Something You Should Know - The Trouble With Cynics & How to Handle The Pressure to Perform

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

Be careful what you say when someone pays you a compliment. This episode begins with some great advice on the importance of taking a compliment graciously. https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/etiquette/how-to-accept-a-compliment-with-class/ Is it good to be cynical? After all, cynics claim they see the world and the people in it more accurately – they are not so naïve and trusting as the rest of us. Well, it seems being a cynic has a downside – a BIG downside as you are about to hear from Dr. Jamil Zaki. He is a professor of psychology at Stanford University, the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab and author of the book Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness (https://amzn.to/3XeRfpL). If you or someone you know leans to the cynical side, you need to hear this discussion.  When the pressure is on, it makes any task more difficult. Some people rise to the occasion while others crumble. Why? It has a lot to do with what you are telling yourself. That’s according to my guest Dr. Dana Sinclair who is a psyhologist, clinical assistant professor with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia and founder and partner of Human Performance International. Dana has been working with top athletes in every major sport since 2000. She is author of the book, Dialed In: Do Your Best When It Matters Most (https://amzn.to/4dvvW8Y). Moths and bugs seem very attracted to lights at night. You see them fly in circles around a light source and sometimes crash and die into a light or fire. Why do they do that? Listen and I’ll explain the prevailing theories. https://earthsky.org/earth/why-are-moths-attracted-to-flame/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know. When someone pays you a compliment, do you accept it or deflect it? Then, cynics. There is a problem with being cynical. A big problem. Cynicism tracks all sorts of negative outcomes in our lives, from worse mental health, worse physical health, earlier death, lower salaries, I mean, you name it. If it was a pill, it'd be a poison.

Also, why do moths and other bugs crash into your headlights and porch lights at night? And performing well when the pressure is on. Top performers know how to do it. These really top performers, they have certain characteristics or a constellation thereof that allows them to get to their talent faster or easier than the rest of us. Now the good news on that one is, we can all learn how to do it. All this today on Something You Should Know. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful

as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals. Be careful along our tracks and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts.

And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome. I can say with some certainty that this is a particularly good episode of Something You Should Know because I've already heard it. I already know what's coming up, and I think you're really going to enjoy this. We start today with how you take a compliment. Are you good at taking a compliment? A lot of people aren't. The next time someone flatters you, resist that urge to come back with some self-deprecating remark like,

Oh, you're just saying that, or you didn't mean that, or oh, this old thing. Because when you do that, you're really contradicting the person who's complimenting you. And while that may seem harmless, what you're actually doing is suggesting that that person has poor judgment or poor taste. Why do we feel the need to deflect compliments? Well, it could be a couple of things. One theory is the need to restore balance. Since a compliment is a positive act, you may feel a psychological need to balance things out by negating the compliment.

Or there's that fear of indebtedness. This is the worry that if someone does something nice for you, like offering you a compliment, you'll owe them something in return, and then you'll be indebted. Whatever the reason, resist that urge to deflect the compliment and be gracious. Say thank you or that's nice of you to say or I appreciate that. It's the right thing to do and that is something you should know. Are you a cynic? Do you think people are trustworthy or people are not to be trusted? Are people selfish or generous, cruel or kind?

Are people mostly just out for themselves and screw everyone else? It certainly appears that more people think this way now than ever before. And all this cynicism is a problem. In fact, it's a disease. According to my guest, Dr. Jamil Zaki. He is a professor of psychology at Stanford University and director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. He's author of a book called Hope for Cynics, The Surprising Science of Human Goodness.

