High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 412: 4 Types of Resilience with Dr. Steve Bull, Author, Speaker and Psychologist

Episode Date: March 6, 2021

Dr. Steve Bull is a Chartered Psychologist, speaker, author and high performance consultant. During his 30+ year career he has coached CEOs, Olympic Gold Medalists, NATO officers, professional actors and university academics. He was the Great Britain Team Headquarters Psychologist at 3 Olympic Games and worked with the England Cricket Team for 16 years during which time they famously regained the Ashes from Australia in 2005 before going on to reach No.1 in the world rankings for the first time ever in the modern era. Over the course of those 16 years he fulfilled the roles of team psychologist, leadership coach and change management consultant. Steve has worked in the corporate world as a performance psychologist since the late 1990s delivering development programs in high performance leadership, team effectiveness, culture change and resilience. He has consulted with a wide range of companies in Europe, the USA, the Middle East and Asia. He is the author of 8 books - most notably “The Game Plan” which presents a practical guide to developing resilience in the workplace. The book has received considerable praise and sold in more than 10 countries around the world. Steve was a university academic and researcher for 15 years, earned a PhD in Applied Psychology.​ In this episode, Dr. Bull and Dr. Cindra discuss How to develop the 4 types of resilience How mental toughness and resilience are different The difference between celebrating success and reviewing success Ways to lead with your strengths How the best leaders seek out challenges Why it is important to carefully and considerately take risks HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: www.cindrakamphoff.com/412 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/highperformancemindsetcommunity FOLLOW CINDRA ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cindrakamphoff/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/mentally_strong TO FIND MORE ABOUT DR. BULL: http://www.gameplancoach.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. Mustafa Sarkar said psychological resilience is your ability to use personal qualities to withstand pressure. Buddha said, Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most. Welcome to episode 412. This is your host, Dr. Sindhara Kampoff,

and I'm grateful that you are here today. If you know that mindset is essential to your success, then you are in the right place. Today's episode is with Dr. Stephen Bull. I read his book, The Game Plan, several years ago, and I'm excited to have him on the podcast today. And for those of you who don't know, I'm a keynote speaker, a mental performance and executive coach where I work with people one-on-one. So if I can be of help in any way, and if you're thinking about leveling up in 2021 or your desire is there to really be your best this year, please reach out to me. My email is syndra at syndracampoff.com. I'm here to help and the offer is always there.

Now in today's episode with Dr. Stephen Bull, we talk about four types of resilience. This comes from his book called The Game Plan. And Steve Boll is a chartered psychologist, speaker, author, and a high-performance consultant. He has spent the last 30 years where he's coached CEOs, Olympic gold medalists, and professional actors. He was also the Great Britain team quarter psychologist at three Olympic Games, working with the England cricket team quarter psychologist at three Olympic Games, working with the England cricket team for 16 years. He has worked in the corporate world as a performance psychologist since the late 1990s and is the author of eight books, most notably the book that we talk about today, The Game Plan, which presents a practical guide to developing resilience in the workplace.

His PhD is in applied psychology. And in this episode, we talk about the four types of resilience that are necessary to develop, how the concepts of mental toughness and resilience are different, why it's important for us to celebrate our success as well as to review our success. We talk about ways to lead with your strengths, how it is essential for the best leaders to seek out challenges and how the best do so, and why it is important to carefully and considerately take risks. I know you're going to enjoy today's episode. If you'd like the full show notes and description, you can head over to cindracampoff.com slash 412 for episode 412. Make sure you share this one with a friend, someone who needs to hear this today.

You can copy and paste the link, text a couple of friends who you know could use the message from Steve Bull, or you can head over to social media and tag Steve and I. Wherever you're on social media, send me a message. Let me know if you want me to bring Steve back on to go more in depth on this topic related to resilience. And if you are the first time listening, make sure you hit subscribe. All right, my friends, let's bring on Steve Bull. Steve, I'm really excited to have you today on the High Performance Mindset podcast to talk about your book, The Game Plan. So thank you so much for joining us here today.

