High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 771: BONUS! Confidence Under Pressure with Olympians Paul Juda and Kendell Williams

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

Today's episode is a special bonus from our recent Confidence Summit, which brought together nine professional speakers, entrepreneurs, and world-class athletes to share practical strategies for developing confidence. In this episode, you'll hear two powerful conversations with Olympians Paul Juda and Kendell Williams about what it takes to trust yourself when the pressure is highest. Paul Juda is an Olympic bronze medalist who helped Team USA earn its first Olympic men's gymnastics team medal in 16 years at the Paris Olympic Games. A standout at the University of Michigan, Paul is an NCAA all-around champion, multiple-time NCAA individual champion, and helped lead the Wolverines to an NCAA national championship. Kendell Williams is a two-time Olympian and elite multi-event track athlete. She made NCAA history as the first woman to win four consecutive titles in the same event at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships and has competed successfully at the collegiate, Olympic, and World Championship levels. Their experiences reveal an important truth about confidence: it is built long before the defining moment. Paul shares how he moved away from trying to look confident and instead focused on creating evidence that he was prepared. After falling short of the 2021 Olympic team, he became more intentional about his mental reps, visualization, preparation, and learning to trust his process. That work eventually helped him perform under enormous pressure as Team USA captured an historic bronze medal in Paris. Kendell experienced her own confidence battle heading toward the Tokyo Olympics. After the pandemic disrupted training and competition, self-doubt started affecting the way she practiced, competed, and thought about herself. She shares the mental tools she used to rebuild her confidence, including stopping automatic negative thoughts, using Learn-Burn-Return to move forward from mistakes, creating a "fitness bank" of evidence that she was prepared, using power phrases, and shifting her attention toward controllable process goals. When her first day at the Tokyo Olympics didn't go as planned, those tools helped her reset, return confidently on day two, and climb to a fifth-place finish. In this episode, you'll learn: Why Paul believes real confidence is quiet and built through preparation. How trying to appear confident can create additional pressure. Why mental reps matter alongside physical preparation. How visualization helped Paul prepare for the biggest moments of his career. How Kendell uses Learn-Burn-Return to recover quickly from mistakes. How to interrupt automatic negative thoughts before they damage your confidence. Why building a bank of evidence can remind you how prepared you really are. How power phrases can strengthen your self-talk in high-pressure moments. Why process goals can reduce anxiety around outcomes. How bronze, silver, and gold goals can help you pursue excellence while staying grounded. Why confidence ultimately comes from doing the work required to trust yourself. These conversations originally appeared as part of Cindra's Confidence Summit, featuring nine speakers, entrepreneurs, and world-class athletes. You can also get access to the complete 4.5-hour Confidence Summit as a bonus when you purchase Cindra's new book, The Confidence Habit.   Pre-order The Confidence Habit: https://www.confidencetools.com/

Hi, it's Cinder here, and I have a special bonus episode for you today. We recently hosted a virtual confidence summit that was incredible and included nine professional speakers, entrepreneurs, and world-class athletes. Today in this bonus episode, you'll hear from two speakers, Paul Judah and Kenda Williams. Let me tell you a little bit about both of them. Paul Judah is an Olympic bronze medalist who helped lead Team USA to its first Olympic men's gymnastics team medal in 16 years at the Paris Olympic Games. He's a standout from the University of Michigan. He's an NCAA all-around champion, multiple-time NCAA individual champion, and helped

lead the Wolverines to an NCAA national championship. The second speaker you'll hear from today is Kendo Williams. Kendo competed as a multi-event track athlete who made history as the first woman to win four consecutive titles in the same event at the NCAA indoor track and field championships. Kendall went on to represent Team USA as a two-time Olympian, and her career has included success at the collegiate Olympic and world championship levels, making her one of America's most accomplished multi-event athletes. Now, the best part is that you can get the full four-and-a-half-hour confidence summit for free as a bonus when you purchase my new book, The Confidence Habit. You can learn more at ConfidenceTools.com.

