High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 671: Thriving Under Pressure with Alex Hodgins, Mental Performance Consultant and Speaker

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

Joining us is Alex Hodgins, a visionary mental performance consultant and inspiring speaker who’s spent his career helping athletes, teams, and leaders rise to the occasion when it matters most. Alex specializes in building high-performance systems that don’t just withstand pressure, they thrive in it. For eight years, Alex was the Head of Mental Performance for the Canadian Women’s National Soccer Team, guiding them to Olympic bronze in Rio 2016 and an unforgettable gold in Tokyo 2020. Currently, he brings his expertise to the NHL as the Head of Mental Performance for the Vancouver Canucks, and he’s also working with the Vancouver Whitecaps Academy, Canada’s Ski Cross Team, and elite performers across both sport and corporate arenas. He’s a lifelong learner, passionate about helping others tap into their potential, and he calls the beautiful Pacific Northwest home. In this episode, Alex and Cindra discuss: The key ingredients behind high-performing team cultures Practical strategies for staying composed under pressure Why talent alone isn’t enough to ensure success at elite levels How corporate leaders can leverage sports psychology principles to boost team outcomes What the highest-achieving teams consistently do differently HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE 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.  

Welcome back to the High Performance Mindset, the show where we dive deep into the mental side of greatness. I'm your host, Dr. Syndra Campoff, and today we have an incredible guest who truly lives and breathes high performance. Joining us today is Alex Hodgins, a visionary mental performance consultant and inspiring speaker who's spent his career helping athletes, teams, and leaders rise to the occasion when it matters most. Alex springs in high-performance systems that don't just withstand pressure, they thrive in it. For eight years, Alex was the head of mental performance for the Canadian Women's National Soccer Team, guiding them to an Olympic bronze in Rio in 2016 and an unforgettable gold in Tokyo in 2020. Incredible. Currently, he brings his expertise to the NHL as the head of mental performance for the Vancouver Canucks.

He's also working with the Vancouver Whitecaps Academy, Canada's ski cross team, and elite performers across both sport and corporate arenas. He's a lifelong learner, passionate about helping others tap into their potential. And he calls the beautiful Pacific Northwest home. Get ready for a powerful conversation about resilience mindset and what it truly takes to perform at your best when the lights are brightest. Alex Hodgins, welcome to the show. Alex Hodgins, thank you so much for coming to the High Performance Mindset and gifting us with your wisdom.

Welcome to the show. Thank you. And before we do start, I just want to thank you and extend my appreciation. You have been doing this for many years and people like me get a lot of professional development from your work and yeah, you're sharing. So thanks. The field needs more of this and yeah, I've been yeah, you're sharing. So thanks. The field needs more of this and yeah, I've been a beneficiary area of it. So thanks very much.

Well, thank you. Thank you actually for saying that. That means a lot. Trying to do my best and giving good value. So I really appreciate you being on the show and starting with that. And I'm just thinking about, you know, everyone who's listening today and we're going to be talking about a lot of different topics like performing under pressure and team dynamics and culture and team performance. So Alex, why in the world do you think people should keep listening to us? Yeah, I mean, I think that's a great question. I feel like probably most people listening to this and a lot of people in some regards

are performers right and you have expectations you have deadlines you have goals and and key performance indicators etc that you're trying to hit and the reality is especially at the top level and you would know this from sport but I think the same is in the corporate space as well most people have access access to the same resources and the ability, whether it's nutrition, whether it's strength and conditioning, whether it's financial resources on the corporate side, but it's how you use them, right? And the ability to allow your mind to maximize those resources. I think that's the biggest differentiating factor. In our

world it's championships and gold medals, in the corporate space it's keeping a company alive and becoming Fortune 500 or whatnot. So I think that's the biggest differentiating factor. However, I still think it is massively undervalued and underutilized. Yeah, I agree. And I think, you know, these specific topics like pressure, everyone deals with pressure at some point in sport or their career. Everyone is part of a culture if it's part of their team or their business or they work or their family. Right. So and your mind powers everything you do. So that's, that's what I would add to that. Why do you think, when you just said it's really undervalued, why do you think the field

or what we're talking about today is undervalued? Why would you describe that is? The obvious answer for me is the metrics behind it. It's hard to measure. It's an intangible, the mind. There's still so much unknown about the mind. Whereas other areas, it's easy to show muscle growth or weight gain or loss or those types or even like I said on the corporate space, financial gain, et cetera.

