High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 649: Performing at Your Best at the Olympic Games, Paul Juda, U.S. Olympic Gymnast

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

Paul Juda started gymnastics at the age of five after friends of his parents suggested it to help him burn off his extra energy. He was fortunate to live near the Buffalo Grove Gymnastics Center, where he trained with renowned coaches Leo Krivitsky and Yevhen Vovkiv. These coaches played a key role in both his gymnastics and personal development.  After high school, Paul received a full scholarship to the University of Michigan, where he has been studying since the fall of 2019. He completed a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, earned a Certification in Sales and Marketing from the Ross Business School, finished a graduate program in Real Estate Development, and is now working on a Master’s in Accounting, also from the Ross Business School. Paul’s career goals focus on entrepreneurship.  Paul is currently the captain of the Michigan Men’s Gymnastics Team. He is a three-time NCAA Champion, a World Championship Medalist, and the winner of the prestigious Nissen Emery Award, which is the top honor in collegiate men’s gymnastics and equivalent to the Heisman Trophy. 2024 Olympic Bronze Medalist In this episode, Cindra and Paul discuss:  Why he didn’t make the Olympic Team for Tokyo How he performed his best when it mattered most to him at the Paris Olympics How the team mentally prepared at the Paris Olympics  The mental skills he uses to perform on demand What he has learned from working with sport psychologists   HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE FOLLOW PAUL JUDA ON INSTAGRAM  REQUEST A FREE MENTAL BREAKTHROUGH CALL WITH DR. CINDRA AND/OR HER 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.  

Hi, this is Sindhra and I'm the founder of the Mentally Strong Institute where we help leaders, entrepreneurs, and athletes play big and achieve their most audacious goals. If you want to achieve your goal 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. We will help you create a breakthrough, a moment of more clarity and understanding to help you practice the high performance mindset. Again, that's free and it's at freementalbreakthroughcall.com to sign up for your free mental breakthrough call. Now today, I'm so excited to introduce you to Paul Judah. This is an incredible interview about how to perform at your best when it matters most

to you. Paul Judah earned the bronze medal at the Paris Olympics for the United States Olympic gymnastics team. And the details of this interview, the way he describes the details of how he implemented mental training is absolutely outstanding. I know you'll be able to apply this to your sport, to your life, and to your business to help you continue to practice the high performance mindset. There's so many incredible tweetable moments, so many incredible insights in this interview, and I can't wait to

hear what you think. Let me tell you a little bit about Paul. He started gymnastics at the age of five after his friends of his parents suggested it would help him burn off his extra energy. He was fortunate to live near Buffalo Grove Gymnastics Center, where he trained with two legendary coaches. And these coaches still play a role in his gymnastics and his personal development. After high school, he received a full scholarship to the University of Michigan, where he's been studying since the fall of 2019. He's earned a bachelor's in psychology, which you'll be able to tell from this interview, and finished a graduate program in real estate development and is now working on his master's in accounting. He's

currently the captain of the Michigan men's gymnastics team. He's a three-time NCAA champion, a world champion medalist, and a 2024 Olympic bronze medalist. He's also the winner of the prestigious top award in men's gymnastics, which is equivalent to the Heisman Trophy. And in this interview, Paul and I discuss how he performed his best when it mattered most to him at the Paris Olympics, Why he didn't make the Olympic team in Tokyo and his mindset that prevented him from making that team. He talks in detail about the mental skills that he used to perform on demand. And one of my favorite parts of this interview is his description of how the team mentally performed and prepared at the Paris Olympics. And it was just incredible. He's never explained

this day and how they mentally prepared and they used visualization to be at their best the next day. So I know you're going to love that. And he also talks about what he learned from working with different sports psychologists. If you'd like to see the full show notes and description of this interview, I'm going to encourage you to head over to cindracampoff.com slash 649 for episode 649. And I'd love for you to share this interview. This could help so many people continue to learn about mental performance and what it is. And just so much wisdom that Paul provides in this interview that I know you're going to be able to gain a lot from this interview, but also the people that you share this with will gain a lot in terms of their own

mental preparation. So please share this interview, share this link just to help spread Paul's impact more widely. And lastly, if you haven't already reviewed this show, I'd love for you to do that today. This would just help us reach in more and more people each and every week. And you can do that by just scrolling down on your iPhone and hit rating and review. All right. Without further ado, let's bring on the Paul Judah. We got 2024 Olympian Paul Judah in the house. Paul, thank you so much for joining us here in the High Performance Mindset. I'm pumped to have you today. Thank you so much. Yeah, pumped to be here. Thank you so much for joining us here in the High Performance Mindset. I'm pumped to have you today. Thank you so much. Yeah, pumped to be here. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

And I can't wait to just show people what it's like to be in my life. I can't wait to hear about it. And you know what I'm most excited about is obviously you perform in really high stakes environments where, you know, at the Olympics or at the NCAA championships where it really matters most. And I can't wait just to have the listeners hear more about your mental preparation and how you deal with those moments where you could let anxiety really get the best of you. So let's get started.

