High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 600: Mindset is a Competitive Advantage with Josh Lifrak, Keynote Speaker & Mental Performance Coach

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

Over the past 18 years, Joshua Lifrak, M.S. has worked with elite athletes and corporate leaders to help them perform at their highest levels. He has also been instrumental in helping transform organizational cultures and individual mindsets to create an environment for optimal development and growth. He is currently the Director of Performance and Coaching for Limitless Minds, a Health and Wellness Technology Company founded by Denver Broncos Quarterback Russell Wilson and Mental Performance Coach and author of It Takes What it Takes – the late Trevor Moawad. He is also the President of Lift Up Consulting. From 2014-2019, he has worked in Major League Baseball including 5 years as Director of the Mental Skills Program for the Chicago Cubs from 2014-2019 where he helped them win their first World Series in 108 years. From 2019-2021, he was the New York Mets Major League Mental Performance Coach. In this podcast, Josh and Cindra talk about: 4 Ways to Train Your Mind and Body The Mental Philosophy that helped the Chicago Cubs Win the World Series The One Thing that Separates the Best The Illusion of Choice E + S = R Human Being vs Human Doing   HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT JOSH TO LEARN MORE ABOUT LIMITLESS MINDS FOLLOW SIGN UP FOR THE FREE MENTAL BREAKTHROUGH CALL WITH CINDRA’S TEAM TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE MENTALLY STRONG INSTITUTE Love the show? Rate and review the show for Cindra to mention you on the next episode.  

Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. This is your host, Dr. Sindhara Kampoff, and thank you so much for joining me today for episode 600. This is a big deal, 600 episodes, it's incredible. And I'm the founder of the Mentally Strong Institute, where we help purpose-driven leaders and athletes play big and achieve their most audacious goals. If you want to achieve your goals quicker, up-level your confidence, and increase your influence, I invite you to sign up for a free coaching call with one of my team members at freementalbreakthroughcall.com, and we'll help you create a breakthrough, a moment of more clarity and understanding, and to help you practice the high performance mindset.

That's FreeBreakthroughCall.com to sign up for your free mental breakthrough call. And today I'm just grateful for episode 600. When I started this podcast many years ago, I didn't really even think about the 600 episode. And so I'm grateful today for you, the listener, who continues to chime in and listen each and every week. And I'm grateful for the opportunity to help you continue to be a high performer and develop the high performance mindset. I'm also grateful for my team who produces this podcast each and every week, and specifically for Jaden, who's the guy behind the scenes doing all the things to make sure this episode gets live for you. And as I was running one day, I thought, who do I really want to have on episode 600? Who do I love talking to that can

also provide incredible value-added content for you? And I thought about Josh Liffrack. I had Josh on High Performance Mindset on episode 293, which was in 2019. So it's been a while since I've had him on, and you won't be disappointed by this episode. You'll learn so many incredible things about developing your high performance mindset and continue to use your mindset as a competitive advantage. Let me tell you a little bit about Josh and all the incredible background and experiences he's had to shape his mindset today. So over the last 18 years, Josh Lifrak has worked with elite athletes, corporate leaders, to help them perform at their highest levels. He's been instrumental in helping transform organizational cultures and individual mindsets. He is currently the director of performance and coaching for Limitless

Minds. That's a company founded by Denver Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson and the late mental performance coach and author of It Takes What It Takes, Trevor Moad. He's also the president of Lift Up Consulting. From 2014 to 2019, he worked in Major League Baseball, including five years as the director of the mental skills program for the Chicago Cubs. And he helped them win the first World Series in 108 years. Incredible. He then went on to be the major league mental performance coach for the New York Mets.

And in this episode, we talk about four ways to train your brain and your mind for high performance. The mental philosophy that helped the Chicago Cubs win the World Series, the one thing that separates the best, the illusion of choice, his E plus S equals R formula, and the difference between human beings versus human doings. I know you're going to enjoy this episode. And if you'd like to see the full show notes and description, you can head over to cindracampoff.com slash 600 for episode 600. All right. Thanks again for joining me today. Let's welcome Josh Liffrack. Here we are, Josh Liffrack for episode 600 of the high performance mindset let's go let's go the

other day i was going for a run and i was like you know who would i really want to have on from the 600 episode and i'm like josh i gotta ask josh and i'm so glad that you said yes you were last on episode 293 in 2019 so that's five years ago yeah i basically come on every 200 episodes i'm like this is the third time i'm on and so we did do some quick math that was like my math skills right there just yeah you away that's pretty good once every 200 times that's pretty you know i wanted to have you on is because first of all you're awesome to hang out with i I love your energy, but also you provide great content. And when I think about what the people like on this podcast, they like both, right? When we have fun and we enjoy ourselves, but also they learn something that they can apply

to their lives. And so first of all, 600, thank you so much for being here oh my like i was telling you earlier it's an absolute honor uh i'm completely humbled i was like i got the text message when i was my wife and i were in the car and i got the text message and she was driving and i was explaining it to her and she was just like wow that's really cool and i was like yeah it's really cool i was super excited about it so thank you so much for having me on here. It is absolutely, totally humbled and totally honored. Super excited. So fun. And you've been up to a lot since 2019.

