High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 70: Playing Carefree and Present with Erika Carlson, Certified Mental Trainer and CEO

Episode Date: September 20, 2016

Erika Carlson, CEO and Certified Mental Trainer at Mental Training Inc., discusses the importance of playing carefree and present. She describes that playing “carefree” means to not care about the outcome. The best train their mind to be present moment focused. When we overthink, we are focused on the past or future, not the present. She describes that many athletes have outcome goals but no process to achieve them.  The key to reaching your BHAG’s, Erika says, is to “focus on your process today.” Erika also discusses the importance of failure, understanding “patterns” and the emotional wheel.   “I have not met a person that cannot improve on their self-talk.” @SportPsycher via @Mentally_Strong “There are always patterns pre-game, after mistakes, and post-game to help bring awareness.” @SportPsycher via @Mentally_Strong “The quicker you can learn from a mistake, the more valuable it is. The mistake then is a blurb not a mountain.” @ SportPsycher via @Mentally_Strong “A key to performance is to be calm from the neck up and relaxed from the next down.” @ SportPsycher via @Mentally_Strong “When you focus on what’s right, you acknowledge an additional source of confidence.” @ SportPsycher via @Mentally_Strong   To reach out to Erika, you can find her at erikacarlsonsports.com or on Twitter @SportPsycher.

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. This is your host, Sindra Kampoff. And I want to thank you so much for joining me here today. I'm grateful that you're here, ready to listen to an interview with Erica Carlson. So Erica is the CEO and Certified Mental Trainer at Mental Mental Training Inc. And Erica has over 18 years of experience in the field of applied sports psychology. In this interview, we talk a lot

about peak performance principles that are central to her work, and she's worked with every mainstream sport you can think of. In this interview, we talk a little bit about her experience getting into the field as an equestrian athlete and just the uniqueness of that sport in terms of that you have to control a horse and the importance of staying present moment focused while doing that. So she has been competing in equestrian for over 30 years. She's also a two time Ironman finisher, a marathoner. And in this interview, we talk quite a bit about staying in the present moment, what that means, what prevents us from staying in the present moment. And she also talks about playing carefree and why that's important. She discusses that many of the athletes that she works with have outcome goals, but no process to achieve them. And other things that we talk about in this interview is the importance of learning from your

mistakes, how mistakes can be a teacher. And she says that the quicker you can learn from a mistake, the more valuable it is, because the mistake then is just a blurb instead of a mountain. Later in the interview, she discusses how it's important to focus on what's right. And when you do that, you acknowledge an additional source of confidence. I think you're going to enjoy this interview with Erica. And I'd love for you, if you enjoyed this interview, to head over to iTunes, post a comment there, a review. By doing that, it just helps us reach more and more people who are interested in peak performance and mindset.

So I super appreciate you doing that for us. And if you'd like to reach out to Erica and I, tell us what stood out to you about this interview or how you might use it, you can reach us on Twitter. Erica is at sportpsycher and I am at mentally underscore strong. All right, without further ado, let's bring on Erica Carlson. Erica, welcome to the podcast. I'm really excited that you're here today joining us.

Awesome. Thank you for having me. So tell us, Erica, just a little bit about your passion and what you do right now. Yeah, so, you know, my day-to-day job is to teach athletes mental skills for improving performance. And I've been doing that now going on 18 years. So I've been doing it for a while. You know, I found this passion quite young and I've been on this track for a long, long time and I love what I do every day. Yeah, tell us about just how you found it. You know, you say quite young.

Just tell us the story about that. Yeah. So, you know, I grew up playing a whole bunch of sports. You know, I kind of tried everything, stuck with some things longer than others. I was on swim team for a very long time. I played many years of youth soccer. I actually did BMX racing with my brother and his friends for a lot of years, like long before it was super cool like it is now. But I was also, I also grew up riding horses,

and I was third generation in my family to ride horses. So once I got into high school, that's what really stuck. And that became the sport that I really focused on. And I loved it. I mean, it was the thing I was most passionate about, which is why I stuck with it. And what was interesting is I had a lot of opportunity to ride. I spent a lot of hours every week riding. I got to compete quite a bit, but I had really, really poor coaching. And I mean that from a technical standpoint, from an emotional standpoint, like it just, it was really poor coaching. And my local

