High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 487: 4 Pro Tips from a Pro with Dr. Adam Naylor, Performance Psychology Division with Deloitte

Episode Date: March 29, 2022

Dr. Adam Naylor leads the Performance Psychology division of Integrated Mental Health Services for Deloitte and is a mental performance coach for Telos Sport Performance Consulting. He has spent over two decades serving as a mental performance consultant to high performance leaders and competitors – an expert in emotions and mindsets that allow people to thrive and connect well with teams. His clients have stood on Olympic podiums, hoisted the Stanley Cup, competed in tennis’s Grand Slams, won NCAA championships, thrived in international soccer competition, led corporations large and small, and more. He has published and presented widely on topics ranging from self-regulation under stress to the social-environmental factors that shape performance through the psycho-social development of leaders. In this interview, Adam and I discuss: 4 tips to operate under stress and thrive Why the mental game is tough to implement How acceptance allows you to perform confidently HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: www.cindrakamphoff.com/487 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 ADAM: Telos SPC (telos-spc.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 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 Miss Pac-Man. Yes, the 1980s game Miss 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. Cinder Kampoff, and I'm grateful that you're here today ready to listen to episode 487 with Dr. Adam Naylor. Adam Naylor leads the Performance Psychology Division of Integrated Mental Health Services for Deloitte and is a mental performance coach for Telos Sport Performance Consulting. He has spent over two decades serving as a mental performance consultant to high-performing leaders

and competitors, an expert in emotions and mindsets that allows people to thrive and connect well with teams. His clients have stood on Olympic podiums, hoisted the Stanley Cup, competed in tennis grand slams, won NCAA championships, led corporations large and small, and more. He has published and presented widely on topics ranging from self-regulation under stress to the environmental factors that shape performance through the development of leaders. In this interview, Adam and I discuss

four tips that you can use to operate under stress and thrive, why the mental game is tough to implement, and how acceptance allows you to perform confidently. If you'd like to see the full show notes and description of the podcast, you can head over to cindracampoff.com slash 487. Without further ado, here's Adam. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. I'm excited to ask Adam Naylor here to be on the podcast. So thank you so much for joining us here, Adam. I'm just honored that you would be here on the podcast with us.

Cindra, I'm honored for the invitation. And I know you a little bit. It's been terrific to get to know you. So this is going to be a lot of fun. So thank you. It's going to be a lot of fun. And I know you have some incredible tips and tools to share with people. And so maybe let's just get started and tell us a little bit about your passion and what you do right now. Gosh, so, you know, passion, what I do right now,

you know, those almost seem like two questions. So I'm trying to think, what I do right now, that feels like the name, rank, and serial number. So let's go for that. If one looks me up, so my major big hairy beast that I've taken on is I'm the leader of performance psychology for Deloitte. I've been external resource to their leader for years. As a handful of people know, I've kept it on the down low. This past summer, Dr. Deborah Miskell, who leads their mental health services, who I think is tremendous, asked if I'd consider flipping inside and really expanding a performance psychology resource because she saw it as being really important. So it's a huge

challenge. And I'm so excited with, I do believe, a unique thing we're building. So we're going to build that together. So that's a pretty big part of my life. Sports has been a big piece of my brand. So even when Deloitte said, hey, can can we have you? They said, no, no, no. Keep your sports practice. So I also, you know, I lead Telos Sports Performance Consulting. I have some wonderful colleagues on that. I've had gosh, well, I've been in the space 25 plus years at this point. So I maintain that. But in all transparency, I very intentionally shrunk it. I'm not a guy that's good at saying no to people. So I must say, I love seeing my athletes play on weeknights and weekends, and it feels like a blessing. And yeah, that's me right now.

That's a great starting point. I, you know, I think 25 years of this experience in performance psychology is incredible. And what an honor to be able to do really cutting edge work at such a global consulting firm that really values mental health and performance psychology. So when you think about being interested in performance psychology and sports psychology to, you know, just from how you grew up, tell us a little bit about, a little bit about, you know, how you got to here in your career. Yeah, you know, to me, that feels like a question I love to answer. It's a little bit of a geeky one. I usually have kept down the down low. One thing I will say, my career has been very deliberate, but not planned. Meaning I wasn't like, I need this job or I need that job. I actually think that's a, in the field of sports psychology, I think that's a fool's mission because you will, jobs will look shiny and you're

