High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 538: Becoming Elite with Erik Westrum, Author & Former Professional Hockey Player

Episode Date: March 27, 2023

Erik Westrum is a former professional hockey player, author, motivational speaker, leadership coach, and entrepreneur at heart.     During his hockey playing years, he faced daily challenges to make it to the top. By implementing the tools and strategies discussed in his book, Becoming Elite, he was able to consistently perform at the top of his game.     After retiring from hockey and trying to figure out the next step in life, Erik struggled with finding out what success looked like being off the ice. He shortly realized the steps and tools he used as a high-performing athlete could transfer to many other areas of life. And once again, his life changed dramatically.    After coaching hundreds of people over the past 22 years, Erik has helped people break through the obstacles that seem to be holding them back. Through this process, he has established the principles and processes of Becoming Elite and what it takes to transform your life using 4 proven pillars of performance. Life’s too short to not try and become elite. ﷟HYPERLINK "https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSXQKGFQ"  In this episode, Erick and Cindra talk about:  What it means to “Becoming Elite”  How to take failure in stride  The 4 shifts to develop to become elite  Why it is important to fall in love with the process  His “reset strategy”    HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: www.cindrakamphoff.com/538   FOLLOW CINDRA ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cindrakamphoff/  TO FIND MORE INFORMATION ABOUT ERIK: https://erikwestrumbook.com/   FOLLOW CINDRA ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/mentally_strong  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 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 thanks for coming to listen to episode 538 with Eric Westrom. Eric Westrom is a former professional hockey player, author, and motivational speaker. And after retiring from hockey and trying to figure out the next steps in his life, Eric struggled with finding out what success looked like being off the ice. He shortly realized that the steps and tools he used as a high-performing athlete could transfer to the many areas in his life beyond hockey, and once again his life

changed drastically. After coaching hundreds of people over the last 22 years, Eric has helped people break through obstacles that seem to be holding them back, and his new book, Becoming Elite, describes his four proven pillars of performance. In this episode, Eric and I talk about what it means to becoming elite, how to take failure in stride, the four shifts to develop to become elite, why it's important to fall in love with the process, and his reset strategy. If you want to see the full show notes and a description of this episode, you can head over to cindracampoff.com slash 538 for episode 538. Without further ado, let's bring on Eric. Thank you so much for joining me here today, Eric Westrom,

on the High Performance Mindset Podcast. I'm so excited to talk to you today. Yeah, I'm really excited too. Like we talked about before, I did a little Google search and the stuff that you're doing is amazing and that you've been doing. So I'm honored and it's a pleasure to be here. Well, thank you, Eric. I'm excited about talking about your new book, Becoming Elite. And maybe just to start before we dive into that, just tell us what you've been up to lately. Obviously, you've played in the NHL for 12 years, which we're going to get into today. But what have you been up to lately? I think for me, I always kind of start with the two-minute drill, right? Keep the sports analogy alive. So for me, growing up

in Minnesota and being able to be around hockey, sports, and just helping people, for myself, especially where I'm at now, is just being a servant leader. So if you look at the history of playing hockey, the things that I've been taught, the ideas, the concepts, probably about nine months ago, I kind of made that shift, June 1st to be exact, of kind of getting out of the corporate consulting business ownership side of things in kind of mainstream business. Decided to write my book, open up a charity, help hockey players, athletes, business leaders, just kind of small pockets of test samples of speaking and coaching and leadership. And now I'm here today in 2023 with a lot of different ideas and concepts and groups now I'm here today and, you know, 2023 with, with a lot of different ideas and concepts and groups that I'm working with. And I'm just really excited to continue to push, like I said, that servant leadership forward in a lot of different areas of sports,

business, community, faith, and kind of the list goes on. Absolutely. Well, I mean, I think to play professional sports for, you know, I know at least in the NFL, it's like 2.3 years, isn't it? The average career, right? You know, to play it for over a decade is really incredible. So tell us a little bit about what you think were the psychological traits and characteristics that it took to even, you know, get to the NHL and then just stay there for that long? Yeah, I think when you look at it, you know, even right now, so during March, right, March Madness in Hockey, it's the Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament. So for me, and I talk about it in my book, it started in eighth grade getting cut from a team. So you either have the ability to rise and learn or you can blame other people. And I just made a post about like Michael Jordan, right? He gets cut from his team. His mom says, Hey, you got a couple options. You

