Determined Society with Shawn French | Adversity & Mindset - Elevating Your Mental Game: Joel Turner's Strategies for Athletes Seeking Peak Performance

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

Joel Turner, a world leader in target panic science, discusses the mental game and how it applies to sports, specifically baseball hitting. He shares his background as a law enforcement officer and firearms instructor, and how he overcame target panic and performance anxiety. Turner introduces the concept of the mental game equation, which involves knowing when, where, and how to direct the conscious mind into a specific task at a specific moment. He explains the difference between open loop and closed loop control systems and emphasizes the importance of correct thinking and staying in the open loop system during sports performance. In this conversation, Shawn French and Joel Turner discuss the importance of in-game adjustments and the impact of external distractions on athletes. They emphasize the need for athletes to practice getting loud in their own heads and drown out external voices. They also highlight the significance of practicing in loud environments to prepare for high-stress situations. The conversation extends beyond sports, with Joel explaining how mental game skills can be applied to various areas of life. Joel announces the upcoming release of an online course and website to help individuals develop their mental game skills. They also touch on the difference between motivation and discipline and the limitations of motivational speaking. Takeaways The mental game equation involves knowing when, where, and how to direct the conscious mind into a specific task at a specific moment. Open loop control systems are used for fast and efficient movements, while closed loop control systems are used for slow and precise movements. Thoughts are what you hear, while thinking is what you say. It is important to recognize the difference and focus on self-instruction rather than self-talk. Successful athletes have specific phrases or instructions they say to themselves during performance to keep their conscious mind in the right place. Determination and decision-making are crucial in achieving success in sports and directing the conscious mind to the right tasks. Athletes should avoid making in-game adjustments and receiving instruction on mechanics during competition. Athletes need to practice getting loud in their own heads and prioritize their own thoughts over external distractions. Practicing in loud environments helps athletes develop the skill of maintaining focus in high-stress situations. Mental game skills can be applied to various areas of life, including relationships and problem-solving. Motivation is not as important as discipline in achieving long-term success. Motivational speaking often lacks practical guidance and fails to address the depth of the mental game. Connect with Joel Turner- Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/joelturner_shotiq/ Website- https://www.shotiq.com/home Buy his course- https://www.turnermodel.com/mindiq Sign up for Shawn's Free Newsletter- https://mailchi.mp/thedeterminedsociety/newsletter   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Like, I ask people all the time, how do you concentrate? And they always tell me what concentration is, but not how to do it. Right? Like, you've told your players to concentrate on whatever, concentrate on a certain aspect of whatever they're doing. But have you ever told somebody how to do it? Southwest Florida is one of the most. beautiful places on the planet to live. For those of you that are thinking of moving from other states to come to Florida or even just moving to a different part of the state, I want you to think of a

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unstoppable competitor you were meant to beat. The end more comment below to get started with Edge and transform the mental game. What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the podcast of Determined Society. I am your host, Sean French. Please hit pause right now. Go follow the show. If you haven't listened to it before, you're missing out. So subscribe so you don't miss any of the new shows that pop up every Monday at 432 Eastern Time.

All right, guys, today with me, I have an amazing individual. Very awesome dude. He is a world's leader in Target Panic Science, Master Educator and Shot Control. He is a founder of Shot IQ. And his name is Joel Turner. And you guys are going to be blown away today. So without further ado, Joel, welcome to show, buddy. Hey, thanks for having me, man.

Hey, dude, no, thank you. I know it's super early over there in, you know, in the West Coast. So, you know, I'm grateful for you, man. Yeah, I appreciate it. It's not quite daylight yet, but it's going to be a good day. Dude, it's, it's, I don't even know what time it is here. I think it's 10.30 now and it's been light outside. It gets light early here.

I mean, my, my daughters are always up. up running around like around five o'clock in the morning, pissing each other off. So we're up early. Well, you actually have sun where you're at. We don't see the sun very often here. So it's a bit gloomy sometimes in December and November. Dude, Washington State is like, I've been there one time. I was in Seattle and I was there for maybe three days.

And I'm like, wow, I'm depressed. I haven't seen the sun once. It won't stop raining. What the fuck is going on here, dude? Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of a gloomy place. So we try to spend as much time in Montana as we can.

Oh, dude, Montana's sick. I've never been. I want to go so bad. What's your favorite place in Montana? Well, we are in a place called Shoto, Montana, which is just a tiny little town. But it's an amazing place. My wife's families from there and their cattle ranchers there. So it's pretty cool.

We bought a place over there. So we spend as much time there as we can. that's awesome man so well look dude let's uh i know you got a busy day you got a tournament uh today so that sounds fun and but dude like for the audience that may not know your background want you to start digging in and telling everybody a little bit about yourself i was uh you know i grew up shooting and you know i was shooting a center fire rifle from the age of five and it was a nightmare just because i couldn't control myself i didn't know anything about you know shot control or any of that stuff but shooting was my life. And I just wasn't good at it. I started shooting a bow at the age of seven. And by the

age of eight, I delve deep into target panic, which is the inability basically to aim at a target and let the string go. You know, it would always, you'd release the string early or you couldn't aim it. It was, it was just a total nightmare. Going through life with that and hunting and shooting has always been just the thread of my life. And it was very frustrating. Can you imagine, you know, a sport that the more you do it, the worse you get, that is archery. Because in archery and shooting in general, your mind has a plan, a default plan to protect you from explosions. and you're trying to override that in shooting and not knowing how to do that was very frustrating. And it went through all facets of life because when you're frustrated in the one thing that you're

trying to be extremely good at, it's so frustrating when you don't know how to control your own mind in that realm and then you don't know how to control your mind in other realms. And then, let's see, so growing up, I had all these jobs that involved shooting. and it was I was only successful when the shooting involved either shotguns or rifle systems with no recoil like air rifles or 22s or whatever. I was very successful in those realms, but those realms did not require the conscious override of your central nervous system. You know, I didn't know those things at that time. So then I became a cop. And when I became a cop, that's when you know, you're, you're, you're,