It's hard to put it, it seems to come more subjective as an outcome. And that's challenging for sure for a lot of people. And it's so highly individualized that oftentimes you can't just say this works for one person so it'll work for you. It's very context and individual specific. Well, we know it's important. And obviously everyone who's listening knows that their mind is an important

and invaluable tool, right? That powers everything. So, or they wouldn't be listening. That's what I have to say. So one question I have for you, Alex, to get started is what do you hear yourself talk about related to mental performance over and over again? Well, that's a good question.

I mean, you raised this idea of pressure and everyone dealing with pressure. And I've been so lucky, especially of late, to work really at that top level where you are gunning for gold medals and trying to get on a podium and working four years for sometimes a minute of a performance, which can be the difference between achieving a dream and having four years of regret or catastrophic things we think about. So obviously that's always a huge topic. We're getting into the playoffs in the NHL right now, which is what we're on the brink right now and every game really matters. So tension rises and it creates cracks in culture or can unite a team. And for me, honestly, one of the

skills I find myself visiting so often is, and I know it's very obvious, but like the challenge and threat appraisal is so relevant. And I just don't think people really lean into that enough. How quickly we frame pressure as this threat and we know that the psychology behind it is so challenging, right? Everyone knows, don't think negatively and don't buy, oh, why am I not getting a fair chance and they don't like me and whatever like that threat mentality we get into but the physiological response is is overlooked more than anything like when you get into that threat state you're

increasing your heart rate so then you're burning energy quicker right your blood flow blood and your veins constrict right so the blood doesn't get around the body as fast, so the heart, brain, muscles, fear, and tension, and worry increase. So if that's on an individual or a team level, even if it's 1% or 2%, you're altering your physiology, which is a performance detriment. Whereas you look at the same pressure, the source of pressure we have to win every game to get in the playoffs or this is the gold medal Game or gold medal race, etc in your world. I know you're a runner and a racer like this

This is what I've trained for I've done everything I need. I know exactly how I prepare myself I know the systems I've put in place to be ready for this. I say the right things to myself. I actually want to be against tested against the best because I'm going to keep finding a way to improve. And the physiology behind that, again, it's not positive thinking. So it's the physiology is what I care about. You get endorphins from that versus cortisol. Your blood vessels expand. You get muscle, your blood vessels expand you get muscle your blood around the body faster you get approach behaviors you get mood increases like everyone would take that versus going into that threat state but we allow the threat state is just so easy to access it's so kind of feel like it's such a

default mode whereas I think really good performers train the other way. Like, how do we flip that on its head? How do we look at the challenge within this? No matter what, I'm still going to do it. So I might as well embrace this as a challenge and really lean into it versus shy away from it. So long-winded answer, but I deal with pressure a lot. And I find that tends to be one of the things I find myself coming back to from just a framework

more than anything is that ability to look at it the things I find myself coming back to you from just a framework more than anything is that ability to look at it as a challenge and then go towards that and trust that you've got what it takes to embrace that. Yeah, I love that, Alex. And a few weeks ago, my son is a quarterback at a high school quarterback. And so he's going through this quarterback training.

And the coach asked me to deliver four workshops for the team or for all the quarterbacks, right? And it was actually the most nervous I'd ever been speaking because it's like, you know, you're speaking to your kid and you don't want to mess up and you want to make him proud, you know. And one of the things I was talking to them about was this idea that pressure is a privilege, right? You wouldn't have earned the right to be the quarterback if you didn't push yourself and if you weren't the right person. You wouldn't be the starting quarterback. You've earned this right to be in this position.

I think that mentality would be more of the challenge. This is a challenge versus a threat. Like I have everything inside me that I need to be able to handle this moment, you know? And it's a really cool experience, like just for him to be in a mental performance workshop with me, but my question, you know, it's really fun. I can imagine how tough that would be for sure. Yeah, yeah.

And then, you know, thank goodness I got some good feedback from the coaches, because they were like, you know, everyone loved it. You know, they of course liked the activities and they thought the content was great. But it's like, you know, phew. I get more nervous speaking in front of him than I do an NFL team. I believe it. I believe it. I believe it. Yeah. Consequences maybe are both high. But when you think about how to teach this to people, like the challenge versus the threat perspective and appraisal, what would you say? First is awareness of just that you can easily get into this default mode of the threat, but how do you think you would teach people on how to actually choose more of the challenge mindset?

Yeah, that's a great question, and I think that's a growth for me personally. I think I framed it just kind of similar. I like to frame it the way I just talked to you about, and the evolution I felt was like, I don't know if people are really understanding the application they probably understand the concept and And you're right like first part is like the awareness and then they also

yes, like pressure certainly is a privilege and you've earned the right and and Why not you you know, that's a great question I asked like if it's not you it's gonna be someone else So why why not you why would you limit yourself in that way? But I go to three things pretty quickly. I think the first one, I think the literature on it would support this, but the opportunity. What is the opportunity and the task at hand? I think sometimes when you do that, I think it just kicks logic in a little bit more than having the limbic system ringing alarm bells. So what's the opportunity in front of me here?