Hi, Jamil. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Oh, thanks for having me. So what, first of all, what does the data say about all this cynicism and lack of trust in society today? Is it true? What's the science say? Well, I think the data are pretty clear that humanity has lost faith in

itself in 1972 about half of Americans believed that most people can be trusted by 2018 that had fallen to a third of Americans a drop as big as the stock market took during the financial collapse of 2008 we don't have to feel this way there is a lot of good under the surface if you look more carefully. So why do you think this big loss in trust, where is that coming from? You know, it's hard to know

because history is not an experiment, right? You can't run it back a thousand times and tinker with different factors to see what caused the drop in trust. That said, there are some factors that see what caused the drop in trust. That said, there are some factors that seem to correlate that are really interesting. One is inequality. Generally, when a place like a town or country is really economically unequal, people trust each other less. And also over time in the US, when we've had times of greater equality, people have generally felt more connected. A second factor is the media. Not you, of course, Mike, you are an exception,

but in much of the media, we are bombarded with really negative, toxic, and extreme representations of who's out there. And it's really easy to decide if you're tuned in, if you're watching a lot of news on cable or doom scrolling on your phone for hours, that actually people are pretty rotten. Those data though are biased. And so it turns out that watching a bunch of news or staying online a lot doesn't actually make you more accurate about what people are really like. It might lead to not just cynicism, but unnecessary cynicism. So this lack of trust that you spoke about a moment ago, is that what leads to cynicism?

Is that the definition of a cynic? Is someone who doesn't trust? I think it's close. I see cynicism as a theory about human nature. It's the idea that in general, people are selfish, greedy, and dishonest. And one way that that comes out, as you're rightly pointing out, is a lack of trust. If you think that people generally are up to no good, that they're out only for themselves, then trusting somebody, putting your faith in them, taking a risk on them is a sucker's bet. So indeed, cynics trust less than non-cynics. But there are other ways that cynicism also comes out. One is just a kind of negative, bleak attitude towards most people, a general sense of, let's call it ambient contempt.

So mistrust is part of it, but I wouldn't say it's entirely the whole story. Do we have a sense of how many people self-describe as cynics? Yeah, if you ask, so there are questionnaires that capture people's cynicism. And in general, people score a little bit away from the cynicism side of the scale. So most people are not super cynical, but again, the trends are what I'm most interested in. So the proportion of people who would describe themselves as cynics has risen steadily over the last few decades. And if that trend continues, then soon our entire culture might flip over from generally trusting to generally cynical. I would be curious to know, if you know, what cynics have in common besides cynicism?

In other words, are they older, younger, men, women? They live in cities or they live in rural areas. What else do cynics share besides their cynicism? I love this question Mike so there are some data on demographic correlates is what we would call it of cynicism and it turns out to be less obvious than you might think but I think it the data makes sense so it's not the case that rural versus urban people for instance are systematically more or less cynical than one another. But it is the case that people who have gone through a lot of adversity tend to become cynical through those

struggles. So for instance, people who have lower economic opportunities tend to mistrust more. People who have been traumatized tend to trust less. People who have had difficult family upbringings where they don't feel like they can count on people in their immediate environment, they tend to be more cynical too. So I think oftentimes I see, you know, you talk to a cynic and they often have a kind of sneering, almost sense of superiority, like they're wiser or smarter than other people. I actually think if you dig down, oftentimes they're responding to pain and betrayal. The comedian George Carlin once said, scratch a cynic and you'll find a disappointed idealist. And I think that there's a lot to that.

So it sounds like you're saying that cynicism is a position or a belief that you come to as a result of your experience? I think so. So there is a genetic component to it, but it's a very small minority. So your genes explain very little of how cynical you are, which leaves your experience. And some experiences are personal. Others are collective. So for instance, when people are put in really competitive environments, think about a company, for instance, where you are pitted against your colleagues and only some of you can rise to the top and whereas being in a cooperative environment where people work together and are rewarded together can decrease our cynicism and make us mentally healthier. Well, but see, but what you just said implies that cynicism is mentally unhealthier, but a lot of people wear cynicism as a kind of a badge of honor, that they're proud of being cynics because they're more realistic. They understand the world better. They know what's going on. They're proud to be

cynics. I hear this all the time. People tell me, I'm not a cynic, I'm a realist. But there is a lot of evidence to the contrary. For instance, cynics, it turns out, score less well on cognitive tests than non-cynics, and they have a harder time spotting liars than non-cynics. In fact, you can think about cynicism as apparent wisdom that actually, if you look more closely, is just a bunch of assumptions. You think of the opposite of a cynic as a naive, gullible person who blindly trusts people. But cynics blindly mistrust people. And because of that, they actually stop paying attention to evidence about who they can trust and who they can't. And it turns out that a lot of cynical assumptions about people are really clearly wrong when you look again at the data. So I would say to a cynic who argues that they're a realist, that they should take a closer look at