So, you know, when I think about just the incredible people you've got to work with, man, elite athletes, elite companies, your mentors have been legendary in the field. And so let's just start off and tell us what you think the best of the best do from a mental perspective. Let's start there. Yeah, without a doubt. Well, I think the first thing to recognize, and this is always like, it's a little bit anathema to what people normally think about the mental game. Because what people normally think about the mental game is there's something wrong, so need to fix it yes right that's that's like oh okay like there's something i'm there's something messed up and i gotta work on it and oh maybe i'm not being good

on the mental side well what i found over and over and over without fail, is the best of the best work their butts off on the mental side. There's nothing wrong with them. As a matter of fact, they're the best. And they're doing all of these mental skills, these mental tools. They're applying them daily, if not more than daily, to get the most out of their performances. So if you don't think Patrick Mahomes was visualizing yesterday at some point, you're out of their performances. So if you don't think Patrick Mahomes was visualizing yesterday at some point, you're out of your mind. Right. No, he was. Yes. And Brady did that for years, legendly. You know, I think about Brock Purdy. I mean,

I read all this week about how, you know, he used prayer, which is, I think, so much like just being in the moment and mindfulness to be able to be grounded in the present. And he reads scripture every morning so that he doesn't get caught up. And he said, you know, it's so great. People love you, but you can't control when they love you. Right. And so, you know, just think about both of those that we just saw at the sewer bowl. Yeah, it's amazing. Like, I think people so one of the things that's always been interesting to me is this world of mindfulness meditation. It's gotten a lot I think people, so one of the things that's always been interesting to me is this world of mindfulness meditation.

It's gotten a lot of press over the last five to 10 years in terms of the powerful effects of it in terms of performance. Now, what was always really interesting to me is when you're working in professional sports, you're going to come across all shapes and forms of, of, of people. And there's a lot of what you just talked about where the Bible and people read the Bible and they get into scripture and that is a form of meditation as well. Right. That is a form of being mindful. That is a form of thinking and just being present to the moment of the words that you're reading. So, yeah, I love that. I think that that's

absolutely a way to train your mind as well. Absolutely. And you just don't have to be, right? It could be any religion that you use as a way to ground yourself. Absolutely. And I appreciate what you said, Josh, is that the best of the best don't feel like they, you know, there's anything wrong with them, but they work their butts off on the mental side of the game and they realize it's a central part of their success that's what i have found working with some of the best of the best elite athletes right and when it all comes together um their mental and their physical their knowledge of the game and you know all the work that they've been putting in man that's how they get to their goals quicker yeah well and i love you know it's funny because uh the company i work with limos minds i'm sure we're going to talk about that sooner than later. It was co-founded by Russell Wilson, who obviously was the winningest quarterback in NFL history for the first 10 years of his career. Most people don't know that. They go, he won Super Bowl, but he was the winningest quarterback in the history of the NFL for the first 10 years of his career. Really incredible stat. And one of his great quotes is,

the separation is in the preparation. And you just saw it. Like, I don't know if you saw, there was an article today about the preparation for overtime. The Kansas City Chiefs talked about it in training camp that in the Super Bowl, there's new rules for overtime. And they prepared for it throughout the year.

And they knew that if they had won the toss they were going to defer so they would get the ball second and there was a whole game plan for how to handle overtime if they won the toss uh you know everything they they had it sussed out the 49ers on the other hand most of the players they they interviewed several of the players they said we didn't know the rules until we saw it on the Jumbotron on Alliance Stadium. Oh, shoot. During the overtime. The separation is in the preparation.

It's crazy, right? And so, I mean, maybe they were attending to other things, but that's a perfect example of the Chiefs going above and beyond this next level. And that's what it takes to be a champion is there's like everything has to be attended to. Every little aspect. There's, you know, a person who's their rule guru, and they go over all the rules and they look at, you know, how that's going to affect the team and they dive into it. Right. It's, it's pretty awesome. But again, there wasn't like, Oh, that could be, there's negative. They're going to go to overtime. Why wouldn't they just plan on winning it? Well, no, it's not negative.

It's dealing with the facts. Hey, there's a different change. Then we have to attend to it. And now we have to get better because of it. I love that. I thought that was awesome. I saw that today. I was like, oh my gosh, that's crazy. And I think what's cool about that, Josh, is that it's like they had to believe in themselves

in training camp that they would get to the Super Bowl in overtime. Whereas, you know, maybe other teams are not even believing that that's possible. And so, of course, they don't put that into action in training camp, right? Sure. Absolutely. Yeah, we've got to figure out a block on this scheme. Let's not worry about, you know, overtime in the Super Bowl. Right. Exactly. Yeah. They said they worked on it for the last two weeks. They said they had a whole plan for the last two weeks and they worked on it for the last two weeks. Crazy.

Wow. Well, there you go. There you go. you go yeah separations in the preparation love that so you know and i also really appreciated the you could see the calm nature in both of the quarterbacks when we were watching the super bowl right and i thought just about how they're having to deal with all these distractions and all these expectations and how do you stay grounded in the moment and not let the moment become bigger than it really is? Yeah, that's absolutely true. And I think one of the things is I get older in life. Like I'm just like, whatever, when you, I think the first time we did this podcast,

I was probably like 28 years old now I'm 52. So 51. So it's like, you know, like what, what happens there? Right. So, um, but the, the thing that I've started to realize as you, as you get older is what to really stress about and how much the stress really help you. Right. And so there are, there are forms of stress that could be good that, that motivate you and get you involved and get you, um, you know, energized to do things that maybe you wouldn't do before. But what I've also seen is that there's a lot of things out there that you don't need to

stress about like it's it's going to take care of itself or you know you're going to get it done or whatever and you know that's something that that kind of comes up over and over and over and you just kind of mentioned it like they're like i i always i always think it's really interesting the super bowl it's a huge moment for everybody that plays in it it's a huge moment for their fans all this stuff but if you want to just extrapolate a little bit and just kind of recognize the size of it um you know i think there was like 100 million people or something watched it that's that's a ton of people four billion people watched the world cup final right so it's like right and and i love this i heard this on tony robbins years ago that like

