High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 98: Compete Like a Champion with Dr. Larry Lauer, USTA Mental Skills Specialist

Episode Date: April 1, 2017

Dr. Larry Lauer is the Director of Player Development for the US Tennis Association. In this role, he is also a mental skills specialist working with the most elite tennis players in the U.S. to help accelerate them from juniors to pros. He works with athletic coaches to help them support and develop their athletes. In this interview, he talks about how three things separate the best in the world: 1) an unbelievable work ethic focused on always getting better, 2) a commitment to the process that doesn’t bear fruit for some time, and 3) passion for what they do. We talk about how the best are almost solely focused on the process (about 95% of the time), but they check in with their outcome goals periodically throughout the season – perhaps every quarter, he suggests. Or, they use their outcome goals to stay motivated and pushing themselves during training. Other topics discussed: His “Breath and Believe” Strategy 3 Steps to Command the Moment 3 Things the Best Coaches Do Get a description and summary at cindrakamphoff.com/Larry. You find Larry on twitter at @LarryLauer or email him at [e-mail].

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 am grateful that you're here ready to listen to an interview with Larry Lauer. Now, the goal of these interviews is to learn from the world's best leaders, athletes, coaches, consultants, and speakers all about the topic of mindset to help us reach our potential or be high performers in our field or our sport. And I first want to start

off reading a couple of iTunes reviews. So Mindset Rookie said this, I listen to this podcast as I'm going to work almost every day. The positive affirmations start my day off right. Hands down one of the best podcasts for mindset. Thank you so much, Mindset Rookie. I super appreciate it. And then Paul Fertow, a PsyD, said, One of my best platforms for pushing my knowledge of performance coaching principles that I've come across. Doesn't hurt that I can tune in during my work commute.

So thank you so much, Paul and Mindset Rookie for the iTunes rating and just for your comments over there. And I shared with you last week, a big goal that I have. And my big, audacious goal is to double the downloads of this podcast in 100 days. And the reason I wrote down this goal is how every time I get done with one of these interviews, just like the interview with Larry today, I pinch myself. I learned so much about mindset from some of these world-class speakers and coaches. And I think that more and more people could benefit from hearing about these amazing principles that are shared on the podcast. So I wrote down this goal. I have been tracking it and just putting it out there, putting it out in the universe

and indicating my intention has started to make a big difference. So I just want to thank you so much for your help. It's really making a difference. And so if you could help me out, continue to help me out with this goal, you can help in one of three ways. You could tweet about the podcast, perhaps share an episode that you found helpful, maybe your favorite, or just share this podcast today with Larry. You could post a quote or just post a link to the interview. The second thing you could do, just like Mindset Rookie or Paul did,

is you could head over to iTunes, provide a comment or a rating, or you could tell a friend about the podcast. I would so appreciate it. I know all of my guests would. That would just be incredible. It would help us reach more and more people and keep these amazing interviews free. So I'll give you updates on this goal throughout the next 100 days. But I know we can do it together. So thank you so much for all of your help. So today's interview is with Larry Lauer. And Larry and I both received our PhD at the same place, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. And Larry is a director of player development for U.S. Tennis Association. In this role, he is also a mental skills specialist

working with the most elite tennis players in the U.S. to help them accelerate from juniors to pros. And he also works with athletic coaches to help them support and develop their athletes. Now, in this interview, he talks about several different things that really stood out to me as the most important things from the interview. He talks about three things that separate the best in the world related to their mindset. We also talk about something that I mentioned in my new book coming out in August called the 95-5% rule. And that's specifically we talk about what percentage of our attention

should be focused on the process versus the outcome. So pay close attention to that. We'd love to hear what you think about that discussion. He also talks about his breath and believe strategy. Now I got that slightly wrong when I repeated it back to him. So I just want to clarify that that's called breath and believe strategy. He talks about three things to command the moment and three things that the best coaches do. So I think you're going to get a lot out of this interview. This is one of the interviews I'm going to transcribe for myself to study and just to like help me level up my work with athletes and coaches, leaders and entrepreneurs.

So my favorite quote of this podcast was, if you park your evaluation of your outcome goal, you'll be more consistent over time. So without further ado, let's bring on Larry Lauer. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast, Larry Lauer. I'm excited that you're here joining us from sunny California today, right? Yes, thanks for having me, Sindra. And yes, I'm in Indian Wells at our Indian Wells Premier Tournament, helping our American players.

We're really just in the first round, so we're getting started, but we've been here, our staff, since before qualifying. So I've been here almost a week so it's been it's going well so sounds great well just tell us a little bit about what you do right now Larry yeah so my my role is in USTA United States Tennis Association player development so it's a different arm of the United States Tennis Association and I am the mental skills specialist. It's the term we're using within the organization. Basically I'm the sports psychology consultant for American tennis. My role is to work with our American players and coaches to help them prepare for competition, as well as what I like to think of, be happy, healthy champions. So it's not just about winning, but it's more so about developing

them as a whole person and becoming the best they can be and striving for their goals. So that's really the main thing. and it's my job, my role, my responsibility to sort of set the mission, the agenda for mental training in American tennis and try to work with other sports psychology consultants who are working with tennis as well as coaches around the country, parents and players to raise the level of our, basically, the efficiency and effectiveness of how we're using our mind to perform

and, again, to learn life skills to go through this journey in a very positive way. That sounds like a really big job. It is. American tennis. So, Larry, tell us like specifically who you work with. Do you directly work with the coaches or do you work with the athletes or, you know, groups or tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah, it's really all the above,

I work with the athletes. My main population now is probably like ages 14 into the mid to late 20s. So I work with aspiring pros, so juniors who are on what we call the pathway to professional tennis and as well as professionals who are on the tour and trying to accelerate their career, move their career along and so they can have a successful career. I also work with our coaches. We have a national coaching staff of about, I think it's 26 coaches now. And they work everything from, it's both girls, boys, men, women, ages pretty much, for the most part, ages around 10 to, again, into the 20s.