the people around them. Here's a question to maybe better understand what a cynic is. It's to ask you what a cynic isn't. If you're not a cynic, if you're the opposite of a cynic, what are you? Yeah, I think that's a great question. And again, I think if you ask a cynic, what is the opposite of cynicism, they would tell you it's someone who's naive and unthinking. But actually, as I've been mentioning, I think cynics and naive people have a lot in common in that each one of them has a conclusion already, and they just look for evidence that supports their conclusion. Really trusting people will put faith in others, even if they've been betrayed. They're missing

the evidence of who they can't trust. Cynical people decide that nobody can be trusted and also don't look at the evidence. In my opinion, the opposite of both of these folks is somebody who is skeptical. So skepticism, unlike cynicism, is not a theory about people. It's not a blanket assumption. Skeptics think like scientists. They focus on evidence and update their impressions, update their perspective based on what they learn. So to me, that type of skepticism is much healthier and allows us not just to feel good, but to understand each other better.

But in order to do that, in order to examine the evidence takes time. And a lot of us size people up instantly. And some people size people up as to whether they're trustworthy, what kind of person they are. It's more of a gut instinct. And are we predisposed to just assume about people? Or are we using some sort of filter or what? I think that we trust our gut instincts way too much a lot of the time. I mean, our gut instincts also tell us that we should trust people

who look like us or who have a similar background from us and not people who are different. Those types of biases we know exist in our mind and we don't celebrate them. We don't go with them unthinkingly. For people with depression and anxiety, their gut instinct tells them that they're terrible or that everybody around them is judging them. Cognitive therapy is about helping people not trust those instincts. And it turns out that for the rest of us, we have something called negativity bias. People pay lots more attention to evidence about threats and possible harms than they do to the good stuff in life. This is really clear across dozens of studies. So when our gut instinct drives us to think, huh, I think that I just shouldn't trust people, or I think that people in general

are selfish, that might not be a trustworthy instinct, it might be more like a bias. So one thing that I encourage people to do is to be skeptical about your cynicism. I'm not saying that you should trust or send your bank information to the prince who's going to wire you 14 million dollars, but it's good to be open to evidence as opposed to drawing sweeping conclusions before you've even had a chance to learn about people. We're discussing cynicism and the problems it can cause with Dr. Jamil Zaki. He's a professor at Stanford and author of the book, Hope for Cynics, The Surprising Science of Human Goodness.

This episode is brought to you by Melissa and Doug. Wooden puzzles and building toys for problem solving and arts and crafts for creative thinking. Melissa and Doug makes toys that help kids take on the world. Because the way they play today shapes who they become tomorrow. Melissa and Doug, the play is pretend, the skills are real. Look for Melissa and Doug wherever you shop for toys. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world,

looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker, John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars.

Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. So, Jamil, I'm anxious to hear about the science of human goodness, which is the subtitle of your book. What is the science? Tell us, and what in fact is human goodness? I think of human goodness as expressed through the actions that people take in their everyday lives to help each other. You know, we are a

social species and we are a deeply pro-social species. We show up for each other in a way that no other animal on the planet does. And I think that one of the tragedies of cynicism is that it cuts us off from seeing that everyday beauty of human positive actions. And letting go of cynicism gives us a chance to witness it more clearly. The data, again, are really clear that if you ask people to estimate how trustworthy or kind or compassionate or open-minded others are, we miss the mark. We think that people have much less of all of these positive qualities than they really do. And that makes us miss out on the ability to connect with people, to collaborate, to form relationships. The good news is that when we look more closely,

when we replace cynicism with skepticism, pleasant surprises are everywhere. Again, I'm not saying that everyone is terrific. I'm not saying that there aren't people who are terrible and do awful things. What I am saying and what the data are clear on is that the average person underestimates the average person. And that leads to all sorts of missed connections, but we can choose to think a different way and connect more effectively. And is it simply a matter of changing your thinking of saying, now I'm going to be more open, even though I haven't been? No, I think that that's a first step.