Thank you, Sindra. It's a pleasure to be here and appreciate the invitation and the opportunity to speak with you. Absolutely. So to get us started, just tell us a little bit about what you're passionate about, Steve, and what you're passionate about, Steve, and what you do now? Well, it probably won't surprise anyone listening to know that my passion is high performance and always has been in any walk of life. I mean, I spent a large chunk of my career working in high performance sport, but then migrated into the business world, applying the principles of sports psychology to business

performers. But yes, the passion really is to do whatever I can to help people be the best that they can be, to help people tap into their strengths, you know, to their own passions, and to make the most of them. I'm not a great believer in the old adage that anyone can be anything they want to be. I think we all have a pretty unique set of skills and attributes and strengths. And I've always viewed my role as a coach in helping people figure out where those signature strengths lie

and then giving them tools and strategies to help make the most of them. That has always been my passion from day one, really. And I think about your career, you know, you've been so successful in sport and then, you know, with business professionals and executives. And I read your book several years ago and absolutely loved it. So really talk about just how we all can be high performers and what are the tools and strategies that we need to be able to do that. So maybe to get us started, what do you see the best of the best do differently? That's a great question, but not particularly easy to answer because I do feel they're all so different.

I mean, there are some general commonalities. High performers do tend to have pretty robust levels of confidence. On the whole, they're pretty good at focusing in the moment and executing their skills under pressure. But those are pretty general points. And just to build on the comment earlier, I do think it is about finding out what makes them tick. And I couldn't say that of all the high performers I've worked with over the years, that, you know, they are similar in lots and lots and lots of ways that they're not. I mean, even to the point where I have worked with high performers in the past who,

who are quite lazy, you know, and they, particularly in sport, perhaps less so in business, in the workplace, but, you know, people have this natural talent that allows them to get by. Now that catches them out eventually um but it's certainly not my experience that all high performers in sport um have have this incredible sort of work ethic that we might associate with them um many many do and i think uh the fact that standards have gone up over the years it's becoming more and more important to have that um but that's just one example of you think well surely a high performer isn't lazy well some of them are

actually they that you know they're and that's sometimes what makes them great under pressure because they have this you know fairly relaxed approach um to life and then they'll deal with whatever's thrown at them in that moment yes that's a difficult thing to teach someone um but yeah it's it's uh it's an interesting phenomenon i've observed yeah uh really good insights there i think about my kids and my youngest son is like really has this relaxed approach to whatever you know he works hard but it also really helps him be able to deal with failure and setbacks you know he takes it you know all in stride um and i admire him for that i don't think that i was like that when i was young but as i said just to reinforce the point i think ultimately um that that can catch up with you

particularly these days in level sport where the standard is so high yes and the difference between the top performers is so small perhaps 20 30 years ago 40 years ago when I started my career there were more elite athletes around who were able to just if dare I say wing it on the day and just rely on this natural talent that they have I think that's much less so now I think standards are so high the pressures are so great the scrutiny is so forensic that you've got to put the hours in and and and that's why I think also these days perhaps we see more athletes coming through who might not have that natural talent that they might have done years ago but they've got their incredible dedication this incredible focus determination

and the kind of sacrifices and the work ethic um and certainly um over my career give me the choice of working with an athlete who's got incredible natural talent, but isn't particularly coachable versus an athlete with perhaps more limited talent, but is very open to being coached and helped. You know, I'll work with that athlete any, any day, if I have, if I have the choice. And ditto in the workplace as well, you know, business people I'm sure would relate to this. There are people in the workplace who in the early part of their career get by on this just natural ability or natural intellectual thinking. But eventually you get caught out. Eventually you've got to learn some other stuff to help you maximize those natural