And, you know, the people who listen to our podcast, Paul, are high achievers. They really want to be their best and they're going after really big goals. And so the first question I want to ask you is, you know, what advice would you give to them, those people who are listening, who want to be their best even more often? Yeah, yeah. So lots to unpack even in that first question. And I think the first thing that I think about when you mention my successes at the Olympics, at the NCAA championships, those are all great and those are kind of the good times. But I think it's really easy to forget that just a few years ago, there were some bad times. And there were a lot of times when I was thinking that I was achieving my most and that I was

a high achiever in every aspect of my life, but I really wasn't having the results to prove it. And two things come to mind there. The first is you really have to do a deep dive internally and figure out whether you are who you say you are and whether you're giving it all that you have for real. For me, that really came down to figuring out whether or not I was telling myself the right story when it came to the work that I was doing. And a lot of the time, what I found out earlier in my career, especially at Michigan, was I was cutting corners without even realizing it. It was, you know, I was eating clean, but I was having a dessert or a big, big extra kind of cheat meal a couple times a week,

and I wasn't really factoring that in. Or I was letting my weekends get the best of me. Or I would say that I cared a lot about my mental and physical preparation. But then when I look back on it, I go, but you really were missing this workout and that workout. So for me, it was making sure that I set up myself for success instead of for failure. So that's the first thing. And then the second thing that comes to mind too, is that all the time, it's easy to get wrapped up in those accomplishments to determine whether or not you're actually doing great. And for me, sometimes the results don't come, but that should not change the work that's being done. We focus a lot in gymnastics about controlling our controllables. That's one of our team mottos. And for us, when we go to a competition as a team, we realize, hey, we don't get to control

what the judge puts out for our score or whether or not we're going to be leading or trailing behind going into the sixth rotation. That's out of our control. What we can control is what we do the week before, what we do the day of, what we do the turn before. We have that power to control those things. So for me, it's independent of those results. It's the work that has to be done. So to achieve and to continue to achieve, I think you have to make sure you're telling yourself your

right story and doing all the right things despite the results being there or not. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I and Paul, just two really important peak performance principles that you said, like controlling what you can control, which is so important because it's really easy to get frustrated on things you can't control, like the judges or your competition, but also how you can easily define your success based on the outcome, which the outcome isn't actually something you can control. Whereas like you can control, you know, the process, the small steps you put forward. You know, we'll get into kind of what changed for you, but I'm wondering, you know, in Tokyo, when you were trying to make the team in Tokyo, you didn't make the team.

And I wondered, just like in life, in gymnastics, you have to move on from disappointments and setbacks. And I'm wondering, how did you bounce back? And how do you think that experience made you who you are today and perhaps even contributed to your success at the last Olympics? We must be a little telepathically connected because I was going to bring up 2021. So in 2021, we had just come off of COVID and we were getting back into the swing of things. And I remember feeling really, really good in the gym to the point where I had really big aspirations. I looked at the calendar. I saw that Tokyo was on the horizon. It was about six months away. Excuse me. And I really felt that I was a big time contender

for the team. I felt my training was going right, my relationships and everything else inside of my life was kind of falling in line. I remember COVID actually being one of the best things that could have happened for me in terms of my academic performance as well, because where a lot of people were slacking behind and not able to focus with their computers on for the kind of Zoom university, For me, it was getting to class and being fully committed that was the hardest part because of how exhausting training was. So to do class from the comfort of my own home, that was easy for me. And I remember being able to finally go into office hours and connecting with my professors and thinking, I wish Zoom

university was forever. But of course, we lack the physical connection, but that's neither here nor there. So to set the landscape, I was feeling extremely confident going into 2021. And I was really looking at the Olympics as not even as a challenge, but kind of just like an obvious, like, yeah, that's going to happen for sure. If I just do the right stuff, my dreams will come true. It's so funny looking at what I know now, just I reminisce and I think about how wrong I could have been. I couldn't have had it more off the mark. And another fun part, just maybe a little additive about social media. I remember through 2021, I really wanted to show people how good I was doing.