I really, in my own life, because I struggle with cynicism myself, I try to fact check my cynical feelings. If I find myself mistrusting somebody who I've just met, right, that gut instinct rising up inside me saying, what is this guy? And who is this guy? And what does he want? I try to say, well, come on, Zaki, what evidence do you have for that cynical claim? And often the answer is nothing. I don't know. So I think rethinking is the first step. But I also try to do what I call taking leaps of faith on other people. That is taking small, calculated risks, giving people a chance to show me who they are. And it turns out that that actually doesn't just allow you to learn more about people, it exerts a positive effect on them.

Economists talk about what they call earned trust. That's the idea that when you trust people, they are more likely to step up and want to become trustworthy. So cynicism creates all these poisonous, self-fulfilling prophecies. You decide that people are terrible, you treat them terribly, and you bring out the worst in them. But skepticism and what I call hopeful skepticism, which is also understanding that our default setting might be too negative, that type of perspective allows us to take a chance on people and bring out their best, turning a negative self-fulfilling prophecy into a positive one. How good are we though, when we decide we're going to give someone a chance,

we're not going to prejudge them, we're going to allow them to be who they are, and let's see, how good are we at judging, oh, he's not as bad as I thought he was? So there's a bunch of studies that explore this where people are asked to predict what would it be like if you struck up a conversation with a stranger or confided in an acquaintance about something that you're struggling with. You know, these little acts of vulnerability and openness. And first you ask one group of people to predict,

how would that go? And they say, oh my gosh, this would be awful. It would be awkward and cringe, and everybody would hate the experience. You then ask a separate group of people, hey, go and try it, and then report back. And people are shocked at how positive these interactions are. Even conversations with people they disagree with are much more positive than they think. And the evidence suggests that if we pay close attention, if we savor the difference between our bleak expectations and the often very good reality, we actually do learn. We start to become more habitually open to other people, which is a great way, again, to become healthier and more connected.

So we've been talking about cynicism in terms of how it relates to our views of other people, but there seems to be a lot of cynicism about government, right? That you can't trust the government, that people don't like the government. And also about conspiracy theories, that if you're a cynic, you don't trust the official story, you believe the conspiracy theory story. Is there something there that's part of this? There's a strong correlation between people's cynicism and their susceptibility to conspiracy theories. And again, I'm not at all saying that we should all unthinkingly trust the government. That sounds like lunacy.

But when we decide that nobody can be trusted, that anything that we hear on the news is automatically fake, that actually opens us up to being controlled in other ways. And there are lots of people, including elites like politicians, who benefit a lot from a population that doesn't trust itself and doesn't trust anybody. In fact, this is an old part of the authoritarian playbook, is to make sure that people suspect one another and can't band together and discover common cause. So again, I think that mistrust of government, understandable, but total mistrust of everything that we hear actually can be a tool of the status quo. Because if you believe that nobody can be trusted, there's no point in trying to fight for any type of positive social change. So is there any research that you're aware of that you can talk about of recovered cynics?

Like, how does that go? Are they happy they aren't anymore? Or what happens to them? Oh, yeah. I mean, cynicism tracks all sorts of negative outcomes in our lives from worse mental health, worse physical health, earlier death, lower salaries. I mean, you name it. It's if it was a pill, it would be a poison. And people who recover from cynicism likewise tend to recover their ability to connect and then have all the benefits that come with it. You know, when I started work on this book and I was thinking about the trust deficit, one of the challenges that I laid out for myself was to ask, is there any place in the world where the trend went in the opposite direction,

where an entire culture went from being untrusting to being more trusting? And I discovered that that has happened and it happened right here. We have been losing faith in one another for 50 years. But in fact, the first half of the 20th century in the US was this incredible rise in solidarity and trust from the 1890s, which was a very cynical decade to the 1950s, which, although far from perfect, was a much more trusting time than before or since. So we have done it through, you know, social programs, through social movements, and through what, well, at that time, something known as the Christian social gospel, the US became a much more-oriented place, and people grew faith in one another. And if we did that before, I believe we can do it again. You've clearly researched this