a million seconds is 3.5 days if you count a million seconds a billion seconds is 37 years right that's the difference of scope right so when you're talking about millions versus billions and so if you think about pressure and stuff like i mean yes you're absolutely feeling it you're absolutely you know it's intense the the it feels different i've been in world series environments it feels different every pitch matters the tension is higher your energy is different your heart rate is different however you know it's still a game and it matters to a lot of people and i get that and it matters to um you know when we won the world Series, right, there was five million

people at the parade. It was a huge, huge event. Right. But like, ultimately, you know, it's it is what it is. It's a game. And yes, will it impact your life? Well, yes, all that stuff's true, without a doubt. But it's not it's not about the it's just like how you handle that and how you process it,

the failure or the success, that's what truly matters regardless of the stage. Yeah. And there's so many things that we can't control in the moment. And also it can be so future-based, like what if all this happens and being so focused on the outcome you know you helped the Cubs break a 108 year losing streak as their director of mental skills development when they won the world series so first of all like you know from your perspective what did you do to help the players to be able to you know be able to be in the moment and not let the all of the distractions and the controllables get the best of them in that moment um well as you as you know this my my role was i was in the the front office there so i was the director of the program so the first thing that i think i did to help them

was get kenny revisa in the locker room with him right because that was because kenny was the absolute best right yes the absolute absolute best at what he did. I think what we did too is we normalized it. Like we just talked about, like the best of the best, they work on this stuff because it needs to be worked on. The four fundamentals of performance, technical, tactical, physical, and mental, right? Those, like even in sales, right? There's technical aspects to sales, there's tactical aspects to sales, there's physical aspects to sales, and then there's the mental side. And so if you're attending to all

four of them, you now have more lottery tickets for your chance for success. And I think we just bought a bunch of lottery tickets, right? And one of those aspects was the mental side and we leaned into it. The Cubs were amazing. Our budget was over a million dollars for just the mental side of the game. You know, we wanted to do something that had never been done before. I was talking to somebody about this before and they said, Hey, that that's not really the norm in baseball. I said, of course it wasn't the norm. We were trying to do something we hadn't done in 108 years.

Of course we weren't going to do it the way that everybody else is doing it. Of course not. You know, we're going to do it differently. If you want to be a champion, you got to do stuff that's a little bit different right because there's only one at the end of the day and so that so i always say this too like i don't have any clue how much the mental side helped the cups there's no measurable statistic but i do know this we went to game seven which is you know for those of you who are not baseball fans in a in the world series there's seven game series whoever wins four first we went to the seventh game of the world series. We went to extra innings and we won by

one run. So I would think that the mental side played a little bit of a, you know, even if it was a 1%, that 1% was right there. It was margin. That's, and that's the thing about sports is the margins are so tiny. They're so tiny, as you know from working in pro sports. Everybody is so good talent-wise that the margins are so thin for success or being a last place team. I love that you had this CUB acronym that I'd like you to dive into a little bit that guided your work with the Cubs. First of all, because it said Cub, I mean, that was pretty clever, but also what it represents and tell us about that and how you used it with the Cubs and how that guided your work just, you know, with all of the other people who worked with you there, but also how we could use it every day. Yeah. So we, so the, the story in, we've told this before on various podcasts, but the Bats Cub came up.

And Bats Cub was this phrase that was used in Cubs lore for when things would go bad because we were the lovable losers, we were a cursed franchise, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. This whole identity piece that was kind of a figment of our imaginations in a lot of the ways, right? Yes, things happen happen but this is what people do is they create stories upon uh results they create stories of situations that's what our brain does so story was something bad happens that's very cup okay so we co-opted that we stole

it and we said no we're gonna say that's cup is about all the good stuff we do so if we run hard to first base that's cup if we make a great throw from the out stuff we do. So if we run hard to first base, that's Cub. If we make a great throw from the outfield, that's Cub. If we make a hard pitch and a tough count, yeah, that's Cub, man. If we do stuff off the field that's above and beyond, we're volunteering at a Miracle League, that's really Cub, man. Clean up the dugout, that's Cub. So we just co-opted it and we made it mean something good. Then we took Cub as an acronym and we looked

at it and we said, well, what does it take to be Cub? Like to do these things that are above and beyond, to be great. It takes a lot of courage to do that, right? So that's what the C is going to stand for. The courage to do the right thing, because it's tough to do the right thing. It's really easy to do the easy thing, but it's tough to do the right thing. So it takes courage to do the right thing, because it's tough to do the right thing. It's really easy to do the easy thing, but it's tough to do the right thing. So it takes courage to do that. So that's number one. It takes courage to put yourself out there. It takes courage to think that you can do something that hasn't been done in over a hundred years, right? Because there's no history that says this can be done. There's nothing. There's just our brains that are deciding we're going to have the courage that to go that way. Uh, the U was urgency. Cause we really believe like, you know, if you have urgency, then your motivation is going to be higher. Your

focus is going to be higher because your motivation is higher. Like if your urgency, like kind of like there's a, there's a connotation to that, that you're going to dial up the intensity of your mindset and where your eyes are and where your heart is and all that stuff. Like urgency is about let's go right now. We can't wait till tomorrow. So the focus rises. And then the B was simply belief. And belief not only in the teammates around you, but in yourself, in the system, in the front office, in this impossible dream that we were living.

So that's what C.U.B. stands for, courage, urgency, and belief. Personally, if you put those to your life every day, you're going to live a pretty extraordinary life, right? Think about that. If you wake up and you do something courageous today, if you wake up and you're not going to put something off till tomorrow because you want to get it done today that you could easily put off till tomorrow, that's urgency. And then there's this belief factor that like, hey, you know, I'm putting out positive thoughts.