And I wanted to kind of brag about my work. And I found myself posting a lot about my performance in week-to-week competitions, my training, constant updates. And it wasn't even so much that I was gaining a big following, but I wanted to show off how good I was doing. And then it hit me. Every big competition, I crumbled under the pressure. I had the Winter Cup Championships in 2021. I fell three or four times. And I remember actually I had an error on the first event of that competition and it kind of spiraled out. I barely made the national team. At the Big Ten Championships, I was not ready for

the moment. I had a poor performance and I almost cost us the team title. In 2022, or excuse me, in 2021 NCAA Championships, it was so bad at one point I crotched the high bar on live television, and I just couldn't handle the pressure. And then, of course, at the 2021 Olympic trials, again, I had another subpar performance, and I was left off of the Olympic team as well as a funded tier for the national team. And I kind of had to take monumental step back and reassess everything that was going on in my life. And I kind of had to come to grips with, okay, well, you just didn't accomplish a goal that you've been going for for about 15 years. So what do you do now? And for me, it was a really good moment to ask myself what gymnastics meant to me and I asked myself whether or not making the Olympic team made or broke Paul Judah's name

and Paul Judah's identity and I was really happy to say that it didn't because I looked at my life and I looked at all the things that I had around me and I thought, okay, I'm still a pretty good person. I've got great relationships. I love my major in psychology. I love my family. And I really liked my teammates at the time. I still do, obviously. And I thought, okay, well, Olympics, schmool Olympics, whatever, I'll figure it out. And so that year I came back with a completely different mindset. I worked hard with our sports psychologist here at Michigan, Kevin Monnier, and we broke it down to focusing only on the process. And I remember that we tried to assess and look at every event that occurred in that year as just good.

If I fell 15 times, good. If I had the meat of my life, good. There was no fluctuation because I think when I was a younger gymnast, that's what I struggled with most. And that process-focused drive that I had for the next year ultimately is what I keep coming back to. After every entry, after every setback, I come back to the process. And for me, a lot of people talk about

loving to win. And I'll be honest, I don't know if I love to win. I hate to lose, I can tell you that much, but I love to train. And there's almost nothing sweeter to me than an incredible session in the gym with my best friends where we're pushing hard and becoming better every single day. So for me, it's always been process driven and especially coming back from 2021. So insightful. And I know everyone just learned a lot from what you just described. And first of all, I just appreciate your vulnerability of like, yeah, I didn't make the team. And, you know, maybe it was because I was a little arrogant or I was over thinking about the outcome or the results. Right. And I appreciate what you said about just evaluating everything is good,

you know, because so many times we can get in this downward spiral and beat ourselves up or something. And that doesn't help our confidence or our belief in ourselves. What shifted for you and how do you feel like, what did you learn from the 2021 not making the team? And then, you know, tell us a bit more about what you learned about performing under pressure and what did you do differently to make this team? Yeah, yeah. That's a great additive because they were so similar yet so different, right? The 2021 trials and the 2024 trials. The first thing that I learned, though, and it's so funny because my sports psych here at Michigan kept telling me,

you know, Paul, the moment's only going to get bigger. You know, the stage only gets brighter and higher. And I remember him telling me that early on and thinking, yeah, right. Like each stage feels the same way. They don't. I promise you, they don't. The routine that you do right before making the Olympic team or the routine that you do in the gym when no one's watching. Yeah, I want to sit here and tell you that they feel the same. They don't. As much as I want to turn off my biophysical senses, I'd love to, but I can't. I'm not that superhuman. I don't think anybody is. But what did I learn? I think firstly, like I said, that the stage only gets bigger and the spotlight only gets brighter, which means you have to work just as hard. If I were to equate it to like weight training, the weight only gets heavier, you know, and the squats only become harder, right, when you're squatting. And so for me, you had to bolster up and become

mentally strong for those months because the pressure would crack you if you're not ready. You might be ready for your standard dual meet and a dual meet being one college versus another. Absolutely. You can be against Joe Schmo from another university or another team and go up and hit the meat of your life. Yeah, there's no pressure on your back. But when you've got 10 million people watching the Olympics and you're going for the first team medal in 16 years, I promise you there's going to be a different level of pressure. And you're wearing the United States flag. There's a little bit different. But that only when I started to realize that, I think that's what got me excited because I've been true to this world over this phrase over the last summer, especially getting ready for the Olympics. And it was pressure is a privilege.