But we support all of American tennis it's really our role so we try to support in different ways so maybe through camps we have what we call our player identification department and they provide camps around the country for ages like 8 to say 13 we're providing camps and we often have a mental component to that or what we like to talk about is compete like a champion so a character component and once they hit around 14 and if they're having a lot of success and that means not just results but in developing their games and they show an interest. We bring them into one of our national training centers every so often

to train with our national coaches. And we work pretty closely with their primary or private coaches to continue to develop them. So it's really a collaborative process, I hope, with our American coaches, not just the national coaches taking over. And they move along. And, again, if they're moving along the pathway, they're having a lot of success and it makes sense for the family,

for the kid, then we might invite them to come train at one of our national centers, typically Orlando, which is our national campus, or in Carson. We also have a third training center, training center in New York at the U.S. Open but that's mostly younger kids at this time but so we'll mic them in they'll start training with us full-time and they'll they'll work with our performance staff as well so they'll be with the coach but they'll work with our strength and conditioning they'll work with our athletic training and. So they'll be with the coach, but they'll work with our strength and conditioning. They'll work with our athletic training and medical staff. They'll work with sports psychology, which right now is me.

But in New York, we do have someone else doing sports psychology, Mark Lerman. So he's working with the younger ones. And they get this sort of full experience from all the different sports sciences to help them develop their full game and develop themselves. So we talk all the time about our performance teams and creating a performance team around the athlete working with the coach. So that gives you kind of a semblance, but we're doing, we're working with individuals, we're working with groups, we're working in camps,

we're doing national presentations, coaching programs, we're doing a lot of different things, putting out resources, videos to try and support American tennis. Well, we're going to have a lot to talk about. What a cool job. So just to kind of give the listeners a little bit of background in terms of how you got to USTA, and then we'll kind of dive into a little bit more about your work. You and I got to meet each other when we were both working on our PhD at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro. So just tell us like once you finished there, I know you went to Michigan State, just tell us a little bit about your journey, just a

little bit about your career. Yeah, I'd be happy to. For me, it started even younger, being a three-sport athlete, good at all of them, not great at any of them. Getting into coaching and really enjoying coaching baseball and coaching anywhere from Little League up to what we had in Pennsylvania called American Legion, which was 16, 17, 18-year-old boys. I found out about sports psychology through a professor at my undergraduate university, Clarion University in Pennsylvania, and Dr. Eastley Krause, and she really kind of got me excited about it. I ended up being fortunate to get into UNC Greensboro with Dan Gould. He took a flyer on me, and things worked out. I did my master's.

I went on to be actually an ice hockey director for a while, which seems a bit of a tangent for what I'm doing now. So I was working in the rinks for a couple years, including with Philadelphia Flyers Skate Zone up in Penn Soccer, New Jersey, which was a great experience, running tournaments, running programs, and then just starting my own consulting business. I went back for my Ph.D. I was there for three years. My final year, we decided it was best because Dan was moving to Michigan State to take over the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports for me to go along

and to be the coordinator of coaching education. So while I finished my PhD, I did it at UNC Greensboro. I was actually in Michigan. And that's where the Playing Tough and Clean Hockey program occurred with four players for a whole season. I finished my PhD there. I worked there as director of coaching, education, and development for another probably seven years, seven and a half years. I was also at that time working with USA Hockey's National Team

Development Program in Ann Arbor. I worked there for over eight years as a consultant to the program, which was a good run. It's a great program and we had a lot of success, a lot of medals in our World Under-18 Championships, and it's an Under-18 program. At the same time, for three years, I worked with the men's tennis team at Michigan State University as a volunteer coach and mental coach. So I had a really great fortune to travel with the team, be on court for practice, be on court for matches, which was a really cool experience because I was coaching players during matches and using sports psychology in action, which was, you know,

you're always kind of removed from the performance as a sports psychologist. But in this case, I wasn't. I was a part of the performance as it was happening, which was a lot of fun. And I learned a lot quickly because of that, how to communicate, how to bring some of the concepts to life, how to help players in the moment. So it really helped prepare me. All those experiences helped prepare me for the position I have now, and that is at USTA Player Development as our mental skills specialist

or mental skills coach. And then that's kind of where I've been. I moved to Boca Raton to work at our center there almost four years ago, four years in May. We built a brand-new facility in Orlando, Florida. So my family and I moved to Orlando in June last year and the facility opened in December. It's an amazing facility. It's beautiful, spacious. We got everything we really need to continue to develop American Champions and it's a really exciting time for American tennis for sure. Well that's excellent Larry exciting time for American tennis, for sure.