topic in depth. I'm wondering, is there anything that you think, that we haven't spoken about yet, that people need to understand that maybe they don't, and that surprises you? You know, one angle that we haven't talked about, Mike, is the effective cynicism on parenting. I think that a lot of, so there's some really interesting data that came out recently where parents were asked, what should your child believe about the world if they are to succeed? And most parents thought that their kids should think the world is a dangerous place, that thinking the world is dangerous would be helpful to their lives. It turns out that the exact opposite is true. People who think that the world is dangerous tend to be less happy, they tend to do less well in their careers. But I think that in some cases, in the spirit of

keeping our children safe, a beautiful and critical impulse, we actually end up making them less trusting and shrinking their opportunities. This is the kind of discussion that makes you think, makes you think about your own cynicism and you know where you fall on the scale of just how cynical you are and what that might be doing to you and to your relationships and your opportunities, it certainly gives you something to think about. I've been speaking with Dr. Jamil Zaki. He is a professor of psychology at Stanford and director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. The name of his book is Hope for Cynics, The Surprising Science of Human Goodness. There's a link to his

book in the show notes. Jamil, always a pleasure to have you on. It's always a thought-provoking conversation. Thanks for being here. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show.

Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices,

and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back. And in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed, critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong?

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There has or will come a time when you have to do something and there's a lot riding on it. You feel it. You're under pressure. Will you crumble or excel? Some people seemingly do great under pressure. We see it in sports all the time. And it seems some really can't handle it. And we see that. It can be hard to watch. So what's going on here? How can you be one of those people who pressure doesn't get to? That's what Dr. Dana Sinclair is here to talk about. She is a psychologist,

clinical assistant professor with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia, founder and partner of Human Performance International, and she's been working with athletes in every major sport since 2000, as well as high-level medical and corporate organizations. Dana is author of the book Dialed In, Do Your Best When It Matters Most. Hi, Dana. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to this. So when you watch a tennis player or a golfer or someone else in a real pressure-packed, all-or-nothing moment, and they fail, what's going on there from your perspective? Why do we sometimes crumble under pressure?

And it's the pressure that causes the crumbling. Because our tension usually shoots up and that makes our mind drift on over to all the things that they're worried about happening, thinking about results, thinking about expectations, mistakes, and then they're no longer able to focus on what they have to actually do in the moment. But you would think that if you're somebody who has been doing anything for a long time, that that would kind of work its way out of the equation because you've done it so much that even though maybe there's more on the line, you know how to do this and that you should be

confident that it'll get done. Well, that's the tricky thing about performing. And when the pressure does push up a little bit, it can often push you sideways mentally because you're not ready for it. I'll tell you a story about a client, major league baseball pitcher, fantastic, rolled through the regular season, no at all no tension no nothing into the playoffs we go and all of a sudden he falters he didn't change anything all that happened was he really wanted to win he wanted to get to the world series so what happened he got a little bit tight not that noticeably but just enough to change his execution on the mound so that he wasn't finishing his pitch. He wasn't extending as he normally did. So people got a piece of the ball, a little bit more was happening for the batter. So that is an indication that tension's up. I

know how to do this. I'm really good. But he didn't anticipate that tension would grab him because he really wanted something and he wasn't ready. He needed an antidote. And is that typically what happens is that the tension throws off your performance in that way? Absolutely. Absolutely. Because then you start thinking about things you never had to. You always hear people say, oh, I never think when I'm performing, I just let it happen. Well, that's great when you can, but I feel you need to be ready for those moments where you're caught off guard. So is it an overthinking problem? It can be overthinking.