You know, I can't think of how many people would die to have the spot that I did at the Olympics, to raise your hand to solidify a medal or to continue to solidify a medal, each routine that I did. That is an honorable spot. And the more that I look back on it, I'm blessed that I was given that opportunity and that I worked for that opportunity. And when you're able to kind of phrase it like that, it kind of takes a little bit of the weight away because as humans, as just our species and as a society that always chases success and excellence in business or in life and whatnot, it's so funny because we ask for these things like a lot more money from our job or a better relationship or a stronger family or really good friends and whatnot. And if I think about the business, it's like, well, if you're going to

be making more money, you're going to have more responsibilities. If you want a stronger family, you're going to have to spend time with those people and you're going to have to put in the work just like friendships. And with gymnastics, it's like, I have this Olympic flag on my wall and I've been wanting and so hard to be in that spot. And then you get to the spot and it's like, all right, well, here's your moment. And you think, did I want all this pressure? And so get what we wanted, but it comes with a cost and nothing's free in this world and nothing's given. So we get upset about those kind of the other side of what we want and what we get. So

when you're in those moments, when you can phrase it that way and say, hey, this is what I wanted all along. I'm hanging out with friends, even though I should be maybe dedicating time to reading a book or staying inside. Well, hey, I asked for a stronger group of friends. Okay, I have so many more tasks at work that I have to get done. You get to do it because you're about to be paid more and that comes with more responsibility. So don't look at it as kind of a chore. Look at it as a privilege to do that. So going for that team again, what did I learn? In the 2021 trials, I was so focused on defining that meet as a success of whether or not I made it. It was so binary.

It was black or white. I either made the team or I didn't. And to again, compare it to other things, you either got the promotion or you didn't, or you made this amount of money this year or you didn't. But I was so, so, so uncommitted to that black and white view in 2024 that I remember sitting down and kind of being in a limbo stage after my last routine and just having complete bliss. No thoughts on my brain at all. I said, if I make this team, because you've got like a 20 minute waiting period after your last routine. If I made the team, life's awesome. If I didn't make the team, I'm totally satisfied because I just put in the performance of my life and I'm proud of what I did. And I left the competition as a winner regardless. And the competition was successful. But I'll tell you what, Sindra, I almost undoubtedly have found that when you commit yourself to those non-binary goals, the binary outcomes usually come with it, almost always. I'm not kidding. There's no guarantees, but I was so confident that I did everything I could have.

And when you're so confident about that, I feel like the universe usually has a way of working itself out, even if you didn't expect it to. Yeah, so awesome. And, you know, I think about times in my own life where maybe it's an opportunity I really wanted. And if I defined my success as like, if I got it or not, which is out of my control, you know, I was disappointed. But when I defined it as and worked towards it is like, hey, I'm just going to give my best today. And then I'm just going to trust that the outcome takes care of itself. You know, when you're talking about binary, I'm thinking really like how it's easy to define our success by the outcome. Whereas there you are just working to put up your best performance.

And that moment of bliss of just like sitting back and just enjoying it and saying like, I did everything that I think it was about 12, 13,000 people at the Olympic trials. And I remember thinking, oh man, this is a really big crowd. And I was so unsure of how to act with the crowd. At that point, of course, I hadn't made myself, I hadn't made a name for myself yet. And I really was still kind of looking on the outside, looking in for that Olympic team. But I didn't enjoy that energy. And I wasn't able to pull anything from the crowd. Whereas in 2024, I came in with the sole mission of, if I hit a routine, oh, everyone's going to know in the

arena that I hit a routine. And I remember after every performance that I had, I would look at the crowd. I found my people that were there, my super close support groups. They were cheering up and down. It just felt so much more fun and energetic to be in that moment and know that, hey, this is like you said, I was so grateful to have a performance like that. Again, I think about how many people in the audience was so grateful to have a performance like that. Again, I think about how many people in the audience would have killed to have all the eyes on them. And so for me, I just knew, hey, I'm not going to worry about the scores. I'm not going to worry about the placings. I don't know if I'll ever go to another Olympic trials. This one I'm going to

have a lot of fun with because I saw sure as hell how not fun it is to do a 2021 trials where I was like a shell of myself. I remember I opened up on the last possible event at 2021 and I had a celebration moment and I went, I remember finishing the routine, coming back down and sitting down and being like, if only the entire competition was like that, this could have been a whole lot different. And so for this one, I made sure that every routine that I did was as fun as it possibly could have. And like we just said, the rest took care of itself. I went with no major errors. And that was my only goal.