Again, that's ConfidenceTools.com. And enjoy these talks from Paul, Judah, and Kendall Williams. I know you'll love him. So let me tell you a little bit about Paul Judah. He is an Olympic bronze medalist, everyone. Olympic bronze medalist who helped Team USA to its first Olympic men's gymnastics team medal in 16 years at the Paris Olympic Games. He's a standout.

He was a standout at the University of Michigan, where he was an NCAA all-around champion, a multiple-time NCAA individual champion, and he helped lead the Wolverines to an NCAA national championship. And to be honest, everyone, I saw his final event, and it blew my mind. I got goosebumps. Like, everyone, you, Paul, like, performed under pressure.

You, like, it was incredible, like, the way. that you could regulate yourself. And so he's known for his resilience, for his leadership, his ability to perform under pressure, and Paul has inspired audiences around the world with his journey from setbacks to the Olympic podium. And his talk today is called Real Confidence is Quiet. Everyone gave it up for Paul Judah in the house. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Sandra. Well, I greatly appreciate that introduction. and the way that you make it sound as if it's always been like that. And I'm really excited to go into this talk today because it hasn't. And I think a lot of people see people on the biggest stage and assume that they've always been confident. And what I'll be telling us all in a couple of minutes is that it takes a lot of work to get that confident.

It takes a lot of dedication. It takes a lot of effort. So without further ado, I would love to start sharing my screen. and let you all know about why I believe that real confidence is quiet. Are we all good on full screen? Yeah, it's looking great. Perfect. All right.

Well, let's start here. And as I was thinking about why and how I'm going to frame this talk, a perfect case study popped it up on my Instagram page. Alan Peters, he is a really big marketing guy on Instagram. He's got, as you can see, a million followers, short little story to make a long story short with Alan. He redesigned the Paris 2024 Olympic Games logo. And I thought, man, that's an incredible logo.

I had the obviously pleasure of going to the Olympics. And I always told myself I would never get a tattoo. But if I got one, it would be the Olympic rings. And of course, I DM'd him and I said, I love what you've done. Can I get that tattoo on me? It would cement my time while I was at the Olympics. And he thought, what an incredible. honor. Yes, please do.

Long story short, I didn't end up getting the tattoo. I figured it would be a lot more fun to just always have that memory. All that to say, I was on my Instagram the other day and Alan posted a DM, a private DM, a direct message from ASAP Rocky, who is a massive, massive,

hip-hop and rap artist. And the DM read, you know, good morning, Alan, how much do you charge for brand redesign? Excuse me, brand redesigns. I'm assuming that I would want to work with you, I would love to. you know, let's figure something out. And something struck me.

And I know that we've all been in this exact scenario. We tell people too early about the plans that we've got. We tell people too often about the goals that we have. We tell people how great 2026 is going to be at the end of 2025. We tell everybody about the promotions that we're just on the cusp of, but we're not there yet. And then, like all things, when we speak too loudly and we talk too much before we walk the walk, Alan, ASAP Rocky commented, this is just distasteful.

Well, I guess we won't be working. Best of luck, buddy. Now, obviously, that's a crude reminder of maybe why you don't share private DMs between people before things materialize. But I found myself as I was growing up doing a lot of the same thing.

And as I grew up, I had two parents that were both immigrants from Poland. My two siblings, Kasha, and I were very humble beginnings. We grew up and they both did gymnastics, but they never took it too seriously. I was lucky enough to fall in love with the sport early on in my life, and it became my entire world. My family, my siblings, they all supported me. And I put my high school up there because this is where that story kind of goes. I was the only kid in my graduating class of about 1,200 students to end up going to the University of Michigan for gymnastics.

let alone any Division I school for gymnastics. And while I was in high school, I let everybody know that I was a gymnast. I let everybody know I posted all the time. Anytime I went to a training camp in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Center, I posted about it. Anytime I had a small competition win, I posted about it. I was the guy that came off as cocky. And what I asked myself now when I look back on that time is why I was posting those things.