talents as you progress. And I think that is a really good way for us to segue into this idea of mental toughness and how it's developed, right? It's not just something that you're born with. And so give us a little insight, Steve, on how did you start studying this idea of mental toughness? And then we'll dive into the four types of mental toughness in and of itself was very much in vogue when I started researching it back in the 1990s. It's fallen out of favor these days for understandable reasons. And the reason that it's fallen out of favor is in part what got me interested in it but these days I would generally like many of my colleagues use the term resilience rather than mental toughness so if I was publishing that book today as opposed to 15 years ago when it came out I would use the term resilience at work as opposed to mental toughness at work but in the 90s that term mental toughness it has a residence people liked it and it landed both in sport and business but what got me particularly interested towards the

end of the 90s in my work in sport I was getting increasingly frustrated with the way in which commentators or coaches or anyone involved in sport use the term mental toughness to describe some athletes and not others so you'll frequently hear oh that athletes they're really mentally tough or that one will never make it because they're not mentally tough and what frustrated me about that was what they were actually judging that mental toughness on so when you actually then said to them what do you judging that mental toughness on. So when you actually then said to them, well, what do you mean by mental toughness? They couldn't really say.

It was just a sort of gut feel that this athlete's great under pressure, therefore they're mentally tough, and this one isn't, therefore they're not. So that kind of frustrated me but got me interested. And then I was equally interested by the assumption that people made that an Olympic gold medalist was by definition a pinnacle of mental toughness. Because they say we can't win an Olympic gold medal without being mentally tough. And I worked with quite a few Olympic athletes and one or two gold medalists who by their own admission wouldn't call themselves particularly mentally tough they had a lot of other attributes that enabled them to deliver and win that gold medal but mental toughness wasn't one of them and then I found that these

people were being invited into the business world to talk about mental toughness and I had a conversation with them previously when they said I don't think I'm actually that mentally tough well that's quite interesting so putting those things together I got really frustrated with people's use of liberal use of the term mental toughness without actually understanding what it was so I managed to get a piece of funding um from the women of Wales cricket board because as you'll know, I worked in professional cricket. I promise not to talk about that today because I know it's a bamboozling sport for people on your side of the ocean. But for those who don't follow cricket, it's our equivalent of professional baseball.

But I was doing a lot of work with the with the international England cricket team at the time. So I embarked on this piece of funded research to actually systematically investigate what this thing mental toughness is. And that involved me interviewing loads of coaches, loads of players. I compiled a compendium of qualitative data, which I and my research team then meticulously poured over to analyze what was going on and what came out of that research was the fact that there are different types of mental toughness or to use the term these days different types of resilience that really interested me and what we then showed was that you'd have some athletes some individuals who were very strong in one of these types but not so strong in another what we found was that in order for you to be really successful at the top level you have to be strong in at least two out of the four

okay if you were strong in all four great But if you weren't strong in at least two of them, you were going to struggle. But yeah, so that was one of the main things that came out of the research. The other interesting point of note that came out of the research was that we found, and this sounds a bit old hat now, but back in the late 90s was quite new thinking. And it was a point about the importance of the environment in shaping mental toughness or resilience. And what we showed in our research was that you could have the best coaching, the best sports psychology support around. You know, you could have everything there to help you if the environment wasn't right then those mental skills would break down in the critical performance moment and that took us off

into another area of research where we started to explore what is the best type of environment for younger athletes to grow up and develop in to give them the best chance of developing that mental toughness as they got older and of course one of the key features that came out of that was that we showed that on the whole individuals who have this very strong level of mental toughness or resilience they had invariably experienced some sort of adversity or disappointment or failure previously in their career. And the interviews that we did said that that shaped their mental toughness and their resilience. Because that got us into some really interesting thinking about, well, how do we sort of ethically if you like manufacture adversity and you know

disappointment and failure with younger athletes how do we artificially create that in order to soften them up um and that that got us into some really interesting conversations with the coaches but but that takes us off into another area. So, you know, the importance of the environment is crucial. Understanding individual difference is crucial, but the identification of these four different types of mental toughness, that then helped us to support and coach athletes much more effectively because we were doing it in a targeted way. And it also helped us explain why a lot of observers and coaches would disagree when assessing whether an athlete was mentally tough or not. Sure. Say, well, I think they are. Another one would say, well, I don't think they are. That's