your podcast called The Determined Society. I didn't have enough determination in my life until I became a cop and there became no option but to be successful in the shooting realm. And two years into becoming a law enforcement officer, I became a firearms instructor. And that was just a fascinating world to me to try to, how do I teach a police officer, how to control a movement that causes an explosion because that's the only thing that's going to save their life or the life of another. And I did not know how to convey that because I wasn't able to do that in my own shooting at the time. So I had to figure it out. And that's where I really started to dive into the sciences of, you know, neurolinguistic programming, open and closed loop control systems, visual

proprioception, just how do things actually work in our mind in these high stress events? And so, you know, I became the lead firearms instructor for Washington State. So every cop had to come through me for firearms training at the academy. And that's where I really got to do the experimentation I needed to, you know, really dive into these sciences and make a package, a package of these sciences put together, which had never been done before. You know, there was, there's always been good shooters, but those good shooters weren't able to explain to you how they do what they do.

As in most sports, when you get this top-tier athlete, they can't tell you the mental game of what they do. And so I came from the bottom of the barrel. I came from the trenches and also two years into my law enforcement career, I got on the SWAT team. And then I became the sniper team. And I was a sniper team leader for 19 years on the SWAT team. And it, you know, those first probably eight or nine years of that, I was scared to death that I was not going to perform at the moment of truth in like a hostage rescue or whatever it may be, right? I mean, it's it's a horrible feeling to have this, this job of so much responsibility and not know how it's going to go. That scared me to death.

But it also gave me that determination to figure it out. I had to figure it out because it just wasn't out there. There was nothing out there for me to read, to watch, anything to go, okay, this is it. There was lots of stuff out there was like, okay, yeah, this is it. But then you test it under stress, garbage, because I was trying to find something that worked for me. And that's what a lot of people do when they take instruction is they're looking for the magic nugget that works for them. but what they have to realize is the instruction should tell you what work needs to be done and how to do the work.

But it's not going to work for you, right? Especially in shooting. So, you know, I was on the SWAT team for 19 years, lead firearms instructor at the academy, and that's where I really started to figure things out. And that was the birth of shot IQ. And that has just been building and building since 2016. And, you know, that was my life. That was my world.

And I wasn't necessarily branching out. But then I got on Rogan. And when I got on Rogan, Rogan's talking about the connection of what we do at Shot IQ with the teaching of how to concentrate and all these other things that we do, the application of those things to the rest of life. And I'm like, yeah, I know there's this connection, but I did not have the nexus at that time. time. And it wasn't until about three weeks after the podcast that somebody asked me, can you define the mental game? And then we defined it in a very simple term, and we'll talk about that, I'm sure. And now it's branched into the Turner model and mind IQ and all kinds of cool stuff. It's the application of what we do at Shot IQ to the rest of life. To any sport,

any problem in life, now there's an equation we can. plug those problems into so it's really cool stuff dude i'm mindblood i'm just it's fascinating right because everything that you're talking to me about i'm sitting here thinking that we there's always a formula inside the head we don't know why we're thinking the way we're thinking we don't understand it enough right to your point athletes don't understand the mental game right and and and for you have been in the trenches and had all these experiences where you felt that you weren't ready really you know catapulted you to dig deeper and to look into the sciences and create systems that could actually work for you. So that way you could teach other people to be effective.

Because the one thing that I heard is like, man, I got to teach these people. And I don't, I'm not confident in my own ability right now. There's a lot of individuals that will continue to teach and teach and teach even though they're not confident in themselves. And that is out of integrity. So I love what I'm hearing here that you just dove into yourself and truly figured out through your central nervous system, how the mind works. how thinking works.

I'm really, really like just indulging in this because this is something I want to bring to my athletes. If we can understand why we're thinking a certain way and it's just like in basically, my experience is baseball.

I can't tell you why a quarterback misses targets, but I can tell you what happens when henders get into the box and they shut down and just like letting go the string too early, maybe they're thinking too much and they don't pull the trigger when the ball's an area of impact, right?

But there's reasons for this. It's not because they don't give a shit. It's not because they suck. It's because there's a breakdown in their mind. So how did you start bringing that to other people? I want to talk about the equation 100%. Yeah. So, well, let me ask you a question.

Sure. What is, let's just take a baseball hitter. Give me the specific mental game of hitting a baseball. Oh my God, there's so many, there's so many. Here's the one that, here's a couple of them that most hitters kind of get messed up on. They guess. If you guess, you're okay, fastball, fastball. They drop a dirty hammer in there or a curveball, you're done. Right. If you're thinking off speed and they throw 95 on your hands, then you can't catch up. You might as well tip your cat, walk back to the dugout. Right. So there's, there's the guessing aspect, right? And then there's also hit. really go by feel a lot of times, right? And if their body feels good, if their hands feel good, then they're ready to go.

But the moment, the moment something feels off, they're done. They're cooked. They can't perform because you don't have very long to make your decision to hit a baseball. I mean, it is the single most hardest thing to do

in a score is you got a round object with another round object and they're asking you to square it up. It's like, how the fuck does that make any sense, right? but it's done. We need the barrel balls up. But if we're guessing or if we feel off,

then our mind takes over our body and now our reaction is slow. Does that help you? Yeah, but what is the mental game of it, right? So this is the question that I was asked, and it's a very vague question. Like I ask people all the time, how do you concentrate? And they always tell me what concentration is,

but not how to do it. Right? Like you've told your play, to concentrate on whatever, concentrate on a certain aspect of whatever they're doing. But have you ever told somebody how to do it? If you've never told them how to concentrate, how can you possibly expect somebody to do that? So the question that I asked you was, what is the mental game? And this is the question that I was asked.