know, what are you going to do? And I think in today's world, you push the easy button. And for me, I was blessed to be around my mom, who was a teacher, my dad who played professional hockey. So I had kind of that dynamic of, you know, coddle me and say, Hey, Eric, it's okay. And my dad saying, what are you going to do next? So for me, that mindset started in ninth grade, right? Putting in the extra work, shooting parks, you know, goal setting, watching what I ate, started to write and work out programs when I was 16, being able to be in a successful situation with players that were better than me. And for me, that's where the mindset started,

right? Doubt creeps in, fear creeps in, kind of the imposter syndrome. And to be able to take the things that you've learned and prepare, and I'm sure you see it with the athletes you work with, the preparation and the process, that's what gets you to the ultimate destination. So for me, I fell in love with the process. I fell in love with all the day-to-day operations. So goal setting, writing down what my meals were, writing how I felt after a certain game, how I felt after a meal, what was my mindset going into it? Did I visualize, you know, what was going to happen? So I visualize the good and I visualize the bad, right? When I win this game,

or when we lose this game, what's my reaction? So I already had that, you know, I wasn't a kid, I wouldn't cry after a loss, I would take it and I'd say, you know what, you know, Kobe Bryant talks about that, you know, in his podcast that he did, you know, before he had passed away. He learned so much from failure that I think that's what prepared me. All of the failure, I took it in stride, and that's where I learned the most. And then when I got into playing professional hockey, it was, I mean, it was a roller coaster, right? You get sent to the minors, you play in the NHL, you get traded, you move cities. I mean, I played in, I think seven, eight different cities. I've played in, you know, the U S and Canada played over in Switzerland

and you have to have that mental makeup and you have to have your toolbox ready for anything. So I think to that point, you know, the simple answer is with people like you, with strength training, with skating, with the hockey dynamic, that's what prepared me because I knew I had the tools. I knew I had implemented them and I knew I had put in the hard work to get there. And I knew I deserved to be there. And that's when, that's when that confidence, it's not arrogance, but it's confident in your preparation and the love for the process. So I think that's, that's the biggest part for me, even getting into life after hockey that can help make anybody successful.

Yeah. Well, excellent, Eric. I, obviously what I'm hearing is really, you had a lot of self-awareness, you know, even as a high schooler that you had a lot of self-awareness, you know, even as a high schooler that you were writing things down, just being aware of what you were thinking and what you were consuming. And I think that's the first step in actually high performance is understanding yourself and watching yourself. And then I heard just like a lot of flexibility, particularly when you got to the NHL and just being traded a lot.

You said failure and taking it in stride. And I want us to talk a little bit more about that. What do you think has been your biggest failure? Let's say in your career in the NHL. Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest failure for me was probably giving up on the NHL too soon. Right. I think for me, it was going in. So when you're going into professional sports, was probably giving up on the NHL too soon, right? I think for me, it was going in.

So when you're going into professional sports, as anyone will tell you, right? If you're in the NFL and NHL, if you're not a top draft pick, a lot of times you have to work your way up, right? So you gotta be on the practice squad or you gotta be on the minors or you have to get into certain situations.

So for me, I grasped that. I grasped the identity of being in the NHL, a fourth line, third line guy, role player. And then as you work your way up, whether it's in the minors or whether it's in the NHL, now I felt like I belonged, right? I felt like I was elite. I felt like I should be the guy. I felt like I should be that first line goal scorer. Cause that's how I, that's what I accomplished in high school and college in the minors. And now it's the pinnacle and I probably didn't give it enough time. And I started to blame people. I started to blame management. I started to blame coaches and started to blame others in that journey. So even the extent of, you know, blaming

my wife for holding me back in certain situations and to your point of the self-awareness, I wasn't looking at myself, right? So all that work that we just talked about to get there, and now you're at that point. And if it was that easy, everyone would do it. If it was that easy, everybody would play in the NHL. And that's why I actually have a Stanley cup behind me because I never won one. So it reminds me of that ultimate goal that I quit. We quit on myself to a certain extent. And I took the easy road to go play in Europe, to go to a different team, to ask, to be traded,