Well, that's excellent, Larry. It's good to hear about your journey and just exactly how you got there and that it wasn't just overnight, right? No. No, I remember talking to Peter Haberle, and I still laugh about this. I tell some of the players this too sometimes. When I was in my mid to late 20s, I said, Peter, how do you make a go in this business? I was starting my own consulting business and,

you know, I wanted to work with the best athletes in the world. And he's like, Larry, be patient, be patient. You're doing the right stuff. And at the time I'm like,

come on, Peter, like I'm tired of being patient. You know, I've been working so hard, but it's true. Um, things don't always happen overnight.

Um, I think you have to build your brand. You have to do a lot of good work over years. And you have to be passionate about what you do. And so when a high school athlete comes in and they want to work, you have to be passionate about that and do a great job, as well as a youth athlete up to a professional or a university athlete. You know, and I think that's one of the keys is that you're, when you're performing as sports psychologist, you are performing and you must do a good job because that person could be

the person who networks you to another opportunity. But more importantly, if someone puts their trust in you, you owe it to them to bring your passion, your energy, your commitment, your expertise to every single person. So, you know, that's something I learned from Dan Gould. He was a great mentor for me and for many people, and you know him very well. And he's such a great supporter and helped me to get to where I am today. So that's excellent advice for, I think, anybody in sports ecology, but also coaches who are listening or entrepreneurs is, you know, you have to have passion for what you do and do a lot of good work over the years. So Larry, one big question I have for you is I think about, you know, just the opportunity of those pro athletes that you get

to work with, the juniors who are trying to make it big time. And so what do you see that separates them from the rest? So those people who are more successful, who actually make it, what do you see that separates them mentally? Yeah, separating. I think, you know, first you got to have some talent, obviously. That doesn't make it happen. I mean, I think our talent takes us so far. There is obviously that part of the

equation. But then what I see as separators are their work ethic, their commitment. On the mental side, you know, your willingness to commit to a process that doesn't really bear fruit for a while. Again, this idea of being patient. But we're working on on training mindfulness and we're doing breathing exercises imagery exercises a lot of reflection sometimes the athletes you know they struggle with that because you know it just doesn't happen for them and and you know we might be working on that but that doesn't mean here at indian wells you're going to make quarter final semis or finals it may mean you just have a good performance in a tough situation and and so we we must all the time remind them it's about the process of getting better every day and i think the athletes who separate have that commitment um they're able to focus on that

process of getting better while striving to be the best they can be. And it is, you know, when I was younger, I didn't understand this, but it's, it's definitely the sort of ability to, you know, have, have a lot of pride in what you do and always striving to win. But the majority of yourself is focused on the process of getting better. Um, you know, you're still, that's where, you know, you're going to put your most energies because at the end of the day in

tennis, only one person wins and everybody else loses on that week, their last match. And so it can be tough that way, but I think that's one of the big separators is their commitment to, to do the training. And that can be, you way but I think that's one of the big separators is their commitment to to do the training and that can be you know mental can be physical tennis the commitment level the passion the passion for what they do I mean I see you know some of our young players you know again I'm fortunate I get to see them journey from being a teenager into being a young adult and striving for this really huge dream to be a professional tennis player. And the ones who are proactive, who are always looking for a

way to get better, they're asking questions of their coaches, of the performance staff, of me. They're the ones who are saying, look, Larry, I want a meeting. I want to meet. I want to meet every Friday at two. And they're there every time. And they have questions. And they're working on things in practice. So if I come to practice, I would often see their between points routine. I would see them communicating with their coach. I would see them working on their reactions to points, whether it be good or bad. They're constantly working on getting better, and it's not something that the mental training lives in a silo separate from everything else they do.

They really are trying to create a lifestyle where they are very aware, where they are composed, where they are confident, resilient, tough. They want to make that a part of who they are composed, where they are confident, resilient, tough. They want to make that a part of who they are, and they are constantly working towards those, what I would say, are those core values to help someone to compete like a champion. Yeah, that's excellent. And, you know, when I think about, Larry, the work that you do and how you play an integral role in that, how do you teach patience,

you know, in terms of, let's say you have an athlete who isn't being very patient with the process and wants it to happen right away, even though I think about your journey to where you are right now, it takes a while, right? And you have to be patient. What do you think about that? That's a great question. And we probably don't talk about that enough when we're together talking about sports psychology, but it's huge. It's how much can someone commit to the process of development or change over time to get to where they want to be.

And, you know, I work with a lot of players who are returning from injury, and it's something we always discuss is about being patient and, and setting, setting goals that are challenging or realistic, you know, that, okay, my, my goal is to be able to do this today. And that is success. Meaning that is success today. And for example, if we had a player returning from injury in her first tournament, she's playing in a big tournament.

And, you know, while she wanted to win, the discussions before the match were, hey, let's focus on what we've been working on. That's going to be success for you today. Your ability to be aggressive, go after the ball, move well, just try to play your game. That is success today. Taking off the burden of I have to win because I train with player development,

because I'm expected to win because I was winning before I was injured. So patience is a big key. But I think the word that must come with that is also acceptance. And the ability to accept the situation that you're in and also how you feel about it and these things you know we talk a lot about in our coaching staff has really done a great job with this how the things that we go through are normal kind of human conditions so if you're if you're nervous as can be before a match it it's pretty normal, right? It's pretty normal to be nervous for a match. And helping them normalize things, talk about it, you know,

and understand that accepting these things and then preparing to deal with them well is really what we're looking for over the long term. A couple other ways that we deal with that, you know, and it's not easy, I wouldn't say, you know, I have 100% record on this, so let's be honest about that, but is getting them to really almost park or put in the parking lot their evaluation. You know, they may say, okay, I want to be back in the top 100 the way I was a year ago. Well, that's great, and that's an outcome goal, and you don't necessarily have total control over that. So let's hold that, and let's concern ourselves with that in three months.