Did I need to tell other people that I had confidence? And it didn't really help me because as I went to the University of Michigan, it kind of continued. And what I mean by that is I had the opportunity to start at the University of Michigan, and I was part of a big team. For the first time in my life, I had other people that I was responsible for. When you're competing in the junior levels, you only pay to compete. You go to a competition, and when you go there, you just have to compete for your yourself. Sure, you've got your club team awards, but in reality, it's every man for themselves.

When you go to the University of Michigan, all of a sudden, an entire team is counting on you. And I learned that lesson very early on. And of course, I'd love to say that the best moments of my life, I met the love of my life for Ana Gugino there, I ended up proposing to her, but those two are the highlights right there. I want to focus our attention on who let a young Paul to think that the bottom right photo is an okay photo to be posting on social media. And that was what I had. I had this fake confidence going into everything that I was doing. I was posting nonstop. And especially when the Olympic Games got postponed one year as everybody remembers due to COVID, I thought to myself, what a time to make the Olympic team. I've got one extra year of training. I'm going to let

everybody know my goals. I'm going to tell them every competition that I go to. Again, I'm going to tell them every minor improvement that I have, every single time that I see progress in the gym, I'm going to let people know about it. And there's nothing wrong with that necessarily, but I didn't feel the pressure that it was building on the back end. I was letting these minuscule highlight real moments in my life show the world of how confident I really was. But in reality, that wasn't the case. And I had kind of my confidence blow up in front of me. At the biggest competitions, at the 2021 Big Ten Championships, I had several mistakes. In the 2021 NCAA championships, I had even more mistakes and I dropped to sixth place. And as I got ready for that 2021 Olympic

trials, I had a very, very poor performance and ended up in eighth place. I realized that something had to change. And what I found was that I was able to perform in all of these minor and small competitions, these competitions, so to say, that didn't matter. And I had a lot of confidence going into them. But in reality, when it came to these large competitions, the ones that mattered the most, I couldn't compete. I didn't have a process that I believed in. I didn't have real reps behind me. And above everything, I had an enormous amount of pressure because of what I was putting. putting on my social media. And so I found out something after 2021. Real confidence isn't loud. It is prepared. And what I mean by that is that after 2021, I knew that something had to change.

I worked tirelessly with my sports psychologist at the University of Michigan, Kevin Mungay. And Cinderas Nye's relationship actually mimicked a lot of the stuff that we talked about early on in my life. What I found was after reading the inner game of tennis that we had two selves, self-1 and self-2. And of course, I'm going to plug Cinder's book, but the inner game of tennis is a great complimentary book for everybody as well. Self-1 is the one that is conscious. It makes comments. It critiques all of your performances. Self-2 is the one that is unconscious and just competes and does.

And I found that my confidence on social media was being held up by self-won. And when I got to the competitions, I didn't have a self-2 to drop back on. I didn't have the reps. I didn't have a process that I knew that I believed in. And so Kevin and I worked tirelessly on mental visualization. And so after the season of 2021, I went all in on. mental sports psychology. And what that meant for me was that every single night for the next year, I would practice my routines in my head. I would sit down in my room or in the living room or

anywhere in my house that was quiet. I had no distractions and I would put myself in the shoes of the guy that's about to compete. What that allowed me to do was visualize and pretend and envision every single feeling and moment that I had at the competition so that when I got to the competition, I knew I had been there before. That was what I was missing all of those years prior. I would go to these competitions and I wouldn't know what to expect. And I know that sounds crazy.

I know that sounds crazy to everybody. An elite athlete who's been doing it for 16, 17 years at that point, and he goes to a competition and doesn't know what to expect. But it's true. practice is practice. When all the lights are on and all bets are off, it's completely different. And I learned I struggled in those moments because I didn't have confidence. And here are the results. That next year in 2022, I completely dove in, as I said. I got to the highest moments in competition. I went to a World Cup and I went to the NCAA National Championship. And I fully bought into this process of mental visualization.