to be put in a better situation that I felt I could control. And that never works. That never works. And that was probably, you know, outside of losing games or situation, that's where I said, going in stride, that stuff you can deal with, right. But when you don't, when you don't pursue your passion and your purpose, and you're on that road, and then you hit bump after bump after bump and you try to push the easy button. That's when, you know, you see yourself implode, right? That's where you talk about athletes and I'm vulnerable. When I talk, you talk about, right. Whether it was alcohol, whether it was addiction, whether it was, you know, infidelity,

what all this stuff you talk about in pro sports unfortunately it's true. And that's when that starts to kick in. And then that failure even becomes greater because it starts to blow up, um, in your own face. And I, I, you know, with concussions and different things going on in my life. Um, that's where I look back to your point of that was the biggest failure for me was giving up on my dream because I thought I knew better. And I started to blame other people. And that never, that never works, whether it's corporate, whether it's school, whether it's marriage, whether it's friendship. To your point, self-awareness is what I had and what I started with. And then once you get to a certain level and you see it in the news all the time, athletes think they're bigger than the team. They think they're bigger than the problem. They think they're bigger than the community.

And that's when you get in trouble. Well, I appreciate your vulnerability, Eric. You know, I think it's hard to talk about, you know, just being so open with what you just described. I also know that, you know, blame is what I would describe as an automatic negative thought. Like it's not always something we choose, but it's a lot easier to, you know, focus on things that you can't control than to look inside and say, well, what can I do and take responsibility? And I think, you know, a lot of people can relate to what you just said, because I know in all of our lives, my life, I've blamed people from time to time, right?

And so it's about noticing when you're doing that and just realizing, okay, you know, can you take some responsibility and really take control of what you want? Well, and when you take responsibility and you take control of that, you you're, if you've worked on it, right. And you have that toolbox, right. Of assets and resources to push you through, you can identify that and grab it and be like, no, right. This is me. I own it and I have to continue to do that. And that's what I talk about in the book too, is like rituals talk about, you know, the daily check-in, the recalibration, all of the content and all of the deliverables that you want in your life. It starts when you wake up and it's,

it's looking in the mirror and the self-reflection to your point of like, you can blame people, but at the end of the day, I mean, it's a free world, right? Especially here in America, you wake up, you know, most people have the choice of do they want to go to the left? Do they want to go to the right? And you got to make that up in your mind. And you got to accumulate step by your answer is the importance of having the toolkit, right? The mental toolkit of these skills in high school and college before you get to the pros because there's so much change and adversity. And I'm curious, Eric, why did you decide to write your book Becoming Elite like right now? Well, I think for me to that point, I have a mentor that talked about between the age of 40 and 50 is kind of your sweet spot, right? You've learned from a lot of failure. That was just the tip of the iceberg that we just talked about. And you've had in the second mountain, right? And it's by David Brooks. And it talks about the first mountain is about ego. It's about self. It's about fulfillment. And it's, it's almost about like being a false you, right? Not authentically you, like I would have never been as vulnerable or talked about. You've been a stoic and I'm strong and I don't get phased and I've never dealt with anxiety or depression or any of that. Right. And then all of a sudden you get to this next phase

and this next mountain. And I felt like I've been called to it like the last two years, two and a half years. And it was like falling me and I kind of push it back. Like, I don't know, am I qualified enough? Am I, you know, the imposter syndrome, right? Kicks in. Absolutely. To think like, can I do this? Can I do that? And as I started to do different, you know, jobs and consulting and be around more people,

I noticed that, you know, not a lot of people are qualified. Like you go to church, right? The pastor, the priest, they're probably not qualified, right? But they're comfortable and they're authentic and they share these stories. You go to, you know, a keynote speaker, you go to an event, you go to an experience, any of that, people that talk and are vulnerable and have those experiences are the qualified ones because they've learned from failure, they've had success. So for me now going in, that's why I have a mountain on the cover of my book, is I'm in that second mountain, right? It's servant leadership. It's following my purpose and

passion. And as I've been writing this over the last two and a half years through mind map, through an outline, first draft, second draft, third draft, everything that you go through to get the content where you want it and deliverable. And I started to find these little nuggets of information and I wanted to put it into a book that was easily digestible that you could put into your purse, into your backpack, throw it on your dashboard, throw it on your side of your bed, and you can go back to it. Right. So it's like a guide. You can easy read, you can read it, you know, probably on a one-way trip on an airplane, and then you can take it, highlight certain areas. My wife's a highlighter in the book, right? I'm a, I'm a memorizer and,