And this is the equation, right? The mental game is defined as this. it's knowing when, where, and how to direct your conscious mind into a specific task at a specific moment. Knowing when, where, and how to direct your conscious mind into a specific task at a specific moment. So the mental game for, let's say, hitting a baseball, where do we need our conscious mind? And this is where I would come to you as a baseball expert, because I'm not an expert in baseball, but I am an expert in the mental game. So I come to you as the expert in baseball and go, okay.

Ryan, what is the mental game? Or where do I need my conscious mind when I'm in the batters box? Where does it need to be? And this is a question to you. Where does your conscious mind need to be? Your conscious mind just needs to be in the present. Like not worrying about what's going to happen. You need to see ball, hit ball.

You need to react. That is where hitters get messed up. That's the mental. So you just said it. You said C ball, hit ball. Where do I need the batter's conscious mind? I need it in particular in baseball. The movement of swinging a baseball bat is controlled by an open-loop control system.

Are you familiar with open-and-closed-loop control system? This is great. Keep going. Okay, so an open-loop control system, these are the two control systems that govern all of our movements. An open loop control system is a control system that governs movements that are fast and efficient, like swinging a baseball bat. You should not have to put conscious thought into swinging a baseball bat because you've done it thousands of times. You have built that motor program and the movement is too fast for you to catch feedback within it. Exactly.

So that's actually the definition of choking. if you put your conscious thought into a movement that's supposed to be open loop like swinging a baseball bat, if you think about specific aspects of the swing, you will screw up the totality of the movement. Okay. That's it. Now we're speaking the same language, right? Because, you know, we, that in baseball terms, it's React. What you're saying is the open loop control system, right?

Same thing. It's never been positioned to like that. So it's like you do this movement in practice. You just can't think about it in the game because now you're choking. You can't think about the movement because you'll screw up the totality of the movement. So we know that your conscious mind must not be in the movement. So in hitting a baseball, what guides our movement? What guides your vision?

Yes. Yeah, what guides your movement? It's vision. You are picking up the ball, figuring out. what pitch it is and then you are going to, excuse me, you're going to swing your baseball bat at the level and at the speed that you determine, but that's all determined by your eyes. The old adage of keep your eye on the ball, right? So where does the conscious mind need to be? It needs to be in vision. When does it need to be there at certain points of the pitchers wind up or when the ball

leaves the pitcher's hand. That is your moment of truth. That is when conscious control of vision must exist. Otherwise, you'll start thinking about a bunch of other crap that you don't need to think about, right? So how do we get, so we know the where, the where is vision. We know the when when the ball leaves the pitcher's hand or whatever that specific moment of truth is for that particular batter. the how remember it's when where and how in the mental game equation the how is always speech speech is the how of concentration speech is how you move thoughts from the limbic system of the brain to thinking which is in the prefrontal cortex of the brain so when do we need it there when the ball leaves the pitcher's hand where do we need it we need it in vision how do we put

the conscious mind there, it's always speech. So if you need it in vision, you say a phrase like see it or ball. That keeps your conscious mind in the vision where it needs to be. Your subconscious is going to then pick up the flight path of the ball and run the open loop motor program. So you don't have to worry about all that stuff. But it's when the batter actually detaches their consciousness from the flight path of the ball when things go bad. Oh, wow. So that's just one little mental game equation that we ran for a specific problem. So that's what I do with coaches like yourself is I'm like, bring me your problems. And we take that problem and we plug it into the mental game equation. And what we also have to remember is the concept of thoughts are not thinking.

Thoughts are what you hear. Thinking is what you say. It's your voice and it must be the loudest voice in the room. Right? Your thinking has to be louder than your thoughts, especially in high stress events. Because we cannot control our thoughts, but we can control our thinking and we control are thinking through speech. And it sounds like such a, it sounds like such a simple concept, right? Yeah. But we don't do it.

I think a lot of times people get caught up when if they think it or the thoughts come, they don't know how to move from that thought to the thinking. Can you speak to the audience a little bit? Because I think when you first told me that on the phone the other night, I'm like, oh, shit, exactly. You can't control your thoughts, but you can control how you think, right? So it's what you say to yourself. It's what you're saying out loud.

How does one make that connection and put in strategies in place to break those, to break down those breakdowns because that's what they get stuck? Right. So remember, thoughts aren't thinking. Thoughts are what you hear. Thinking is what you say. So most people do self-talk, but self-talk is usually negative. There's a huge difference between.

self-talk and self-instruction. Self-talk a lot of times is thought, oh man, I wonder what pitch he's going to throw. That has no bearing on strategy or purpose, right? That's a thought. I wonder what pitch he's going to throw. That is a thought that's not thinking. Thinking is, as soon as that ball leaves his hand, I'm going to say, see it. That's thinking, right? That's a strategy. Thought has no strategy. Thinking should be all about strategy. So self-talk or self-instructions. So your players need to get good at recognizing. Am I having thoughts or am I actually thinking? They're two completely different things.

Absolutely true. I mean, it's one of those things that when when people hear this, right, when they're listening to this show is like, wait a second, they're going to be able to fix so many different things immediately. Because when you're talking about, you know, the thought, you can't control your thoughts. I mean, and let's be honest, most of our thoughts are negative. I don't know what the percentage is, but I think it's upwards of 60% of your thoughts are actually negative. And I don't know the site is just what I've heard. I don't know if it's true or not. But then the thing, the thing is, thinking part of it, you literally tell yourself, like, no, a different story, right? This is, like you said, see it, see it. You know, a lot of baseball players say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, or no, no, right? When the ball's in flight, you know, and that, that's kind of the same thing, right? See it or yes, yes, yes, no. Right? That's, that, that's thinking. That's thinking. And it's, it's interesting that you said that more than once and in a rhythm. Mm-hmm. Right? That's neurolinguistic programming, because when you see, that, that's, that's say a word or when you read a word, your conscious mind is in it from the first letter to the last letter and then it's gone. That's why mantras were developed thousands of years ago, right,

usually in martial arts or in meditation, to direct and trap the conscious mind, you have to say something over and over or a specific word and you stretch it. Right? Like imagine I am shooting a a center fire rifle in a sniper situation, right? Where does my conscious mind need to be? It needs to be in the trigger press. Okay. So how do I put it there? I put it there through speech because otherwise I'm going to go open loop on the trigger.