And that process allowed me to have extra reps that I knew I didn't have before. When I had those scary moments, those anxious moments that I used to fall in, especially at the 2021 Big Ten Championships or the 2021 NCAA championships, and definitely that last Olympic trials, I was ready for them. I knew what to expect. And it wasn't just because I had been there before. I had done work and I believed in that process. In the 2024 Olympic Games, could you imagine the pressure?

We're going into the last event of the Olympics, and we have had a perfect competition up until that point. And my role is to start the last event. Of course, the pressure's building. It's unbelievable how much your heart races. But I could fall back on the reps that I was doing every single day to prepare me for that moment. And finally, the NCAA championships. As Cindra said, it was my last routine standing at the edge of the runway with a full crowd in Chrysler Arena. Everybody's wearing Mason Blue and the pressure's on me.

And not only do I have to land a ball to be able to win the NCAA championships, I know that I have to propose to my fiancé afterwards. So, so to say, there's a little bit of pressure in that moment. But again, I fall back to the process. And there's a great thing about this process, and there's a great thing about believing in the process. And it's that you don't necessarily have to have a perfect plan, but you can believe in that plan. And you can 100% commit to that plan. We had a speaker at the University of Michigan several years ago that said execution eats preparation for lunch every single day.

And why? because one out of 10 execution will always beat 10 out of 10 planning. For me, I always fall back on this quote, and it's from Alex Hermose, and it says, you don't become confident by shouting affirmations in the mirror, but by having a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are. Give yourself so much proof that you are the version of yourself that you want to be, and you'll become them. Outwork your self-doubt. And that was what I needed. I needed to have a process that when I went to the Olympic Games for the very first time in my career,

that that spotlight was going to be brighter than it could ever be, that there would be 200 cameras on a single event, and national television, world television, millions of people are going to be watching you, did you have the stack of proof knowing that you sat in your cold, quiet bedroom, practicing that moment every single time? So that when those spotlights did turn on, they weren't too bright. And I did. was able to execute in that moment. And so what's my takeaway? And how do I think that this can benefit

everybody? Because it's not necessarily that you're going to have an Olympic level routine that you're going to have to visualize millions and thousands of times to be able to perform. But I think the lesson is still applicable. We're all in various stages of our lives. And we all have different professional and personal goals. And visualizing and allowing ourselves to believe in that process is really powerful. For me, now I transitioned out of the sport a few years ago and I'm trying to figure out that exact same process again.

I'm trying to visualize where do I want to take my life. What does my life need to look like and what will it look like so that when I'm in that moment, when I'm at a high level ranking position and everybody's eyes are on me to make a decision I'm going to be ready for it.

And on the takeaway for social media, as you can see I still post on social media. it wasn't necessarily that I stopped posting on social media in 2022 and all the successes afterwards. It was just that I had a different intention behind it. I didn't need to broadcast my confidence because I was working on it at home. I was working on those small processes that no one else needed to see. That's what social media became for me. I didn't need to boast about my confidence because again, real confidence isn't loud, it's prepared. And finally, when you find something

that works when you find a way to build confidence in yourself. There's this egotistical way and I would say habit or maybe instinction, excuse me, that you want to just keep it inside. You don't want to share it. And especially in a sports world, why would I want to tell my competitors or even my teammates, for that matter, how to be confident? I want to be the best. I want to win. I'm going to do what's best for me. I don't want to share my secret sauce. But I learned really quickly that not everybody in this world gets to be as confident as we are. And if you have found that special sauce, share it, share it, because every single person deserves to wake up in the morning and feel like their life is worth taking. And everything in this world is theirs. I've always found that

once you share how to be confident, that confidence compounds and people look to you because you are the one that helped them become confident. So all that to say, the loudest confidence usually needs witnesses. The strongest confidence only needs evidence. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And it's been great. So any questions?

OMT right now. Why might blow? I know Paul wants to keep on speaking more and become a professional speaker. and I'm like, mic drop, multiple times, mic drop. If you have any questions, go ahead and put it in the chat. Scott, I see you. Go ahead and put that question in the chat. Jermaine, uh, whoa, whoa, wonged up.