and I'll go back and you can pull out those resources. So for me, I felt like it was my calling to be able to share this information, no matter if you played sports, no matter if you're a parent, no matter if you were in the workforce, no matter if you were an employee or a CEO, you know, anywhere from the admin assistant to the owner of a company, whether you were the ball boy to the star player to the GM, this, all of this information can apply. And my goal always, I always talk about the 1% impact. If you can take 1% out of this to change your life, the dramatic effect that you're going to have is exponential, right? 1% or one thing, you add one thing, you know, 30, 365, you know, added value and you take away 365 negatives. I mean, that's 730 steps in the right direction.

And it shows over time. And that's what I learned through hockey. It's the same thing working out. You put the work in and to the point we made before, you've prepared and you love the process so much that when you get into the big game, you get into the big meeting, you get into the big keynote, you get into the big coaching atmosphere. You're not nervous. You're excited to share that. And that's why I wrote the book. I'm excited to share what's worked for me and to connect with people because my story, I mean, you could tell me something about you that went well and that didn't go well. And I guarantee I can connect to it, right? In one way or the other, whether it was through sports,

family, business, community, faith, any of those topics, you know, the psychological, physical, spiritual, emotional shift we talk about, I'll connect with you. And my goal is to help you. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. And Eric, for those, those who maybe want to check out the book you just referred to with the ego and self and the servant leadership, tell us what the name of that book is called. So it's the second mountain and then it's by David Brooks. Yeah. So it's a game changer for me. Like I said, about two, two and a half years ago, two of my mentors had kind of talked about that book and I read it and read it again and read it again. And that's what I started doing the outline of the book. And that's what's kind of drove me to that second mountain. Yeah, I love that. I love

that analogy. And, you know, and also the other books inspired you, you know, the same thing that happened for me is I love this book by Jack Canfield. And I would read it and read it and read it and read it. Right. And then finally, I was like, you know, could I could I do this too? You know, and I appreciate you just saying that even you had doubts that you, were you qualified enough? Because I think everyone can relate to that. Even with someone with a PhD, I thought of that a long, long time before I wrote my book, like, do I even know enough? Oh, and when you go into a room, right, I always tell people that even I was in insurance and finance and education and real estate, I've been in like almost everything from a consulting ownership standpoint. And when you go into that, the first part I was, as you listen and you learn,

and the more you do, the more you realize, not from an egotistical standpoint, right? I'm like, for you, right? I have my MBA. So I'm like, oh, I know my business. And, but that's not applicable until you've experienced it. And once you do, you realize, you know, 98% more than most of the people you're talking with. Right. And if you go in with that confidence to be able to still learn and listen, but be able to be authentically you, that's when you make a complete shift in a mindset. And you can, I mean, I can speak in front of five people or 500,000 people, and you're still delivering the same message to each individual or through the book, like you talked about, right? You get that. Am I good enough? Do

I know enough? But if you have confidence, because you do, right? Because you do, because you're here in this situation and you're doing it, right? And I think that's the thing. I even remind myself that on a weekly basis, right? It's center yourself, where are you at? And how can you continue to deliver what you're trying to through purpose and passion? Yeah, absolutely. And I actually think that confidence is a choice. It's really easy to give into those automatic negative thoughts that just are, you know, you're questioning if you really know enough.

And when you take a step back, right, you can give yourself evidence on why that's actually not true. Eric, I was curious about these four shifts you talk about in the book. And I love the, I love just the hockey analogy of shift, you know, but you talk about the psychological shift, the physical shift, the spiritual shift, and the emotional shift. Tell us a little bit about why you chose the word shift and why you chose these four shifts specifically. Well, and that's exactly why I did, right? Is the hockey shift, right? So if you're familiar or you're not familiar with hockey, right? You go, it's different than a lot of other sports, right? You go out for anywhere from 30 to 55 seconds in, you know, normal hockey for a shift. And then you come off and what do you do? You re-energize, right? Grab a drink of water. Your