competitive association offered, I never heard of sports psychology, but they offered like a half a day seminar on sports psychology. And I was like, I think I need to go check that out. I don't really know what it is. It sounds interesting. And I went and checked it out. And it just clicked for me instantly. It started to get me thinking about my best days and what I could control and all these things. And all of a sudden, all this messiness in my head very quickly started to make sense. And I think I decided to some degree that day that that's what I was going to do in my life. And how old are you, Erica? 17. Yeah, that's awesome. I, you know, I, I have a similar experience than just that just competing, especially in high school and

college. It's like, that's what that what that's what really introduced me to the field and just trying to understand myself. So tell us, you know, after that day, when you're 17, just, you know, tell us a little bit about your journey to get to where you are now. Sure. So I, you know, I actually was quite lucky. I did a year of a community college when I finished high school. I just, I needed a year, actually I wanted to ride quite a bit. You know, this year it's cool. They call it a gap year. Back then I just, I just wanted a year to ride quite a bit. You know, this year, it's cool. They call it a gap year. Back then, I just wanted a year to ride a bunch. And I got my first job and worked quite a bit and earned my first paycheck. So I did that. And at my community college here in the Bay Area, they offered a sports psychology class. And the class was taught by a PE teacher. But every

Friday, we had a guest speaker come in. And this man was Tom Tutko, who for those of you who don't know, he's considered one of the grandfathers of modern day sports psychology. So all of a sudden, you know, I'm sitting here every Friday learning from Tom Tutko and I became more fascinated with sports psychology and you know I just sort of took it as a sign of like okay this this is the path that I'm supposed to be on and so so that was a great experience from there I went on and went to Colorado State University and got my bachelor's in psychology and And they didn't have any – well, actually, that's not true. They did have one sports psychology class there that was offered through the athletic department, and it was a very theoretical class,

and I really didn't enjoy it at all, which honestly was a really good thing because it taught me that I didn't want to go into the research side of things. I really wanted to work with athletes. And so it helped me understand that I wanted to do applied. I didn't know that this term applied sports psychology, but intuitively I knew that's what I wanted to do. So anyway, I had a great experience there. And then and I'm from the San Francisco Bay Area. So when I was researching graduate schools, it just so happens that the school that was the best fit for doing applied sports

psychology was right here in the Bay Area, 20 minutes from where I grew up, John F. Kennedy University. So I got into that program to do my master's in sports psychology. That's excellent. I love just, you know, hearing a little bit about your journey and where you got to, where you are, you know, how you got there. And Thomas Tutko, that's excellent. He was like one of your first teachers. Yeah. And, you know, what's interesting is he actually came in and taught a class or two while I was at JFK as well. I also saw videos of him when I was at Colorado State. So

he kept appearing throughout my education. And so when it came time for me to do my thesis for my master's degree, I asked him to be my supervisor and he agreed. So he actually supervised my whole thesis project and signed off on it ultimately. Oh, that's excellent. What great mentorship. Yeah. So Erica, you know, I know you then started your own firm Excellence in Sport Performance and now, you know, a CEO of Mental Training Inc. So you have just an incredible opportunity to work with some of the world's best in a variety of sports. What do you really see separates those that can rise above and can deal with the pressure and adversity versus those that don't reach their best or their potential? Yeah. So I know for me, I really think what's at

the core of all of that is learning how to control what's going on inside of you. And, you know, we all we all think a lot, some more than others. We all feel a lot, some more than others. So we all come to the table with slightly different needs, but the solutions are often very much the same, which is learning how to manage all that self-talk, learning how to get your emotions under control, how to channel them in the right direction. And I think that's where consistency comes from.

So we all know there's great athletes out there who can be extraordinary on a day. But I think what really separates those people who are the best of the best is they can be extraordinary often. And that can only happen if you've got your mental game sorted out. Physical abilities alone will never allow that to happen. Learning to control what's going on inside you, your emotions, your thoughts. And I like what you said in terms of the best just are extraordinary often because they know how to do that.