Listen to what I heard. I love, I think the thing about confidence is at loud. Gave me goosebumps and I loved your vulnerability. What did you see, Jermaine? First of all, Paul, nice to meet you. Thank you for sharing your story and being very trans. transparent about social media, but I'll tell you, here's some of the things that stuck with me when you said, I adopted a process I believed in because sometimes we're just out there doing

stuff and we don't really believe it. So I love the fact that you highlighted a process that you believed in and you said real reps, putting in those reps because sometimes people are out there, they're busy, but they're busy doing nothing. And so that can we. and lessen your confidence and outwork yourself doubt. Oh, my goodness. Outwork yourself doubt. I wish I could take credit for that one. That one's all now, like, you know, but, but it's true. And I knew in those, in those moments that I was always a nervous competitor when I was younger. And I couldn't get those biggest moments. I couldn't, I couldn't step up to the stage because I didn't no other than my physical work that I was ready for it.

But when I had those mental reps, I could go in and it was, it was completely different. It was 180 degrees. So 100%. I love when you, I'm a communications professor, so I teach a course of nonverbal communication. And I love when you were talking about envisioning. You literally close your eyes and you said, I place myself there. And you were doing it on camera. I was like, okay, I believe them now.

Because he just, you authentically emoted and recreated that scenario. So thank you. Thank you. Pleasure. Yes. One of the things that Paul mentioned on the podcast I had with him. So Heidi, definitely put that back in the chat. One thing that I, you talked about like before you all performed at the Olympics,

the whole team visualized in the room the evening before and went real time. So there's some other questions in the chat here. And then maybe if you have an extra minute, I'll like answer that if you don't mind. but the one special asking is what other processes did you use your mental performance coach besides visualization? And definitely go call, follow call. I love the link on Instagram. But what are the things did you use?

Yeah, I'll be honest, that truly was my secret sauce. I will be honest. There was a ton of self-belief and searching for things that also gave me a lot of different meaning. That was probably the second. You know, contrary to popular belief, I believe that I excelled in gymnastics, especially towards those last few years of my career, because I spread out what mattered to me. A lot of people, a lot of people say you have to go all in on gymnastics, and I don't disagree with them at all.

But I also knew that if I put all of my eggs, and I mean every single thing that I cared about in my life only into gymnastics, that would be a kind of negative pressure that would force me to think that this, is all that my life is. I knew that I had made up an identity of different things in my life that mattered to me so that when I could go to gymnastics and when I was practicing gymnastics or in the gym or competing, I could have all my focus on there. But on top of that, I would leave work at work. I wouldn't take it home and I wouldn't bring other things that I loved in my life and kind of mix them because I wanted to still enjoy those things. And also, I believe the best break from one thing is to do something else.

Yeah, amazing. Well, everyone vaulting to just crushed it. If you've got five minutes, we'd love to you just to answer some questions. Yeah, yeah, I've got it. I've got it. I see some other stuff about NIL. But everyone can't fall like some

love. I know, he prepared this just for us and I could tell and like there was so many like drop moments. So I'm recommending you as a speaker and I'd love for you to come to an association for Applied Sports Psychology. So if there's anybody on here who could help us make that happen, let's do it.

You got it. Well, thank you, Sandra. Thank you for the heart. Thank you, Paul. We're so grateful for you. Hi, friends, Dr. Cinderra here, and I'm so excited to announce that my new book, published by Simon & Schuster, is now available titled The Confidence Habit. Our national research study on confidence showed there is a confidence crisis in America today.

one in two gen zers and young millennials feel like they are not enough. Women still scored lower on all markers of confidence compared to men. And this book provides the tangible research-backed strategies to grow your confidence, and I can't wait for you to read it. You can head over to ConfidenceTools.com to purchase your copy where there's over $594 of bonuses over there. Again, check it out at ConfidenceTools.com, and I can't wait to hear what to think about it.

So I want to hear DCWy Kendall. She competed as a multi-event track athlete who made history as the first woman to win Thor consecutive titles in the same event at the NCAA Indoor Track of Field Championships. She captured four straight pentathlon wins from 2014 to 2017, four straight. She also set three collegiate records in the bachlan while competing for the University of Georgia. She went out to represent Team USA as a two-time Olympian. highlighted by her fifth place finish in the tapathlon at the Tokyo Olympic Games. She's going to talk to us about today about that story.