But for now, for the time being, allow yourself just to focus on the process of how you're going to get there. What do you need to do in your tenets, technically, tactically, physically what you need to do with your movement, with your strength, with your speed, and then on the mental side as well, you know, what you need to do to be able to get to that goal. And in that process, we've got to take faith in that it will eventually get us to where we need to be.

So I think the athletes appreciate that when they they understand that they can delay sort of that evaluation just park it and be like okay i just need to get better and keep working and eventually things will pay off um you know we talk about it's a 10 month season 11 month season so you don't have to win this week or next week what you need to do is be consistent over time. If you're consistent over time, you will meet a lot of the goals you have. So if you were able to win over 25 tournaments, you're able to win on average one and a half matches, you're going to have a really good year,

which might to the normal observer might seem like, well, that's not very good. But if you think about it, players who are in the top 100 often have a losing record because they're playing other top players. So if you're able to get 30, 40 wins in the season at a high level, you're going to have a very successful season, and then hopefully we can have some weeks where you really push deep. So it's really trying to take the edge off having to win right now and being patient with the results. If I do the right thing over time, eventually it'll pay off. I don't know if it's going to happen in March or April or May.

Maybe it happens in June. Maybe it happens in August at US Open, which would be amazing. I don't know when it's going to occur, but I got to take faith that I do the right things that eventually will occur. You know, and one of the things I see, Larry, is that I think especially younger athletes, they get really focused on the outcome goal, and then they get frustrated when it doesn't happen. What percentage of the time do you think that athletes that you work with should be focused on the outcome versus the process? You know, if you had to put a percentage on it, do you think it's 99% of the time on the process with just a little bit of focus on the outcome? Or I don't know, what Do you think it's 99% of the time on the process with just a little bit of focus on the

outcome? Or I don't know, what do you think? Yeah, that's, that's, I've tried to figure that out myself, Sindra. And I would say, yeah, maybe 95%. I mean, then we got to talk about specifics. So when do you focus on the outcome? We focus on the outcomes at the end of the year. How did we do? Why are we at where we're at? We focus on the outcomes, you know, periodically throughout the season to gauge how things are going. You know, we have mentioned earlier performance teams. We come together with our athletes. We try to come together every quarter.

And we're actually getting close to that after the Miami tournament. We'll begin to have performance team meetings again. Just to gauge where we're at because we know that they're going to think about the outcomes. We can't just try to avoid it, ignore it all the time. But again, like I said, if we can delay that evaluation, let's look at your ranking and the outcomes that you're interested in in 2017 after the Miami tournament, which is coming out for this Indian Wells tournament.

That gives them sort of allowance to, to let go a lot of that outcome and just focus on the process. The other time we talk about focus on your big dream goals, outcomes you want to achieve is when you're in training and you're tired and you're sore and you need to push yourself. That is a great time to focus on the outcome because it's going to help you be more motivated in many times. If you think about your purpose um i understand it you

know if you're doing sprints after doing two hours of tennis and then you got to do two more hours of tennis after your sprints thinking about okay you know today i'm working on getting out on my right leg when i'm going wide in my forehead that's not so inspiring but if you're thinking about, hey, you know what, I'm doing this so that I can win a junior Grand Slam tournament, that helps you to push through. So I think there are times, and as an athlete being aware of those times, as a young athlete, I didn't understand that at all. But I think if we help the athletes understand when is a good time to focus more on those outcome goals, obviously, as we know,

right before competition might not be the time because that tends to elevate nerves. Absolutely. And I think you and I are on the same page in terms of, I think it is about 95% where the athletes, the really good athletes are focused on the process, but I think the outcome can actually really be motivating sometimes if it's focused on, if they use it at the right time. But you're right, athletes don't always know that innately, and I guess that's why we're there to help them. So Larry, can you give us an

example of a topic related to mental training that you cover with all, typically you cover with all the people that you work with? Is there, you you know one topic that seems central to your work yeah i think there are a few topics um but one is the ability to focus in the moment because a lot of what we have to do in tennis is to hold our attention to what we're doing in the moment and i guess i'll start by saying your our on the court mission is to be ready to play each point because tennis is a stop and start sport. And you do this 100 times. You do it 120 times in a match. Can you show up at the baseline ready to play with your best self as often as possible?

Because if you do, you give yourself a great chance to be successful. So, again, this helps us to focus on the process during the match. Your goal is to be all in, and I'll explain what that means, over 90% of the time when you get to the baseline. So for us, the way we talk about it with our athletes is that all in, that total engagement in what you're doing in the moment is to be fully focused on what matters in the moment, how you want to play the next point, what your plan is.

We talk to our players all the time about planning the next point. We call it a serve plus one. So where I'm hitting the serve plus the next shot or what I want to do with the return. So you need to know what your plan is for the next point as you're moving through your between points time period. You want to have good positive energy, so good body language, posture, plan is for the next point as you're moving through your between points time period um you want to have good positive energy so good body language posture um up on your toes ready to be explosive to be physical um you want to be in a good position as you get to the baseline and also

you want to have some belief in what you're doing you don't always have belief in what you're doing but for the most part we want to believe that even though I'm nervous, I'm frustrated, whatever's going on, this is a big point. I have a plan I believe in. I believe that if I hit my kicker on the deuce side and I hit it, that kicker wide, I'm going to get a forehand and I'm going to go open court. And I feel like I can do that all day. And what I'm seeing, Cedric syndrome is that when we can get our athletes to focus on that then we can execute with with the nerves if they focus on how they feel then it's a struggle it's a struggle because now your attention is going to what's uncomfortable what the what-ifs what if I missed a shot what happens if I lose what happens if I missed a shot? What happens if I lose? What happens if I get broken?