You know, I've got a chance to play in my first finals or I've got a chance to win a medal for my country and I'm ready for it. I've done everything necessary. You know, there's opportunity. The other thing I often, which is very basic is I get to do this, you know, like it's not the I don't have to. I get to do this, you know? Like, it's not the, I don't have to. I get to do this. Like you said, I've earned the opportunity

to be in this position. This is something I get to do. No part of me has to. I can go back, sit on my couch. It's gonna be embarrassing if I do that, but I can do that as well. And then the third thing, which I've just stolen from other practitioners in our field is,

when you're in that moment, you can feel your heart thumping out of your chest when you're, whether you're on the top of the mountain or about to step on the ice, hunt the good stuff. And you can frame that however you want, but there's stuff you love about that. Even when it's uncomfortable, it is unbelievable. I'm going to Switzerland in two days for world championships with Ski Cross, when it's uncomfortable, it is unbelievable. I'm going to Switzerland in two days for world championships with ski cross and it's going to be blue skies, high intensity, but you're on a mountain in Switzerland about to compete against the best in the world.

That is cool. And guess what? When you're 40, you're not going to be doing it. So yeah, just hunt the good stuff because there's a reason you do this, there's a reason you signed up for the sport in the first place and then you've pursued it with everything you've got. So don't ignore that, you know, whether that's the gratitude piece or whatever, but I just think framing those three things, the opportunity to get to, and then the, you know, hunting the good stuff I think goes a long way in helping you frame it as a challenge. talk about hunting the good stuff. Well, I love all of those. And like I think about hunting the good stuff also makes you savor the

moment, you know, like remind yourself why you actually really love this and, you know, what, what's great about it, and just to take in the moment instead of, you know, wishing it was different because, you know, these moments are the highlights of people's careers and they sometimes aren't even present in it. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's exactly right. And part of it, as you know, if you're right on the precipice of excellence, it is going to feel probably really terrible. But you can still be present and enjoy that and just enjoy the fact that this is just what it feels like. That's like, it shouldn't feel different. Of course, my body is preparing

for something intense and that feels uncomfortable. You know? Yeah, absolutely. I have a tool in my book, Beyond Grit, because I wrote about pressure and the tool is POP the and it's like P stands for take some power breaths you know like get your nervous system regulated oh is the opportunity you know so so you and I are on the same page there and then P is the process like what's the small things you can do and I was reading this book by, it's called, let's see, I'm picturing it. It's black and yellow, and it's about, it's called Performing Under Pressure by Henry Weisinger. Okay, I had to still like look at it and make sure I got it right. I think I've got it somewhere in my library there. Awesome. So I'll have to give Henry a shout out,

because he's been on the podcast. But I like how he says that we feel pressure because the outcome is important to us, and the outcome is uncertain, and we feel judged by the outcome. And it's like, well, the commonality between those three statements is like the outcome. And many times we're just thinking about the worst thing that could happen instead of the best thing that could happen. Yeah. What's the alternative here? That is one storyline, certainly. Right.

We can accept that failure is a possibility. What other possibilities are there? Oh, and sometimes it's funny how hesitant some athletes can be to talk about that because they just want to stay in that fear state, you know Absolutely. You've had such really cool opportunities to work with some of the you know, the best athletes in the world In lots of different sports. So I'm curious like when you think of the people who really thrive in the bigger moments What do they do differently than the rest? Yeah, that's I think that's the million dollar their question. I would say and again, I've,

you know, I've been really, really fortunate, not just from a athlete standpoint, in the corporate space, some really impressive people, but also coaching, like I think I've been really lucky to work with some impressive coaches that have got way more out of maybe the player pool that they worked than maybe they should have overperformed in a lot of ways. And honestly, this isn't, unfortunately the listeners are going to be let down by this, but the first thing is the curiosity. You always have to be progressing and how even the best of the best, they're going to get caught if they're not finding that next percentage of improvement in whatever area that is. So really that ability to be curious I think is the starting point and I think that leads them to build these really like clear personalized systems of performance for themselves where

they are ready for the moment and they're also ready to adapt to the moment because it is never a straight line no matter what. You know, start times get delayed, the start of the game goes vastly different than the game plan was drawn up. You know, in a race you start behind versus leading. Like that's the beauty of sport is that it's unknown and chaos and you have to prepare your mind for the variables. So I think it starts with the curiosity to find those. And again, it's like there's mental performance, there's strength and giddit. How do I get those?