because they were using different reference points. And the four types, the four types helped us sort of, you know, get inside that, if you like. So Steve, the first question I have on that is tell us in your perspective, the shift from the use of the term mental toughness to resilience, and do they now mean the same to you? Or were you know, you kind of said that mental toughness fell out of favor um what are your thoughts on that yeah it's a really interesting question um i mean i don't use the term mental toughness very often at all these days i do tend to use use resilience um the first thing i'd say on that is is one of the things that mental toughness immediately creates in people's minds is the idea of the sort of tough guy image yes you know the marine struggling through the mud and the you

know you know on these assault courses or you know dealing with this incredible sort of physical challenge um you know kind of thing you associate with west point um yes you know that kind of thing that when you say that's a mental toughness it conjures that image up and that's a flawed assumption because all the research tells us very clearly it's not about that it's not about that tough guy image it's about a lot of other things and if anything it's certainly not if we relate this to the workplace it's not about putting 16 hour days in now that's the problem i've come across a lot in the workplace oh so and so puts five or six back-to-back 14 hour working days in they don't take a lunch break they're first, they're last to leave,

aren't they resilient or aren't they mentally tough? Completely flawed in my view. The resilient performers are those that can really push themselves hard for a period of time, but then they stop and then they take a break and then they recharge and then they go again, but then they know that they need to stop and then they recharge and then they go again but then they know that they need to stop and then they recharge and they go again that's resilience and yeah mental tumbers if we use that term so i i am very provocative when i go into workplace environments around the culture of working through your lunch you know eating a brown bag lunch over your laptop. I get really quite provocative about that. That's not resilience. Resilience is having the strength to stand up and go for a walk in the park, take a break, you know, do some meditation,

deep breathing, if that works for you, or go and play squash or do whatever you need to, so you can then come back and go hard again in the afternoon so excellent that's point number one in terms of why I think mental health favor the other point which is very relevant today of course is we quite rightly we're really focused on mental health issues these days both in sport and the workplace. And of course, someone who's struggling with mental health issues to say to them, come on, just toughen up. Life's hard. You know, just get on with it.

We know that just doesn't work. That is completely counterproductive. So there's no way in my view that the term mental toughness sort of sits comfortably with what we understand and appreciate about mental health these days. So I think resilience works much better for us because it doesn't have those connotations. So that was a fairly long answer. I hope that made sense. But yes, that's helpful. We've had this shift in terminology over the last 15 years. I agree with that. Like I see a lot of

people just make the assumption that mental toughness is being tough and just toughening it up. But I think there are times where that doesn't serve people and the importance of mental health, which you just mentioned. And so I'm kind of thinking, Steve, when I look at your book, right, turnaround toughness, critical moment Toughness, Critical Moment Toughness, Risk Management Toughness, and Endurance Toughness, and I was thinking that endurance toughness is exactly what you said, is like resting, pushing yourself when you need to, but also making sure you're caring for yourself. Do you think these are all four types of resilience as well? and i'm wondering like what the connection there is between these and resilience when i run workshops these days i would use the term resilience for all four of those

yes absolutely excellent okay good that's consistent with dictionary definitions but i think you know how people understand what we're talking about here, these days, I would say, yeah, there's four types of resilience. They are distinct. But yeah, let's use that term. Okay, perfect. Yeah. That helps me as I kind of think about where do we continue to go with the conversation? Because I thought the four types of resilience that you talk about in your book were really beneficial. And I was thinking about that it's helpful to know that it's not just one of these things. So let's kind of dive into each of these and think about also what do they mean, but how do we develop this within ourselves? And I'm going to point out that you said earlier,

when we're strong at two of the four, you know, that leads to high performance. So first, let's talk about what turnaround resilience is. And then let's talk about, okay, how do we improve that? Yeah, well, of course, just to preface, any comments I'm about to make, none of this stuff is going to sound particularly complicated or innovative or overly scientific I mean my favorite definition of performance psychology has always been performance psychology is a set of common sense principles not commonly applied yes I love that at the start of talks or workshops I run I say to people look you're not going to leave the room today saying, wow, that guy, Steve Bull, didn't he have some really interesting, innovative, different ideas? I say, you won't leave saying that.