Now, in shooting, if you go open loop on the trigger and you move the trigger too fast, your body and your mind is then free to link pre-ignition movements to the trigger motor program. So you actually flinch. Right. So there you are on the trigger. And it's not just this that you're doing. You're doing this. Your whole body contracts. And that deviates the point of impact to the bullet. So you have to use the other control system, which is a closed loop control system. That's the control system that's used for a movement that's so slow that you could stop it anywhere within it. It's so slow that you can gain feedback within it. And in my online courses, I give you these tests that show you the speed of your closed loop control system.

And it's amazing how much concentration it takes where you have to talk yourself through these things. Because if you don't, your mind will be stuck in an open loop control system and it'll just keep screwing up and screwing up and screwing up over and over until you finally get determined enough. Now, this is where the determined society comes into play, because if you're not determined enough to make a decision, your presence will never be high enough to actually concentrate, right? So the list of ingredients for mind control is number one, determination, which is something that either you nor I can teach somebody. We can't teach somebody determination.

So what we do as coaches is we help people find it. Right? We help people find their determination. Where is your determination well? And how deep have you dug it? Right. So once your determination is high enough, then you make a decision. Like, I'm doing it this way no matter what.

And when you make that conscious decision, then your presence is high enough. Because that's what decisions do is they increase. your presence. Now we're in the moment, right? Once our presence is high enough, then and only then can we concentrate? And that's where the mental game equation comes in. Where do we put our concentration? When do we need to put it there? And how do we put it there? The how is always speech. You got to figure out the when and where. This is beautiful. This is beautiful, dude. So a couple things. Excuse me. So when people are choking or when people are not performing the way they want to, they're stuck in that open loop, right?

But then when they get in the closed loop, that's what they want to be. Is that what you're saying? Negative. Okay. You have to know what control system you need to be in. Let's take a basketball player, right? Free throw, game winner. Their normal basketball, their normal free throw shot is they bounce the ball on the ground three times.

It's funny because I was watching a high school basketball. game the other day. And I was watching every single player had a different routine on the free throw line. So let's just take a general one, right? So they bounce the ball three times. Then they get the ball in their hands and they spin it. Then they shake their ass a little bit and then they shoot, right? That's their normal free throw shot. It's an open loop motor program. It's supposed to be nice and fluid and efficient. Where do they need their conscious mind? They need it in vision so they that the open loop can work. Right?

So sometimes the mental game equation is not putting your conscious mind into a movement. Sometimes it's just as in batting. It's keeping it out of a movement and usually into vision. So if that free throw shooter keeps their conscious mind in vision of seeing exactly the edge of the rim that they want the ball to go over, that's how they keep their open loop motor program that they've trained for. But during the game winner, they bounce a ball three times. They spin it in their hand. They shake their ass and they go, oh, I got to make this one.

Or I need to break my wrist just right. So they changed their thinking and it kills the totality of the movement when all they needed to go was see it. Right? Yeah. or rim or whatever. Keep the conscious mind in the vision that guides the movement because it's going to throw the ball on the trajectory path that you need. You've done it thousands of times. You have to let it work. So you have to stay open loop in those certain situations, but people put their conscious mind into the movement when it's higher stress, when it doesn't need to be there when it actually kills the movement. Now shooting is completely. the opposite. I need to put my conscious mind into a movement because if I don't, I'll have pre, I'll flinch. Right. So shooting is kind of this anomaly. It's this unique thing. In most sports, you think about most sports movements, they are open loop and they need to remain that way. So the definition of choking, again, is putting your conscious mind into a movement where it doesn't need to be.

it's amazing but let's say that you're learning a movement when you are learning a movement maybe you've got a checkpoint within that movement like breaking your wrist just right or you know there's all kinds of stuff and hitting a baseball right moving the hips and the shoulders and all that stuff so if you're working on a specific checkpoint within that movement that's when you're going to fair out when's my moment of truth where I need conscious control of this one aspect of my baseball swing. And that's when you would say, you know, as you're swinging, maybe you say hips. Maybe you, maybe you say shoulders. Maybe it's wrists. I don't know. You're the expert. That's where you come in and you go, okay, I need your mind on this specific, on your wrist,

at this specific moment in your swing. But once they get that, once that gets put into an open loop motor program and there's no question that they're going to do that, you fix the movement, then you got to keep the conscious mind out of it and let it run because you just build the program because this is great because athletes right athletes what they tend to do is they go to practice they work they work they work but when they get in the batters box during the game they're starting to bring their conscious mind into it and that's where they're getting caught up instead of just allowing that open loop system to roll that's what michael jordan was so good at that's what Barry Bonds was so good at.

It was like the work's already done. And in sports, we always talk about this, right? But we don't give the why. And that's why I'm just, I'm just listening to you. And this is incredible because no one's telling these kids why. No one's telling like, no one say, hey, just go out there. When you're in the game, now you just react. But no one's breaking down the reasoning behind it.

And it's so important to work on your craft and practice those movements. So that way, when you get into the batterer's box, you're on the pitch, you're on the mound, and now you're just going. You're not even thinking about it. You're in that open loop system. You're not thinking, okay, hey, man, bottom of the ninth, oh shit.

You know, runner on second base winning run. Like two outs. Do you need to stay in the vision? You need to stay in the open loop system because if your conscious mind gets involved, you're cooked. Yeah. And those are all, you know,

all those things you just said, oh, it's bottom of ninth, all that stuff. those are all thoughts right thoughts aren't thinking so when these players are practicing when they're practicing they need to practice thinking so they need to know that at this specific moment i'm going to say see it and then they do this the action and then they blueprint it okay what was i thinking about i was thinking about the ball how you know when was i thinking about it i was thinking about it i was thinking about it. The instant it left his hand, I said see it. That's now part of a blueprint that you can follow in the highest stress. So asking yourself those questions, what was I thinking about?