They later earned her a bronze medal Olympic tathlon at the 2022 World Indoor Championships. Her career has been including success at the collegiate Olympic and world championship levels, making her everyone one of America's most accomplished multi-event athletes. And I'm getting goosebumps introducing her. Today she's going to be talking about confidence under pressure and lessons she learned from the Olympic Games. Before she goes on, I'd like to actually share with you a few background of tools she's going to talk about. Then you also, pretty cool, will be able to learn more about in the confidence habit when you get it. So she's going to be talking about a tool called learn burn return.

This came up a little earlier. We were talking about let's how to move quickly. on from mistakes. This is all about taking the lesson, then burning with a phrase or action, and returning with confidence, like confidence self-talk. And she's also going to talk about her bronze, silver, gold goals. And a gold goal is like your ideal. This is an outcome that you really, really want. Sometimes focusing on these goals, however, create a lot of anxiety and pressure for us. And the silver goal is somewhere in between. The bronze goal is an outposting come you'd be satisfied with. And so she's going to talk today about how to set a range of goals

to take the pressure off and allow you to thrive at your best. Could we give it up for Kendall Williams in the house, everybody? This is going to be amazing. Thank you, so many. Thank you, Senator, are joining us today. Oh, thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be here. And hi, everyone. I'm Kendall. And like Cinder said, I'm going to be talking about building and growing confidence and some of the tools that helped me prepare for the Tokyo Olympic Games that took place in 2021. I'm going to be talking from a sports lens, but these tools are applicable to any area of life or career field. So keep that in mind. So let's dive in and then I'm happy to take questions at the end. So throughout my career, my confidence would ebb and flow.

I'd come off of a great season but then still experience self-doubt and anxiety as the next season approached. I'd have a great meet but still experience nerves and uncertainty the next time I was at the line. So I was used to a normal ebb and flow, but after 2019, everything shifted for me. So in 2019, I finished the season placing fifth at world championships. And at the time that was the highest I'd finish at a major championship, which was great. 2020 was the Olympic year. And I'm sure you can expect. There's a lot that goes into an Olympic year prep mentally, emotionally, physically.

And so we began training a bit later that year, probably in January. And then two months later, everything shuts down. due to COVID. The season was canceled. The Olympics postponed. And although I was still doing my best to stay in shape, that was the longest I'd ever gone, without my training regimen or competitions. So by the time the 2021 season rolled around, I felt like a baby giraffe trying to sprint again, jumping again, hurtling again. My practices were not going well. And my times in competition were times I was running in high school. So I was rusty to say the least.

And the rest didn't shake off quickly, which started to affect my mindset and confidence in a major way. I started to wonder if I was ever going to reach the same level of fitness that I had prior to COVID, how I was going to make the Olympic team and contest for a medal like my sponsors, my coach, and even myself were expecting to do. Why am I even bothering? No longer I was in my slump physically, the harder it was to reframe my thoughts and pick myself back up mentally. I started wanting to not wanting to go to practice. I wasn't interested because there was no improvement.

I was filling my head with negative thoughts about my situation and that would affect my practice and then how I showed up in competitions. So I knew I needed support to break through this thought spot. and help me get back on track towards the goal that I'd been working for five years. And so that's what I met, Dr. Syndra, Kewvob, and started becoming intentional about growing my confidence. Next slide, please. So there were four tools that I learned during my time with Cindra that I started using