You'll leave saying, you know, a lot of that was common sense because it is. But the problem is people don't do the common sense things. So, you know, people are not going to be blown away by this material. But the challenge is understanding which of these common sense principles are going to help you in different situations and then having the discipline to implement them. So turnaround is basically about turning around your state of mind after a poor performance. You know, you've had some sort of adversity, you know, whether that be in sport, you know, a losing streak or a loss of form or in the business world or the workplace environment. You might have, you know, done a presentation that really went badly or you've had a poor performance review from your manager, or you're

just feeling your confidence is ebbing away, because that's the essence of it. In the turnaround scenario, it is fundamentally about a loss of confidence, which has been triggered by some sort of disappointing external event. And as everyone knows when people experience that that negative adverse event we tend to by naturally spiral into that negative cycle of thinking we start to self doubt we start to question am i really that good after all? Well, it went wrong yesterday. Maybe it'll go wrong again tomorrow. Imposter syndrome starts to creep in. And all those sort of horribly negative aspects of self-talk start to come to the front of our mind.

So the question about turnaround resilience is, you know, how do we block those out? How do we turn things around and get people back onto that sort of confident track because it just seems to be the case that our brains are wired to spend more time thinking about what goes wrong and what we're not so good at as opposed to focusing on what goes right and what we are good at so so I spent a lot of my career coaching people to just change the way they review performance and to teach them ways of getting much better at reviewing successful performance

and I use this phrase reconnecting with previous accomplishments so yes things have gone badly yesterday or for the last week or for the last month. But you can change that. And don't forget all that stuff that's gone before, because people tend to do that. So it's a way of it's a question of helping them reconnect with those previous accomplishments. I've got a particular favorite coaching tool that I use to do that, which is my, I call it my confidence peaks chart. Yes. Look, I have it open to ask you about. I mean, that's, that's been a go-to coaching tool for me for many, many years now. And it's just a way of helping people reconnect with those previous accomplishments, capture them, review them, you know, learn from them and embed them so that they can then use that process to create

that stronger, confident platform going forward. And related to this also, I'll often talk to people in the workplace about what has happened in the last 25 years or so in sport with regard to performance review and what I'll say is 25 years ago when I was working in sport if our team lost a game at the weekend we would come to work on Monday morning and the first thing the team would do is be they come into a classroom with some flip charts and they would review that loss. And they would learn some lessons, figure out what they need to put right, get a game plan for next week's game. Right, off we go.

25 years ago, if the team won on Saturday, they would typically celebrate in some form on Saturday night, come to work Monday morning and it would generally be straight out onto the practice field to prepare for next week's game but they wouldn't go through that systematic review process that they would had they failed now that's changed certainly in my experience that the elite teams I've worked with in more recent years. Now, if we win on Saturday, Monday morning, we review that performance in exactly the same way that we would review a loss. And that's really important for all sorts of reasons. But it does create individual and team resilience, as well as

learning from mistakes and modifying strategy. But when you've done something well, you need to capture that. You need to embed that. You need to make the most of it. And you'll do that by systematically reviewing it. So then when I'm in the workplace, in the business world, it's a pet peeve of mine that has been forever, actually, that I don't think business teams spend enough time reviewing success if they have a bad week or a bad quarter you know they miss their their targets the numbers

are struggling yeah let's have a crisis meeting we need to get together what are we going to fix here how are we going to turn things around and get back on track but if they have a great week or a great month I hear a lot of people in the workplace talk about the importance of celebrating success. And I too believe that's crucial. So people have worked hard, go out for dinner, you know, have a bottle of champagne or whatever you do, toast the success, celebrate, great. But celebrating success is not reviewing success. And that's a different process. So yes, celebrate success, but also review it. So have a meeting, not just because there's a crisis and something's going wrong, but have a meeting to review what you've done so well over the last week or over the last