going to go, that's not the job I thought it was when you get it. And then some interesting stuff will show up. So even just, we mentioned Deloitte. I say this to folks at Deloitte, never in a million years did I plan on being part of Deloitte. It was the right people, the right fit and the right journey to get here. And it's been terrific. But if we go all the way back to the beginning, and I know I've mentioned this to you, to me, people go, why in the world sport performance psychology? And I can break it down probably across a couple of things growing up. So one, I often say my father, he is a congregational minister. And I swear, he did all of his counseling on a basketball court, or a baseball field. So I grew up knowing it's important to care for others and be dramatic and

other people's lives. And I swear to you, I would be sitting at my dining room table, and my dad would come home from work and be like, hey, guess who I picked on this morning on the basketball court? It was all my friends at the high school. So I really learned, you know, it's not about the religion, it's about how do you connect and care for humans? And that's really what my dad's great at. And he he is a sports guy. You know, I know this past summer he was he's retired, but he can't keep out of the pulpit. So he was at a pulpit and he showed a basketball shoe just to let people know what shoes he's wearing. Cause I don't know, I had probably had something to do with scripture. He goes, here's my shoes. And he pulled out a high top. I'm like, that is so my dad, all these blends.

So caring for others was important, but I wasn't, you know, I go to church, but I wasn't going to be a minister then. And I share this one to me, which is really interesting, I think interesting. When I was growing up, I wasn't allowed to watch TV on school nights. Right? That's like a no screens rule these days for the rest of us, right? Right. crazy family. You can talk to my mother and my father on this. They could care less how far I went in sports, but they thought there was some intrinsic inherent value to sports participation, participation and watching, right? It was the first reality TV. So that to me was interesting. You know, sports was allowed to be watched, not, you know, we go way back. I don't, I will never guess how old anyone is, but I remember my mom was like watching Dallas and Knotts Landing and, you know, it was probably, you know, all those 80s shows, right? None of them, but it was sports if you could put it on. And then I will say I had incredibly mentors over the years.

I went to Trinity College. That was my undergrad degree and it's a liberal arts college. There's no sports psychology or performance psychology program. Day one, I said, you do what you want. I had the best mentors in the world there. You know, I taught my first undergraduate sports psychology classes as a senior there. I had support in creating it the year before. And I will tell you, it's the toughest class I ever taught. Try teaching a class to 20 buddies you were out with the night before. Like if I could teach that bunch something, I was going to

be okay. Paul Asciante, who's still on campus, is a phenomenal coach. He's been a mentor forever. You know, he's the winningest college sports coach in college sports history. He believed in psychology. And he and I have had this lifelong conversation. Heck, he brought me into work with his team four years ago. Most pressure I'll ever be under. They had won the national championship the year before. I'm like, all I can do is screw things up, coach. And my horrible joke, my horrible joke is, we won the national championship again the next year. Thank heavens I didn't blow that one, right? And I found out my value in life. We were 20 and 0, I believe, in the year before they were 19 and 1. So if you want to win one squash match, apparently I'm your guy. One win, nothing else changed. And honestly, they would have won it without me. But again, it was about the people. And he called not about the winning. He called because he goes, I think the guys would benefit growth wise from someone like you, right? What a forward thinking coach. So those are how I got to great mentors, family that believed in it. And I guess you could say a role model and how to do it. So yeah, well, that's wonderful. I can hear the psychology

emphasis, the sport emphasis, and also like the intrinsic value of what you can learn from sport. And, you know, now when I think about, I mean, just the wide variety of people that you've worked with over the last 25 years and now being at Deloitte. And it's interesting as you see, you know, companies like Deloitte hiring more performance psychology folks or people trained in psychology. Why do you think that's really important for firms to use, you know, performance psychology to help support their employees? Yeah, I think I have a couple answers, right? I think you might know I'd go this way is one, I think, why is it important? You might want to ask, you know, Deloitte or Dr. Deborah Miskell, who thought this was a bright idea to start, because I think they're really forward thinking. Specifically, what we're doing at Deloitte, invite me back in two years,

because I truly do believe we're building it a little bit differently than it's been done. Because it is important. Why are we trying to do it a little bit differently is because again, another shout out to her. She's going to be so embarrassed. Dr. Miskell said there needs to be strong psychological roots to the work that's done. She's a phenomenal clinician. And I can tell you care all over the country for the people of Deloitte. That's quite easy. And she can find them. And she called me, said, I know how to find clinicians. I think we need people that are grounded in psychology that truly understand operating under complex and stressful situations. And that's where someone with a sport or performance psychology specific background could benefit. And I do think the