It can be just thinking about something that makes you tense. It could be realizing that you're actually doing really well that's just as distracting as as performing poorly because again when you're performing poorly you're thinking about oh results this isn't going very well it takes your mind away from the execution what's important in the moment and when you're doing really well again you might think oh I'm doing great what happens then you're now again thinking about results even though it's good, and it's taking away from your execution. How much does confidence play into this? It would seem that if you had that, it would be

sort of make you bulletproof that things wouldn't sway you so much because you know, you know. You do know, you know, but you don't get, you get caught off guard sometimes with that tension. So confidence is a, to me, a very variable and intangible concept. So everybody wants to talk about confidence. I'm at dinner parties, I'm in my office, it's all about confidence. And I say it's completely overrated. Confidence is nice to have, but it doesn't make you bulletproof because just like that picture I was talking about, he knew exactly what he was doing, but the tension rose on him and he was not ready for it. So I like people, you know, I guess what I should say too is about that picture.

He got caught up in how he felt about it and it took him away from what he had to do in the moment. So I'm always pushing people away from worrying about how they feel because that just clutters their mind. I want to help them soothe a little bit, calm down, so then get back onto the task at hand. In your work, because you work with real elite people, have you ever come across somebody that says, no, sorry, Dan, I don't need you. I've got it. I don't fall victim to what you do. Absolutely. For sure I do. And what do those people have that the rest of us don't? Well, it's funny. Some of those people do come back to me eventually because they don't want to talk about it or they don't want it to get in their head. They're worried if they talk to me about performance, it is going to cause a problem. But the people that

truly do have a really great handle on it are fewer than you think. And what they've got going for them is not just their talent, it's their mindset. So I always say, talent doesn't ensure your success, your mindset does. If your mind is cluttered, you're going to have a little bit of trouble. But these really top performers, they have certain characteristics or a constellation thereof that allows them to get to their talent faster or easier than the rest of us. Now, the good news on that one is, we can all learn how to do it. You just have to learn a little bit more about your own performance style and what gets in the way and where you thrive. Then you can find a couple of strategies to help you put it together

and be consistent in the moment. Well, I want to hear about those, but let's talk about a real example. Okay, so say you're up to bat, bottom of the ninth, final game of the World Series. There's two outs. It's all up to you. What's going on in the head of that batter that we need to understand? Probably a few things, but what he's able to do is see the moment, know that he has to get his mindset going. He has to calm down. He has to calm down and stay there for a pitch. Not the whole at bat.

He has to stay there for a pitch so that he can actually see the ball and be on time and make sure he's swinging straight through the ball and catching it where he needs to. That's all he's got going for himself in that moment. That's what he wants to be paying attention to. So there is a fellow that I know who did win a couple of batting titles, and he never thought he would amount to much because he was small. He didn't think he was that good, but he said, you know, I finally figured out after talking to you that I could do the do. I did the do in the moment.

I was able to get through the ball and connect out front where I needed to. That's all I had to do. And he did. That was the big thing on his mind. And so how did he get there? He knew he had to really stay focused in the moment because if he didn't execute the one technical thing, you know, basically hit properly, he didn't have a hope. So he was able to breathe, settle, get his tension down enough so he could think about the task. I know it sounds simple, and it is much more simple than we make it out to be. We do tend to complicate things. But how do you stop yourself? If I'm supposedly, okay, I'm going to focus on what needs to be done

and not worry about all those other things that I worry about, well, now I'm worrying about them because I just told myself not to worry about them and it's, you know, the elephant in the room. How do you, I get that you're not supposed to be thinking about all those things, but how do you stop it? So you can think all you want until it's time to execute. And then you have to be able to shut it down. You don't have to shut it down. You have to get the tension down enough so you can think about what the critical thing in the moment is. Then you can go back to overthinking if you want, but it's about controlling your mind in that moment. And, you know, I heard

something from Djokovic recently, and he was talking about his game. And the journalist said, you know, your great gift is your mental strength. And he said, no, I have to correct you there. It's not that. I've worked really hard to control my approach, and I do get frustrated and I do get distracted out there, but what I've learned to be able to do is to settle and come back to what I have to do back to the next point. That's why I'm successful. So it sounds more about not doing something than doing something.