I'm putting out great vibes. I'm putting out this energy that I believe no matter what comes my way, I can handle it. That's going to be pretty freaking awesome. Yeah, absolutely. And I think about how many people give in to fear or anxiety and they don't do things that are courageous. my way i can handle it that's gonna be pretty freaking awesome yeah absolutely and i think about how many people give in to fear or anxiety and they don't do things that are courageous or they put things off and they're like yeah i'll do it tomorrow it's not really that important

you know and then we don't necessarily believe the impossible was um you know when you think about did did everyone there claim it hey we're we're going to win the world series. Tell me, tell us a little bit about that. And then when do you think it's helpful to think about winning the world series versus not? Yeah. We didn't talk about winning. Like we didn't, we, it was like about process. It was about processes. Processes fearless was Joe's great quote, the process is fearless and embrace the target. Those are the two phrases that Joe came up with and Joe Madden, our manager at the time. And it was really, you know, that's really what it was all about. The other thing that was always really interesting is everybody talked about, you know, the outside of our locker room and outside of the organization was the curse of the billy goat.

And we never saw, we never thought about that. We just thought about the opportunity to do something absolutely incredible. And that's, that's the way they looked at it was, it was an opportunity versus a challenge, right? And so that changes your mindset a little bit. Absolutely. And, you know, we're, we're talking about the Cubs here in sport, but all of this applies to everyday life because the same tools and principles that we use to train our mind in sport is what we use in life. And you're now at Limitless Minds as the director of performance and coaching.

And so you've had an opportunity to work with both, you know, elite athletes and then also executives and salespeople. Tell us what you think the similarities or differences there in training our mind and using mental training to get the edge and just be our best that we can be. Yeah. So again, the mental side is a factor in your ability to succeed in performance. Whatever your performance is with the sales teams that we work with, there's a scoreboard. There's numbers that you have to hit every quarter. There's numbers that, and then within that, there's a process. How many calls you're doing, how active you are, how are you reaching out, all these different factors within the sales world. Same kind of thing with sports, obviously,

is there's numbers to achieve, right? Wins and losses, batting average, shooting percentage, you know, yards per carry, whatever it might be. So those are pretty similar that there are stats and you, you are measured on your performance in the corporate world. You really are. You do really well. You get a bonus. You do really bad. You kind of maybe, maybe they put you on a pip, you know, a performance review and they, and on a pip, you know, a performance review. And you got to do, you know. So those are really similar.

And the mental side of it matters because what is really the mental side of any performance? What the mental side is is just your responses to what happens proactively and reactively, right? So what's my response? Like Kenny Reviso always used to talk about when does this pitch end and when does the next pitch begin, right? And it was all about what are you doing before, during, and after your performance? When do you start that?

When do you reset? When do you reflect? All of those different aspects really make an impact on how well you perform. So within the corporate world, there are performances every single day. And so when does that first performance start? When does the second one start? When does the first performance end? When does the second one begin, et cetera?

And what are you doing before? What are you doing during? And what are you doing afterwards mentally how are you staying present that's one of the biggest things that i see is the presence factor and the the worry factor and the creation of stories in their brains yeah this guy owns me picture this picture owns me well does he really own you you know maybe he throws some things that you have a tough time seeing so you have to adjust your your um your stance or you have to adjust your approach right versus like oh i i'm really bad on thursdays or i'm not good in the morning

well you might not be maybe that's what history shows, but if you change something, okay, that's, that's just data. It's not a story. It's just data. And so using that data to, to be really, really cognizant of the behaviors and habits that are affecting that, that's the whole key. And if you could have those behaviors and habits, the thoughts that are creating those behaviors and habits, you can attend to those. those are completely in your control same thing in sports same thing in the corporate world and when you attend to those the performances are going to be affected yeah and isn't that so true that automatically we can let our mind just go to generalizations you know like i've had a bad game on thursday I'm terrible on Thursdays. Or this happens to a lot of elite athletes I work with.

It's like, man, my pregame wasn't so great. I'm not going to do well today, right? And so, you know, last time I wasn't wearing these socks, I didn't have a very good performance. Like all those things. My personal favorite in the world of baseball was like, I would happen to come in to a team. Maybe I was, you know, visiting one of the minor league teams and they would win three

in a row. Oh, he's got to stay. You got to stay. I'm like, no, it wasn't because I was here. It was not. Or, or the flip side, they would lose three in a row. Oh, look, you got to get out of here. No, it's not because of the fact that I happened to show up.

You don't know. That's, that's completely ancillary, you know? Yeah, isn't that so true? I think it's just automatic negative thoughts, you know, that acronym by Daniel Amen about ants, which I think is so true that we can just generalize things and we have to be careful on the stories we tell. Absolutely, absolutely.

And I think that's one of those big things too, is to recognize that we do tell stories to ourselves all the time. One of the formulas we came up with at Limitless Minds is in sports psychology, the E plus R equals O. We've all heard that one. Event plus response equals the outcome. And I just was sitting there one day, and Dr. Julia West, who's our director of science

and content, her and I were talking about that. And I was like, well, how do they come up with the response? What's the formula for response? And so we came up with the formula event plus the story we tell about the story, the event, the event plus the story we tell about the event equals our response. So E plus S equals R. E plus S equals R. Right. And so that was, I think that's a huge factor too, is having the self-awareness to step back and catch yourself creating stories, creating false narratives, and not dealing with the facts of the situation, right? Why do we do that?

Because we want something that's comfortable. We want to maybe not deal with the facts if I had a really bad quarter, right? but then I stepped back and I looked at the fact, oh, I wasn't doing this, this, and this, these habits that I normally do. Or maybe I just had a child and you know, I wasn't out there as much as I normally could have been, whatever it might be, right. It's not, there's an event, but then there's a story that we tell about the event and that story, we just got to be careful of that. We have to be really careful about that narrative because that's going to dictate our responses. I think everyone listening just heard you say that. And I think that's so good, right?