world's only getting more complicated. Yes. And people choose to operate under stress. So we better have individuals that know how to support that around them. And that is a specialized skill set. It takes a lot of ethics. It takes a lot of collaboration. Right. So I'm always collaborating with my mental health team internally. It takes pros like you, frankly, that know, hey, how do we do this in a great way? So to me, I think that's business is only getting more complicated and it's worth navigating the stresses effectively. So that's why I'd say why. I think, of course, you know, there's been a lot of coaching and whatnot over the years. I think there's a next

level ahead of us that we all should be putting our eyes on because I do think people deserve that from a human level. And yes, from a performance level, but I always put the human first. Human performance has human in it. I care about the human before the performance, frankly. Yeah. Yeah. And what do you see as the next level? Tell us a little bit more of what you're referring to. Oh man. You know, again, I'm going to waffle avoid that one. Call me back in two years and I'm going to go, Hey, here's what we've built together.

Um, I think I alluded to some of it, a truly collaborative relationship, um, with psychological roots, right? It's not, um, I think we've taken the coaching industry is so broad that in sometimes it's turned into advice giving. And we do know if we look at the science, right, Cindy, you're very well trained, right? Advice giving doesn't actually move the needle. Yeah, so it's true. Only when people are ready for it. Most of the time people aren't ready for it. We need folks that understand how to create readiness. Yeah. Folks that understand what is true growth and learning. And to me, that's where I think the space of performance psychology can go as it says, do people understand these things? Are we doing them well? Are we connecting with humans, right? It can't be excessively programmatic, but it's not just the free-for-all. And I think finding that sweet spot of, I always say, I think really successful performance

coaching has a reasonable plan, but it's not rigid because humans experience many different things on the journey. And I think it's evidence-based with guardrails, right? You know, I think we operate, I often use, I often use water, ocean analogies, because I don't live too far from the beach. But if I walk down to the end of my street, there's some channel markers. Job is to say, what's the channel we're staying within?

And how do we help someone navigate it well? It's not a perfectly straight path, but we dance this dance. So I know it's a kind of a broad answer. You know, I can go to specific things, things I tend to do, but I do think I maybe put a challenge out to the whole audience. How do we elevate it? So it is truly human centered and truly evidence-based like that's the goal. Yeah. People deserve that. And I think it's deceptively tough, especially in larger organizations, right? Because it does mean everyone's got to really collaborate well, and there's got to be a real spirit of trust in Karen, which is tough. Yeah. Which is tough, tough. Well, I, what I re I loved what you just said about the

human and, you know, human performance is putting the human first. I think that's important as we kind of think about maybe the performers that all of us work with or ourselves as performers. Now, Adam, I know that you shared some pro tips today with those at Deloitte. And I'd actually like to start there and dive into some of these pro tips because I think they could be really useful for everyone who's listening. So where do you want to get started? I can just kind of throw it out there because you mentioned the word Deloitte, but this is the same thing I share with my athletes. Same thing I've probably shared over the years. I will say, you know, I always fear it's old wine in a new bottle. But to me, when I call them pro tips, we get hit by so much on the internet and social media, it's tough to weed through. And sometimes I'm like,

at this stage of my career, if there's four things I think everyone should learn more about, or do that much better, here's where I'm going, right? Reframing, right? We've all heard the term, but frankly, being able to grab perspective effectively, hit the pause button. I actually will say, I don't know about you. I love to frame things. You know, I don't do it personally. I have someone that frames it if it's an important reminder in my office. And do you ever sit back and go, well, does it need the fancy frame? Does it need the boring frame? Sometimes we don't say, can I view this in another manner? Right? Can I grab that perspective? So learning more about reframing and doubling down on that is important. I think

sometimes we grab the kind of the pop psych tips and go, I need good self-talk. I'm like, you need good reframing before your self-talk because reframing leads to optimism. Reframing leads to a perspective that allows us to connect. Reframing leads to a perspective that allows us to connect. Reframing is a pause button that lets us get out of our way. Reframing, if we know how to do it, if we go, maybe it's not the way I see it. Maybe there's an option B, C, D, and E. We got multiple frames. It allows me to go through it and go, is this really a problem? Because I'll be honest, if I go through my five or six frames, I'm yeah this is as horrible as i think then it gives me truth that i should chase it but if i don't slow down to reframe first i'm just running around like