Degley. And this is how I would get to and get through practices and how I'd approach competition day with a more positive mindset. So these are tools that can be applied to any area of life. And I'll dive into each in the following slides. So the first step of how I grew confidence was to stop talking negatively about myself. I needed to stop telling myself that I didn't want to go to practice or that I wasn't

going to get back in peak fitness. Instead, I would stop that ant, which stands for automatic negative thought. and I would replace it with something else, like practice is getting me one step closer to my ideal form, or today is another opportunity to get better. We sometimes hold ourselves back from opportunities just because we told ourselves we aren't qualified, we aren't good enough, we aren't ready, whatever it might be, rather than speaking positivity into ourselves and into our situation. So my own thoughts were putting a cap on my confidence. And so one of the ways that I would refocus was through learn, burn, return, which you can see here on the left of the screen. And the idea behind this is that we should learn from whatever didn't work well,

but then burn it or flush it from our minds so that we can return to the task with a go-forward mentality rather than holding on to something from the past. The next tool was really impactful to my journey, was starting a fitness bank, which you can see right there in the middle. And I realized that feeling prepared was a big confidence driver. And the fitness bank provided a visual of how I was preparing in my Olympic journey. So every time I had a noteworthy performance in practice, I'd write down the event I was proud of, the measurement or the time, and the date. this was actually my fitness bank before the Olympics. So for anyone that's visual like me,

creating a log of your successes and wins, no matter how big or small, could be really impactful because sometimes we let the negative overshadow the good. And so having a visual is a great reminder that you're probably a lot more prepared than you give yourself credit for. And lastly, power freezes,

which you can see on the right. This could be in the form of I am statements. I'm strong. I'm confident. I'm meant to be here. I'm capable. I'm enough. Or they can just be like one line like phrases that are like a pep talk to yourself. And the photo that's that's on this slide or some of the paraphrases that I would use regularly. So step two, process over outcome. So process goals are the things you can control that will help you get to the bigger outcome goal. So the photo on the left is what I would write out for myself before every single competition.

I had to write out the process goal, which were the things that I wanted to focus on during each event. And if I executed those well, it's likely that I would achieve my gold, silver, or bronze goal, aka the outcome goal. So writing this out helped me focus on the controllables. It also helped me not get discouraged and lose confidence if I didn't win because if I executed the process goals, the chances are I gave it my best. and that's something that I can be proud of.

So I have a real life example on the left of an example of one of the meets that I would go to in Austria every year. And this is only the first half of the events. My day two events were on a different page. And then on the right side of the screen, just some real world examples of what a process goal could look like. So, for example, consistently meeting your work deadlines, the bigger outcome could be getting the promotion. or if you make different choices to contribute more to your savings, the bigger outcome goal could be the new house, just for an example. So here we are at the Olympics.

I'm coming off of the Great Olympic trials where I scored a lifetime best, and now it's time to really put these tools to the test. It's like prepare to compete on the biggest stage. So this is still awake of COVID, so we're very strict on testing, very strict on the requirements when we're in Tokyo and in the village. We tested every single day. And so a day or so after arriving into Tokyo, I got a message from USA Medical telling me to gather some of my essential things and come with them because I received a positive COVID test and was going to be gone from the village for a few hours. And so I'm immediately panicking because if that test is positive, that means that I would have made. missed out on my Olympic experience before it even started. And I could have potentially contaminated

my roommates and affected their ability to compete. So many things are running through my mind. And so USA Medical takes me to this secluded area. And I put into this room with one small window and a cot. That's that's all that was there. People are in full hazmat suits and they come in to give me another COVID test. And I'm sitting there waiting and I'm waiting. And then finally they come in and tell me it was a false positive and that I was free to go. So I was extremely relieved, but also very shaken up. I needed to implement learn burn return. And what I learned from that experience was that I needed to continue to be vigilant about washing hands, wearing masks, keeping distance, to ensure that my opportunity to compete wasn't jeopardized.