E plus S equals R. I hope everyone takes that in to what just Josh just said. One of my favorite books is by Cy Wakeman, and it's about the ego. And she gives an example or an exercise at the end of the book where you write down everything you're stressed about. So that's basically like, write your stories. What are you stressed about? And then you go through and you underline what's actually true. And then whatever you underline that's true, you go back and you say, is that 100% true? Do I know that with absolute certainty that's 100% true? And I've used that the last six months or so. I heard her speak at the National Speakers Association Conference maybe a year, year, year and a half ago maybe.

And I've used it several times when I've been really stressed. And Josh, guess what? Like two things of that whole list on that piece of paper is true. Like hardly anything's true. You're right. And it's just a story I've created about what's making me stressed out. And it's a great way to disconnect yourself from the story. Yeah, without a doubt. I always talk about, that's a great exercise. The other thing I always talk about too, in terms of stress, anxiety, is just getting into action. Right. And so you can go down that, I love this because this is a great ad. I'm like, we're going to go down that list, write down all the stuff that you're stressed about,

write down all the stuff that's like really true. And then think about all the stuff that you could actually control on that and then go control it. That last step of actually going and doing something about it. That's the really cool thing that really, um, that really eliminates a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress. That reminds me of a LinkedIn post I just saw that you posted and you said, action is the antidote to anxiety. When you have feelings of anxiousness, it helps sometimes just to get into action. Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of times. Yeah. Because that's, it's funny because I was, I was just talking to a friend of mine and he, he's got a lot going on. He owns a couple properties that he manages and things of that nature. And he said he's been having a lot of trouble sleeping.

He said, as soon as I hit the bed, my brain just goes into overdrive and I'm just thinking about everything that I have to do. And I was like, yeah, it's because you're worried about forgetting something. I said, just take a piece of paper and write it down. Just write down the stuff that you have to do because then you're not going to forget it right um and then you can actually as you write it down you can visualize yourself going to doing it as well and taking care of it and what it's going to take a lot of times that really helps like reduce that stress piece because i see a lot of anxiety and stress come from that like i have so much to do. Do you? Let's take a look at it. How much time is this actually going to take you to do?

Right. And so that's another piece of it too. Yeah. There's so many people that I've met recently and maybe it's just because they're more likely to tell me this now. I don't know, but just who lay in bed at night and they overthink it and they can't sleep. And their mind is just on overthinking and they can't seem to stop it. So a lot of the tools we, you and I talk about, and that we've already talked about today could help you with that. Hi, this is Cyndra Campoff and thanks for listening to the High Performance Mindset. Did you know that the ideas we share in the show are things we actually specialize in implementing? If you want to become mentally stronger, lead your team more effectively and get to your goals quicker. Visit freementalbreakthroughcall.com to sign up for your free mental breakthrough call with one of our certified coaches. Again,

that's freementalbreakthroughcall.com to sign up for your free call. Talk to you soon. I see your book behind you. And I want to ask you about Trevor Moad. So Trevor and Russell Wilson, among others, started Limitless Minds. And then Trevor wrote a book called It Takes What It Takes, which talks about neutral thinking. And I want to share, I want to just ask you about that. Like, what is neutral thinking? Because I know that's something that you focus on at Limitless Minds. So just tell us about that. Like, what is neutral thinking? Because I know that's something that you focus on at Limitless Minds. So just tell us about that. And then how can people use neutral thinking who are listening? Yeah.

So, yeah, just the founders of Limitless Minds, Russell Wilson, his brother Harrison Wilson, DJ Ideson, a close friend of the Wilsons, and then Trevor Moad, the four of them founded the company I work with. And what is this? And Trevor was, we should probably say, yeah, was your mentor and also worked with Russell while he was the Seahawks, right? Yes, absolutely. He was Russell's probably best friend. We'll just put it that way. And so, yeah, Trev was my mentor. I was 10 years at IMG Academy. He was there for eight years. He was my mentor i spent i was 10 years at img academy he was there for eight years uh he was my mentor during that period unfortunately trev um passed away from cancer at age 48 i always say don't be sad for trev because he lived 80 years in 48 you know he just was like

alive and he was going he was doing this amazing work that's still resonating today um and i just i just miss him like i want to give him a call every once in a while i can't right so that's still resonating today um and i just i just miss him like i want to give him a call every once in a while i can't right so that's tough uh but the other part of it is like he came up with this whole concept of neutral thinking what is neutral thinking it's a it's a basically what it is is taking it's it's thinking in a way that is fact based right objective and concrete facts that are done and you're just? Objective and concrete facts that are done. And you're just taking those objective and concrete facts and it's without judgment or grading.

So it's a thought process that focuses on objective and concrete facts without judgment or grading. That last piece is so, so crucial. The judgment, grading, because that's what we do. Yeah. Grading. That's what we do. We judge and grade everything.

Oh, sure. Like ABC. That's what you mean yeah grading because that's what we do we judge and grade everything oh sure like abc that's what you mean by grading yeah yeah good or bad think about it right good bad hot cold whatever right like go outside today cinderella you're up in minnesota how is it outside first thing oh it's cold right that's a judgment right it's actually really nice right now it's really sunny and surprising nice and sunny right both judgments right judgments both judgments and grading right meanwhile it's 19 degrees and i'm like it's so sunny and warm yeah right exactly right so but that's that but that's my point like you say that like hey it's sunny it's it's really nice today i i'm up there i live in florida like 19 degrees is hellish what are we doing right you'd have like three coats on dog yeah i would have like one of those giant zip-up suits that you can't

even like walk in you know like those like puppies meanwhile my boys don't even wear coats you know yeah they're in shorts and sweatshirts right yeah exactly um but but the fact of the matter is it's so what it really is like neutral thinking what it really is, it's 19 degrees Fahrenheit with a humidity of 2% or whatever it is, right? That's fact-based thinking. Now, here's the second part of that, right? Neutral thinking, you go, okay, it's 19 degrees Fahrenheit. It's 3% humidity. I walk outside in shorts and a sweatshirt.