And they have either used mental training or they've been introduced to it or worked with somebody or, you know, or maybe have taught themselves. Yeah. And I think most often they've learned it from someone along the line. And a great coach obviously can be a great teacher of this. You know, people with our skill set to just focus on this piece can be really helpful. There's a lot of ways to learn it, but it has to be learned. You know, I and sometimes a great parent, you know, with some great athletes, we have parents who are able to teach it through the sport or just through the life experience.

But but it's absolutely learn. I don't I don't believe this is innate in many people. And if it is, I would like to meet those people. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. When I think about my own experience, I first, you know, learned a lot about these principles from my dad. And he was a really successful salesperson at the time. So he was reading all these books about like mindset and sales. So you're right that it can be just some kind of adult or mentor, a coach, a sports psychologist, mental skills coach who could introduce them to these topics. So Erica, what do you see that like your athletes struggle with? And even some of the top performers, world-class athletes,

what do you see that they really struggle with? Yeah, I think like, you know, to narrow it down to what is the most common thing that they struggle with, I would really say that the overthinking, you know, so learning how to manage self-talk. And it's a big one. I, you know, I have yet to meet a person who can't improve on that to some degree. We all can. And for some of us, it's constant. For some of us, it's situational. But that's an area we can all improve on. And what's great about that is I find with clients that they actually learn how to manage that quickly.

It's a very doable thing once they have the skill and the ability. So it's, you know, I often use it early in the program because they can grasp it, they can make quick changes, and they can start building confidence very quickly with it. And where would you start, Erica, with somebody who is struggling with overthinking and just maybe ruminating on maybe past mistakes or just, you know, they going on after a mistake what's going on when you're playing your best what's going on post-game you know good game versus bad game you know um so so that's that's where you've got to start so because there are always patterns there always always always as you and i know but but the athlete themselves don't always know that. So getting them to start recognizing patterns and then getting the tools in place for them to start changing those patterns is a really, really powerful thing.

And is there a particular tool that you might start with? So I think over the years, the thing that I really start to hone in on is the tense that the athlete is thinking in. So they in the past, present or future. And because again, you know, nerves and anxiety exists in the future. Frustration, anger exist in the past. And so most overthinking, once they can identify what tense it's in, it's easy to recognize. And then again, the tools become how do you get out of the future and past and get back into the present? Absolutely. Because that's where our best happens, right? In the moment, in the present.

Yeah. So, you know, besides overthinking, Erica, is there any other topic within, you know, when you think about the clients you've worked with, is there anything that you always cover? You know, something that you just see they might struggle with or just need? I think in addition to self-talk, because self-talk would certainly fall into that category, I would definitely add goal setting into that, you know, and that's often, you know, skill one and two, usually, you know, goal setting one, self-talk two. And the reason is, and let me preface that by saying I have yet to have a client

that walks into my office without goals, right? Right. So, so they always, the reason they're in my office is because they have goals and they don't feel like they're, they're making enough progress towards them. So, so they always have goals, but, but oftentimes what they have are outcome goals, which then and without a process of how they're going to get to that outcome, which then, of course, sets them into that future tense, which creates a lot of nerves and anxiety, you know, which creates overthinking and then emotions. And, you know, they go down that path. So getting a process in place of, you know, getting them to start analyzing fairly, analyzing performance and also creating a daily process to literally put one foot in front of the other is just another way to help them stay present and and build confidence, you know, and really earn their confidence and get feedback that they're doing the work in order to be confident. So focusing on the process allows people to stay in the present. Absolutely.

Erica, what do you think about like athletes who obviously have goals and maybe they maybe it's an outcome goal, which gets them thinking in the future? You know, I want to win this Olympic medal or thinking in the future, you know, I want to win this Olympic medal, or I want to get to the Olympics, I want to win the Super Bowl. How often do you think they should be thinking about that? Yeah, it's an interesting question, you know, because those goals are really important. Because the you know, they they guide the athlete in terms of what direction they're going. However, on a day-to-day basis, that goal, they shouldn't be spending a lot of time on it because there's really not a whole lot they can do today. If they're a high school quarterback and their goal is to play in the Super Bowl today,