a chicken my head cut off so reframing would be one so do you want me to pause there yeah let's pause there i think uh well first of all, I completely agree. There was this was a while ago, but the first time I talked to reframing to a team, I actually brought like a empty frame, you know, it was the football team. And I just was saying, hey, you know how you can use a different lens or a different frame, you know, to see the situation differently. And I think so many times we go just to our default, which tends to be maybe, especially when something is frustrating to us, you know, we kind of go to these disempowering energy levels of frustration or guilt or why me kind of victim,

right? And there's always a different way of viewing a situation that's more empowering. And I think I'll, first, I love that you took the frame, by the way. It is a move I've been playing with more and more often, right? There's an element like symbolism that helps us remember things. Yes. Again, that's actually why lately I've been talking almost kind of what you did going, what is the frame? Is it the one that belongs in the MFA? Is it the boring black one that's in my house? Knowing that you can put them on and off. I don't know how many people, if we'll see the zoom, but going, that's what reframing is. Let's try it again. So first I love that you did that. Cause I think the symbolism of the word frame can be used to help us grab this skill. Yeah. You know, so I think that's kind of my of my big note. I think you're spot on, right? When we

hit that pause button, it lets us roll better. The one thing that you were saying that I wanted to highlight, I think sometimes people think reframing thinks we need to be Pollyanna positive. Yeah. That's actually, there's a term out there known as toxic positivity. I'm not asking people to go from negative to positive. And you're gonna get another good mini career story from me I remember as many years ago because I remember I was overseeing a center at Boston University I remember sitting with her and she was just having incredible emotional dysregulation during a match. There might have been tears and frustration and phenomenally skilled player and bright young woman. And she looks at me, she goes, Adam, I know I shouldn't be negative, but it feels just so disingenuous to be positive. I was like, disingenuous? Talk about throwing down an Ivy League word in the middle of a sports session, right? Right. But when I heard it, I knew exactly what she meant. Blind positivity, we're not going to grab onto.

So we actually talked about something in the middle, perhaps, and I've done this over the years, is there might be a better P word we need to find. What's productive? Yeah, what's productive? Right? And if it's got unicorns and rainbows on top of it, go run with it. That leap from negative to positive can be tough and it's not always necessary. Yeah, I completely agree, Adam. And I do think there is toxic positivity. And I think reframing so many times, maybe we take things personally, right? Or she did this or coach did this because of me. But it's like, you know, if we see it from a different lens or a different frame, what's going on with the coach or what's going on with him and her or him or her that might

lead them to act this way, right? And as you were kind of thinking about these frames, I was thinking about a blue frame and a yellow frame and a red frame and how we can put these different like glasses or frames on. And then we see the world in red or orange or blue. But that we can always choose to see the world differently with these different frames. So now I love that you threw the glasses out here and this, this, we're not going to make this a full left turn, but I think we're talking about the power of meaningful symbols, right? Years ago, I was thinking I need glasses for people. And this was particularly for youth sports parents going, I want, I want the parents to see it through the kid's eyes. So I

was like, I need the magic glasses because kids are tremendous at having this joyous approach. Sometimes parents and coaches aren't. And I'm like, I wonder what lens they're wearing. And even sometimes the coaches are wearing a lens the parents don't get. And the kids, so it's like, what if we had these magic glasses are like, this is how someone else sees the world, right? We've got some sort of social psychology experiment here, Sindhu, that we've got to do some days. The magic glasses to allow us to not do the fundamental attribution error, right? So we understand people more. I love it. I'm thinking about the next team session. I'm just going to bring a whole bunch of different colored glasses. If you need any,

call my house. As I said, we're water people. We live near the beach. They're awake. Oh my God. We got sunglasses everywhere. If you need sunglasses, I probably have about 50 to offload on you. We can handle a whole football team probably. I love it. Okay. So first pro tip is reframe like crazy. Yeah. Go old school. Reframing has been around for a long time. We shouldn't neglect the good ones. Second one. And this might be somewhat simple. You know, practice poise. But when I say be able to have a few skills for practicing poise, I'm talking about physiological, right? Diaphragmatic breathing. To me, it's as simple as just taking a breath, right? This is something I think we forget, especially in the non-sports spaces, that we're allowed to take a breath and sit back in our chair and drop our

shoulders between calls. Simply doing that puts us in a space where maybe we can have greater perspective. I think everyone in their toolbox should have one perspective thing and one physiological thing, athlete or not. I would actually even argue athletes sometimes don't know why they're using the physiological. The strength and conditioning coach said, I need to work on my oxygen. I'm like, you know, it also drops your heart rate and lets you clear up your mind. Like, oh, you mean that? Really? Right? Like this ability to, and I do a lot of work in hockey. Yeah. Where the emotions can be high. Right? And then, but it's set up perfectly if we watch it.