You're trying to get people to stop doing something instead of do something. Well, how do you stop doing something unless you substitute something in for it? You can't just tell yourself to be confident. That doesn't make it so. Or to, you know, just go out and be good. There's too much room in your mind to slip something in at the last moment that isn't very helpful yeah so how do you not do that you fill it with something that's that's constructive like breathing a little bit better like talking your way through your at-bat or your

presentation or your meeting keep connecting to what you have to do. You will drift throughout your event. You will drift. You will go into maybe looking for excuses or self-doubts or being self-critical or not feeling confident or being negative. So what? Just shift on back over to the one or two things that you know if you do, you'll be okay or you certainly will be better. So it's not about eliminating all distractions. That's terrible advice. What you have to do is be able to get to one or two things that you normally do on a good day. And that way you can get by all that clutter for the moment. You might have to keep shifting, but that's okay. It'll turn out better results.

It's my experience and I think others as well. Like if you're in one of those moments, like you're going to speak to a group or you're up at bat in a big game or something, it's the first few moments that are the most dreadful. And if you give it a little time, it seems things calm down. Is that a fair statement? Yes, it is a fair statement.

Now, hopefully they calm down. Sometimes they don't. So I'm a proponent of making it calm down, making yourself calm down. Don't just let it happen and leave it to chance. That's dangerous when the pressure's on. And so how would I do when you do get tight. Again, breathing, that's the first step. You've got to find a way to soothe yourself. So in the moment like that, you've got to breathe, get your shoulders down, in through your nose, slow it down, coming out your mouth, like you're blowing through a straw, and then shift your mind on to, okay, stick to my words.

Where's my script? What am I supposed to be saying? It's different for everyone, but that gives you an idea. Yeah. Very often, I would imagine that when people start to choke and they're not doing their best when they need to that they get very frustrated they get very angry and and that I imagine those emotions aren't particularly helpful but they're hard not to show up they do show up which is and then it translates into tension physical tension and mental tension so mental clutter mental turbulence you can't think clearly and it's not that, that's pushed along by that physical tension, the elevated respiration and heart rate and tense muscles.

It's not a good situation. It's not a very comfortable situation, but we all face them. Yeah, but some people face them a lot better than others, I guess. Well, some do, yes. But, you know, I do a lot of draft work for professional leagues and sports teams, and not many of these prospects are naturally assertive, calm, patient, able to execute in the moment types. Most people are on the more cautious, passive side. And it's hard for people to believe, but there's a lot of Olympians out there and a lot of high profile athletes who do get nervous and do

make mistakes, worry about making mistakes. So it's something that most people should probably learn to prepare for as opposed to just thinking, oh, I got this. Yeah, but we're taught to get this. You know, you got this. Don't worry about it. You'll be fine. And then when something happens that they don't expect, then there's trouble. That is so true. There's a lot of not great feedback out there telling people what to do and what they should feel. And again, I think, hey, you got this or telling yourself you've got this. It is a good thing to say to yourself, but you also can't just leave it at that. You can't count on just that.

You maybe have to have a few things in your back pocket, as I say, to add on to, hey, I've got this. As long as I can stay cool here and move my feet and get to position, I'll be fine. As long as I can sit back in my chair and not react to my boss, I'll do a good job. It's having a couple of those things ready to go. And people resist doing it because it's, you know, people like to avoid the things that are uncomfortable. But in those moments, are people talking to themselves or are they trying to stay quiet, to keep their mind quiet? Well, I'm going to ask you then, what is the difference? I think that's a good distinction.

Some people are trying to just stay quiet and some people are talking to themselves. A lot of people will talk their way through a performance much more than you think. There was a skier I was working with, and he had come back to try to get down the same mountain where he crashed and obviously had a lot of psychological fears about it. And he did talk his way down. That's how he actually did it. He got to the section where he had crashed the last time and was airlifted. And he had to actually tell himself what to do the whole way through that section. And his mind was full of just talking directly and firmly to himself. It's extremely helpful. You often hear that athletes in particular, but maybe it's everybody, you know, they have these little rituals or superstitions. And how does that play into this?

Are those helpful or are they helpful if you think they're helpful or or what yeah good point i think routines are as long as you stay connected to them superstitions i'm not so i'm not so uh much of a fan of superstitions because a lot of superstitions they're really just a way to handle the anxiety that's starting to bubble up for the event. You know, people worry about their results. They're nervous, of course. So they have their lucky socks or they have to turn the golf ball this way or, you know, wear certain things or do other things. I was talking with a host yesterday who had lucky earrings.