coach might talk to you about a play or an incident. You might talk to a line mate, right? So now all of a sudden you're going into that psychological shift and you're trying to get your mindset. Okay. What did we do? Well, I noticed the defenseman went here, the forward or the goalie. So now I'm, you know, you're getting your mindsets ready, your physical shift, you're resting your body to go out there next. The spiritual shift for me, as I found later in life, right. But that's kind of centering yourself, knowing that whether you have a higher power or whether it's Christianity or right, whatever religion you are, the spirituality portion is okay. I can control this portion, but there's something greater. Um, even within my team, the coach, is he going to put me out

there next different aspects. And then the emotional part is you can't get too high and you can't get too low. Right. So that's exactly where the whole concept came from was when I come off the ice, what was I going through? Right. You're going through a shift consistently and you're trying to take those good things out and do it again. You take those bad things or those learnings and you try to put them into, I always, when I work with athletes or CEOs or any type of leadership coaching, I always say, Hey, take this virtual box, any baggage, put it in here, put it under the bench. And then at the end, if you have a sports psychologist or a high performance coach,

you can address it. So if we're sitting in there, I can open my box and be like, hey, here's what I got for you. After this shift, I started to get really, I was doubting this. I was doubting that. So that's where kind of the four pillars of performance. I looked at if you have those four pillars, right, centered, or at least trying to, because there's no possible way you can be a hundred percent centered in all four of those aspects.

Right. I think the part of it is the self-awareness is knowing when you wake up in the morning and that's where I get into that discipline routine is I would have to work out, right? I'll go through my Bible app. They go through my emotional checkpoint of like, where am I with myself? Where am I with my four kids, my wife, people that I'm surrounded with. And those are the different aspects that now I used to look at, oh my gosh, I got to do this for 15 minutes. I did like sit with myself and think about it and recalibrate and check in. Whereas now I'm, I woke up at 6am, 5am, 4am. It's like, I don't, I feel like I don't even have enough time to do that. And it's the same thing in a hockey shift, right? You only have a couple minutes. So you have to have back to the toolbox, right? And those resources, you have to have kind of those easy buttons, but the reason

they become easy is because you've done it over and over and over again. And you can realize what are your triggers? What are your traumas? Everything that brought you to a place of negativity or not being productive and that's what the shift is all about like we all have a shift consistently every day I mean even talking to you I'm having right an emotional shift like I love talking about this it's exciting it gives me energy it gives me purpose it gives me meaning um whereas if i'm talking about something else in a negative aspect it's gonna my shift in that is gonna go down yeah yeah absolutely well i definitely see you know psychological physical spiritual emotional they all connect to high performance and um you know just in terms of you're saying okay we can always keep on growing

on these every day. I liked the different tools that you had in your book, such as like the 10 minute daily check-in or the midday recalibration, some of these other tools. What have you found to be like the most useful tool that you wrote in your book that can help people with one of these shifts? I mean, I think when you look at it, everyone's going to find something different, right? Some people like for me early on, it was the 10 minute morning check-in, right? The daily check-in because I would then reassess and kind of look at, okay, what went well yesterday? What could go better today to get to what my goal is for tomorrow? Now that's kind of an automatic, right?

I get out of bed and it just automatically like moves throughout my body and my mind. And I can kind of, it's kind of weird, right? It just becomes automatic. It's kind of like warming up before a hockey game. You could ask me what I did. I won't even know because I just do it. It becomes a routine. Then at midday recalibration, that is probably by far what a lot of people talk about. I had a

meeting this morning, um, you know, with the financial planner that I'm coaching and working with on different aspects. And that's what we were talking about is the recalibration. You get so caught up in the day that if you don't bookmark five minutes, a half hour, 10 minutes to look back at what, what did you want to accomplish today? Did you follow that? And if you didn't, you got to remember, you still have a half a day to accomplish that. And if you did accomplish that, right, continue to do it 10 X and you're going to have even more success. And then the five minute nightly pulse that, that for me is, you know, it was a game changer. And the fact that celebrating wins, I still have a really hard time. And I don't know

if, you know, I think a lot of high performers, right. You get to that goal and you celebrate it for about a minute and a half. Right. So I write, I write my book, everyone's like, Oh my gosh, that's awesome. And I'm like, yeah, whatever. We'll have some dinner, a glass of wine with my wife to celebrate. And then I'm like, okay, what's next? And then I start thinking about creating my charity event in May and start, what's the next big thing? And I'm sure you can relate to that when you coach and train these elite athletes. Like, oh, you just, you know, you just got the receiving record for your team or for

this game or whatever. And it's like, yeah. Okay. Great. Awesome. How can I do it again? How can I do it again? So that's the midday for me is probably the most impactful still today. Cause I, I, I full disclosure, I struggle to do it sometimes. Right. Um, a nightly check-in is you celebrate your wins and see what you did. And you have to give yourself grace, right? You have to forgive yourself if you don't. And I had a hard time with that for a long time. And that's where the spirituality piece came in for me as that fourth pillar, uh, throughout that process. And I think that is all three of them are game changing and it's not a lot to add. Like you don't have to sit down and write it.