So trying to keep them in the moment. Now, we train that on and off the court. We train that through doing, you know, mindful breathing exercises, through doing a lot of reflection on their practices, on their matches as well as through self-talk training and imagery or visualization training as well and it's for me it's getting as simple and routine as possible in the matches is what's going to make you successful so we try to teach a routine that when when something happens and you're distracted, you're emotional, you're scared, whatever's going on, go to your breath, try to center and focus yourself on that breath to compose yourself,

to relax, and then move your mind towards, okay, what is it that I would like to do in this next point? And if you can talk to yourself in an encouraging way, if you can visualize what it is that you're going to do, then it gives you that ability to commit to something in the moment, which is huge to get to commitment. But a lot of times what I'm finding is that without acceptance, and awareness and acceptance, we never get to commitment. So it really starts with whatever's going on, being aware, accepting, like I mentioned

before, and being able to get into your breath and then starting to refocus. So that's typically what we're teaching a lot of our athletes. We do that off court in in training sessions and we certainly do that on court as well and and the on court for me is especially fun because we'll we'll do things you know like okay we'll put you in a situation we'll see how you're responding we'll help you through it um we'll talk about using your routines using using your breath, slowing things down. So we're always looking for innovative, creative ways to stress our athletes and challenge them and see how they handle it. And so if I could summarize what you're saying is that when athletes focus on how they feel, it's not always a good thing because then they're focusing on how uncomfortable they are. So instead, focusing on their routine and being aware of

what's happening in your body or your mind and then accepting it and committing to the next shot. Yeah. And I want to just clarify, and I know you know this, but it's not ignoring or fighting what you're feeling. It's accepting it. So you do need to be aware of those feelings and accept them because they're all there for a reason. And we need to honor those feelings. But at the same time, where would you like your mind to be? What do you want to do about it? And that's really the key is can you get to that determined choice after you accept? I think a lot of times, you know, with the athletes when you first do this work,

they tend to think, well, okay, so I just need to just not care. I don't want to care about anything. Well, that's not it. That's not the point. We care greatly about what we're doing, but we're willing to accept what's happening because I can't change the past. It is what it is. I've got to move on. You know, these feelings are normal.

This situation is a typical situation in tennis so the more that we can accept those things i think the better off we're going to be so yeah so not ignoring or fighting the feelings but accepting them and moving on especially in tennis what you got 20 seconds maybe between points so you gotta move on pretty quickly right you do and again it's it's something something that we're working on with our athletes. We'll time them in practice matches. I actually had to stop watch out yesterday, but on my phone, and was recording the average between-point times period for one of our players

so I could send that to the coach because it's something we're working on because this person will rush and so absolutely you only have a few moments to get yourself organized and focused and one of the things we tell the athletes is that look you know you're going to feel what you're going to feel I mean that's natural and I'm not going to tell you to not be mad or not get frustrated because that's just not realistic. However, the more you can minimize some of these things and control those responses to what's going on, it gives you more time to get ready and organized for the next point. Because if you're, let's say you were up 5'2 and now you're down 5'6 and you have to serve

and the world just seems like it's crumbling around you. Everything's going fast. You only have 20 seconds to get ready for that next point. If you're focused a lot on how bad everything is, probably not going to be ready to play that next point. But if you can accept it is what it is. This is where I'm at. I trust in my serve. I know what plays work for me. This is a play I'm going to use.

Let's go. If you can do that, you have a very good chance of being successful. And we know if you win the first point of your game, you typically win the game. So it's really just getting off to a good start. That's excellent. So Larry, can you share with us a signature technique that you use? You know, I know have a an awesome book called the usta mental skills and drills so that you have a wealth of resources but is there one technique that you you tend to see is kind of like something that you always use or that's to you know unique to you yeah i guess the way i'll explain excuse me is you know and it's and we we keep it simple for kids we call it breathe and believe um which, you know, I borrowed from a song that I heard, but breathe and believe.

And that is, you know, when things are not going well and you're nervous and you're scared and you're tired, just get into your breath. Focus on breathing. Allow your mind to quiet just that little bit and bring your heart rate down, and then begin to think about something that your coach would tell you, something simple. And we train this so that the players don't have to conjure it up out of nothing when they're on the court.

We can practice a lot of these situations in practice. So if you're missing your forehand and that's your best shot, well, in practice when you're missing the forehand, let's work on our breathe and believe routine and what tends to work for you. How can you think differently that's going to make you successful? What technique, what thing can you say that's going to help you start to turn things around?

So I think it's important to train it. Then as we move on and the players get a little older, we talk a lot more about acceptance and being able to accept what's going on and knowing that the only thing you control really is your response. You don't control how you feel. You don't fully control the thoughts that you have, only how you can respond to it. You don't control the situation.