It's going to feel a certain way now those feelings are not that that's just like those are feelings they're data they're giving me data right maybe i'm not feeling my hands maybe i'm not feeling my toes and i go i don't want frostbite i don't want frostbite so i'm gonna going to go back inside. I'm going to put on socks, wool socks. I'm going to put on a pair of pants. I'm going to put on a jacket. I'm going to put on a hat and I'm going to put on mittens or gloves. Now I'm not going to have frostbite because I can go out into that weather and have some warmth and protection. It basically boils down to this. I remember I worked in Maine right out of college. I went up to Portland, Maine, and I was working at a

restaurant. And we had to take a ferry every day to, it was on an island. And there's a bunch of fishermen there. They would be coming in from the lobster pots and all that stuff. And I remember one day hearing one of the guys talking to his buddies and he was like, hey, there's no such thing as bad, because the guy was complaining about the weather. He's like, there's no such thing as bad weather. There's just bad clothing. Yeah. And it's exactly that, right? It's exactly that.

It's like, and it's not even good, bad. It's appropriate and inappropriate for what you want. That's it. It's like, what do you want to accomplish? That's what Neutral Thing is all about. It's about accomplishment. It's about going towards goals. It's about dealing with performance.

So I want to perform in a certain way. If I'm doing certain behaviors and habits that'll help me perform that way, then that's effective. But if I'm not doing those things, it's not good or bad. It's just I'm not going towards what I want to achieve. And that's the whole key about neutral thinking. People think, well, geez, Josh, you know, if I do this neutral thinking, you're trying to tell me to be a robot. No, you're going to have feelings. You're going to have emotions. But what you have

to do is you have to recognize which one of those are going to help you get to your goal. And then if they're not, then you're going to move them on and choose a different way. So awesome. Neutral thinking is fact-based without judgment or grading yep and so if you were on stage or working with someone and you said all right this is how you can practice neutral thinking and the impact how would you describe that for people who are listening yeah so the first thing is this is is another way to define neutral thinking is dealing with what's so without creating a story around it right so the first thing i would tell people is to recognize when there's a story and recognize the story that you're creating around it okay that's the first

thing so get that self-awareness okay the second The second thing is to take the space, right? Space, I think is so, so crucial and labels are so crucial. Like, okay, you think about it from a psychological perspective. I am, um, I'm really nervous about this performance, right? I'm nervous. That is a label it gives nervousness like this power i am having feelings of nervousness that gives me a little bit more distance right it gives me a little bit more space their feelings they're not facts right it's just like there's suggestions

okay right and then you can actually do something about it. You can get solution oriented. So the way, the best way to get to neutral is to get distance from whatever situation is going on. Right. Use the sales again. I didn't make my numbers in the first quarter. Right. I stink. I'm a horrible salesperson. No. Right. Those are judgments. I didn't make my sales numbers in the first quarter. Okay. So I'm noticing I didn't make my numbers in the first quarter. Now I got a little bit more distance. Okay. How, how can I handle that? Well, how can I get the neutral deal with the facts? This is what I achieved. How did I achieve those things? Success leaves clues. These are the things that I did to be successful. These are the things I didn't do to be successful. Right. So sometimes success is about subtraction more than it is addition. I didn't scroll

Instagram for, you know, 45 minutes in the middle of the day. I actually made calls during that period. Right. So sometimes that elimination can be really helpful too. So that's basically what we do in terms of being on stage and talking about, Hey, getting to neutral. It's about stepping, giving yourself that distance, giving yourself that space from the situation and recognizing the situation is a situation and what are the facts in it and then pulling those apart and getting to that. So powerful. I think because we are telling ourself stories all day long, right? And the summer I went through one of Brene Brown's trainings, and she has a phrase that so good. And she said, or it's an at least in her book where she said, you know, just to use this, the phrase, the story I'm telling myself,

and that can be really helpful, because then you disconnect yourself from the story. Yeah. And even if you, right, you're thinking about sometimes with my family, I have two boys and a husband, right? And so they might say something to me that I might take the wrong way, that it wasn't intended. And if I say, hey, the story I'm telling myself is that you don't care about what I think. Well, that's actually, that's not even true, right? And so it also helps you, helps the other person recognize, hey, it's just a story I'm

telling myself. Yep, absolutely. Again, the distance piece is so huge, right? Because it allows you to separate yourself. You are not your feelings. I know that's a weird thing to say because they're a part of you, but feelings are just sensations interpreted by your brain and they're suggestions. They are not the dictation of how you have to go about things, right? And so that's a big key too is recognizing, you know, you can honor your feelings, you can feel them, but you don't have to live in them. You can separate yourself too.

Yeah. What else have you learned from Trevor, which is probably a really hard question because you think about all the years. What I think about his book, you know, it takes what it takes. There are other things that you teach at Limitless Minds that could help the listeners just be their best, that they can be, continue to be a high performer on their journey. Yeah. I think, you know, it's funny. It's not about specifically what he taught us. It was a little bit about the how. Right. And so one of the things that we do at Limitless Minds is we recognize really quickly that if you're going to go and you're going to talk to a pharmaceutical sales team, we want them to retain the information. Right. Because we believe the information and the teachings that we're going to be impactful. The way to do that isn't by telling people over and over and over again the same thing.