There's new coaching tactics. And then I built some really strong systems that I trust that just kind of like, this is how I prepare. These are the things I do for execution. And then this is how I recover effectively. So I'm ready to prepare again efficiently. You know, I think those are really important. Can you give us an example? I like the three things you just said of like, you know, their

personalized system of performance might include like preparation, execution, how do they recover? Can you give us an example, and of course you don't need to name names, you know, but like can you give us an example of one that an athlete might have who is performing at the highest level? Well, I can go through like, yeah, like the basics of maybe some of the skills that would fit within it, you know? And I like, I call it like from the preparation standpoint,

it's the ready mind, right? So everything you're doing leading into an event, and this can be 48 hours, 24, or you know, just day of leading into an event and this can be 48 hours, 24, or you know, just day of leading into an event before the starting whistle or the first hole or whatever. That's the ready mind and you are, that's, you know, visualizing various scenarios. Like for, you know, I work a lot in golf. I love the sport of golf. And it's just when you go to that big town, like your name is is gonna be called on the first tee and There's people around it's kind of awkward. It's very different than just playing with friends on a Sunday, you know, or even in call like Just what is that gonna be like when they call your name when I was helping Canada?

prepare for the Olympics in the first Olympics we went to was in Rio that I attended and We had a super young team. We had a number of 17-year-olds and we did a ton of visualizing, just walking from the dressing room to the field in front of some hostile Brazilian fans. We just did and we would get a 100 reps of just that, not even the game. The feedback on that was incredible. They were like, when we were and the feedback on that was incredible. Like they were like, you know, I was so ready when we were singing the national anthem,

I had been there a hundred times. And I felt that instead of being overwhelmed because you know, the Olympic rings throws people for a mental head spin the first time. So anyways, I'm trying to stay on track here. I think the visualizing, you know, some people like to do some mindfulness and some deep breathing. There's some unbelievable examples out there of just the internal dialogue people use to just kind of write their mind and direct

it the way they want to. So I think all those things would fall into it. Again, not everyone needs certain things, but I think the playlist is there fall into it. Again, not everyone needs certain things, but I think the playlist is there for you to sort of pick and choose from. And then I would encourage them to think about what I would call like the resilient mind, which is in the moment, in the game, in the performance itself, because you have to be adaptable. Where does your attention go when you're at your best? How do you get your attention back? What are those micro moments within your performance that you can re-grab attention if it drifts? You know, how do you regulate yourself and are those opportunities

there? And then, yeah, the recovery mind is the third piece of that. Because if you don't recover effectively, you're certainly not going to go into the ready mind effectively. So I think it's like this cycle that feeds itself. And then the recovery for sure, like you know, like a really healthy reflection is important. Whether that's as a team or an individual and just how you reflect or debrief your performance or an after-action review, whatever you want to call it. Again, maybe some mindfulness or some breathing

just to sort of allow you to shut your system down at night. Highly individualized, but important to trust the things in there so that you are more ready the next day and ready to get back into that cycle to perform and prepare again. I love those three Rs. Easy to understand. And then I was also thinking as I was listening to Alex about, you know, like corporate or leaders who might be listening to the podcast. You know, this is relevant to not just athletes,

but I think about just being ready for your day or ready for a performance or a big meeting or a talk, and then being flexible and adaptable in the moment. How are you regulating yourself? How are you getting your attention back? And then how are you recovering afterwards? And sometimes I think, even in the corporate space, people think grit is

grind. The more you grind, it's sort of like this badge of honor, but you have to recover just like a professional athlete does. Absolutely. I think you know this as well. I really like working in the corporate space because they connect with these, especially sports stories where they connect with them because they're like, yeah, I actually could use that. That's relevant to my life as well, for sure. Would this be then your model for mental performance that you use? I would say yes.

It helps me, especially working with individuals or teams, it helps me keep things on track, like even through a quadrennial, if I'm working with a national team, you know, like making sure that we've hit these areas. And then certainly if it's on an individual, we're diving more individually to see where we can make some tweaks, but just having an understanding of maybe what goes into those various areas of performance. And then making sure, because I always think about it, regardless

of the sport, if there's an athlete that is standing, and I'll use this next week as an example, it's world champs, it's a big deal, it's the year before the Olympics, so it's kind of like this is the best practice environment for the Olympic Games. If there's an athlete that makes the finals of ski cross for people make the finals, Canada's really good in the sport. So we should, it'd be very weird if we didn't have at least one male and female there. If they're standing at the top of the hill and I don't know if they've got all of those areas kind of dialed in, I don't think I've done my job.