There's a lot of stuff in tennis you just don't control. You don't even fully control the performance. There's another person on the other side. There's wind, there's sun. Helping them come to terms with that and we talk a lot about accepting um what's going on but then getting to a determined choice um so we we talk about that a lot with our athletes and then it's using it's using the same core routine that um i need to be aware of what's going on. I must accept the situation that I'm in,

get into my breathing so I can refocus, and then get to a committed choice. What will I do here? And that's mostly what we need to do on court. And there's a lot of other stuff that we do do, like imagery to support this, different techniques on court, like, okay, you make a mistake, you can see it again,

you erase it from your mind, and then you replace it with the shot you will make, and they'll actually shadow stroke that. So there's a number of different offshoots of that, but I like to give them base and this is their base when they're in a what I would call a yellow light like the old revisit baseball stuff you're in a yellow light situation right so here's your base routine you kind of know what you need to do and then you can deploy different techniques that you've mastered in that situation. We also talk about, and this is what a lot of what I do with players as well, is a green light routine, which is your base routine that you

follow all the time. So there's a number of different things that we're doing related to breathing belief, progressing that into talking more about acceptance and mindfulness and how we bring that on court, as well as these green and yellow light routines to package them in a way that it's simple, it's trainable, and they're able to repeat it under pressure. You know, as you're talking, Larry, I'm thinking about how, yeah, we're talking specifically about tennis, but with your principles and the things you're sharing, especially the breathe and relieve, and then the three steps, awareness, acceptance, and then commit to what you want to do next. I'm thinking about how that can relate to leaders or entrepreneurs, people that are in difficult

situations, teachers, principals, you know, just being aware of what's happening, accepting it, being aware of your feelings, but not working to fight them or change them and then committing to what you want to do next so how do you see this you know i know i know your bigger bigger work is with life skills you know um and you take that that approach but how do you see this committing or the three steps and then the the breathe and relieve to uh just life in general well yeah let's breathe and believe but But I would say, you know, it's something that we try to get our athletes to use all the time, even off the court. It's easy to talk about it in training. So they're in the gym. So we talk about things they're doing in the gym.

But then we can start transferring that into you've got a big test and how do you want to prepare for that? And how can you use what you know about being focused in the moment for this test for you've got a lot of studying to do over the next couple of days. How can you use what you know? And so we do have those conversations. We talk about again, our seven core values of competing, like the champion on and off the court. And those seven core values are resilience, professionalism, confidence, determination, engagement, respectfulness,

and it's pretty bad on video. I'm forgetting one. But we're talking about these things all the time so that our athletes understand it's not just about being a great tennis player. It's about being a great person. And I believe, as does our staff, that if you develop this character part of you, it's going to help you to reach your goals. You've got a better chance of reaching your goals.

And, oh, by the way, it's going to help you to reach your goals you got a better chance of reaching your goals and oh by the way it's going to improve your life if you if you learn how to communicate really well handle confrontations be assertive yet respectful it betters your life too if you understand how to bounce back from failure or mistakes to persevere through adversity, it's going to better your life. It's going to help you be prepared for your first job. It's going to help you be prepared for life after tennis. And so we believe that in focusing on these things as the USTA, that every child can have a great experience,

even if they're not a great tennis player, because they become better for having been involved in tennis. So to me, yeah, we try to talk about these things in different situations with the athletes. It's an easy one to get into school, into training, into family stuff we do talk about. It's impossible to avoid, to be honest, because these youngsters are going through a lot and they're expecting a lot of themselves as are others.

And we need to talk about these things. So Larry, we've been spending most of our time talking about athletes and what you see the best athletes do and then how you work with them. Let's talk a few minutes about coaches. And I know you've done a lot of work with coaching development and obviously you work at USTA there, but just tell us, what do you see the best coaches do differently? You know, coaches, they do things differently. There's a lot of different ways that things are being done, but I think there are a few

commonalities. I think coaches who are successful have the trust of their athletes. Some are harder. Some are softer. Some are called players, coaches. Some are not. But they communicate very well. The athletes understand what their status is. They're very clear.

And through their communication with the athlete, they develop belief in the plan, in the athlete themselves, in the coach. So the way the coach communicates to me is essential. And it all comes from a philosophy. And we have a very, a very strong coaching philosophy here at Player Development. One that was developed by Jose Higueras and our staff and all of our coaches follow that philosophy. Now, do they all do it somewhat differently? Of course. We want them to use their individual strengths and personality,

but there's a very clear philosophy about how we do things. And one of the, one of those, you know, one of those very important things is that we're patient, that we do problem solve, that we use progressions. All these things are so important. And I, so I think that coaches do things differently, but they have a very clear philosophy. They communicate well and they understand their athletes and, Coaches do things differently, but they have a very clear philosophy. They communicate well, and they understand their athletes,

and they get their athletes to believe in themselves and in the coach and the plan. And so that, to me, is the key. All the other stuff, some are more emotional, some are less emotional. Some are tougher and use punishment more some aren't those things vary but at the end of the day the coach stick can keep the athletes motivated in believing in what they're doing even even when things aren't going well is a successful coach as long as they're doing it in a responsible and ethical way. You know, Larry, you mentioned communication. And one of the questions that I get often from coaches is, how can I give the athletes that I coach feedback, but also

supporting them in a healthy way that nurtures their motivation or grit or confidence? And what would you say in terms of how the best coaches give feedback but are also supportive of their athletes? Yeah, great question. I think that, you know, we think about feedback as a five-second thing, but I think the best coaches have developed such a relationship and the athlete understands where that coach is coming from, that care about them they have their best interest in mind that that coach knows where they're going with this athlete or this team so therefore when they have to give feedback and sometimes it can be quite critical that it doesn't become personal they focus it on the performance