And you know, you just, if you're cognizant about it and you actually pay attention to it, that's what makes the difference. And there's other tools and step-by-steps that go in. And the reason for that is something might stick out to someone that's more influential to them. And that's why I put a lot of different information. It's not like, Hey, you have to go through all 42 of these steps and go through all this process. It's

you read it. It's your journey. It's your version of becoming elite. It's not mine. This worked for me different times. I took some of those different tools, but I think those three main daily guides, uh, were game changing for me. And it can take you five minutes a day. It can be 20 minutes. It's not a lot, but again, that 1% increment, 1% of a day, it's about 15 minutes. It's not a lot to ask. Yeah, that's great. And what I like about the morning, the midday and the end of the day, again, helps you increase your self-awareness, right? So you can even check in with yourself. And I think so many people just kind of get up, again, helps you increase your self-awareness, right? So you can even check in with yourself. And I think so many people just kind of get up, go through the motions.

They're not really intentional with their mindset and where, you know, with their productivity and what they're thinking about. Tell us a little bit more about, Eric, the 10-minute morning routine, you might call it. Or you call it the 10- Um, I'm just going back to daily check-in. Okay. So it's, it's tell us a bit more about it. You said, uh, what went well, and then what else would you do in those 10 minutes? Yep. So a lot of times, right. Wake up and like, for me, a lot of times my number one pillar is the physical. If I don't work out, I can't think, right? So that's a non-negotiable for me. That will start my day. So whether it's on Pilates reform or a bike or anything I'm doing,

just getting movement, blood flow, energy. And then the check-in for me is looking through that. So like from a psychological standpoint, what did I do yesterday that worked or didn't work? And then what can I do today to help that? So for me, one of the big things I use mindset apps, I'm huge into like motivational speakers, informational resources. So for me, let's just say yesterday, I didn't, you know, listen to a motivational speaker. I could mark that. What am I going to do today? Actually, what I'm going to do today is I'm actually going to record my own one minute motivational topic, right? Because then I can look at me, am I doing it or what works? And maybe that helps me. And then at the end of the day, I can look at that.

So for me, it's kind of looking from the, it's just like a little one, one second nugget. So what can I do to improve in all four of those categories? And it's not game changing. It's not like spiritual. I'm going to go to mass, you know, for an hour. It's not emotional. I'm going to go check in, you know, with my psychologist for, you know, 30 minutes and talk about my feelings from yesterday.

So it's not like where you're encompassing three hours of your day. It's just small incremental things. And I think at the beginning took me more than 10 minutes, right? Because I started to want to be perfect, right? I wanted that perfect outcome in all four of those pillars. Because when you are at a high performer, you always are looking at the end goal. And once you dumb it down, and that's why I have those tools to your point, the 10 minute is you have to look at what's ahead only in small increments. Because if you start to look at the final destination, right. And I was just in Arizona and a short side story is we were doing mountain biking with my son and the guy, the guy's like, Hey, look 10 feet in front of you.

What's coming up. And I started to get confident and I'm like, it's sunset. And I'm like, there's beautiful desert and cactus. And I started going like this and I started looking like that before I know it, there's like three huge cactus in front of me. I turned, you can see my hand here. It's all chewed up over the handlebars. And I thought of that, like I told the guy after I go, because we were talking about my book and, you know, different concepts. And I said, that is a great story that I'm going to start to share because I started to look at the destination, right? I started to look at the NHL before I even played high school hockey.