they need to do the process to make them the best possible quarterback today and focus on that and not worry about the NFL just yet. I completely agree. Yeah. I think that's one thing that I found that athletes just struggle with and to know how often they should be thinking about these outcome goals and if they should be. And I think that's where they can get really caught up is because they're thinking about that in the moment or when they're playing or right before they play. And that just that compounds their anxiety. Absolutely. Yeah. And a lot of times that will happen because they don't know what else to think about. So so as soon as that plan is in place and they have a process

to focus on, it's so much easier to let go of that long-term outcome. Yeah. And you're saying like the daily process of what they need to do to be at their best. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, at MTI, we focus a lot on the concept of being carefree, which is to play without care. You know, and it's an interesting idea because, you know, when I first, you know, introduced this concept to people and say, well, the idea is to go out there and not care about the dot com. And, you know, you always see this, like, look on their face, like, not care. What are you talking about? But I care so much.

Well, let's start to connect the dots between caring so much and how that impacts your thinking, your emotions, and your self-talk, and, you know, all those pieces. And all of a sudden, you know, eventually the light bulbs go off and they go, okay, I get it. I can care about that outcome, but not right now. Now I have to care about putting one foot in front of the other and executing my process well. And when that's finished, then I can go back to my outcome and go and dream about it again. Yeah, that's really, really good. And I like the goal of just playing carefree. I could see that

some athletes might just say like, I just can't do that. How do you help them get there consistently where they are playing carefree? Because I think about playing carefree, I think of like, you're just light, light on your feet, you don't have any worries, you don't have any kind of like bricks holding you down, right? You can just really be at your best and thinking clearly. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's the way the way our process works is that that is the end. That's the last goal to accomplish in our program and our foundational skills, right? Because everything else builds up to that. So so if you know, you've got your motivation set, and if you know how to calm yourself as needed and and stay present and calm if you can build your confidence through a great process and executing that process on a

daily basis if you know how to manage your focus and shift it on and off as needed, all of that builds up to learning how to stay optimistic and recover very quickly from mistakes, letting go and just being carefree. So it's a whole process. What advice would you give to somebody who might be listening and just saying, gosh, I have a really hard time staying in the present. You know, like, I'm just always in the future. I'm always in the past. Like, I don't really know time staying in the present. You know, like I'm just always in the future. I'm always in the past. Like I don't really know how to do that. Yeah.

So my advice to them is that you haven't learned how to stay present yet. And it's learnable. You can learn how to stay present. And, you know, so much of how we function is a learned response. And when we start to just be very reactive to our environment, we, we become victimized by our environment. You know,

if our environment is, is calm and, and easy and working with us, then we're good. But if our environment is, is chaotic and, and messy, then we become a victim to that.

So, so we've got to take responsibility to learn how to, to calm, to clear our minds. You know, coaches tell us all the time, you know, as athletes, like stop thinking so much. Yet, very few coaches that I'm aware of know how to teach their athletes not to think so much, right? So, so the idea is absolutely right, but the how to is missing. So, so that's where I pick up. And that's, that's where I can teach an athlete how to calm their body. You know, and I always talk about, you know, relaxing the body, calming the mind. They're two separate things, but they completely impact each other, right?

So once they can calm and relax, now they're in a position to control all of that. But it's learned, right? And they've got to learn in a stress-free environment, like at home, quiet environment, maybe lying in their bed, and then gradually add the skills in more stressful environments until they can do it under the, you know, most stressful moments of their competitive. So I know there are some coaches who are listening and they might be thinking, yeah, I say that

to my athletes all the time. Just like stop thinking. Yeah, yeah. You know, and it is complicated in terms of like how to teach someone to stop thinking. But what would you what would you tell coaches like where to start? Would you say like, it starts with your breath, it starts with your thinking? What do you think? Yeah, so you know, and I get because it is a process to teach somebody how to not think right. And I completely understand coaches may not have the time, you know, to take athletes aside and teach them how

to do this. But I think a great starting place that is so simple is if an athlete can learn on demand how to focus on their breathing, feel, you know, imagine the air hitting the bottom of their lungs, and then slowly coming back out, and then back hitting the bottom of their lungs and then slowly coming back out and then back into the bottom of the lungs and back out. You must be present for that. You must be focused for that. And it will, especially with training, right, because we want that conditioned response to take hold. So with some training, that can calm and relax the body very, very quickly. And that's something that a coach could easily integrate into practice is to stop and get

focused on breathing and then get back to work again, just to teach the response of how to get relaxed. And then they could build on that by, you know, giving athletes tools to work on their own time about how to get that truly conditioned response of relaxation. I know there's some coaches who are listening. They're like, yes, thank you for that golden nugget. So Erica, tell us about like a signature technique that you might use. And you've described several of those, but what's something that you always kind of go to to help people with their mindset and so they can be at their best more often?