not the person and the athlete knows from that interaction that the coach is doing it because they care about them because they want the best for them so I think the best coaches because of the way they handle their business all the time that they care about the athlete they get to know them that they're being very encouraging very positive they tell them that what they believe and now and they're very open and honest I think've got to be genuine. You've got to be honest and transparent,

but it's got to be done in a way that you understand, if I do this in this way, I'm going to get a good result from it. It's when a coach bases what they're doing on how they feel, how he or she feels as a coach, that you start running into problems. I'm not happy with this progress. I'm not happy about the performance. So therefore, you have to deal with what I'm feeling. Well, to me, that's not how a coach should be doing it.

It's about the athlete and what's going to help them be successful. So even when a coach is giving critical feedback, if they have a relationship where the athlete knows that the coach believes in them and they've given them a lot of positives in the past, even in the same five minutes previously, or there's a lot of positives to come, then they can take that critical feedback. So, and again,

you owe it to your athletes to give them that tough love, especially you got to understand what level you're working at. But when you're working with elite athletes, there has to be tough love. It cannot be everything's good, everything's fine. Because it is, they will not get to where they need to be. The coach may be the only person around that athlete who's telling them the full truth. Because the parents might want everything to be just okay. And, you know, the agents always tell them, you know, things that make them happy.

It's often the coach. That's the one who's the purveyor of truth. This is where you stand. This is not good enough. You can do, but I know you have more in you. I know you can do this. And I'm going to help you do it. And to me, that is really good coaching.

It's funny because we talk about positive coaching a lot, and the first thing the coaches will say, well, you know, so we just, everything's okay, everything's good, you know. No. Positive coaching is good coaching. It's helping the athletes get to where they want to be in a respectful, honest, ethical way. And good coaches find a way to do that because every day they're

communicating their belief in their player. And I hear at the basis of that is a caring atmosphere, right, where the athlete knows that the coach cares about them. And I think we can apply this to not only sports, but the employee knows that their boss cares about them, right? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we could be talking about transformational leadership here that I care about your success and I want you to be successful. It's not just a transaction. I'm not just trying to have you do this task for me well, so therefore I get what I want.

That's not what it's about. And for me, coaching has never been about that. Coaching is about you giving service. You're giving yourself up to help someone else. I think sports psychology is the same thing, that when you get into this business, you must understand you're no longer the performer in front of the spotlight. Your job is now to be behind the spotlight, supporting and helping that athlete achieve what they want to achieve. And until you take that route, you are not doing things for the right reason. If you're coaching for yourself, you're not doing it for the right reason. If you're coaching for yourself, you're not doing it for the right reason.

If you're doing sports psychology, you're a mental coach, but you're doing it for yourself, then you're not doing it for the right reason. Now, when I say that with the caveat, that doesn't mean there aren't certain things you want to achieve in your career because I'm very goal-driven as well, but it's always about what's best for the athletes. It's about their dreams, their goals. Same thing when you're a coach. If you keep that at the forefront, then I think most times you're going to be okay. It's when you start to fall into, I need to do well because my job is on the line that you can run into problems.

So Larry, let's talk about you for a few minutes. We've talked a lot about coaches and athletes and your work, and I've appreciated everything, all of your wisdom that you've shared. Tell us why you do this work, you know, because we know in our field just understanding our passions and why we do it is really, really important. It keeps us excited and passionate about what we do. So tell us about your why.

Yeah, that's a great question, Sindra. I believe it's because I want to help people achieve their dreams. And I love to be a part of a team that's reaching big goals. You know, I'm okay with doing my 1% to help us get there. And that's kind of how I look at it is that it's mostly about what the athletes do. And if I'm giving everything I have, and that adds to 1% to their performance, then I've done my job. But it really goes back into my experience as an athlete that I felt like I could have been so much better if I had had sports psychology, if I had had the kind of coaching that I see some of the athletes that I work with now that they have great coaching.

I think I could have been better. And I want for them the best that they can have, that it gives them the opportunity to reach their dreams. And nothing makes me happier when they walk off the court and they feel really proud of the way they competed, win or lose. But they know that they're doing everything that they can to be successful and that they have the support of their team. There's been some times where players walk off the court and they've lost and you're so darn proud of them because they really stepped up

and did everything they possibly could to try and win. And we're happy with that. Again, I know just here in Indian Wells we had a player that did that very thing and the person lost, but we were so proud of that person because she did everything she possibly could, and that was all we ever asked. So, so that, I think that's the why, you know, it comes from a very personal place of wishing I had been better, feeling like I could have been better, you know, also as a young hockey player not understanding how to control my emotion and

taking a lot of penalties. And that's also where it comes from trying to help others to really enjoy sport and make their life better. So and again, I think it's you have to kind of give up in some ways your own needs to be able to then do that. So, yeah, what I hear you talking a lot about is just like serving and being there for others and using your experiences in sport, times where, yeah, maybe you didn't control your emotions or didn't reach your potential as ways to fuel your work. So Larry, let's wrap up the interview. And I have a few quick questions to end with. If you could recommend a book or a resource to the audience, what would you recommend?