month. And how can you maximize your chance of repeating that if not improving it next time so all of this relates to the idea of turnaround resilience and it's essentially for me about creating the habit of reconnecting with and reviewing performance accomplishments if you do that systematically and that is part of your game plan, that will develop your turnaround resilience, and that will give you that strength. And next time something goes wrong, you know exactly what you need to do. You reconnect, you review the good performances, and you are back on track quickly. You've turned things around quickly. That's the turnaround resilience. Steve, there's

a few things I want to point out that you just said just for people that celebrating success and reviewing success is different. So, and both are important, but yeah, I think it's really powerful to take a step back. What led to the success? What do we need to replicate? And I did really like the peak chart in your book about building confidence. And for people who definitely should go grab the book, again, it's called The Game Plan with Steve Bull. But what I liked about this is, you know, all these different peaks on this mountain chain provide moments where you've been really successful, right? And the peaks represent, you say, a significant achievement that you've accomplished in the past, reflecting on those, recording them on one of the

mountains. And you encourage us to think hard, dive deep. I just put this application in for this award, actually at ASP, and it made me step back and think about all the things that I've done and it I think we tend to forget about our achievements right because we're so focused on like the here and now and where we're going next so tell us about the power of just reflecting on this kind of exercise and and seeing the accomplishments that you have how do you think that helps us? Well, I think, Cindy, you're absolutely right. Most people, without a little bit of coaching and cajoling, we tend to forget the great things that we've achieved in the past. You know, they tend to become a distant memory because we're not constantly reviewing them. And that, the main problem with that emerges when we we have an adverse experience

when something goes wrong if we haven't systematically connect reconnected with these performances and reviewed from and learned from them we can't use them we can't access them when things start to go wrong the other thing I think it's fair to say is that perhaps less so in elite sport, but very much so in the workplace. A lot of people I've worked with have a sense of, well, isn't it a bit immodest? Isn't it a bit big headed? I don't want to beat myself up because I'll come across as arrogant or overconfident. And that holds some people back from sitting down and reflecting on the great things that they've done. So, you know, I really try to push people through that because this is not something that you're going to go and show other people.

This is for you. This is a process that you're going through for you and for your mindset and for your resilience and when i introduce people to this mountain peaks chart in a workshop when i send them off to do it i tend to do get them to do in a pairs coaching sort of format but when i send them off my final instruction is modesty is not allowed i love it modesty is not allowed. I love it. Modesty from this. There is no place for modesty in this because it holds people back. And the other thing that I'd throw in, and you'll have noticed this looking at the example peaks chart in the book, is that was a peaks chart from a guy, I think it was a long time ago now now but i'm thinking he was an investment banker of some sort but he was in his 40s um and it was a work related confidence peaks

chart and yet when you actually look at the confidence peaks there are in there that are nothing to do with work yeah and i like that. And I encourage people to say, well, you can get confidence for the workplace from what you've achieved outside the workplace, whether that be passing a piano exam or running a marathon or doing some charitable work or being a great parent to your young child. These are things that you can still get confidence from

and you then take that confidence into the workplace. And of course, the way the metaphor of the mountain range works is, so you climb this mountain, your performance peak, and you put your personal flag in the top of that mountain now it doesn't matter what happens to you in the future doesn't matter how bad things go no one can take that achievement away from you your flag is in that mountain peak forever so however bad things go great you always go back that that's why I chose that mountain range as the metaphor, because that achievement, it's there forever.