Yeah. You know, I think something that's really eye-opening is we've got a really neat process. And Bob Neff, who's our founder at MTI, did a great job of creating this diagram that we use that we call our emotion wheel. And it actually diagrams how situations trigger thoughts, which put us into futuristic thinking, which causes errors, which causes past thinking, which then causes, you know, anger and frustration. And, you know, literally athletes all of a sudden can see themselves spinning around and around the outside of the circle. And the solution for wherever you catch yourself, because the idea is wherever you are on the outside of that circle, is to become aware and

get present, right? Once you're present, then there's a host of skills that you can use like breathing and relaxing, like doing some imagery to get your focus and, you know, your technique back to manage your self-talk, you know, and get optimistic once again, and to work towards that idea of being carefree, of just letting go of what has happened and moving forward. So if anyone would like to check out that emotion wheel, would you tell them to go through your training, or what's the best way for them to find out? It's in our book that we use with our clients. Yeah. Roadmap to the Zone book

is for sale on the MTI website, I believe, if they wanted to check that out. And there's a chapter on it in there. But yeah, that's something I go into a lot of depth with, with my individual clients, my one-on-one clients. And, you know, every, it seems like every single person looks at that and goes, wow, how did you know this much about me? I'm like, wow, you're like everybody else. You know, we all, you know, circle around here a lot more than we wish we would. Yeah. We're all human, right? Excellent. Well, Erica, tell us a little bit about your why we believe here at the High Performance Mindset that that's really important to keep front and center, just to stay motivated

and stay energized. And you've been doing this for a long time, 18 years. So why do you do it? Tell us why that's important to you. Sure. I love helping people. I mean, it really, it really feels good to me. I feel like I've, you know, I've got a lot of experience to give people and, and a lot of knowledge. You know, I've, I've been doing this long enough that my, not only my athletic experience, you know, as a kid and even as adult, I still compete quite a bit, but now I've got all this working knowledge with all the athletes that I've worked with over the years, and I have a lot to offer. I love helping people. I know how to help people. I see there's so many similarities in the clients that I see in terms of, you know, the overthinking and the emotions and, you know, not letting go of mistakes. So I feel, you know, I have a strong sense of confidence that I'm able to help athletes overcome a lot of those issues. And I just, I enjoy it. I enjoy

talking to people. I enjoy knowing what makes them tick and really helping them to figure out ways to manage their performance. You know, we've been talking a lot about athletes so far in this conversation, but I think the same information and concepts of staying present moment focus and being carefree applies to leaders and entrepreneurs and, you know, because we all are human. Can you think of any ways that you've applied it in the past or, you know, ways that you see that it applies to anyone, not just athletes? Yeah, absolutely. You know, I've been an entrepreneur for most of my professional life myself. So this is, you know, in many ways been my performance platform over the years. And it all applies, you know, trying to have a process and then trying to execute that process, trying to let go, you know, with your clients. And now, you know, that I'm with a bigger company, you know, working on good communication,

you know, with the team. So all of that, anything that applies in the athletic world, on the athletic team, it just goes right hand in hand with, you know, being an entrepreneur and in business. Yeah. So, Erica, we've been talking a little bit about failure and, you know, just that everybody fails. And one of the questions I want to ask you, I want to ask you it because I want to normalize failure, you know, that everybody fails. Yeah. Everybody makes mistakes. So can you tell us a story or tell us about a time where you failed? And, you know, what do you think we can learn from that? Sure.