Yeah, I can see that. And that's a problem for me. So I want to make sure through the quadrennial, we've hit those boxes as a whole group and maybe sometimes people don't want to individually dive in with you and that's okay, but at least I know they've got the concepts and then if they do want to explore it, and I do find when the pressure starts to mount and it gets closer to the Olympics, everyone's coming in individually anyways to fine tune. Maybe the first couple years they're not that into it. But you know, once the idea of standing on a podium is getting closer and more real, I find that they dive in a little bit more. But yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That's always more of an investment. Exactly. Yeah. Again, I just think it's an easy framework for me to be like, okay, have we tackled the right things at the right moments of this quadrennial? Have we not put enough weight in one area versus another? Yeah. So check. Hi, this is Syndra Kamboff 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. Well, let's dive a little deeper into like the resilient mind and what's a part of that. And I'm just curious, particularly your thoughts on this part of attention and when your attention is focused on the wrong thing, you know, like what's the way to bring it back and why is that really important? Sure, well I think, I mean you mentioned this a little bit

with grit, with like just the grind it out and I think resilience and grit are, you know, there's a lot of overlap in those terms and the thing people don't fully understand I think especially the coaches with when it comes to resilience is it's kind of twofold there certainly is that like get back up and keep going which is the traditional but it's also the preventative stuff which is like knowing that you've got what's necessary to meet the challenges at hand. So it's like being able to understand the pressure and challenges right in front of you and knowing that you've equipped yourself to manage it and then when you get knocked down you also have some

stuff to get back up right collectively or individually depending on on the context. So you know know, one of the main things I think from an attention standpoint, I'm like, I'm huge on strengths. And I think you have to be. And I'm amazed how many elite, elite performers can't just like, on a dime, name their biggest attributes. Because that should be talked about all the time. And the reason I frame this for them is, that doesn't mean don't work on stuff. That doesn't mean don't have a growth mindset

and push your limits and find what else is there. But in that moment, when you're about to play a game or perform, it's not like you're gonna add a lot, right? Like, and if that's the case, then you should really be focused on the stuff you have that you know you're good at, that you can deliver 85, 90% of the time. Like, you know, no matter what arena you're in or what hill you're on or what race you're, what the weather is, like I can deliver these things. These are some of the things I'm exceptional at. I call it like a performance identity

and you should wear that identity and understand what it is inside note and how it contributes to your performance. And I think that should be the foundation for an athletes game because the reality is you got where you got because of your strengths, not because of stuff you're not good at. That's true, yeah.

So in that moment, and you get hired, people in the corporate space, they get hired because of stuff you're not good at. That's true. Yeah. So in that moment, when you get hired, people in the corporate space, they get hired because of what they're good at and understanding that maybe there's improvements to be made. People that get drafted in the NFL because of what they're good at, not because of their gaps. We can work on their gaps, but this is what they've got that we think we can maximize. So in a game, we should be trying to maximize that and then practices and off seasons, et cetera. That's when you start to tackle, try to make those gains. Anyway, so from an attention standpoint, that for me is the starting point. What is my performance identity? I don't care

where I am, who we're against, what the context is. I can deliver these three things blindfolded I've done in my entire life, right? Yeah. And I don't think that's talked about enough. And I think it's ignored. And even from a team context, I think sometimes that gets overlooked, you know? So that's a really important feature.

And then I think your second question was around like getting back to it, you know? Right, your focus, yeah. And again, this varies from sport to sport. And I'll give you just a few simple examples. But I would call this personally, I call them performance anchors, which is like, if things are going really well, and I'm playing fantastic, I want to anchor myself into that spot. So this isn't just when things are off track, because attention when things are going really well can drift just as much as when things aren't

right. You can get you can overlook things because all of a sudden you got a hot start and you're like oh things are awesome and the next thing you know you're down right. Yeah. So anchors are really important and it's the same when when things are things are poor we have to have our anchors to sort of bring us back in and And you know, I always liken it to a ship, like the job of the anchor, regardless of what the seas are like, whether it's calm and peaceful and sunny or, you know, a hurricane, the job is to keep the ship where you want it, right? So the purpose is there. And I think people should have some anchors in

place, understand. And there's some super cool stories out there about it. But let's take soccer. I worked nine years in soccer and I always show them a clip and it's super boring. I get it. But I show them a clip when I'm working with a team on a ball being kicked out. This is a women's Olympic game. I kicked out of bounds for a corner kick. And we sit there and I have a clock running on this video of from the time it gets kicked out of bounds to the time the kick is taken, the corner kick is taken.