20 years time, you could still go back to that achievement and use it. But coming back to your original question, people don't do this because their habit is to spend way too much time worrying and reflecting on a the things that go wrong and be the things that not so good at um yeah and and you know that's one of the things that you and i in our profession we try to help people break that cycle of thinking and get them more familiar with systematically tapping in to the incredible resource that they've got, which is all their previous accomplishments. I do agree with what you said. And when I look at this example, I love the parts where it says

like passing my sixth grade piano exam, right? That's a peak or my daughter's school report. So just this idea that things that happen outside of work can help you build more confidence in work and celebrating that's really powerful. So Steve, the other type of resilience that I want to talk a little bit about that I think could really help people. And by the way, before we move on, I would encourage everyone to do this that Steve is suggesting. Even if you grab Steve's book and you could just make your own mountain range and put the things that really build your confidence, your past accomplishments in this mountain chain.

But let's talk a little bit about risk management toughness or risk management resilience. And this is about seeking out challenges and reframing your appraisal. Tell us what this type of resilience is and why you think it's important to sport or the workplace. Yeah, well, I use the term risk management because in my experience in both elite sport and high performance business, you tend to find that high performers take risks. You know, they are comfortable getting out of their comfort zone and pushing themselves. Now, I would go further and say that in order to achieve high performance, you have to take some risks. You've got to put yourself on the line. Now, we're not talking here about reckless risk taking. We're talking about carefully considered, confident risk taking. There is a big difference. Reckless risk taking, let's just give it a whirl. What the heck? No, that's not what I'm talking about having the confidence to actually push yourself beyond what you would naturally do.

And to reiterate what I said a moment ago, in my view and in my experience, in order to reach those elite levels of performance, you don't get there by standing in your comfort zone. You've got to take some risks now my theory has always been if you are asking people to get out that comfort zone and take some risks they are going to be much more likely to do that from a position of confidence with a platform of confidence that makes sense doesn't it if someone's going to take a risk from a position of confidence, they're going to feel better than taking a risk from a position of worry. So there's a couple of things that come in here. Firstly, all that stuff we just talked about with regard to turnaround toughness and reviewing previous accomplishments and reconnecting,

that builds confidence. But now what I i add in in relation to risk management is the whole area of um strengths strengths coaching um which you know people has been around for for a long time now since donald clifton and marcus buckingham published their first book i think was around 2000 wasn't it but that was a groundbreaking book where they really challenged our thinking around how much time we spend helping people fix weaknesses versus you know maximize strengths now i'm a big fan of this work and i've used it a lot we're not of course saying ignore your weaknesses you can't you can't ignore your weaknesses you have to work on your weaknesses to get them up to a level where they will not derail your performance but once you've got them to that

level the chances are that you're never going to really turn them into a real super strength so get them to that manageable level but then invest your time and energy in maximizing your strengths now this is very relevant to risk management resilience as i said problems we encounter here is that most people in my experience aren't that great at knowing what their signature strengths are and they're certainly not very good at deploying strategies to maximize those signature strengths. So what we need to do firstly is help people raise their awareness. You know, what does make you different? You know, where are your real natural strengths or even your super strengths, as we like to say these days?

How clear are you in what your super signature strengths are people need help with that and there are various ways you can do that um and then okay now having established what those strengths are let's explore ways in which you can exploit those strengths if we're having all of this conversation within that sort of context of strengths, people are going to feel confident. You know, when you start to talk to people about their strengths, you can feel the confidence rising. So with that rising confidence, now we've established a strong platform to get out of that comfort zone, to take those risks. That's what risk management resilience is about, helping people create that strong platform where they've got the confidence to say, I'm going to push out the boundaries today. I'm going to get out of that comfort zone.

I'm going to take a risk, but I'm going to take that risk from a position of strength rather than a position of worry. I really appreciate that, Steve. And I want to point out what you said carefully and, you know, being considerate about the risk taking, coming from a place of strengths helps you have confidence. I take that. I've taken the StrengthsFinder assessment as well myself and do a lot of work on that because I do think it helps people, the people that I coach really understand what they're great at. And you're right, sometimes people don't even know that. They don't see that within themselves, whereas other people might see their strengths. But, you know, sometimes we're just kind of doing our work day to day and don't take a step back and think about what are we really good at and what are we gifted at?