First, I mean, failure is such a great teacher. And I think if anyone in any endeavor, as soon as they can start to look at failure as an important and valuable feedback tool, I think that can shift things for you very quickly, rather than truly looking at it as failure, like that failed, like that, it was wrong, it shouldn't have happened, because that has no value. But when you can make that shift to it being valuable feedback, things can change very quickly. And, you know, for me, this is what my, I told you about my poor coaching, my teenage years, you know, and boy, I just, I had, I had a lot of failure. And luckily, my passion for my sport outweighed the failure that, that I, you know, had to endure. And, and I just, I learned, you know, and there were times where I got burned out and I needed breaks

and then I would, I would come back and, and work even harder and be more committed. And, and I think a few things happen. I think failure kept taught me how to be very humble, you know, and, and figure out how to work hard regardless of outcomes, because it became clear at some point that the outcomes that I wanted when I was younger,

just weren't going to happen for a number of reasons. So I had to find other reasons to work hard. So I did. And so much of the work that I did working through all that failure as a kid has paid off as an adult tremendously because I've learned how to work the process and learn really quickly from failure. Because I think that's an important piece of the puzzle there is that the quicker you can learn and just say, okay, that didn't work. What do you do this time? The quicker you can make that shift,

then it becomes so much more valuable and the so-called failure becomes a blip versus a mountain. Yeah, isn't that true? And I think it also, the quicker that you can move on and think about what you've learned, it helps maintain your confidence, lowers your anxiety. Absolutely, yeah, yeah. And I think that all of that gets easier with more life experience. You know, and I think that's what

so many of my young clients really struggle with is, you know, when you're in your teenage years, or even your, you know, early 20s, you don't really have the life experience yet to know how valuable all of the struggle is and how it molds you as a person for later on in life. Yeah, that's so true. I think you do learn that with experience. Yeah. Yeah. And that you don't become defined by your failures, but that you grow because of them. And I know that sounds a little cliche, but that it really is true. Can you take us to an aha moment that you've had in your career, maybe about yourself or about performance? Yeah, so I think, you know, a big and, you know, I want to say it's an aha moment, but really I think this developed over time. But many years ago, it really, like I just really got it, was really understanding the present moment and how much power there is in the present moment and, and that in the future and in the past,

oftentimes, especially when we're talking about performance, we're spinning our wheels and that, that really understanding how to get present, stay present. When you get out of the present, how to get back to it quickly. That, that that's where

greatness is. And it's so powerful. And getting to teach that to a lot of young people and helping them to get that idea and that concept and knowing how to get there at a much younger age than I did is just a really, really cool thing. Absolutely. Was there something that happened in your life or your work that made you just, you know, that moment click that, you know, how to get I think that I really got to that through, again, through my riding over the years. Because like, like many sports, like most sports, okay, like every sport, I'll say, you really truly have to be in that, in that present moment, know and and with horses you know I often say um that that riding show jumping what I do it's as technical as golf but try and remember that or try and think about like if your golf clubs had brains and moods and four legs and and you know, 1500 pounds of muscle. How much more difficult would golf be?

For sure. It's hard to think about. So riding forces you to be, if you're going to feel, if you're going to be successful at it, especially with more difficult horses, it is imperative that you are 100% present. And I was lucky enough, again, back in my teenage years, to have a couple of extraordinarily present moments. Like, for reasons that are still unknown to me why it happened on these two days, I truly was in that zone. And reflecting on that for years and years, that was my guide. Like, okay, this is what I'm working towards.

This is what it is. And so I've always seen those as gifts, not for the moment itself. Like I can remember these two courses at two different horse shows like they were yesterday. They're still completely clear in my mind. And I can't even tell you if I earned a ribbon, you know, if I placed in the classes or not, but I can tell you the course and the jumps and how it felt in my body during those courses. And so coming back to those moments year after year after year, I think that's what really helped to solidify the value of being present was all about. Absolutely.

So and what I think is interesting is that you can remember them in so much detail because you're in the present. And, you know, I think about your sport equestrian. So important to be in the present because if you're too anxious, your horse is going to know. Yeah. And they're going to feel it. And they're going to they're going to think something's wrong and I've got to get out of here. So how do you think that applies to people who maybe don't do horse jumping or, you know, aren't familiar with equestrian?