So it's the same thing you have to look at those little incremental things and that's for me with what you want to accomplish even today with my family my friends my career if i start to look at that insurmountable huge mountain it looks like it's uh i'm gonna step down i'm not even gonna move forward today. And I'm just going to do what I'm doing because I'm comfortable. Everybody wants to be comfortable. And if you're comfortable, you're not going to do your 10 minute daily check-in. You're not going to recalibrate and you're not going to celebrate your wins and check in at night. But when you dumb it down, it's pretty easy. But to your point, you know, I love how you keep

bringing in the self-awareness piece because that's the key. I mean, to any of this and you can't blame other people. Oh, I didn't get this done because my daughter woke up at two o'clock and because she had an ear infection. I can still work out. I got 24 hours. I can find a half hour to work out. That's not an excuse. I can't blame her. I can't blame other people. Yeah, absolutely. Good. All really good points that are helpful for people. And I loved the different topics in the four different shifts. And then at the end, you were talking about the ultimate shift. So tell us a bit about what that ultimate shift means to you. And I thought it was a really powerful idea. Yeah, I think the ultimate shift is almost, you know, the ultimate goal. And that's why, like I said, I have a Stanley cup here because even when you talk to, you know, someone who's won a Stanley cup, I have a lot of friends or people I played with or against it's short-term fulfillment and you're actually not at your ultimate destination. Right. So I think that's part of it is I talk about two things. One is everyone has their own version of becoming elite. And the second is the ultimate shift is it's not attainable, right?

In the big picture, it's not attainable, but that's what you're training and you're trying to achieve because it keeps you outside of your comfort zone. And it keeps you in that growth versus fixed mindset that I talked about at the beginning. And that's where I kind of originally, as I came up with the concept of the shift in the book, and it talks about that at the end is that bridge, right? So you have your past, you have to address your past, right? You have to like, talk about it. You got to like kiss the wave, right? It's going to come and hit you. You got to accept it, learn from it. And then you have to have goals for the future. And then you spend a ton of that time on that bridge.

If you spend too much time here or too much time here, I mean, I just did it three, what, five days ago. I just did that. I spent a ton of time here ruminating on, oh, this is my event and trying to change the world and do all this. And there's zero actions zero action taken whereas when i'm in the present that's when you can try to get to your ultimate shift and your

ultimate shift in the bridge and everything always consistently changes um and that's i talked about even that incident in minnesota when that bridge collapsed right if you're not paying attention to that foundation and that structure consistently and those four pillars, it could be eroding all four of them. And before you know it, I mean, you're down. Right. So if you can just put a little bit of time into that, the ultimate shift. I mean, realistically, and I talk about that, you know, I said you're going to fail, right? You're not going to, you're not going to get to an ultimate shift, so to speak, but you're going to get continuously closer and closer to your version of becoming elite. And I think that's kind of the key, right, to the whole picture and kind of the whole book and all the concepts is take out, you know, what it's the whole saying, right? Whatever you put in is what you're going to get out of it, right? If you don't put anything into it, you can't expect to shift in any of those pillars. You can't expect to be a high performer. You can't expect to, to change your life in a positive direction. And the ultimate goal is to help other people become better because what happens when you do that, you yourself, girl. Yeah. Love it. And I love how you're

describing like falling in love with the process. I find young athletes, you know, and we, I mean, I even have a son who wants to play in the NFL someday. And sometimes actually thinking about that creates a lot of anxiety and frustration for him because he's, you know, he realizes all the work that he has to do. And I love the idea of falling in love with the process because it's like when you're loving the working out and whatever the goal is, if you're in insurance or if you're in sales or you're a teacher, right? Like falling in love with the process is what inspires you and fulfills you and ultimately like helps you get to that destination. And I think sometimes goals are meant to just keep us

motivated and keep us moving towards it. And it's okay if we don't reach it, right? It's more about like, who can we become in the process of reaching that ultimate shift? Well, and I, that I totally agree with that because I think the process, and I, so I always talk to players about all the time, everybody would love to, right, win a Superbow Bowl or play in the NHL or win a state championship or win a national title. But the reality of it is not a lot of people do. But if you fall in love with the process, if you have a process, you can pick that up and move it into business. You can pick it up and move it into your family. You can pick it up and move it into pretty much any aspect of your life. And that's what I find now. I'm almost addicted to process