What was I saying? Right. That second question, what was I saying can also be phrased as, how was I thinking? Because what you say is what you think. Yeah. What you say, what you say. What you say, is not your thoughts. What you say is what you is what you think, right? Remember, thoughts aren't thinking. Thoughts are what you hear. That's the, oh my God, it's the bottom of the ninth. That's what you hear. It may not even be your voice. It's this, it's this, you know, the narrative that you've, that you've built for yourself. But it's, that's all self-talk. That's not self-instruction. Right. So getting these players to step in the, in the box and go, I know exactly how I'm going to do what I'm to do. As soon as the ball leaves his hand or just prior to the ball leaving the hand of the

pitcher, I'm going to say, see it. That's going to put my conscious mind in the ball and the flight path that ball and I'm going to run my swing just like I have thousands of times. Right. So being able to blueprint and knowing the mental game equation is huge for people. No, it truly is. And you look at the great hitters, like even in college, like Dylan Cruz is the best hitter in the country last year. He went second pick overall. his thinking is superior. I can tell you right now, he gets in the box,

he's seeing it, and he's going, because he's confident in the work that he's done in the cage, you know, in his pre-pitch movements, everything like that. He is thinking correctly,

because a lot of times, this is what people say, don't think when you're in the batters box. Don't think, don't think, just react. Well, it depends what you define thinking as.

Right? I mean, and when most people say that, don't think, or if I think about it, I screw it up. That's only, it's not because you're overthinking and it's because you're thinking incorrectly. It's because you're putting your conscious mind somewhere that it doesn't need to be.

Now, here's an interesting question that you need to ask these people. And this is a question that I've asked, so many successful snipers, rifle hunters, bow hunters. Now, you've got this guy that went second draft pick overall. Has anybody ever asked this person, what do you say when you step in the batters box? has anybody ever asked that person that? Oh, I'm sure. Have you, have you ever asked Barry Bonds? Have you ever asked Barry Bonds?

What do you say to yourself when you step in there? And I guarantee you, I guarantee you that everybody that's vastly successful says something. They all say something, right? I'll guarantee you none of them do it blank minded, right? because if they did, they would not have the success that they've had, and they wouldn't have been able to blueprint it. Because when you ask these people, what do you say when you step in the battered box or what do you say when you're about to swing the bat? They'll all have a slightly different phrase that they say, but what you'll find is they all say it at about the same time. It's the same thing with successful shooters, right?

They all say something during their shot. What do you say? Right? And you'll find, well, I have a very specific phrase system that I use, right? So like if it's an archery shot, I draw back an aim, then I set my trigger, right, or set my tension, then I make a decision to increase my presence. I say, here I go. Because here I go is a very common phrase that gets people to jump off a cliff. into water, right? You ever jumped off a cliff into water? No. You never have? Not doing it. No,

absolutely not. Okay. Not doing it, right? You say that you're not doing it, but what if you had to? What if you had to to save one of your children or something, right? So think about this. There you are. You got your little toesies hanging over the edge. And you know, you've got somebody in the water that you need to save, but you're scared of heights or whatever it may be. And there you are, the person in the water, what does that do for you? That increases your determination. Yeah, it's go, right? So once your determination gets high enough, then you make a decision.

Like, if people are having thoughts when they're at the edge of the cliff, they're like, oh, man, I don't know if that water's deep enough. they'll never jump right because they're not present they're having thoughts okay so it's not until they go they take that big deep breath and they go here I go that increases the presence high enough that they can actually do a movement that's going to cause their body impact right it readies the body for concentration Right? Because for you to get your ass off the cliff, you're going to have to concentrate on a movement. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. So that's where I'm at in my shot. So I've already drawn back and aimed.

Then I've set my tension. Then it's, here I go, because now I have to concentrate on a movement that's going to cause an explosion. So now, here I go, increases my presence. And then I talk myself through a movement. It might be pull, that keeps my conscious mind from the P to the L's. Extending it out, right? Yeah, I let go somewhere in there, right? So that's my phrase, but again, I have to go closed loop. Your players just need to keep their conscious mind out of the movement so they can go open loop. but their thinking has to be in the vision

because vision is what determines their movement. Spot on. It sets all the trick. Yeah. Because here's what happens in baseball players, whether it's a pitcher, hitter, they start thinking about their mechanics during the actual movement, right?

Oh, I got to get my load back. I got a load. It's going to go straight to the umpire. I got to keep my hands inside the baseball. I got to get my barrel in front of the hands. They're thinking about that. Like, like what are you doing you're not going to be able to do it if i'm sitting here right now thinking about

what i need to say to you going on this interview i'm going to be stuck on super like but but but you're going to paralyze yourself and that's what these athletes do yeah you know yeah they it's when you break it down like they just they play the wrong mental game when where and how do you direct your conscious mind to a specific task at a specific moment a pitcher does not need to think about the movement. They need to keep their eye on the catchers mitt because that's what guides their movement. It guides the release time of the ball. It guides everything. But if they're working on a specific task within their pitch in practice, that's when they can say different things about the movement to fix a particular aspect about the pitch. I got one for you. But when it comes to game,

if you're thinking about that other stuff, man, you're done. You're fucking cook. Go ahead. I have a good one for you. Okay. I think baseball players in general, specifically are conditioned to think they need to work on that shit in between pitches or, you know, in game because here's why. What would you,

what advice would you give somebody that they got their mommy and daddy yelling out from saying, stay inside the baseball. Get your glob down. You know, finish your pitch. And then the coach from the dugout, I'm not one of these guys.

I don't talk about shit. the game. I don't, I don't, I don't like it. I don't give any instruction on mechanics during a game. And it drives me crazy when coaches do. But a lot of baseball coach is like, do this, do that. And they're yelling at the pitcher. They're yelling at the hitter. They're yelling at the catcher, right? They're yelling at the shortstop. They just booted the ball. They're already upset. Right. But, but as coaches, they start to put that in-game adjustments. And what would you, How would you instruct an athlete or somebody that is constantly hearing it from the outside during competition? So they have to get reps and getting louder.