You know, if we go back to golf for a moment, you know, your golf club is an extension of you. So if you are anxious, if you are nervous, if you are tense in your body, what's going to happen to your golf club? You know, it's going to do the same thing a horse does, which is go, oh, you know, what's wrong, right? And that applies. So, you know, in soccer, it affects your touch on the ball. In basketball, it affects your, you know affects your work on the ball and your shot. You can go sport by sport.

In baseball, softball, it's going to affect your swing or throw. So it's all the same thing. Horses are just great because they're a true feedback mechanism. Thinking about how it applies to leaders and entrepreneurs, just given that if you're not in the present, you can't be productive. For sure. And you might just be spinning about the past or the future and you can't get the work done that you need to to be successful and grow your business. Absolutely. Yeah.

If we want to be productive, if we want to think about great things, create great documents or great ideas, we've got to, again, be clear from the neck up and relax from the neck down. That's where, you know, everything flows from, literally. Well, Erica, let's go to the top 10 traits of high performers. And if anybody wants to check out that list, you can go over my website at drcindra.com. But Erica, which one of those do you think is like really crucial for high performance? If you could pick one, which one is like, yeah, for sure. You know, it's interesting. When I looked at this list originally, I saw it in a couple of different ways because I

personally went to grittiness immediately. Okay. And, but that's, for me, is very personal. For reasons I don't totally understand, I just am a very gritty person and always have been. And so I really clung on to that. But when I went back and really thought about clients and things like that, I stuck more to the, you know, controlling the controllables, you know, which is a big one. And the comfortable being uncomfortable. Yeah, absolutely. Just continue to grow and push yourself so you can learn and get to greatness and high performance.

Absolutely. Yeah. Because I think, you know, at any age, when you can really focus on what you control, it just frees up so much energy, you know, both physically and mentally. And, you know, I think I think as we get older and I think this is interesting, you know, as you know, I'm going through life and, you know, getting into my mid 40s here, it's interesting how a lot of people stop putting themselves in uncomfortable situations, you know, it's much more natural when you're younger. But as we get older, we tend to stay in our comfort zones more, you know, and I, I require a lot of personal growth. It's just it's part of who I am. And obviously, I spend a lot of my days doing that, you know, helping other people through that process. But I just I think I think those are big. And even if it's not in a physical situation, just getting in emotionally uncomfortable situations and trying to work

through those as well. That's actually a trend I see too, you know, like people maybe in their 40s don't go after that dream job that they want because they're just comfortable in the job, you know, that pays their bills instead of, you know, something that they are real, that really fulfills them. Yeah. Yeah. Erica, I think we're a lot like each other because I'm super gritty as well. And I do require a lot of personal growth. Because I'm just always interested in growing and learning. And maybe there's a correlation between that and grittiness. Yes, could be.

So these traits, do you see your clients just really struggling with? Yeah, I think self-compassion is a big thing to struggle with, you know, and it's so interesting to me because I really feel like so much of that is learned. Like somewhere in their environment, they're learning or they believe that there's some value in being incredibly hard on yourself and just beating yourself up all the time. And somehow that's going to create the grittiness or create, you know, some value. So I spend a lot of time helping athletes to shift out of that belief system and creating a new belief system of recognizing success, even if it's just little bits and pieces of success. You know, getting them to record their best moments or, you know, even their best outcomes when they have them. And really getting okay with building confidence from success, not lack of failure. Absolutely.

It's something I see, too, where athletes do think that it's helpful to beat themselves up. And I wonder if they're learning that through sport, their sport culture, you know, maybe the way that coaches give feedback. It's hard to say exactly. Yeah, and I do. I think that's one piece of it. Because I tell them that all the time in in our sessions is, you know, part of this is because, you know, it's a coach's job. And rightly so, the coach's job is to give them a lot of feedback about what's wrong and what needs

to get better. And so for some athletes, that just becomes all that they focus on. So I've learned over the years, just by working with a lot of athletes, that I can provide tremendous value by helping a missing resource of confidence that's right there. They don't even have to create it. It's already there. They're just not paying attention to it. Focus on what's right, not what's wrong is a missing source of confidence you might not recognize and see. Yeah. Excellent. Excellent.