I needed to burn the experience from my memory and shake off the scares and then return to a relaxed focused because I ultimately still needed to compete in a few days. And so for those that might not be familiar, the heptathlon is comprised over seven seven events over two days running, jumping, and throwing. And chances are all seven events are not going to go perfectly or the way you would expect. Most people have a couple of weaker events and so they rely on the stronger ones to make up the difference. So the uptath one starts with the hurdles, which is one of my strongest events. But in competition at the Olympics, it did not go as well as I needed it to. Learn burn return. I moved to the next event, subpar result. And that pattern was the

theme of my day one. And after four events, I was sitting outside of the top 10, which was not ideal or expected, considering I was coming into the Olympics with one of the highest scores. So this was not my best day. Learn burn return was key. That night, I also revisited my process goals. I reread my paraphrases and prepared myself to go into day two with the renewed and confident mindset. It wasn't, I didn't do well on day one so my competition is over, but rather I still have three more events to climb the standings. And that's exactly what I did. I climbed up the standings to a fifth place finish that I am extremely proud of. And actually the picture on the right, those were my power phrases for the Olympics. So those were what I wrote down the

night before and what I brought with me during the competition. So as you can see, there are many factors controllable and uncontrollable that can influence confidence. When I stood on the starting line at the Olympic trials or even the Olympics, I wasn't fearless, but I was prepared. And confidence didn't come from everything going right or knowing that I'd make the team or perform well. it came from knowing I had done the work to trust myself to not stand in my own way or let the uncontrollables keep me down. So whenever the self-doubt begins to creep in for you, just think back to your preparation, focus on what you can control, and then train your mind to see the positive. Thank you. Oh, my goodness.

All right. Tremaine, I don't know. I got really emotional just for a second there. I remember talking to Kendall. Actually, my family and I were coming back from Duluth, so my son's basketball game. And I remember we pulled over so I could talk to Kendall in between her two days because her first day didn't go as well as she wanted to and is expected.

And then look what she pulled off. I think also what just hit me in my heart was like there's so many mentally strong coaches on the call where they've learned about all these tools like learn by return and process goals and all the things and you just gave just evidence on how you can use these tools of the biggest stages. I'm just so great. Both for you. Jermaine, what do you think? Nice to meet you, Kendall. Nice to be you. I'll tell you my aha moment. A few things. I love that last part. when you said, I did the work to trust myself. And it made me think about Paul Judah when he was talking about reps, like Judah reps.

Yeah. And when I'm thinking about this summit, I'm thinking about the relationship or the correlation between the work that I do to develop that competence so that I feel competent. And so when you said that, he was like, I did the work to trust myself. And so when I'm in that moment, I can rely back on my training, my preparation. So thank you. And I love when you talked about the relationship between the process goals and the outcome goal, that was a flash for me. And I started thinking, okay, here's the nerve part of me.

I'm going to do some research after this and start thinking about, Jermaine, what are your process goals and the impact they have on your outcome goals? So that resonated with me. Thank you. Amazing. Yeah. And the outcome bowl is usually something we can't control. Like, you know, we have a goal of getting this book on the New York Times list.

We can't control that. We can't control is like delivering amazing value today, right? Asking people to buy one book. Or actually, my husband at Brayette, said tell people what you really want syndrome and i was like well actually what i really want is to come speak into businesses where people buy a book for each of the people that you work with so if you'd be willing to do that send me an email but that's what we really want to be on the scandal and germane and everyone listening that actually sometimes creates a lot of pressure and anxiety so we all have to stay

focused on like what's one thing i can do today right um what's one thing we can do today which i think kendall demonstrated. And I think also Kendall, what I think is a theme throughout the day is that, you know, wow, you were the most declarated hip, like multi-event athlete ever before you went to the Olympics. And you still question yourself. You know what I mean? And so it's not, it's so, Hoffman's is so fragile. And so I hope that people take from today that like, okay, I can be the pilot of my own destiny right here. I can decide what I'm going to believe in what I'm not. And I don't need to believe in all those automatic negative thoughts. And I love your fitness bank.

You know, I'm going to encourage all of you to do that as well. And what Kendall did is she had it in her kitchen, right? Yep. And when she felt like there was something successful that she had on her day, like, you know, it was a competition or a practice, she'd put that sticky note on her wall. So every day she went by that, you know, that wall, she was like, all right, I'm on the right track. Way to go for finishing another episode of the high performance, mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else?

If you want more, remember to subscribe. And you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes and enjoy my exclusive community for high performers, where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can add over to Dr. Cyndra.com. See you next week.