And that's a minute and 45 seconds. So in a 90 minute, cause people will argue, well it's 90 minutes and you're running, that's a minute and 45 seconds. And that happens like all the time. So like, are you taking advantage of those moments and then having some things in place and to your point like pop the pressure. I love that. That's a great one. Like take a power breath. What's opportunity is in front of me for this corner kick to get us back in the game. And then what are my processes?

I think that's a great example of what like a good anchor would be. And people should just know that and they should have a few, right? I'm blanking on his name, but there was a New Zealand all-black, gosh, first name is Dan for sure, and I apologize to rugby fans out there, I'm butchered. Anyway, one of the all-time greats, and he had this, he had an example where he would pick a spot in the stadium

that kind of appealed to his eyes. Oh yeah. He would look up at that spot when there was that moment or a break and then he would grind his cleats into the ground and that was sort of his grounding and re-centering but he just kind of took himself out and then he would zoom back in and just allowed him to sort of catch his breath and then come back in. And again, individual individualized everyone needs something different but I think that stuff is so so critical to recapture your attention if you play a 90-minute game you're not you're not even focused

for five minutes let alone 90 so you have to bring your focus back it's designed to drift so bring it back hockey 45 second shifts two minutes on the bench what are you doing in those two minutes? You know? An example of hockey, if I'll just keep firing away, I do sort of that like, every action has an equal or opposite reaction. So what I often get them to do is like,

if they're feeling tense or whatever, I get them to grip the stick as hard as humanly possible. Well, take a deep breath, right? Because you're creating a bunch of tension, but what's the equal or opposite reaction of tension is calm, relaxation, right? So they can feel that sort of tension release from their hands. No one has to know they're doing that, right? But you can do that in front of 17,000 people and not a single person will know you're doing that, right? But you're just physiologically settling the system down. So long story short, I think having just some anchors built in to re-grab attention, critical, but also getting into a performance, knowing your

performance identity to direct your attention and your mind at what you're exceptional at and being able to deliver that regardless of the context. I love your system and the way that you talk about it. And I'm thinking about Russell Wilson who played in the NFL at least at the beginning for the Seahawks, right? He had a space that he would, or he still does this where he would, he walks in this stadium, he finds the focus cue, like what is he going to look at? He doesn't tell anybody what it is, right? What is he going to look at when he needs to refocus? And it makes me think about something I read in an applied sports psychology book a while ago, and the

author was talking about how your attention is never lost, it's just misplaced. And sometimes how we say, like, you know, like, I just lost my attention. It was just focused on the wrong thing at the wrong time. You know? Yeah. Yeah. And that's normal, right?

Right. We got to expect that, but how do you bring it back? I read a study that was published by two Harvard scientists in the journal called Science and they said that we only focus on what we're actually doing like 43% of the time. Yeah, I would almost say that seems high. Which is kind of scary, you know? Absolutely. Yeah, and I appreciate what you're saying about like how our mind is meant to like wander and drift and so like some people might be like well what's wrong with my mind but if you just like realize that that can also help you be more aware and empowered to bring it back. Absolutely.

And for sure when you're under real pressure and really it's a real intense environment we know that your focus tends to narrow in and actually a little bit easier to control, but it's still probably going to wander a little bit, right? And these are just, if you don't have systems for that, I, and this is when you asked me at the start, why should people listen? Well, if you're in that situation and you don't deliver because your attention failed you or you didn't know where to go or you froze up, that's why mental performance is important. And if you haven't done the training, that's kind of on you or your organization because they didn't support you with that or you undervalued it. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't think you probably didn't do that in the gym

because you listened to your strength coach. They allowed you to do all the squats you wanted, but did you do the mental ones necessary? You know? Yeah, absolutely. So Alex, I know you also talk a lot about culture and just like team dynamics, and I'd love for you to share with everyone who's listening about your model working with culture and like understanding that. Sure. Okay. Again, one thing I will just say, and I know you know this with your time with the Vikings and a number of other, it's so fun. And I've been really lucky, really. I recognize how fortunate I have been to be,

like with Canada Soccer, I was fully integrated. It was a full-time role. I traveled the world with them. You know, and then now with the Vancouver Canucks, it's the same pretty much. It's almost a full-time gig. I'm there almost every day. But it's so fun to work on the team dynamics because people are so messy.