So, Erica, let's go to the speed round. If you could recommend a book for the audience, which one would you recommend? Yeah, so these days I read a lot of business books. So I think just a staple that's been around for a long time that has great analogies for both business, life, and athletics is Good to Great by Jim Collins. Excellent. And why would you recommend that one? You know, because it's very performance based. It's how to create a process towards greatness, towards your outcome goals. And, you know, I've always loved this idea of, you know, the the BHAGs, the big, hairy, audacious goals, which, again, that's that's what most athletes that I talk to walk in my office with. So then it's a matter of creating the process and the performance and the values to get there eventually. Excellent. And what would you say is the best advice you've ever received?

I'm trying to remember throughout my life. I'm still not exactly sure. But somewhere along the line, I got the message to do what you love. And I don't know if that was directly said to me, or if that's something that I just interpreted from what I was told. But, but that's, it's something I've held close for a very long time is do what you love. And, and I have, like I said, I got on a path when I was 17. And, and it's interesting, because I found one, you know, once I've been in this career, about every five years, I kind of have to have that talk with myself of like, okay, how are we doing? Do I want to stay on this track? Are there other possibilities?

Is this what I want to be doing? And ultimately, I always come back to it because I love it. I don't think I could ever trade, you know, a different, you know, maybe a much bigger paycheck but a less flexible lifestyle. Like I just don't know if that would work for me. Cause I love what I do and I have a lot of flexibility with my kids and my sports and everything else. So it's, it's really ideal.

So do what you love. Yes. Yes. And besides that piece of advice, what other final advice do you have for those high performers who are listening? So those people who really are working to reach their greater potential and are interested in, in really mastering their mind to do that. Yeah. So those people who really are working to reach their greater potential and are interested in really mastering their mind to do that.

Yeah. So I think the biggest bit of advice is to know that so many of the things that you struggle with internally are controllable. And even if you don't know how to control them today, you can learn how to control them. And it takes time and it's a process and you need good people to help you figure it out. But it's controllable. That is a perfect final message. Because we all struggle with something internally, right? We're all human. So I love your final message just in terms of like you can figure it out and it will be a process, but it's something that you can learn. Yeah, yeah.

Invest in yourself for sure. Excellent. So Erica, what are the ways that we should reach out to you? And tell us a little bit more about anything else you'd like to in terms of products or services. Yeah, so the best way to find me is on my website, which is ericacarlsonsports.com. And there's lots of information about the services that I provide for one-on-ones. And through MTI, we, you know, we service teams and organizations and we have great programs for coaches and parents, all kinds of great stuff there. So, and you can find my email address and my phone number there as well.

Excellent. And Erica, where would you tell us, how should we connect with you on Twitter? Oh yes. My Twitter handle is sportscyker. So sport and then cyker, P-S-Y-C-H-E-R. Nice. I believe that's right. Did I spell it weird? But yeah, it's sportscyker. Okay, excellent. Excellent. Well, I would encourage all those who are listening to reach out to Erica and I on Twitter. Just tell us what stood out to you about this interview. What did you enjoy most about what she shared?

You can tag me in the tweet. My Twitter handle is Mentally underscore Strong. Erica's, again, is SportsPsycher. And Erica, here are the things that I just want to thank you so much for sharing with the listeners because there are many kind of golden nuggets that you shared with the with people today. I really enjoyed our discussion about past, present and future and particularly the importance of staying in the present moment and how outcome goals can actually keep you so focused on the future. And so really to break those down into the process. And I also liked what you said about

staying and playing carefree. And you know, how that's an ultimate goal of mental training and sports psychology, and how people can learn to play carefree and stay in the present moment. And I like our discussion about failure and how failure is a great teacher. And I like what you said in terms of, you know, the quicker you can learn, the more valuable the lesson is and the mistake becomes. And the final quote, I'm going to quote you, send this on Twitter, is when you focus on what's right instead of what's wrong, it's a missing source of your confidence. Thanks so much for being here today and sharing some valuable tools and lessons and concepts with the listeners. All right. Thank you, Cindra. I appreciate you having me on. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset. If you like today's podcast, make a comment, share it with a friend and join the conversation

on Twitter at Mentally Underscore Strong. For more inspiration and to receive Cindra's free weekly videos, check out DrCindra.com.