That's fine if they're low-cost superstitions, but I would much rather people deal with their tension and anxiety by doing something constructive so that they can stay focused and think in the moment as opposed to letting a superstition get in the way of their preparation. Can you give me an example? Well, if you feel that tapping the doorway three times on the way to a meeting is really what's going to make you perform well or not, that is a problem. If you can live with tapping the door three times and then, oh, well, it really doesn't matter.

I just like to do that. It just makes me feel like I've got a routine. That's okay. If you're just turning the logo on the golf ball a certain way, okay, that's fine. But if you can't hit the ball until the logo is in the right position, you might have a problem. So one piece of advice you often hear, if you're going to run a race or give a speech or whatever it is you're doing, to visualize yourself ahead of time doing it perfectly. What do you say? I think that's a great way to do it.

I don't think it has to be perfect. I just think you have to practice in your head as to how you want to behave. And it could be any kind of interaction. It could be, as you say, on stage. It could be an interaction with a boss or with a spouse or with a child. I think daydreaming about it, and I like daydreaming, as opposed to talking about imagery and visualization, because daydreaming happens to me in short bursts. You can focus your daydreaming for 15 seconds or 10 seconds, create a picture of what you would like to do or how you would like

to behave and create a new habit by practicing that. There's so much research on how practicing mentally actually helps you improve the skill you're trying to do. Even a physical skill like running a race or hitting a golf ball? Absolutely. Can you overdo this? Can you be so focused on the psychology of your performance that you get lost in it? Is this like a little goes a long way or no? For me, a little goes a long way. I don't like people to get caught up in too much of it at all. Too much detail is, yes, again, that's a distraction. So I think less is more. And I like people to spend, you know, if you're going to spend a minute a day on some mental training, that will actually help

you out, depending what the skill is. I just want people to be prepared for the event and understanding that everything is different different skills and whatnot but but when you say a minute a day doing things like what for example daydreaming if you daydreamed about your upcoming event and or you daydreamed about previous highlights of how you had had done well that's time well spent and not only does it help keep you calmer it's helping you stay focused on what you're going to do the next time well it's it's something that i think everybody faces sooner or later when you're in that position where you're under a lot of pressure. You don't want to fail.

And how do you not fail and not get consumed by not failing? And your insights are really, really helpful. Dana Sinclair has been my guest. She is a psychologist, founder and partner of Human Performance International. And she's been working with top athletes in every major sport since the year 2000. The name of her book is Dialed In, Do Your Best When It Matters Most, and there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks for coming on today, Dana. Thanks, Michael. Appreciate it.

In the summertime especially, you'll notice that moths and other insects are attracted to light. They go for your porch light or your campfire or any light source, often resulting in their death. Why? Well, there are a couple of theories. One idea is that moths and bugs aren't so much attracted to the light as disoriented by it. Many bugs use the light of the moon to navigate at night. It's their primary reference point to help calibrate their flight path and stay well above their predators. Your porch light or headlight or campfire confuses them. As they try to use that light to navigate, they end up running right into it. Another theory is that if a moth sees a light, it means that the space between the moth and

the light is unobstructed. It's an obstacle-free area, so they head right for the light, for safety. This would explain why bugs fly straight into a bug zapper or a fire, because they don't expect it to be so close. But science really isn't certain which of these theories are true or if either of them are true. At least not yet. And that is something you should know. Think of all the people you know. There's got to be somebody you know that would love this podcast. Think about it. Somebody you know would love to hear the stuff that we talk about in Something You Should Know. So please share this podcast with them, send them

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you needed i had danielle and megan record some answers to seemingly meaningless questions i asked danielle what insect song is typically higher pitched in hotter temperatures and lower pitched in cooler temperatures you got this no i didn't don't believe that? About a wish coming true? Well, I didn't either. Of course, I'm just a cicada. I'm crying. I'm so sorry. You win that one. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining,

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