And I know one book that, you know, I definitely would recommend people reading is your book. I have it on my shelf, the USAPA Skills and Drills book, which provides, I don't know, how many drills do you guys provide that help teach the mental game tennis? There's probably hundreds in there. And it's really more of a reference book to all the tennis books that were out there around the time in the early 2000s. And I know a number of coaches who are using it, you know, and they've found it to be very helpful. So, yeah, I think that's the purpose of the book. But there's many great books out there, and I appreciate the plug for my book.

I'm a huge fan of the Mindsets book by Carol Dweck. I just think that the growth mindset is something that we're trying to get across to all of our athletes, whether they're 12 or they're 25, because I think if you can engage in getting better every day and address challenging problems by working hard, by persevering, by trying to figure it out, typically the rest of the stuff we can take care of. We can help you to figure it out. But if you don't have a growth mindset, if you're not willing to tackle these issues to go after it,

then really it's pretty hard to do much at all. So I think mindset is good. And I've never heard a coach come back and say, wow, that book really wasn't very relevant or useful. I've never had that experience. So I think it helps everyone. Now, I know it's been out there a while, but it's worth it. Definitely, if you haven't read it, even if you have read it, I think it's good to go back to that.

Awesome. And is there a quote or a phrase that you use often? And tell us what that might be and how that relates to us. Sure. I mean, I use a lot of quotes. I mean, sometimes I think my, my players think I'm a quote machine or a one-liner machine like Arnold Schwarzenegger. But, uh, one, one of the ones I say all the time to our athletes is respect all fear none.

Um, and it's just, it's based on this idea that um we got to respect everybody that we play because they're working hard too and they're prepared and they they want to win this match as well so we respect other people by being prepared for our matches by accepting that they can win points as well and hit winners and and engaging in the challenge of can i figure out how to beat this person because this is fun and embracing it. That's the respect all part. The fear of none is not to say that we're fearless because we all have fear, but we're not afraid to play anyone, anywhere, anytime. We'll play you on grass. We'll play you on red clay. We'll play you on green clay. We'll play you on

hard court. We'll play you in your place. We'll play on ours. We'll play in a neutral site. We'll play you on red clay. We'll play you on green clay. We'll play you on hard court. We'll play you in your place. We'll play on ours. We'll play in a neutral site. We'll play at night. We'll play in the heat of the day. We will take you on anywhere. That's American tennis. And that's the kind of thing, the kind of belief and courage I love for athletes to have

is that you put me in a situation, you drop me in, I will figure it out. That to me is respect all, fear none. And you know, it's something we talk about all the time. Excellent. And Larry, is there final advice you have for those high performers who are listening? So, and what I mean by high performance is somebody who's working to reach their best every day consistently. So what final advice would you have for those people? Do everything you can, but keep that dream in mind. I remember Wayne Gretzky, the famous Edmonton Oilers. When the Edmonton Oilers came in the NHL, they were not very good.

And he would walk down the concourse, and he would look on both sides, and they had these big pictures of different Stanley Cup champions champions and the captains holding the cup over their head. And he talked about how every day he imagined himself holding the cup over his head. And then he put himself to work every day taking the steps to get there. I think you got to keep the dream alive and you got to, but you got to get very practical and very basic every day. So if my dream is to be a CEO someday, what am I doing today to get there in a very ethical and very professional way? To me, that's huge because if you can get a plan together and you can get the support you need and then you can get in stressful adverse situations that are going to help you going to they're going to help you grow from it and you can learn from your failures you got a shot if you if you don't allow yourself to fail that stress

is too uncomfortable you don't really have a plan for your dream goal you don't really have a dream goal then it's tough to to really get anywhere so ah good advice good advice so keep the dream alive but get practical every single day so larry what's the best way people can reach out to you are you on social media or email or what's the best way that people can reach out to you well i am on twitter so it's larry lauer um you can also know, if people have an email question, it's just my last name, Lauer, L-A-U-E-R at U-S-T-A dot com. You know, so I'm out there. I tend to fly under the radar because it's pretty busy, but certainly people send me a question, they want advice, they can get me at one of those two places.

Excellent. Well, Larry, I want to tell you a few things that really stood out to me about this interview, things that I'm taking away. And I just want to commend you first for providing a lot of value to those listeners and just being open with what you do and providing us some really good examples and strategies and tools. So here are four things that stood out to me that I'm taking away. I liked your story about just being patient and Peter, Peter with the U.S. Olympic team, the sports psychologist there, you know, told you to be patient and that it takes a lot of good work over many years. I think so many people can relate to that and use that in different ways in their work and in

their sport and in their business. I also loved our discussion about the percentage of time people should be focused on outcome goals versus process goals. I think that's really interesting. I think we both agree on that, that it's really about the majority of the time is focused on the process. But you got to keep that dream alive and thinking about that dream and the outcome can actually be really motivating three steps awareness acceptance and then commit your discussion about

Acceptance really really good that so many people can apply to their lives in their work and then man, it's hard to pick a fourth But i'd say our discussion about positive coaching I think so many people can use that if they're athletic coaches or leaders, entrepreneurs, and I can use that as a mother. Absolutely. As I can as a father. You do? Okay. Absolutely. You give my kids, you know, good, good feedback and some tough love,

but really, really care about them and show that they care about them. So I just want to thank you so much for your friendship and for your time and your energy to provide some really strong value to everyone who's listening. You're welcome, Cinder. It was great to be on. It was great to talk to you again. So best of luck to you. Thank you. It's awesome to see you again. Take care. 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.

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