Have no major errors. I didn't worry about the outcomes. again, the placings, no matter. Just didn really stressful. It was like I have to make the team. Whereas, you know, in 2024, it was more like I get to, I'm going to have fun. I'm going to enjoy it. My goal is no major errors, which is more of a process goal, like something that you can control. Right. And it's interesting because if you look at peak performance principles and what allows people to do well, it's more like having fun and enjoying the moment. I'm going to ask you a question for all the sports psych people who are listening, because it's really cool that you work so closely with the sports psychologist there at Michigan. Just to better understand yourself, what are some other things you learned from him? Yeah. Yeah. I would say

the number one thing that I learned was visualization practices. And I think that everybody does it a little bit different. And for me, what I found, and I kind of, once I had kind of the basics down, I'd kind of like to put my own little spin on things. It's kind of like reading a recipe from a cookbook and then being like, you know what, I'm going to add some cinnamon. Why not? Something like that. was every night before bed, I would take about five to 10 minutes and I would shut off all my technology and I would stand up in my living room, as silly as this looked, in full regular citizen looking clothes, and I would just do my routines with my eyes closed. I would imagine

exactly what it would feel like. I would amp myself up just like I would be at a competition and say to myself, all right, this is to make the Olympic team. What's it going to feel like. I would amp myself up just like I would be at a competition and say to myself, all right, this is to make the Olympic team. What's it going to feel like? Are you going to be there again? What's it going to be like when you have to raise your hand in the biggest spotlight of your life? Are you going to be ready for it? And what's funny is I did that for, I don't know, a year, two years. I've done it every time I have a big competition. I feel like I start that planning process multiple months out. And it's so funny because I really believe that that gives me a thousand extra reps over other people. And gymnastics is one of those

sports where you can't put in the 10,000 reps always. Your body will shut down before you know it. And you're going to be on the curve of diminishing return at some point where the mental reps are infinite. like that affinity, the word infinite or unlimited tries for me where I thought I can do this for forever and I'll find myself just daydreaming and closing my eyes and literally picturing what's it going to feel like? What do I see around myself? What do I hear right now? What do I feel? Where's my heart beating um what do my hands feel like what's the chalk feel like um what's the energy in the building feel like and all of those things kind of bring me together and center myself in my living room and then so when i go to the competition right before i go for my routine i bring myself back to that living room i go i've already been here thousands of times.

I know exactly what this is going to feel like. And when you raise your hand, it's just about as close as possible. Of course, again, I'd love to say that I can turn off my heartbeat and it's not beating out of my chest and that my hands aren't sweaty and that my fingers aren't frozen, but you get just about as close as possible to that after all those reps in the living room. So I would say that's the biggest takeaway for me, but I've got one more, but I want to hear what you've got to say. Well, kinesthetic imagery where you stand and you actually do your routine while you're imagining it. What I want to lock in everyone who's listening and say the reason that worked is because you felt it in your body you felt the same emotions and then you actually did the routine right you were just like laying

in your bed imagining it it was like more real and we know that the more real an image is the more likely it's gonna like be an actual rep so for very cool um did you and actually every night i would do that every night and you know what um what? I'm going to spoil your audience a little bit here and let you guys in on a little secret. 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 free mental breakthrough call.com to sign up for your free mental breakthrough call with one of our certified coaches. Again, that's free mental breakthrough call.com to sign up for your free call. Talk to you soon.

So the Olympic success story started a couple days before the Olympic first day of qualifications. Our team was close and we were a good group of dudes, but we weren't locked in 100%. I had been on the world championship team and it took us all about 12 hours to become fully bought in for one another. Whereas this team just felt good, but it didn't feel like brotherhood yet. And I have a theory about why that is. And I think that's because making the Olympic team is such an emotional accomplishment. Yeah. Where we saw some of our best friends who we'd known for decades, careers end right at the Olympic trials. And then, you know, you're kind of going,

and now I got to train with this guy for the Olympic medal? I wish it was my best friend. He put in everything too. Why can't he be here? And so for me, I had one of those experiences. My best friend, his career ended and I would have killed to have him on the team. His name is Cameron Bach, amazing athlete, mentor of mine, my brother, truly. And I would have died to have him there, but his career ended in front of me. And now I got to compete with guys who kind of took it away from him, his spot. And so it's a very emotional competition, especially just making the team. And so we had

this great idea. It was one of my teammates. It was Fred Richard from the University of Michigan. He had this grand idea. He said, we should lock ourselves in this room. We should close our eyes, put on some somber music, turn the lights off, and everybody, one at a time, should visualize out loud their routine for the Olympics. And it went one by one, skill by skill, to the point where we were breaking it down so granular that we were going, all right, just watched teammate X finish his routine, I'm walking up to the podium, I dap him up, I chalk my hands. The green

light from the judge turns on. I have the ready to go signal. I raise my hand, take a deep breath, and I start my routine. And we went skill by skill, routine by routine, one after the other. And, Cyndra, when I say that we left that room, I knew that we had it. I knew that we did. We were 100% locked in. Talk about process driven. We didn't mention one thing about the medal. We didn't mention one thing about the podium, the placements, the finals, nothing. We just knew that we had these 18 routines and that was all that we were focused on.