What you got to do is have them have an experience and have them feel the emotions of it and have them have those aha moments. So the thing that Trevor taught me that was the most profound is when you're presenting, have it be an experience. Don't have it be a talk, right? Don't talk at the crowd. Be with the crowd. Don't, you know, like walk that journey with them. Get them involved, get them into exercises, get them doing stuff so they can feel it. And when they feel it, they'll remember it. And so I think that that's been the biggest, the biggest thing too. Outside of that, I think, you know, like there's, there's so many

different ways that Trevor would say things and really connect with audiences via story, via activities, things like that. But I think the biggest one that always stood out for me was this thing that he called the illusion of choice. And what the illusion of choice is, is that we feel like we have choices in life. And you do, you have choices unless you want to be elite. And if you want to be truly elite at whatever you're doing, there are fewer and fewer and fewer choices that you can make. Right. And so I think that that one, I always love that one, the illusion of choice, because it's like, if you want to be at the top of the game, you want to be on the top of the mountain, there are certain steps that you have to take in order to get there.

It doesn't just miraculously happen. If I want to, if I want to be, you know, like one of the things that I never do before I'm on stage is I never go out and have drinks the night before. Never. I'm in bed early. I'm rehearsing in my mind. I'm visualizing in bed the night before. The next morning I wake up and I go and I work out so I can get energy going. Like I'll get on the elliptical

or get on the treadmill or something of that nature. I'll run outside, whatever it is. But I got to, you know, like I have a certain way, a process of doing things for those moments that are like, we talked about the, you know, one of the clients that we had was McDonald's huge client, huge client. It was a huge event. Um, I think, uh, we were in Vegas. I believe they said there were 7,000 people in the audience for the first day. And then we had four rooms, five rooms of 500 times two. So that's another 10,000. What does that have? 500 times two is a thousand. So it was another 5,000 people after. So about 12 to 14,000 people. We got the impact that week,

right? You're relying on you. Yeah. That's a Superbowl, right? I'm not getting as a speaker. Yeah, exactly.

Right. So I'm not going out and getting blasted the night before I'm getting to bed early. I'm taking my time. I'm taking this seriously. I'm caring about it because if I'm doing those other things that I can't be as present as I need to be when I'm taking my time. I'm taking this seriously. I'm caring about it because if I'm doing those other things that I can't be as present as I need to be when I'm on some good, because our stuff isn't like we have, uh, um, kind of like, we're going to go off us, not a script, but we have

some like borders, I guess, around what we're going to talk about and what we're going to do. But I'm also freelance and half the time too. So it's like, because you're reading the audience and you're understanding what they need and how to give it to them, right? Because if you just go out there and give a standard speech every single time, it's, you're going to get bored with it. They're going to know you're bored with it

and it's not going to resonate. So for me, it's about how do I connect with them? And where are, I got to meet them where they're at. And so you can't do that unless you've done the prep work, separations and prep work, which is talking to the people behind the scenes, talking to the people that have brought you in, finding out stories and different things, being present the day before, whatever keynotes they have before you, making sure you're listening to those. All that stuff really matters. And then when you get on stage, then you can really connect with them versus talk at them. That's a huge thing.

Yeah, I love it. I've, I've been, um, I mean, I've been speaking for a long time as well. And I know when I really understand the audience, it is a different experience. And when I use you versus I, you know, huge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I always talk about the word we and how powerful that is. Bless you. Excuse me. Bless. Or bless we. I guess bless we.

Bless we. But right, like that's the thing too. Because it's like as soon as you put yourself in their shoes, right, it changes how you're going to be. Absolutely. You know? Absolutely. Well, Josh, man, I could ask you a million other questions, but I have one question I want to ask you. And I think this is based on a LinkedIn post I saw that you wrote recently, and you were talking about the difference between human doing and human being. And I thought that was a really cool concept that we haven't talked about on the podcast. And so I'd love for you to talk about what do you think is the difference in

human doing versus human being? And how do you think that relates to us? Right? Yeah. So for me, it's like, so every morning, one of my little habits that I have is I have a wonderful little Labrador. He's great. Apollo. He's an awesome dog. And I'm always the first one up in our household. I feed him and I take him on a walk. When I take him on a walk, on the way, we get to a certain point and we turn around and come back.

I happen to live on, strangely, like a little island. I'm in Florida and we live in a waterway. It's a canal, but there's a little island in the canal. So we live on it, but it's not like you have to take a boat to it. It's like a little bridge. It's like, you know, whatever, like two car lengths long, the bridge. But when I'm coming back over that bridge is when I set my intention for the day and I decided who I'm going to be in the day. Cool. I might decide I'm going to be calm and ease today, right? Well, guess what?

When I'm at calm and I'm at ease, it's going to create a picture in my mind of who I'm, how I'm going to go through my day. And it's not going to create a picture of what I'm going to do, but it's going to create a picture of how I'm going to do it. And that's the big difference because it's not about what you do a lot of times, it's about how you do it. And so that's, I think the biggest difference between beings and doings. When you're a being, there's an energy to you. There's a way of going about things. I'm going to be energized. I'm going to be a leader. I'm going to be energized. I'm going to be a leader. I'm going to be a love. I'm going to be challenged, whatever it might be. When you decide that

the actions are going to line up with that being, and then you're going to get your results. So it's, it's kind of being doing, and then, you know, getting or having, right? Because those are the results. So that being is always the first part, like how are you going to be? And that's a huge factor in terms of the difference between human beings and human doings. If all we were was the doing, we'd be chat GBT, right? Because it's just doing, doing, doing.