Because when somebody is imparting, trying to impart concentration on the player, what fans are doing. They are imparting there. They're attempting to get the player to concentrate on certain aspects, that they're seeing a deficiency, right? fans are seeing a deficiency. And so they're yelling at the player. The coach is seeing a deficiency.

So he or she is yelling at the player. And the player is taking this in. And now they're starting to have thoughts. Their thoughts become louder than their thinking. So the player needs to get reps in getting loud in their own head. Their thinking must be louder than your thoughts that you're throwing at them. Right. So how often do you ever have a baseball player out there practicing hitting and you've got 10 people standing around them screaming at them?

All the time. How often do you ever do that? Do you actually do that? I don't do it. I sit there and watch. Right. And they come out of the cage and I talk to. In practice, you have to have people getting loud with them so that they get reps in becoming loud.

in their own head. Their thinking has to be louder than everybody else's thoughts. But we never practice that, right? You might be talking to them in the batters box, whatever, right, when you're doing practice. But do you have the batting cage lined with people that are screaming at them? Right. So if you don't do that, they never get reps in getting loud. That's amazing. That's the skill. The skill is in getting loud in your own head. and known specifically what you are saying to yourself to keep your conscious mind in the flight path of the ball, in vision.

Because people are telling you about all kinds of stuff, right? You know, especially mom and dad are yelling at you, but you have to get reps in getting loud. That's why, like in my archery clinics, I'm whacking people on the head with an arrow. I'm yelling at them. I'm doing all kinds of stuff so that they get. get reps in becoming louder than me.

Dude, this is badass, dude, because this is symbolic of life. Life comes at you and it's so damn loud. It's so loud. And if we don't put ourselves in those positions to perform in, I guess you would say, what is this, you know, situations that are controlled, right? It's controlled, but you have that loudness coming at you. If you don't take reps during those moments, then you, you can't perform when it's loud when it's the loudest during the actual competition i love that i

never thought about that dude when you think about that it's never practiced reality is not practiced enough yeah right it's the reality of of you know like a hostage rescue you don't get to practice that right but i'll tell you right now from personal experience your thoughts are deafening, right? What if I miss? Is he going to stab her, right? You have all these just massive thoughts weighing down on you. And if you have never practiced getting loud in your own head with thinking,

you will be crushed by that moment. Right? So it's the same thing in any sport. You have to get your people to get reps in getting loud because that is the skill. The skill is not hitting the baseball. The skill is not swinging the bat. The skill is putting your conscious mind

where it needs to be at the moment of truth. It's a different approach to all of these movements. It's amazing because when I mention life, people go through things, man, right? They go through financial troubles. They go through lack of confidence, bad self-belief, and they're not self-limiting behaviors, and they're not loud enough in their own head,

they're allowing the external environment to determine what's going on. For those of you listening right now, I want you to close your eyes and really think about this, okay? Because what Joel is telling you is these things are coming at you, and these are blessings, and you need to practice these thoughts and these, what you're saying in your head, you've got to be loud.

You have to call on that inner power in order to wipe out those external voices. This isn't being practiced. You're right. It's not. Because what happens in real life when I'm working with my clients or even in my own life. If I've got, I'm a human being,

I got shit going on. A lot of times those outside factors can be so deafening and it's because I'm not doing enough or I hadn't done enough reps in those environments to bring me up. And for me to think a lot clearer and louder in those moments. Yeah. I mean,

it is literally applicable to damn near everything in life. where, you know, just remember, thoughts aren't thinking. So we got to get good at recognizing. Am I having thoughts? Is there any strategy involved in what I just said? Right? Like, oh, my God, it's the bottom of the ninth. Thoughts, right?

Yeah. Or, you know, who knows what it? Think about like an anxiety attack. What's the mental game for an anxiety attack? You know, if somebody has anxiety attacks, if they've experienced several of those, then they understand the, moment of truth, right? As soon as they feel those anxious feeling, those thoughts coming in,

that's the moment of truth. Where do they need to put their conscious mind? They need to put it in, you know, the fact that they're going to be okay, the fact that the thoughts aren't real, right? So they put it in there. And how do they put it in there? The how is always speech, but you got to practice getting loud in your own head. So understanding this mental game equation, where do I need to put my conscious mind, when do I need to put it there, and how do I put it there? Understanding that, you now just, as these problems come at you in life, you plug them into the equation, and you get the mental game of the solution. And now you can actually practice the mental game because it's been defined. And that's where we fell apart for so long.

We never really defined it. So if you don't know the mental game, you're just, don't know where the stadium is. You don't know who your opponents are. You damn sure don't know how to win the game. But now once we've defined it, now you can become a very powerful individual. It's impressive, man. How have you been able to pass this on to your son? Because your son's a badass. You know, he's a pro at 15. He's won the big event in Vegas. How has he benefited from this with you? So it wasn't a matter of of me. sitting boady down and going okay boy this is how you're going to do do your work because boady started shooting a bow at 10 and a half months old you couldn't even stand up months wow yeah no 10 and a half

months so by the age of three you know i let him go open loop right i let him you know shooting balloons out of the air with his little suction cup arrows in the kitchen and just developing his is visual proprioception, right? But then when I bought him a little compound bow and a release aid with a trigger on it, he started punching the trigger the first time he shot it. Right? So he drew his little bow back and he got on that trigger

and he went open loop on it because that's what his mind wants him to do. You think about all the practice that we do because in most sports you are practicing, you have the cognitive stage of learning where you're actually talking yourself through something. And then you have the practice stage of learning when you're trying to make things more efficient.

And the goal of your practice is automaticity. Right? So people, the brain follows that same learning pattern with shooting. And it always starts to go open loop because the bow going off is an explosion that your mind wants to control. So there's a little boaty at three years old, punching the crap out of a trigger. and me knowing what I know, I'm like, I cannot send my kid down this path because that's the path that most human beings are on.