And it was unbelievable because I was like when I look back and reminisce about the Olympics, we pretty much had a foreshadowing in that room of what we were going to watch in the competition. It's hard for me to even remember what was happening outside of the competition because I was just recalling what people were saying and I was watching it the next day. And they'd be talking about their routine so well that suddenly, instead of taking a third person view and listening to them and watching them do the routine, you're suddenly doing the routine that they're saying. And you go, no, that's not my routine. I shouldn't be worrying about, you know, how Steven Adorosik, our horse specialist, is going on. I know. That's his routine. So we fully bought into that dream. And right after we left, and again, I want to say it's so easy sometimes to talk about culture on any team and say, we're going to talk about this. We're going to implement these things. We're going to, going to, going to, going to do this, going to do that. And then it's a whole nother thing to

actually be about it. Jim Harbaugh has that quote where he said, we're not just going to talk about it, we're going to be about it. And for us, when I look back on like a team building exercise and something that really took two hours of work and work truly, that was that for us. And I even think about how Steven and Arasic talk about just like a monumental moment. I'm thinking now, he sat silent in that meeting for two hours, you know, until he went up and spoke last about his routine. So, you know, we talk about the ability for him to be locked in and ready for the competition. He just had to sit in a room with us for two hours and be quiet until it was his turn to go for his one event and he sealed the deal. So it's just beautiful. I

think a lot of people don't give mental imagery and mental visualization the credit that it deserves. All the greats do it in some form, one another. And I always preach to my freshmen. It's usually the freshmen who haven't been exposed to this yet. I go, I don't care if you don't believe in it. It ain't going to hurt you. And I promise you, you're going to enjoy it. And especially keeping that burning passion alive. or visualize a successful presentation or a successful Olympic competition. You're putting yourself in that place and your body's getting excited genuinely about being in that moment. And for me, that kept my passion alive. Every time that I thought about the Olympic trials or the NCAA championships or successful Olympic games, that kept me,

if I was ever wavering, because as humans we do, I'd love to say I'm locked in every day. If I'm ever wavering, I would snap back into it and say, that's where I'm chasing. That feeling, that excitement, that energy, I want to chase that. So yeah, I just love that mental visualization. Well, I got goosebumps as I was like imagining all of you in that room doing it together. And I just think about how sports psychology has come so far that, you know, all of the team is saying, of course, let's go visualize together. And you did it for two hours. And then, you know, as I was watching the competition, I just noticed how all of you just seemed really calm and cool under pressure. And talk about Steven, where I don't know if you know this, but the TV kept on showing him like doing imagery and meditation.

Right. And then, boom, on demand, he could perform on demand. Right. So like just the mental strength that that takes, but also the mental reps and just how amazing that you did that together as a team building exercise. You had already made it happen before you did it. And then it was just more about just going through the process of it. We had a we had a fun little anecdote that we came up with right before we started the competition and called it Just Another Mission. That was kind of our J-A-M, jam. And that was our little cue before a routine for the team final. Just another routine. You know, we had already done it.

We've been doing these routines hundreds of times. It's just another mission. Just go up there and do your job. And like you said, almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. It just happened. You know, we have this quote written on our wall here at the University of Michigan that says, nothing is accidental about winning or success. It's all planned.

And I just love that because for us, it really was like that was all we had to do. And we had it from literally the first routine. Luckily, I had the privilege of starting us off to the last. And it felt wonderful. Felt wonderful. What's the second thing that you learned from your sports? Sure, sure. There at Michigan.

If you don't mind, I want to definitely touch on that one point that you had just mentioned. I have this note on my laptop, point that you had just mentioned. I have this note on my laptop, which I think is just super awesome. And maybe I'll share it at some point in the future, maybe before the LA Olympics or something. It was notes that I had taken about a month before the process for making the 2024 Olympic team started. And we were in a meeting at the National Team Center in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Center. And we had one of the most veteran gymnasts that every young American athlete has looked up to at some point. His name is Sam McCulloch, a phenomenal University of Michigan Hall of Famer, just Heisman winner, six or seven time

national champion, multiple time U.S. champion, three time Olympian, world medalist. Just he's got the creds. And he just shared just bombshell after bombshell of information. And I remember this one being particularly important to what you just said. It was his first Olympics and he was just a sophomore in college and he's thinking the exact same thing you are. Oh my God, I'm at the Olympics.

I got to do the best gymnastics of my life here right now. It's the Olympic Games. And he's about to go to Pommel Horse, which for the women gymnast viewers, that's more like the beam, the most shaky and nerve wracking event there is. And then he looks over his shoulder and he sees an athlete from a much smaller country, just about like face plant on vault. And he goes, he had this realization. He goes, oh my God, it's just gymnastics. You know, I don't have to do my best of my best.