in a way where my wife's like, you're nuts. You're so process oriented. And then once I accomplish that, it's like, okay, let's start a new one right and just like i said i've shifted in different careers and different paths and different journeys because as i go through a different process and i check that box of the goal it's not satisfying that the satisfaction comes in the training right i for some reason i'm not built to be a runner by any mean as a hockey player and i decided you know i'm like i'm gonna run a half marathon the marathon so i did the half marathon i love the process and then once i did it afterwards i'm like what was the point of this right like the goal part i i did it by myself i didn't tell my my family i woke up at like 4 a.m

went to the place to run quick came home they're They're like, Oh, where'd you, I'm like, I just went and ran a half marathon quick. They're like, that's what I've been training for. And that's the part I fell in love with, like waking up. I fell in love with like kind of the diet, the water intake, like, you know, on fitness app, what I did, how much I did. That's the, that's what I fell in love with. And the goal was like, the half marathon was easy, right? You can go run for whatever an hour and something, and then you come home and people are, Oh, that's cool. And then the process for something else,

then it become mountain biking and then it became something else. So it's an, it's an addiction almost. And you probably see that from high performers. And if you don't have that, that's when depression, addiction, anxiety, all that starts to kick in and people, right. No matter if you're a pro athlete or a business person, right. Or like in the sports world, you call it, you're, you become a civilian, right. If you don't have a purpose and passion to your right you know to your uh statement around the process you get lost yeah and i think that's trying to help people and help guide them of like we all have a purpose here um and it's and it's in your head and it's tapping you on the shoulder

but do you follow it and that's you know june 1st for me like you know what i'm gonna follow this see where it takes me um and see see what i could do. I love it. I love it. Well, Eric, you've provided so many great things for us to think about. I appreciated your vulnerability of just describing like a tough moment for you and how you blamed others. I feel like we can all relate to that. A few other things I wrote down that were really helpful was just the idea of taking failure in stride. I do find high performers are very hard on themselves. So, you know, just having some self-compassion and I liked your different routines in the morning that you could use the 10-minute daily check-in and the midday recalibration and then the five-minute nightly routine that you shared and the different

shifts you can make to help you fall in love with the process and really, you know, continue to be elite and be a high performer. So what, what, tell us first where we can get the book. Yep. So the book easiest place is just www.ericwestrumbook.com. So as long as I always joke with my parents went the Scandinavian route. So it's E-R-I-K-W-E-S-T-R-U-M book.com. So ericwestrombook.com. And it has all the information on there about the book, about speaking, about coaching, all the content, everything kind of I'm up to. And we'll be adding the charity and kind of the experience that we're creating for me as well.

Awesome. Yeah. And I know you're, you're, uh, looking at an event in May to increase awareness of mental health. That's going to be incredible. So I'm going to encourage everyone to follow Eric on social media, um, and just watch out for that. Yep. No, I appreciate it. I think that's where I said a year ago, I created the charity had didn't really do anything with it and felt called for some reason. Then all of a sudden, fast forward the last nine months, you know, personally and, you know, in close family members, kids, I'm coaching all of a sudden, it just started to pop up everywhere. And I know you've seen it, you know, cause you're, you're in it, you're in the field. And then I started

after the book, I'm like, you know, I'm going to create an experience, an event with pro athletes, with resources to come together, to talk about it and to teach people like, Hey, it's okay. It's okay to, to not be okay. As they say, and what are those resources and tools? So yeah, we'll have it. It'll be May 7th working on kind of the guest list of a lot of the sports figures. And we're going to have some pretty awesome people sharing some pretty neat stories. Right. They're going to they're going to share some stories about what worked for them and be able to. It'll be an intimate group of people with some meet and greet opportunities, autographs, pictures, because that's always the conduit to spread the message and then get some information.

So, yeah, I'm excited. Again, yeah, ericwestrombook.com. That's where everything is going to be driven out of for that. So I'm excited and I appreciate you having me on here because I think, like I said, looking afar from what you've done is pretty amazing. And I think that, you know, each person you help, hopefully they can help another person. And just what we're talking about today, you know, that's, that's the goal for me is just to continue to spread the word of what you can do to better yourself and make sure you're taking care of yourself to,

to become a lead. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Eric. We really appreciate it. And thanks for everyone who's listening today. Thank you. Way to go for finishing another episode of the high performance mindset. for joining us, Eric. We really appreciate it. And thanks for everyone who's listening today. 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. 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. Sindhra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com.

See you next week.