So luckily in archery, there's a device called the tension activated release where it's got a safety on it. So you push the safety. So you hook it on the string, push the safety in, you draw the bow back, you let the safety off, and then you just pull. And it's based on the tension that's created, it's based on the holding weight of the bow. So you can pull and it goes off by itself. But because it's got a safety, it slows the mind down and separates you from the aim. And it makes the decision for you because if you don't pull slowly, like if you jerk it and make the thing go off, you're never going to hit anything. So it forces you to make a decision to go closed loop.

So that's why I set Bodie on that path. and all he has ever known is mental control, and he's heard my speech so many thousands of times with so many other archers, you know, there's no question on how he's going to do what he's going to do. Like when Bodey's on the line in Vegas, I'm like, oh, gee, I hope Bodey doesn't punch the trigger this time. That's not going to happen. Right. Because there's no way that's going to happen. So that's what I, we have demystified the archery shot.

you're going to demystify the baseball swing or the pitcher throwing the ball. Take all the mystery out of it. They cannot have any question where they're going to put their conscious mind, when they're going to put it there, and how they're going to put it there. It's no longer a mystery. So you do it, you blueprint it, and now you can do it the same way for the rest of your life in the highest stress of situations. This is incredible.

Because once you know it, once you understand this, mental game equation, you can plug it into financial issues. You can plug it into relationship issues. You can plug it into fucking anything. This is going to help people's. This is going to impact people's lives. Let me ask you a question. Do you have a book on this?

Do you have, like, what do you have so people can dive into this and learn from it? So, funny, you say that, right? So next week is our online course is coming out. Okay. And it's called Mind IQ. It's not out yet. So people go looking for it. won't see it yet, but what people can look for is we just put out our website and it's not

completely finished yet, but it's damn close, but it is out there. So if you look up TurnerModel.com, you will see the website. The website is amazing. I had some amazing people make this thing, and it tells the story of mind IQ, the mental game equation and all these things. So the online course is coming out very soon as being put together as we, speak. It's already been a film that's just being plugged into the into the platform right now. So it's coming and it's going to be amazing. So they'll be able to find that on Turner Model.com. That's what they'll be able to find this when it's available.

And so what is it? They purchase it obviously and then they get a login and all that kind of stuff and they go through self-paced. And awesome, man. Yeah. And that's amazing. You'll just run you through the science. And we've got several the tests on there. that you're going to do and you'll have a complete understanding of, you know, how we fail and

how we succeed and how we run problems through the mental game equation and really diving into thoughts aren't thinking. It's very powerful stuff. It's amazing. Let me ask you a question. So real life scenario here, you know, when you knowing what you know, how has it improved your relationship with your wife, your people that you do business with, just overall every single day. Well, what you'll see is, you know, let's say you're having an argument with your wife, all thought-driven. Sure. Completely thought-driven, right?

It's a thought-driven event. So if you can just step back, right? Moment of truth. So now you have this realization like, what the hell am I? What is the real problem here, right? Step back and what do you need to do? Like, there's a mental game for this step back. And it's putting your conscious mind into the one thing that we can always control, and that is breathing.

Right? Because if your heart rate gets too high, you lose the ability to concentrate. You lose the ability to think. Right. So usually for most people, it's about 160. Once you go over 160, that's when we start going into lizard brain, which is fight or flight, which is most arguments are based on. that, right? Training and experience. And if you've never trained in thinking, that's not going to be part of the equation, right? So just stepping back for a second and catching your breath, putting your conscious mind into breathing, right? Like in through the nose, almost to the top, an extra inhale through the nose and then out through the mouth. Instantly lowers your heart,

right? I got that from Huberman. I don't know where he got it from, but it is an amazing. amazing breathing technique, in through the nose to the top, extra breath through the nose, past the top, and then out through the mouth. And when you do that, you'll lower your heart rate that's a precursor to concentration. So you're just taking a deep breath. Everybody always said, oh, take a deep breath, right? Well, how about you take this very specific deep breath to lower our heart rate so that we can become conscious about what the real problem is? Right. So, So, you know, when you're dealing with people, you know, as a cop, I dealt with people all the time. It was almost always thought-driven events, right?

So thoughts aren't thinking people. Just that statement, I did not make up that statement. That statement is from my buddy in Australia, Ben Mayer. And he told me, I was telling him all the stuff about the mental game equation, all this stuff. And he's like, yeah, man, thoughts aren't thinking. I'm like, say what? It's a very profound. What's the reaction I had when you told me?

I'm like, what the fuck did you say? Right. But it's from Buddhism. That's where it's from. Makes sense. Saying it is what it is, that's from Buddhism, right? Just so happens that Ben Mare's brother is a Buddhist monk. Oh, there you go.

So that's where he got it from. And, you know, he uses it for all kinds of supervisory stuff. He has a very high-stressed job, and he uses it for all of his employees' problems, right? So he told me that, and I took it and ran with it. I'm like, okay, let's dive into this, right? Because that's what I do. It's how I think. I take a statement like that, and I really break it down.

That's why we turn it into thoughts are what you hear. Thinking is what you say. It's your voice, and it must be deafening in high-stress events. So important because this is how people manifest in bad ways because they think it and then they speak it instead of saying, nope, that's not who I am. That's not what's going on and controlling the actual thinking aspect of it. This right here is going to help so many people because, you know, just that are listening to the show, I'm listening and how I'm failing to apply this to my own life. I'm very upfront. I don't lie.

I'm like, fuck, I got to get better at this, man, right? Like, this is incredible shit. It's so simple.

And the cool thing about it is it's, it's not tangible because it's in your mind, but it is a tangible tool. It's something that you can actually do. It's not, you know, and there's nothing against sports psychologists, but they usually miss the depth of the solution.

Like I'm not, I'm not that smart. We talked about this. We talked about this. I'm just, We talked about this on the phone. They never shot the rifle. They've never been in a hostage situation.