Organizations are so messy in the best possible way. And it's like this constant jigsaw puzzle where some days the pieces are missing and you're like, what happened? And then the next day it seems like every piece fits perfectly. So yeah, I absolutely love that environment and it's such a cool challenge for us and I'm sure you feel the same with the organizations you support. I'm not sure if you do. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I think yesterday I was even speaking to a small group in a corporate setting and the whole reason they brought me in was actually about team dynamics and it was so fun just helping them think through how they could even be even stronger as a team. So, so much relevance to what we're talking about next. Absolutely. So yeah, and again, this is through trial and error and being in an environment for

a long time and having really good mentors that kind of push me towards kind of simplifying but making sense of things. Because if you don't really have those guardrails, it's so easy to just drift. And even if you have really good ideas, et cetera, if it's not linked all together and kind of fits together, sometimes you overlook things, sometimes you don't get things done or as efficiently as possible. And I really like applied things

that people can grasp and move forward with, hence why the ready mind result, I think it's just easy to remember. And so from a starting point, and this again is not nothing of this is my original content by any stretch, it's just how I've made sense of the worlds of team culture. I think especially starting with a team, there's three things I want to hit that I think are just essential to establish. And the first one is, as you just heard me talk about, is like the team identity, like who are we? And I think that's so, so important to answer. And

there's so many fun and interesting ways you can go about that. But really establishing who you are, and as early as possible, because again, it gives you that sort of focal point That thing to fall back on and if I can if I can highlight it with maybe two or three examples Sure from a team standpoint To go back to your Seahawks comment when they were also Simon they were really really good Not too long ago. If you remember their defense was sort of labeled as the Legion of Boom. Yes. Kind of cheesy, but Legion of Boom. And why were they the Legion of Boom? Because they

were like the super intimidating, super fast, really physical. And they showed up like that every game. And it started with game one, and it built through the season. And they really leaned into that, where it like, they became really intimidating. And there has to be a psychological advantage, a competitive advantage when you're going up against a good offense, but they know like, they have a split second to get something done, otherwise they're getting wrecked by the,

like the steam train that's coming through. And so it's an advantage for the Seahawks because they know what they're about. They know probably like an advantage for the Seahawks because they know what they're about. They know probably like, here's the three most important things we got to deliver to be the Legion of Boom. But then the opposition is like, oh my God, like we have to go face that deep. Yeah, the Legion of Boom. Yeah. I might be carried off the field in a stretcher today, you know? That's not a good mentality. And I'm a diehard Steelers fan. I always have been and before my time, but my dad talked about it when I was growing

up was the steel curtain. It was kind of the same thing. It was this really intimidating defense, defensive minded team, but there was this, like you're going to run into like a steel wall when you showed up in Pittsburgh. And I always thought that was super cool and almost a source of pride too. You get behind that and if you're on that, you're really proud of that. And if you don't live up you know what it means, right? And then on an individual level, I mean, I know we're talking about Team Dynamite, but the Tiger Woods and the red shirt on Sunday I think has the same impact.

You saw how many people just crumbled. I know. He could just play like fine golf and people just crumbled because Tiger on Sunday with a red shirt was all you know. Yeah. That's the power of an identity and really establish. So that's maybe not the first thing but that's one of the three things I think is important. I think the obvious second one is the vision like where are we going this season or where are we going this quadrennial? You know, like what is realistic for us? You have to have that and I think often you get into that process outcome debate. That's fine, but you have to know the outcome because that's where motivation, that's what gets you out of it.

Exactly. fine, but you have to know the outcome because that's where motivation, that's what gets you out of that. Exactly. Exactly. Do you have to focus on it every day? Absolutely not. You should probably just park it once it's established and really focus on the process, but you need to know what that is. And then yeah, be creative as a leader and a coach to drip in that outcome every now

and then as a reminder. But that's super important. And then I also think you know, I was really inspired years ago. I don't know if you've ever read Or I think it's rethinking positive thinking by Gabrielle Uttingen. I Have it's been a while though. Yeah, one of her big things She talks about like, you know, I say vision instead of goal-setting, you know, it synonymous for sure. I just think vision is way more powerful and people roll their eyes a bit at goal setting sometimes. But I like what she kind of talks about, like, we know so much about goal setting, the research has been done, like it's there, but why don't more people achieve their objectives? And she talks about this idea of mental contrasting, which again, isn't wild.