And if I remember correctly, the way they define a strength is like a talent that we have, that we spend time developing. Yeah, absolutely. And as we both said, you know, my experience is that a lot of people need help with this. You know, they need help with this you know they need help identifying uh those strengths and i would normally give people um at least three different ways uh in which they can explore these these strengths of course firstly you can do one of the strengths finder questionnaires um that that's helpful um secondly ask for feedback i mean that that's a challenge i often people in the workplace you know how i say how often do you go and talk to your peers and say could you please give me some feedback on where you think my signature strengths

are um people generally tend not to do that and you might get some really interesting and illuminating answers but then thirdly and again to link back to turnaround and the confidence peaks chart i think you can explore your signature strengths by reconnecting with previous accomplishments if you look at that mountain peaks chart and start to think about all those accomplishments then maybe some of your strengths are going to become a bit more obvious because you'll see patterns oh it seems like when i deliver real high performance success that i'm using x or y so doing a questionnaire or an assessment of some sort getting feedback feedback, reviewing previous accomplishments. They're my go-to ways of helping people establish clarity

around what their signature strengths are. And, of course, this is an area that people really enjoy working in. The minute you start to talk to someone and say, let's talk about what you're good at. Again, once you've got over the modesty hurdle, once you can bash through that, people are comfortable talking about that. And, you know, they enjoy it and it makes them feel good. And they go away from a coaching session buzzed because they've been talking about what they can achieve rather than this old fashioned performance review of focusing 90% on what we're

not doing well and what we need to improve. So the three parts that Steve just mentioned was take a strength finder assessment to learn about your strengths, ask for feedback. You talk in the book about being hungry for feedback, which, you know, I don't see a lot of people being hungry for feedback and then exploring your strengths by connecting with your previous accomplishments. Steve, how about we have you back to talk about the other two types of resilience, which we haven't got to yet. And the other two types that you talk about in the book is critical resilience and endurance resilience. How does that sound? That sounds great. I mean, they're different. Again, both of those are very different from the previous two. So plenty more to discuss, Cinder, I'm sure. Absolutely. So tell us, Steve, where can people reach out to you?

I know you're available for speaking events, but also, you know, grab his book, The Game Plan, Your Guide to Mental Toughness at Work. And you have other books. So tell us a bit about what you have for us to learn more about your work. Yeah, the website is gameplancoach.com. So that's pretty easy to find and everything's referenced in there. I mean, the game plan book is a book for people in the workplace. I mean, there are plenty of sporting anecdotes and stories in there, but it is essentially a book for people in the workplace. My other books have tended to focus very much on athletes and sports psychology and performance in the sporting arena.

But essentially everything I've ever researched or ever written about has always been focused on how we can help individuals and teams aspire to that high performance mindset to give them the best chance of making the best of what they've got at their disposal. Excellent, Steve. And so I'm going to summarize what we talked about today. So we started talking about the differences that you see in the best of the best. And you said there are some individual differences, but you see confidence, focusing on the moment, executing under pressure as some similarities. But again, there's a lot of individual differences. I loved how you defined performance psychology as like common sense principles that are not commonly practiced or applied. I thought that

was brilliant and so true because it's easy for us to sure know this, but do we do these things that you talked about today? I really enjoyed our discussion about reviewing successes and how they're different than celebrating our successes and that a lot of people in the workplace don't take a step back after they've been successful to like review that and think about that. And then we talked about risk management resilience and the importance of carefully and being considerate with the risk taking, but how that's really essential to grow. And you described the importance of like taking a strength based focus and using our strengths to be able to take risks a little bit more often. And so you shared with us just different ways we could do that. So Steve, thank you so much for joining us. I'm grateful to spend some time with you and thanks for bringing it on the podcast and sharing such a kind of valuable information

in a really practical way that people could implement. Thank you, Cindra. It's been a real pleasure. I've enjoyed the conversation immensely. 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 videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.