Right. Right. So they don't really know what the hell they're talking about. They do, but they do, they know it on a, on a scientific, possibly a chemical level, all things that are intangible that you cannot control. Like, can you control how much adrenaline is dumped into your system? Can you control your confidence level, right? You can't actually control those things.

So this is a way to break these kind of fluffy problems down in a way where I'm going to say this at this moment, therefore this is going to happen. So it becomes more tangible. And it makes the roadblocks of these problems just kind of I know how to get past that. Oh, I know how to get past that. And you can just start to really advance and move. on in life, you know, in whatever it is that you do in your job. Maybe it's sales, maybe it's, you know, therapy, maybe it's hitting a baseball. Whatever it is, you now, it's like we're unlocking this code, man. And it's, dude, this is fucking. It's so simple. It's so simple, right? But

like, I consider myself the master of the unknown obvious. It's right there in front of our faces. Many people do it already, but they don't really. realize how they're doing it, therefore they can't possibly teach it, and therefore you can't really harness the true power of it. Dude, I'm fucking geeking out on this shit, because when you tell, when you're, all I can see, you're saying all these things. I'm like, I just want to know when the fuck this is going to be available. Like, that's all I want to know.

Like, because I'm sitting here, I'm super excited about it because I know this can help me in my life, right? This is, you know, and I think a lot of people, they don't, they let the ego drive them too much. And they, wait a second. I'm fine. I'm good. No. I need this because I want to be the best for me and for my family, but I also want to be the best for my clients. Most importantly, like, I'm not one of those guys that doesn't want to give tremendous amount of value. I need it to be valuable, like very valuable.

And this is another way to think of things. Because what you're saying isn't foreign to people. It's just not spoken about enough, right? You know, it's cryptic, right? But no one's broken it down. yet. So, dude, this is badass. So when is it? Come on, come on. Give me a little hint here. You say next week? Like, what? What are we talking to here? Two weeks? Come on. John, hold your feet to the fucking fire here, man. I will be reviewing the course next week. That's awesome. And if I give it the go, then it will be available. It's supposed to be available before Christmas. Okay. But, you know, that's the online version. I am also available for speaking engagements and

such. If you go on the website, you'll see how to book me for speaking stuff. But it's powerful, man. It's really wild. You know, there's motivation is now an industry in itself, right? I mean, there's all these motivational speakers and this and that. And they're, they're extremely smart people and they're, they're great presenters and they're great speakers. But they're not really giving you the how. And it's, dude, don't even fucking get you started, bro. You fucking, God dang it, dude, you fucking said it. Motivation drives me crazy. Motivation drives me crazy because people think that you need motivation to get going.

No, motivation is something that happens after you've already started and you're getting a little more confidence and you get excited about what you're doing. But the determination of the discipline is what keeps you going. And this whole industry of motivational speaking, it is, to me, it's dirty. Okay. And I'm going to tell you why. I think, because this is not, this is truly what I think. I'm saying it. Like to your point, they're not telling you how.

They get on stage. They all these fucking lights flashing strobe, all this bullshit. You know, some are good looking, some are not. And they get people excited about the idea of building their business, the idea of being a better human being. But for only $60,000, I can show you how to do it. Like, the fuck, man. Like, you got to give people a little bit here, you know. Otherwise, we're just talking to.

latitudes yeah yeah and you know i've i've given you just about everything on this podcast it's but you got to practice it and you got to know some specific tests that i don't i don't necessarily talk about on podcast but you shouldn't um it is it is just it's very powerful stuff it's been very powerful in the shooting world and you know in the law enforcement military all this stuff it's very powerful but now we're able to bring it to everybody and it's uh I'm super excited about it because I've never, I never thought that it would go this way. Well, I'm excited to. But once we really broke the code, man, it's pretty cool stuff.

I'm jacked up, dude. I'm jacked up. I can't wait. I'm going to be on it as soon as you release it. So this is going to be huge. I see it, you know, myself implementing it in my life. But I'm grateful that we connected, man, and that, you know, we've become friends. And this is, this is dope, dude.

I'm going to have to have you on my athlete call. I want to wait a little bit once, you know, there's, you know, we have about 15 athletes in it now. I want to be super impactful. But this is something. This is something that they absolutely need to hear. So I appreciate you, man. But we're going to land the plane here. I'm going to have all the ways that people can find you in the show notes and go to the eternal model.com and pick up your, your course.

And, dude, I just, I'm super grateful for sitting down with you. and connecting with you, man. I appreciate you being on the show, dude. Yeah, appreciate you having me, bro. Dude, anytime, man. All right, y'all, you heard it. Turnamodel.com. Go check it out.

Go check out my boy. I'm going to put his Instagram link here in the show notes. Just go connect with him. He's a great dude and a lot to learn from him. So until next time, be determined. And remember, what was it, Joel? Thoughts are what? Tell them one more times.

Thoughts aren't thinking. Yes, thoughts aren't thinking. Thoughts are not thinking. Thoughts are not thinking. Thoughts are not thinking. Say it again. Thoughts are not thinking, y'all. I love y'all. You be good and we'll chat with you soon. Southwest Florida is one of the most beautiful places on the planet to live. For those of you that are thinking of moving from other states to come to Florida or even just moving to a different part of the state,

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But it doesn't have to stay that way. I used to compare myself to everyone around me. I thought that no matter how hard I work, I'd never be as good as the other guys. It killed myself, believe. I now help athletes. develop an elite mindset so comparison no longer controls them. We teach techniques to cut out the negative self-talk and unlock for full potential. Imagine stepping into the box when it counts the most and feeling totally confident in your ability, feeling invincible instead of insecure, ready to seize

the opportunity instead of shrinking from it. That's the mindset I help athletes develop. Don't waste another minute on comparison and self-doubt. Take control of your mindset and become the confident, unstoppable competitor you were meant to be. The end more comment below to get started with Edge and transform your mental game.