I got here because my gymnastics got here. I didn't get here because I had all out performances. And I'm not about to have an all out performance here. If I do my average, that's enough. And so when I heard that, and I really tried to make sure that I didn't fall in that trap, because there's definitely been moments where, you know, you hear the stories of Kobe, Michael Jordan, different phenomenal athletes, Tiger Woods, whatnot, they can suddenly turn it on, you know, and they're able to just, they're able to turn on this next level. They go from a 10 to an 11. And you think, oh my God, well, I want to be able to do that. I should do that. This is the kind's going to pull me through. So that was kind of a really big takeaway

that I had from the Olympics where if I look back and I think, yeah, absolutely, I had some below average performances and then I had some above average performances. But if I aggregate all of the performances I had from my first U.S. championship routine to my last routine at the Olympic Games, on average, I had a good day. It wasn't phenomenal. It wasn't too bad. It was just in the middle. And that's what allowed, and if I say that about everyone, I think everybody had that kind of day, that kind of performance. So everybody was able to kind of be along that line, which is just awesome. And then, okay, so what's the second thing I learned? I really learned about the self one and self two philosophy of just letting your number two go ahead and work. Don't attach anything to it. Dotson method as well, where we need to be just anxious enough for ourselves to be in the moment because we can't be too lax, but we also can't attach too much anxiety into any one given

situation. So for me, it was always finding that still excitement that I need for any competition, but also knowing that, hey, I can just let my self-two go ahead and take care of the work for me. Self-one is trying to attach as much meaning and good and bad adjectives to the performance. But at the end of the day, when I'm in flow state and I'm having fun and things are going well, that's all self-two, just letting it go. So yeah, those are the two things I think I go most with. Yeah. Okay. And if people want to learn more about that, they would go to Tim Galloway's book called The Inner Game of Tennis. Yep. That's right. And then there's a whole bunch of other like inner game books, but like that was his first. And I can hear your like

undergrad degree in psychology come out right now, which I'm going to like nerd out for a second. But how would you define self one and self two the way that you've come to understand it and use it as a gymnast? Yeah, absolutely. It's super easy. Self one is 2021 and self two is the year 24. That's the easiest, easiest way. No, that's the cop out answer. But I would say, but truly it really is though. When I think of like interviews that I've had post competitions in 2021 and years prior, it's all self-won. I'm talking about good and bad performances. I'm talking about where I misstepped and what I could have done better. And when I look at 2024 and 2023, all that I was saying in those interviews was, yeah, I mean, I'm going to go out

there. I'm going to rely on my training and hope for a great day. And the rest is out of my control. So I'm just going to focus on those three things. And that's truly, that's where I kind of was able to thrive and succeed. So self one is that voice in the back of our mind that talks about, that wasn't too good, or that wasn't too great. You could have done better. Or even, I think a lot of people want to attach that negative connotation to it. It's also the one that says, hey, that was the best thing you've ever done in your entire life. Whereas I would say self too is definitely that voice in the back of your mind that's going, good. Fell six times in a competition. Good. You had the best back of your mind that's going, good, you know, fell six times in a competition. Good. You had the best meet of your life. Good. You know, it's like that. That would, for me,

be the self one and self two. He has helped you just perform under pressure and understand some of these tools that you've learned to use just to be your best. Yeah. Yeah. For me, I would say I have a natural affinity towards the human condition and just enjoying, you know, mental performance and personal growth and all that. I naturally have a liking towards books like How to Win Friends and Influence People and The Inner Game of Tennis. Those are some of my just, that's the kind of stuff I eat up. I'm listening to Andrew Huberman. I'm listening to podcasts about high performing people. That already I have a natural just liking towards. But I would say in general, my major allowed me to kind of, I guess it just helped cement that what I was

talking about with the mental imagery was real. Having an even very rudimentary understanding of cognitive function and how synapses work and neural connections and strengthening neural networks. When I think of node theory and how we connect, like going one to the next to the next, just having these small little things. When I when I when I sit back and like apply my sports psychology and I go, oh, yeah, well, I mean, duh. You know, it's not all about solving abnormal psychology disorders like mental health crises. But it's also just going, hey, I want to be better at this and I'm going to use my brain to do that. So I think just like I said, having that small foundation of how and what psychology is allowed me to put proof to the pudding and being like, yeah, no, this is real. This isn't some kind of hocus pocus type of thing. There is

real science behind it, where I think somebody who might not have that background might kind of look at it as a hocus pocus thing. But luckily, I had that background. And like I said, I had that affinity towards human condition. And so that kind of stuff already interested me for sure. Love it. Well, so is there any other mental skills or, you know, when you think about psychology concepts that you've learned, is there any others that you think, Oh my God, we could spend like four hours talking about it, but what comes to mind is like, you know, a concept or a tool that you feel like has been instrumental to your success. Yeah, yeah.