What happens if you're a skater, you skate for 40 seconds, have a disciplined shift, your heart rate better be going through the roof, and then you better sit on your butt for two minutes. And when you're sitting on the butt, if you're smart, you're going to drop your shoulders, you're going to breathe, you're going to drop it, right? If that's the key to long-term performance, dropping stress for a few moments, right? Physical activity is a stress. In the best athletes in the sport, wouldn't we be a fool not to use that in our everyday lives? Get up, get down, get up, get down. And we can even do that. Everyone talks about the multiple layers of stress at pandemic. We can't take away the layers of stress. We really can't, right? Unfortunately. But we can steal a few moments to breathe every now and then. And I'm not talking a dramatic yoga class. I'm talking, let my, again, you hear me say, because I try and do it. I let my back at the back of the chair. You can probably hear if you listen close, my chair's a little squeaky. So probably people hear me squeak. It's a squeak and an exhale. That's it. So then I is a little squeaky. So probably people hear me squeak to squeak and an exhale. That's it.

So then I'm a little bit of a micro recovery. So I think everyone should have one or two physiological skills that work for them. Yeah, wonderful. I like everything that you're saying, Adam. And I'm thinking about I think in the workplace where we're going from Zoom call to Zoom call to Zoom fatigue, like it can be really overwhelming. Or I think the importance of like taking a breath because people are really, and this is the visual of dropping the shoulders. People are more stressed, I think during this, you know, the last couple of years during the pandemic than ever before. I got to see him speak a couple of years ago. And I swear, whenever I talk, I think I'm a better job at promoting other people and selling other people's books, by the way. So Dr. Robert Sapolsky,

I think I'm pronouncing his last name, right? He wrote why zebras get ulcers and I saw him speak actually a sports medicine conference up in the city. And I was one of the two sports psych people there, which was wild. It was all these strength coaches and whatnot. They wanted to hear from him. And he put up this slide that he said, take a look at this slide. Now you see the, see, now you can identify when stress is happening. It was just a picture of a chair. And he told a story, which he'll tell far better than I. He's like the upholsterers in a cardiac

rehab office knew before the doctors, when someone was going to have a heart attack. And everyone's like, what the heck is this guy talking about? If you looked at the chair, it was worn out on the front edge and worn out on the front of the arm rests. Oh, nice. They were on the edge of their seats. Yeah.

I'm like, right. There you go. I was on the edge of my seat. So I've actually stolen it a little bit for work with clients going, notice where you're sitting in your seat, move your butt around the seat throughout your day. Are we at the edge moment or are we at the back, hit the back of the seat moment? I stole it from him, but right when we're on the edge, that means our shoulders are up. And again, we don't know this if we don't monitor it. Again, as we talk symbolism talk symbolism stuff right what an easy way to think

you could say once every three hours i'm gonna do my butt check where am i on the front the middle of the back right where's my butt in this seat even better am i out of the seat right yeah am i right i don't know you might you can see because see, like I got two chairs in my office. I try and make sure I use them both. You know, if I'm only using one, I probably didn't, you know, I was probably honestly too darn excited about what I was doing. And I forgot to give myself a break. Cause it's not just stress.

Excitement can cause us to not pause. Yeah. That's why we need these physiological skills. I love it. Practice the pause or the poise through a physiological technique like breathing. And then the first one was reframe like crazy. What's the third one? You know, learn acceptance.

And I know there's the term out there, radical acceptance or whatnot, but just understand what acceptance actually is. There's so much talk of mindfulness these days. Mindfulness has been around forever. If we look close, mindfulness is about settling ourselves, non-judgment and acceptance. But so often we only get stuck in the physio of it. And again, that's a gross summary of something that's been around forever. So let's all dig deeper. Someone offline can talk to me about, but this idea of acceptance, you know, it's the, how many people in our space know control what you can control? Yeah. Acceptance is the second half of the sentence,

which no one says enough and accept what you cannot. Yeah. I actually, a couple of years ago, you know, I, it was probably on a dry erase board and gym. I said, I think at that time and Cinder we're going to have to pull it up. I probably took a photo, but three, three sports psychology principles that need upgrading. And that was one of them. It was control what you can control. I said, cause we didn't finish the sentence, control what you can control.

