High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 689: Choose the Meaning, Change the Outcome

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

In this episode of the High Performance Mindset, Dr. Cindra Kamphoff explores one of the most powerful mindset shifts we can make: choosing the meaning we assign to our experiences.   She shares a story of coaching a senior executive who was initially devastated after being passed over for a promotion. But by reframing the experience and asking, “How is this happening for me?”, the executive discovered a more aligned, fulfilling path—and ultimately created a new role within her company that better matched her strengths. The meaning she gave the event became her fuel for growth.   Cindra explains that successful people condition their minds daily to see opportunity in difficulty. They deliberately choose empowering meanings—not because it’s easy, but because it leads to greater resilience, clarity, and long-term success.   You’ll learn: Why your brain is wired to avoid pain and how to override that instinct The difference between interpreting challenges as happening to you vs. for you How to reframe past and current experiences for growth Key questions to ask yourself to reassign empowering meaning Cindra also shares her own story of turning a personal professional setback into a powerful realignment moment—and why choosing the right meaning can change not just your outcomes, but your identity and future.   This Week’s Power Phrase: “I see the opportunity in every difficulty. Life is happening for me not to me.”   Quote of the Week: “Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late.” — Byron Katie

Hi, friends. My name is Dr. Syndra Kamboff, a national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. Every week, I'm on the local radio sharing my top tips on exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best so you can accomplish all your dreams. Get ready for a jammed packed episode focused on practical tips to help you get after your goals and step out of your comfort zone. Let's go!

Time to check in with Cinder Kampa for a little motivation as we choose the meaning, change the outcome. Cinder, start us off with a quote. I love this quote by Byron Katie. She said, life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. And how do you want to start today? I want to start with an example. I was recently coaching a senior executive at this tech company who was passed over for a promotion that she'd been working on for a super long time and he was obviously upset.

At first, you know, she saw it as a sign that he wasn't valued by the company. But during our coaching session, she worked her reframed experience and at one point she just said, you know, how is it as a sign that he wasn't valued by the company. But during our coaching session, she worked her reframed experience. And at one point she just said, you know, how is this happening for me? And Lisa, this really shifted her eyes. She realized that the role she truly wanted was the one that she had applied for and there, there's something bigger for her, a position that allowed her to really use her strengths more fully. And so what was great is within six months he created the opportunity herself like inside the

company and is there promoted to a more fulfilling role for her that hadn't even existed. And this happened because she chose to give a different meaning to her situation that provided more clarity and momentum. So what's the impact of actually seeing opportunity for ourselves? Absolutely. So the first thing I would say is just, you know, there's ample research over many decades that shows that the most successful people think differently than those who are less accessible. And because they're always looking for the opportunity and the difficulty, and they see their struggles and difficulties as happening for them, not to them, and they condition their mind to really

think bigger and to see the opportunity. And so this just helps us deliberately place our energy into things that give us energy and really that is more fulfilling. And this process is an automatic. We really have to condition ourselves to think for more opportunity in the future. How do we create a more powerful meaning to things? Well I would say, you know, Lisa, everything in our life is based on the meaning that you give it. And all day long we're meaning making machines.

So you choose the meaning you give to a future event and you choose the meaning you give to a past event that ends up replaying or repeating in your mind unconsciously. And so when you daily condition your mind, you know, you're consciously and proactively giving meanings that really empower your future. And I think you can see anything, any situation, even a really difficult one, is happening for us, not to us, you know, with enough practice and taking a step back and really doing that deliberately. Cinder, let's talk about the difference between to you and for you.

Well, when you see that something is happening for you, you're learning from it. You're seeing difficulties as opportunities to help you grow, and every circumstance can be changed into a gift. When you see problems that are happening to us, we tend to take a victim mentality, like taking it personally, and we tend to say, like, why me? And we end up getting stuck. So what do most people end up doing? I think most people don't want to think about the difficulty right because we're kind of quick to avoid pain and move on so we don't really take a step back and say you know how is this a gift

how is this happening for me but we know you know high performers they have you know more positive energy more about empowering the mindset. So you could just, you know, use these two questions, you know, what big things in your life that you want to give meaning to, you know, how can you see them as happening for you? Or maybe what are events in your in your past that you want to give a new meaning to and how can you see those as happening for you? Can you share a time maybe, I don't know, in your own life that you had to choose a new meaning and how that changed you? Yeah I do it pretty frequently you know like sometimes every day once a week but the one I can think

of is I faced a professional setback a few months ago where this really big opportunity fell through at the last minute and I was really frustrated and just disappointed and you know at first I was like why is this happening to me? But after some reflection I asked myself again how could this be happening for me? And this question just made me realize that I had just been stretching myself too thin and the setback actually gave me some space to just reprioritize and really think about redesigning our business for the long term. And so you know looking back I think this no led to like multiple yeses in the future that are more aligned

and more fulfilling. And I think the meaning I gave it really helped shift things for me because it made me feel really disappointed at first. But then I could see, all right, how is this a gift and how this is actually helping me lead and serve others. Cinder, do you have a final point for us? My final point would just be the key to each of our successes is to consciously choose the meaning we give to future events or you know current events or past events. And choose a meaning that empowers you, choose a meaning that you know makes you better not

just bitter, and choose a meaning that really helps you not that hinders you. And you can choose a meaning that acknowledges the events that happen for you, not to you. Okay, and what is the power phrase that you would use? I see the opportunity in every difficulty. I see that life is happening for me, not to me. And how do people get in touch with you or follow along with your work if they'd like to? You can head over to the mentallystronginstitute.com page page and that's where you can find more information about our speaking. We have

many coaches, leadership coaches, and mental performance coaches that could work with you so you can find more information about that as well. mentallystronginstitute.com. 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