro player. All this sounds really good. I'm thinking about how did you develop all of this,

you know, in terms of like your assessments. And I'm just so grateful that you spent some time talking with us today. Tell us how you've been doing and how you've been just weathering the storm of COVID and maybe you've had to change and adjust your business too. Yeah, I appreciate the question. It's been a tough time in some ways and a real opportunity in other ways. So I feel like when COVID first started, I was pretty down for, I'd say, the first week or so, you know, because all of a sudden everything comes to a halt. Like online, you watch a lot of games for our clients, you know, all that stops. everything comes to a halt like online you watch a lot of games for our clients you know all that stops like everything is just stopped and you're like man like how are we gonna make money now you know and obviously you worry about your clients as well you know

because they're in a tough spot but then pretty quickly we we kind of shifted and started looking at opportunities in terms of well how can we best support our clients right now how can we use it as a growth opportunity how can we take another step forward with the business so we went through a whole rebrand recently which has been ongoing for a while you know building a new website and you know different things like that um looking at just doing more networking and reaching out to folks, you know, doing podcasts like this. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it's been, like from a business perspective, it's actually been a very, very good year for us. Once we figured out how to shift our focus, personally, I would say it's, it's kind of up and down to, to be honest,

like I do a pretty good job. I want to say kind of living what we preach in terms of doing my daily meditation exercising different things like that but you know it is some days just feel really heavy you know yeah house and you just want to get out you want to travel you want to see people it's been hard in some ways yeah uh kind of similar I would say, you know, my mood last year was pretty high and pretty consistent. And I am just used to traveling a lot and moving around a lot and going places. And so it's been a little difficult for me just kind of being home and virtual. I have two boys that are online school now, you know, with our schools being closed.

So, but at the same time, just like you, you know, adjusted and adapted my own business. And there's so many things to be grateful for, you know, and I sort of feel like when I say that, it's like, wow, that's a first world problem. And, but, but have had to use my own mental strength and my own tools a lot, maybe a lot more this year than typical. Yeah, yeah. Well, Reiner, thank you so much for being here with us today and sharing your wisdom and your knowledge. Tell us how people can reach out to you and your website? Yeah. So our website is cortexperformance.com. So it's C-O-U-R-T-E-X performance.com. You know, Instagram at cortex performance. You can, you can reach me actually on our business line, 865-323-8570. And people can also reach out directly via email to Reiner,-a-i-n-e-r

at cortexperformance.com excellent well here's some of the things i really enjoyed about our conversation today uh when i asked you about you know what are the best of the best do differently and you're like they have a process they have tools game. And then they also, you know, debrief the game in a way that's systematic and builds confidence. And I appreciated how you described the ways that you help athletes do that. I was thinking about how we can just do the same kind of process after a day at work, or a day of a different type of performance. I also appreciated when you're describing

the way you do your work, like helping athletes understand their values and their identity and just better understanding themselves through the personality assessments. And then we were talking about the US versus overseas and just the differences that an athlete might experience there.

So I'm grateful for your time today. Do you have any final thoughts or final advice for people? You know, I mean, first of all, I appreciate being here. So thanks again for having me. I think the main thing is when it comes to the mental game, like again, whether you're an athlete, you're a coach, you're, you know, a professional or just a person, period, you know, figure out something that gives you your day and allows you to, you know, but like kind of be your best self within all that as hard as that's been for all of us lately.

But I think that would be my main advice. Thank you so much for joining us today, Reiner. 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. Sindhra for show notes and to join my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head

over to Dr. Sindhra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.