If we don't understand acceptance turns us into a control freak. It makes us rigid and a worse performer control what you can control says be prepared accept what you cannot i hope people are listening saying that does not make your shoulders drop for a second that puts the fluidity into it i'm going to take care of my stuff and i'm going to let myself flow so i'll add one other little piece on this. This is a tough one because it takes a while to wrap our minds around. It's not, it sounds so simple, but we got to think about it because I've had athletes push back on me on this one. And I love that they do. If you take advice without pushing back, you got a problem because you

didn't reflect enough on it. They'll go, you mean I'm supposed to like losing, Adam? No. Acceptance and contentment are different. Acceptance and contentment are different. I don't have to like the situation I'm in, but as long as it's reasonably healthy and safe, right? We want people to be safe and healthy. I'm allowed to accept it. I'll add one other little piece on this because I think we need to, it's so critical to understand acceptance.

Again, I'm about to sell someone else's book, The Fighter's Mind by Sam Sheridan. Just did a really tremendous job at trying to elevate some ideas. He's a journalist, but I think he elevated well. And I remember, so you looked you looked me up on LinkedIn. I've got a long career. So I, I, I worked in the UFC for five years. Look at me. I don't belong there. I am not a violent human and I run from a fight, but I'm proud to say, I think my UFC record, something like nine and two, never had to step in a cage and never fought.

But so I tried to make sure I was an expert in that space. And Randy Couture actually in this book tells something really interesting, which I feel like I'm giving away some of the secret sauce of success here, but I guess I'm at the stage where I'm going to do it. At the start of any fight camp, at least he said this in the book, and a fight camp lasts about 10 weeks. That's when you prepare, you do your heavy training and then you do your weight cut and you get ready for that one event.

And the top of the world probably only compete three times a year so this is like a pretty big deal he says as we start the camp i sit around my team so a really high level mma fight camp these days they have a team right so i was part of a team it was me there was a nutritionist a strength coach there's a striking coach a jiujitsu coach, a wrestling coach. It was phenomenal, right? I sit around my team, he said, and we look around and go, you know, on X date, I could get knocked out. Someone would think that's negative thinking. That's actually acceptance. Because guess what? I believe, and this is how I read it. Someone's going to have to read the book and see if they like their interpretation. I've done it with athletes. I feel like it's been very successful. I acknowledge the elephant in the room.

Now I don't have to worry about that for 10 weeks. I can get down to training, step in the cage and go about my business. Because I don't have this boogeyman on my shoulder. Oh no, what if I get knocked out? No, guess what? I'm playing, I'm competing at the highest level of sports. If you're at the highest level, you actually don't know the outcome of the game. If you can't accept that you don't know the outcome, you will fear the outcome the whole game. Yeah. Fear the outcome, right? How often do you hear process versus outcome? You're going to spend your time dwelling on, will I win? Will I win? Will I win? Rather than taking care of this play. Yeah. I think everyone needs to believe they can

win and be willing to accept that every now and then we get bruised. Hopefully it's not too often. That mindset is gold, right? It's confidence. It's like, I got this. And if I don't get what I want, I'm going to be all right. And I'll see you tomorrow. So powerful, Adam. I'm thinking about a couple of things like sometimes when athletes will say to me, well, what if I lose or what if I perform poorly? Right. It's like, well, so what if you do? Let's talk through that. And then it's like, well, OK, I didn't die. And OK, I'm probably going to the worst case scenario in my head. Right. And I have a lot of future based thinking instead of what's, what can I do right now that I can control, which is, which is the process. I love, I love what you said about, you know, that this, the phrase control what you can control needs to be upgraded and accept what you can't. How do you see, let's think about the world of business.

How do you see acceptance play out in that world? And what happens when people don't accept? It's actually funny you should say that. I think it's deceptively similar, right? In general, in the world of business, whether it's sales, whether it's trying to meet your numbers, you know, did a lot of, I was part of a startup that did a lot of work with salespeople a handful of years back. And what I say is, and this is, again, I want us to acknowledge the nuance and difficulty

of it. It is difficult to do this. Heck, thank God it is, Cinder, or you and I would be unemployed. Okay. Right. thank god the mental game is tough i always say we have to work on our relationship with our numbers okay right meaning we're always working on yes we want to hit our numbers and exceed our numbers whether you're in the corporate space or you're an athlete i will tell my clients on, so you get a sense of one of my sessions. I acknowledge, I say, don't get me wrong. I don't want you to think I'm saying it's okay to lose or not hit your numbers. Because the more you win, the smarter I look. So I put that joke in the room. Like, I'm not some sort of fluffy, winning doesn't matter. I much prefer if you win.