The one for sure would be the problem solving momentum. That would be for me, if I could ever apply this, I know that we have an audience that might be geared more towards already high achieving. Yes. I would say though, problem solving momentum for me is where I start at base ground zero for anybody that just wants to improve 1% in their life. Even if they're not achieving a lot right now, problem solving momentum is what allows me to continue to, excuse me, pardon my language, kick ass every day. And it's really through these

tiny, just super what seems like insignificant wins that allow me to push forward and tackle these massive goals. The Olympics doesn't start from, you know, the Olympics isn't step one on my master plan. The Olympics was step 3000. Step one was waking up in the morning at a good time. And so I think when I talk to people and they say, I'm struggling with this, I'm struggling with the typical cyber zombie mentality. I'm addicted to my phone. I'm slacking. I'm not being able to do these things really quickly. I really just try and push them to find these small wins throughout the day that can stack on top of each other and have this snowball effect. I know there's loads of research done, right, about the making one's bed.

But to put some real psychology behind it, you have a intrinsic feeling that you did something. And I think in today's society, what we lose and what I know for sure that we have lost is not bragging about our successes. I think a lot of people want to talk about the work that they've done or the success that they've gotten or the work, of course, and the goals that they have and the work that they will do is also has that dopamine release, which I could talk about for sure. But when you find something that you feel inside of you that you won and you accomplished, that's like, I always call that like sticking that win into your backpack and keeping the day going because your next problem

might be a little bit bigger, absolutely, than making your bed in the morning, first thing in the morning, but you already got that one done. So this next one's going to feel a whole lot easier. And so when I think of gymnastics on the days that I feel like absolute doo-doo and I don't want to do anything, I start off with these small wins. Maybe it's doing a little extra physical therapy to get my body going. Maybe it's I put a little game inside of my head of sticking five back tucks before if I usually stick two or three. And then I've done five and then I go, OK, well, I didn't momentum for me is just so huge. For high achievers, absolutely. But for even just the average Joe that wants a little bit of a way to kickstart their day, God, yeah, I get excited thinking about problem-solving momentum because I think of how many people could benefit from having just one small little win in the beginning of their day that just

kickstarts the rest of their accomplishments. And then all of a sudden, the thing that you're tackling at 2.30 p.m. seems a whole lot easier than it did in the morning. So yeah. Awesome, Paul. Paul, you have given us so much value. And I know that you helped so many people just by being on the podcast today. I loved at the beginning, actually, when you were just being vulnerable and talking about the 2021 Olympics and how you weren't doing the small things, which is kind of what you just came back to of like celebrating the small wins. We talked about self one, self two, right?

How pressure is a privilege and just your outcome focus versus process focus and just like your own mentality trying to get to the Olympics. And obviously that helped you. And then thanks for gifting us just a little bit more information about how you all mentally prepared and did the imagery. How cool is that? I know you have a strong presence on Instagram. So I'd love for you to tell us how we can follow you and other ways that we can just support you in your journey and continue to be your biggest fan. Yeah, thank you so much for giving me the chance to share my story, to share the things

that I've learned along the way. I just hope if one person can take anything from this is that they're extraordinary too and that they extraordinary abilities live within every single one of us. They're not privy to Olympic athletes, to highly successful business people. Everybody's a human. We all have those skills and potential within us. So the success and excellence is not reserved for a small quantity of people. It's for everybody. It just has to be unlocked through constant and meticulous effort to support me and find me. And hopefully,

maybe along the way, if I ever pursue more of this route of information giving, I'll be on Paul Judah. And that's at Instagram, paul.judah on LinkedIn. I love to reserve the LinkedIn for fun posts like that. So you can find me as well at pauljuda. And then on Twitter, if I ever get into more x.com, I'm at pauljuda2. So yeah, so gymnastics content, maybe at some point, professional business content, day in the life, we'll see. So I really appreciate it. And just looking forward to meeting so many people and love helping out everybody I can. Thank you, Paul. Thanks for the gift of being on today. And what final advice or insight, wisdom do you have for people as we end? Yeah. Again, I think I give it I come back to. You don't have to share on social media about what you're going to do.

You don't have to share about the work that you want to do. Go ahead and do it. The results that you are looking for are behind the work that you're avoiding or talking about. So I think I got that from Alex Hermosi, one of those business influencers, but it hits so home. And all too often, I think it's really easy to have a platform like Instagram, especially with a lot of followers, to post all these grandiose plans and ideas. But in reality, you just got to get the work done. The success will speak for itself. It always does. So again, you can add over to Dr. Sindra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.