We're robots. And that's not who we are as humans. And so that's the difference for me. It's not about the tasks. Yes, accomplishments matter, but it's about more about how you go about doing those tasks that really matters. My guess is that most people would set an intention in the morning and it would be like, hey, I want to get these things done or I got to make sure I get my to-do list or I got to be prepared for that big meeting instead of like, who do I want to be today? How do I want to show up? How do I want to lead? What kind of performer do I want to be? Or,

you know, leader do I want to be? So love that. How do I want to show up is a great way to put it. It's funny because we do this every, every time we I'm live or anytime I'm virtual with an audience. The first thing we do is set. How do you want to be during this next 45 minutes to an hour, two hours, three hours, whatever we're together. And it's really interesting because if I just said, how do you want to be? And I left it like that, that's exactly what would happen. I want to learn five things, right? Well, that's a doing. So how do you have to be in order to learn five things? Oh, I have to be open and attentive. I have to be open and engaged. Great. Now you got it, right? Those five things will take care of themselves.

I love it. What a great idea to set that intention as people are listening. I can imagine you just walking over the bridge with your dog, right? And so I'm thinking about, okay, how can the listeners put that into their daily morning practice? What do they do every day? Maybe it's going for a walk or run or exercising. Maybe it's drinking a cup of coffee and pairing that with something that you already do. I'll give you one. We talked about earlier about the addition by subtraction kind of deal. Here's something that will stop you from setting an attention

is if you have your phone on the nightstand. Oh, so true is if you have your phone on the nightstand oh so true on the nightstand as your alarm clock the first thing you're going to do is look at your phone and then the day's already started and you've already gone i do not i said this this i started doing that this year oh that's six months ago um the the i charge my phone outside of my room i use the alarm clock to wake up or my watch, right? One of the two. And it's been a game changer. You know what happens at night now instead of me scrolling on my phone is I'll read. Whoa, what a concept, right?

Reading an actual book, like it's pretty cool, right? I'm getting better before I fall asleep. And I'm also firing up the charge, charging up the, you know, the neurotransmitters in terms of creativity. Right. Because as you're reading, you're creating pictures in your mind of what's what you're reading and you're learning. And those are the same centers that are active during sleep. Right. So it's like it's starting to kind of it's kind of almost like like you're jump-starting your sleep cycles right and go figure i've been sleeping better because of it yeah that's awesome that's a huge factor too cinderella is just hey you know like getting that out of there now here's the other thing yes deciding when and where are you talking about james clear and and uh you know the the habits book right atomic habits he always talks about setting a when and a where because that will help you be successful in terms of your goals. But think about it. If you just want to set an intention, decide a when and a where to do it. I'm going to set my intention

when I get into the car for my morning drive before I even start off, like boom, or before I take that first sip of coffee whatever it might be whatever is in your morning routine that can be really easy for you to as soon as the water hits me in my face or you know as soon as i step into the shower i'm gonna set that intention right but if you have a way to wear then you'll be more active in terms of doing it here's the other thing though too real quick on this yeah of course you forget to do it like say you forget like i didn't set my intention walking across the bridge this morning right there's two other dogs there my my dog was like all excited he's like let me go play with another dog so this morning i actually

didn't i forgot to do it well guess what i can set an intention right now yeah right it's just a moment that you remember to do it just do it right That's the whole key. Awesome. Well, there's a reason I had you on today for episode 600. Josh, thank you so much for sharing with us all of you, you know, all your wisdom. I know we could spend like five more hours here just chatting about performance psychology, but how can people find out, follow along with you, learn more about your keynote speaking? Just, you know, give, give us the details there. Yeah, Limitless Minds, if you want to get us for a keynote or anything like that, go to Limitless Minds or just,

you can get us on a LinkedIn. You can get us on our website, limitlessminds.com. You can absolutely go there. Then there's like a little form you fill out and then we'll get back in touch with you kind of deal. In terms of my personal stuff, if you want to follow me, LinkedIn, Joshua Liffrack at LinkedIn. And then the Instagram is Joshua Liffrack, really, really simple and straightforward. So I kind of got off of X.

I'm like, I'm not really on there anymore. I think stuff gets posted on there, but I'm not really on there that much. But LinkedIn and Instagram are definitely the two best ways to connect with me individually. And then if you're really interested in having Limitless Minds, we have, you know, 20 coaches now that are what we call room tilters. They're not coaches. They're people that walk into a room and the room tilts. It changes because they're in the room, right? That's, that's a powerful way of being. And so there's 20 of us Olympic gold medalists, uh, world-class performers, um, people who have coached at a world cup, people who played for the U S women's national team, whatever the, every, every, uh, every we're all there. And, uh, there's a, there's, there's, you know, some amazing knowledge that you can get in terms of just helping yourself and your team train a mindset.

Mindset's a competitive advantage. It really is. If you really train your mindset, you can dive into it. You will up-level your game, period. And if you really are serious about performance and you're not training your mindset, you're probably not that serious about performance. So that's, that's when you do the work, the work works on you. So, wow.

Cool. I completely agree. All right. Here's my way of summarizing today. Here's my top takeaways. I loved at the top where you talked about how, you know, how the best just are so committed to the mental side and they work their butts off on the mental side. We are talking about courage, urgency and belief. That's CUB. We talked about

the four different ways to train, right? Technical, tactical, physical, mental. The process is fearless. Joe Madden quote I loved. And then also loved what you talked about related to neutral thinking, getting away from judging and grading and more of this fact-based thinking. And we talked about recognizing your story, E plus S equals R, and continuing just to notice that story. We talked about the illusion of choice and human beings versus human doings. Look at all we did in like 40 minutes. Very impressive. I was just going to say, this is why you have a PhD and I don't because you got all that and you nailed it. And I was like, oh yeah, that's good. You're awesome, Josh. Thanks so much for being on. I so appreciate you. I appreciate you too, Cedric. Congratulations on your 600

amazing episodes and your continued success and everything you do. The last thing I was going to say too, is we talked about this before we even got on the pod, great performers are consistent. And that is very, very true of yourself. So keep on keeping on and keep growing and keep being awesome. Thank you, Josh. I appreciate 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.