I much prefer if you land giant accounts. But I also know as a professional, if that sits in your mind and you fear that all day, you're actually lessening your potential. I want you to go, guess what? If I take care of my business, odds are it works out. And I can tell you, if I take care of my business, odds are it works out. And I can tell you, if I take care of my business, odds are it works out. I win a lot and I get what I'm supposed to get. And second sentence scares people though. They're like, but what if I don't? That's what sometimes you're going to be bruised.

You're going to take the lump and you'll figure it out. Like I actually, you even mentioned like this winning or losing. It's like, hey, what's the big deal if you lose? I'm willing to say it's a giant deal if you lose. I will lock myself in a room and cry with my clients for two days if they want. Go be sad. Go get your heart broken. But guess what? That's what it is.

I think acknowledging that I might take some bruises let's go play is really powerful you know i and again you got me pivoting back and forth because i think they're deceptively related that's why i've never sought out the corporate space i let it come to me and the corporate space what you're saying seems to fit and i just wasn't sure it would i tell you five or six years ago i, I guess it fits better than I ever thought. Cause I never wanted to be the fluff. I'm giving you a fluff in the corporate space and really where it translates in is this numbers thing quite a bit.

Can I be brave enough to be willing to get my heart broken sometimes? Right. So I'm going back to the numbers. I have track athletes I've worked with over the years. Like, what if I don't get a PR? I go, if you want to get a PR, you have to be willing to get your heart broken. They're like, what do you mean by that? You got to lay it all out there to try and know you might not get it. But if we're not willing to get our hearts broken, we rarely put our best performance out there. Yeah, that's true. We hold and we hold back. We're conservative. We're indecisive.

I think we need to make good decisions with reasonable bravery. So that was a long answer to your question. I actually think they're quite related when we talk about acceptance. Going, I got to trust myself. Acceptance is true trust. Super good. I think what you're saying, I love what you said about we need to work on our relationship to the numbers. And I think sometimes the numbers for me as an entrepreneur can motivate me, can keep me excited.

But they also can, if I over focus onocus on them or over-think about them, just like an athlete might do, over-thinking about the outcome, it can create so much stress and pressure where it's like, okay, maybe I use that to keep me pumped and excited, but I don't define myself by those numbers or my identity by those numbers. Exactly. I think you're spot on with it, right? And I think it even goes back to where do you think this is needed? And I keep going, I think we need to keep elevating and refining our voice on these things. Because when you say that, I put this nuance in, you speak to this as an entrepreneur, and the numbers are useful and motivating

until they're not. So we can't just take the diet of numbers are motivating. That's old school science, operant conditioning, carrot and stick. And there's tons of science to go. Guess what? That's useful until it isn't. And I think we have to be that reflective with ourselves going with a number motivating thing. Like some people go competitive. I love numbers. I'm like, I'm competitive and I love numbers sometimes. And other times I just want to do really cool stuff. Yeah. Numbers don't mean you're competitive. It just tells where your focus is sticking. Yeah. Good. All right. This is great. So we got number one of reframe like crazy. Number two, practice poise. And number three, learn acceptance. What's the fourth, Adam? When in doubt, reach out. You like that, right? It's rhymes and everything. When in doubt, reach out. And I say this across the spectrum, right? We have to all be sensitive

to we're not all superheroes. Sometimes we are struggling. It's the human condition. So when in doubt, reach out to a trusted professional and go, okay, I need help on this. Or I'm not sure what I need, reach out. Or the line I'll often use in the sports space, I was asked this in the corporate space back in the fall, someone said to me, said, Adam, will you tell my team, what is the biggest thing you've learned from elite athletes over the years? Okay. And you know, right? Like they're going to wait for some sort of bullet point list of like be gritty or this, that, and the other thing. And this has been my experience. And I will say it is, uh, it's people willing to work with me. So that's who I tend to learn from,

but I've tried to be a good observer, The very best in the world use their resources. That was the answer I gave. And they're like, like, I've worked with wonderful folks. Some folks that reach have reached out to me that said, you know, in the corporate space and in the not, they've said, I don't know what I'm going to work on with you, but if I'm being offered to you, I'd be a fool not to take it. Use your resources. The best, I feel like the best sometimes don't even know why they're using them. They're like, let me learn how I could use you. So to me, that's the when in doubt, reach out because sometimes the reach out is I need extra care. Sometimes is I need a friend. Sometimes it's, could you give me a good book, Adam?