But just like, if this is where we're going, and with everything and all our resources we're going here, what's actually going to stop us? What's going to get in our way from getting there? I think that's so important to highlight. Because then you can also plan accordingly to make sure those, to safeguard against those things that are going to stand in your

way from having success. And I've got kind of an interesting story about that as well, but I feel like I'll take another 15 minutes to explain it, so I'll park it for now. And then the third one I think is the obvious is purpose. Like why are we, you know? There's so much we know about motivation and behind purpose and like why are you know yeah there's so much we know about motivation and behind yeah purpose and like why are we actually here as a group of individuals like what is our purpose for coming together you know when I was with Canada

soccer it was you know the women especially early on wanted to inspire a nation and a future generation of players and that was it was twofold like they wanted to build the game in Canada they wanted to inspire a nation and a future generation of players. And that was, it was twofold. Like they wanted to build the game in Canada. They wanted to inspire a nation through women's sport, which isn't traditionally done. And then, and then also build the base of the sport in Canada so that it wasn't a one-off. And I was fortunate to help them get to two podiums and finish with a goal, but they had three podiums in a row and the game is night and day different for women in Canada now than it was when I started.

So cool to see that be lived and actually be delivered on from a group of individuals. Awesome. I was listening and thinking about actually some of the teams that I work with and how can I help them even develop a stronger identity, a stronger vision, and then a stronger purpose. When you think about this last part about purpose, how have you found to actually help people find their purpose? In my book, I have an example of how you can write an individual purpose statement, but then to get everybody collectively to say, like, hey, this is our purpose.

I'm curious how that's worked out for you in the past and how you might lead a team to do that. Sure. And again, I think that's such a good question and it's really important to have the support of the organization and then this is where it always crumbles is if it doesn't get done right is it needs time. Yeah. Like even if somebody gives you 30 minutes and says work with the team on purpose, that's not enough. That's a good start, right? But even for you getting somebody to write a purpose

statement, like you need you're locked on it I always like people to work it for like 10 days and come back to it just to see if it like still makes And days later and yeah, one of the thing when I was with early on this was before the Rio Olympics and One of the most impressive coaching things I've seen we got the team together and this was in January before the qualifiers for the Olympics we hadn't made it yet. And time's like finite when you have national teams because they all play across the world. And so practice, obviously for coaches, practice is the most important thing and tactical meetings are the most important thing. And we talked a lot about this, like we're missing a little bit of this purpose and we had worked a little bit on identity and our head coach gave two and a half full days.

I know this can't happen everywhere, but two and a half full days completely dedicated to team culture. So he sacrificed, he sacrificed on field training and we went after this full on and we came out of it and I think this was a team that massively, in my opinion, overperformed. Every team they played, bar one in the Olympics, was ranked significantly higher than them and they still won a bronze medal in an incredible fashion and they played unbelievable and I think this was a big part of it because they knew who they were, they knew what they were going after and where their hiccups were going to be.

And they all bought into why and they had all worked on it. They were a part of it. They had autonomy in that process. And it was so cool to see the outcome. Alex, man, you know, my mind is blown as I'm listening. It's really been fun to like hear more about your mental performance system. And I know it's got everyone really thinking about how they can perform under pressure and how can they, you know,

continue to build stronger cultures wherever that they are. I'm gonna do my best to summarize what we've talked about so far. So we started talking about kind of this challenge and threat appraisal and how that's really important in our ability to deal with pressure. We talked about the ready mind, the resilient mind, and then the recovery mind, right? And the importance of recovery. And then we talked about like your own performance identity. How can you get back to your

identity if you like lose focus or what's going to be your plan? And then, you know, at the end, we've been talking about culture and team dynamics and three things that are really important is team identity, team vision and team purpose. So thanks for just dropping some knowledge bombs here and for gifting everybody with just your wisdom and all the things you've learned in mental performance as you do the work at the highest level. How can people connect with you or follow along with your work? Yeah, good question. I'm not that exciting, unfortunately. I am present a little bit on Twitter. I think my handle is Alex Hodgins6. But otherwise, yeah, I'm pretty lost in that space of social media and I don't have a website. So but yeah, if you're on Twitter, reach out.

Always happy to connect for sure. Okay, excellent. Alex Hodgins, six, and I'll make sure to put it in the show notes. Alex, do you have any final advice or any thoughts that you'd like to end with today? No, I mean, again, I just want to reiterate my appreciation for you and what you've done. And I just think sharing and pushing people to be their best and also you provide a resource to do that. It's super cool and really appreciated.

And I think I know a lot of people take advantage of it. And then like I said, you asked, what's the big separator? And I think the mind is the big separator for, even from being good to great or great to excellent or excellent to world class and world leading. And I think being curious has to drive that. So if I'm gonna give some advice

and you really wanna be great, well, be know, there's other ways, there's always different things you don't know and try to uncover some of those truths. Awesome. Thank you, Alex. You're incredible. Thanks so much for your wisdom today. Thank you. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe. And you can head over to Dr. Syndra for show notes and enjoy my exclusive community for

high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Syndra. That's D-R-C-I-N-B-R-A dot com. See you next week.