When in doubt, reach out. None of us, our mental game does not happen in a silo. We're parts of connected communities. So I could preach on that forever because at my heart, I'm a social psychologist. If you asked me, Adam, if you weren't in this performance space, where would you be? I'd be somehow locked in an academic room somewhere doing social psychology research. Just that ship sailed probably 20 years ago in my life. Well, I love these four tips together. Pro tips, because I think they're so powerful when they're practiced. And I think about this, Adam, I think like that common sense isn't always common practice. And sure, acceptance might be common sense. Reframing might be common sense, but it takes a lot of work to practice what we're talking about. And just like what you said about

the mental game is tough because we're humans and we tend to get in our own way. Even somebody who knows a lot about the mental game, I can easily get in my own way. You know, a hundred percent. I am, you know, who knows what my family would say? Like I'm learning every way. You know, a hundred percent. I am, you know, who knows what my family would say? Like I'm learning every day. You know, there's a clinical psychologist that I consult with. He helps me out with some clients. It's funny. He said that he called me a day goes, Adam, I did my mindfulness meditation this morning. I'm like, okay. He goes, and I still stink at it, but I'll do it again tomorrow. Like this is this great old school guy that reminds me of Carl Rogers. And he's like, I do mindfulness meditation. I stink at it.

I'm like, what honesty and humanity? Like to me, that's someone that gets it. They're like, I'm not going to get it right, but I'm going to keep showing up and trying. I guess the cute line I use often is the mental game is simple, but not easy. Yeah. When we look at LinkedIn or Twitter, it looks easy, right? Just do these five things. No, it's a lifetime's worth of work, but it's good work. It's fun work if we don't do it with rigidity. Adam, thank you so much for sharing those four tips. I think that you and I could talk forever. I'm like, oh, this time went

really fast. What else would you say that you wanted to kind of share with the audience today here in the high performance mindset? Cinder, I'm so simple in some ways. That was it. I really enjoyed that we did. I encourage people when it comes to high performance and mindset to challenge yourself to try and learn some of the nuances and consult with like pros that want to work with you and collaborate with you be collaborative in this space. To me, that's the most fun right like I get to collaborate with you like that makes my day as a professional I get to collaborate with some of the people I mentioned. So, you know, dig into some of the nuance and be collaborative with just cool people, you know, and kind people. I'm giving you some snaps over here. That's my positive energy. So Adam, as I kind of summarize today, so we talked about four pro tips, reframe like crazy, practice poise, with a physiological technique or strategy, learn acceptance. So control, you can control, but accept what you can not. And then at the end, we talked about when in doubt, reach out.

I loved what you said about the mental game is tough and mental, the mental game is simple, but not easy. Kind of this idea of common sense isn't, isn't always common practice, right? But being deliberate with training your mind is obviously a key to all of us reaching our, our potential and stepping into our best every day. Thanks so much, Sandra. Thank you, Adam. How could people learn more about what you do or if people want to reach out, how might they do that? I was going to say that probably the simplest ways to reach out in this crazy world for like, find me on LinkedIn. I'm there. I think the profile looks reasonably professional, but I think you went through it. To me, it feels like I've been a job collector for 25 years, but feel free to connect with me on that one form or the other. And then, you know, I don't know if it's still cool or anymore on Twitter. I'm at A-H Naylor, N-A-Y-L-O-R, A-H-N-A-Y-L-O-R.

And I always say, if you want to follow someone that's going to post boring stuff, I'm your guy. I always try and make sure it's somewhat elevated. And sometimes I redo articles, send out articles. This is that next level nuance. Check it out. Or just even say hi on Twitter. I think it can be a good space when we use it well.

So I do too. Well, Adam, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, dropping some value bombs. So the really things that can help us just live our best life and step into our potential and be high performers. So thank you, Adam. I'm grateful for you and being on the podcast today.

Thank you, Cinder. And thanks to anyone that listened. I really appreciate you listening, frankly. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow. Did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to

subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes and to join my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.