The Science of Flipping - How to Build Unshakeable Confidence and Perform at Your Peak | Andrea Wieland

Starting point is 00:00:00 What is up the entrepreneur? DNA family. Listen, guys and gals, you are not going to want to miss this. On with me today is an Olympian, a PhD. She works with NFL athletes, special ops soldiers, Fortune 500 executives to walk through how they can better perform at the highest levels. And we're going to talk about how she transitioned to such an athlete that you're in the Olympics into the business world. and into being working with executive. So Andrea Whelan is here. How are you, girl? Doing great.

Starting point is 00:00:36 So glad to be here. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, excited. Listen, I don't often get the chance to interview Olympic athletes. So I'm going to take a second. Talk to us about the Olympics. What does it take?

Starting point is 00:00:47 I mean, you know, we see professional sports. The Olympics are on right now as we're recording this and the Winter Olympics. I'm sure you're all into that. What does it take to become an Olympic athlete? Not just the physical skill set. I think that's probably apparent, but what does it really take to get there? Well, it is a great question, and I would say it's a combination of a little bit of luck,

Starting point is 00:01:09 meaning that you're not injured or the timing's right. There's a lot of things that go into it to meet the Olympics at the time it's being hosted. So I actually asked seven hot guys who came back to University of Iowa to be celebrated, post-Olympics and I said what would be one word that, you know, described why you were there. And six out of seven said persistence or perseverance. Like you get knocked down, you get back up. You figure out, you go back to the drawing board. You get knocked down, you get back up.

Starting point is 00:01:47 And you just keep going regardless of the evidence of how you're actually tracking on getting to the Olympics. The other person said, you know, work your ass off. and that was a wrestler, Tom Brands. If you know anything about Iowa wrestling, you know what he's talking about. I think he's head coach there now. So, and that was really my story is about persistence. I got cut not once, twice, three times.

Starting point is 00:02:13 Most people moved on with their lives after that. I think it was around five or six that my parents and my family were starting to say, you know, why are you doing this? You have other dreams and goals. Seven, eight, finally made the World Cup team. still was not an easy road. I was used to being kind of a star athlete,

Starting point is 00:02:32 you know, All-American and starter and those kinds of things. And then when it came to the U.S. team, it was just much more of a grind than I kind of had realized it would be, but finally made the 94 World Cup team and then persisted on to make the 96 team. Girl, so so cool what I get to do. I just heard something recently, and it really mind-fucked me. And the reason being is I really talk about entrepreneurship being a game of perseverance.

Starting point is 00:03:09 And a lot of people, I believe, look at persistence and perseverance in the same way. And someone, and I want to go find where I saw this. What the point of the message was is persistence is short-term, perseverance is long-term. you are talking about being perseverance and being you persevered versus the persistence it takes to go with a short-term goal. Walk me through what it takes mentally to actually persevere because you brought something up here. When people do things, they create action, they get a result, right?

Starting point is 00:03:45 So that result is showing proof. No matter what proof you are coming up with the action you're taking, it will give you proof so you can have a belief system, and that's going to shape your belief system. You literally just said four or five, six times they cut you. Your proof was, I'm not good enough to be on the Olympic team. I won't make the World Cup. And you said, nonsense.

Starting point is 00:04:08 Total and utter nonsense. I am good enough. How do you persevere through the proof given to you? How do you persevere through that every time it comes up at the same? In result, I'm cut, I'm cut, I'm cut, I'm cut. And you keep going in spite of that. Well, there is absolute parallels to being an entrepreneur. That is for sure, is that when you're starting with maybe ground zero and you have this big dream or vision, it's not going to happen in a linear fashion.

Starting point is 00:04:44 And same with pursuing high and hard goals like the Olympics. So I first started dreaming about it when I was six years old. Nadia Komenich, she inspired a generation of Olympians. And I don't know whether it is ignorance or courage or what it was, but I was committed to seeing that through. And whether that was once I'm an Olympian, now I have arrived, and people will see me and appreciate me and whatever those inner, inner games we play with ourselves and we don't even know that half the time they're operating.

Starting point is 00:05:26 But I, you know, I did have proof and evidence. I was a first team all American, you know, two years in a row. And we went to the final four every year. So I was one of the top goalies in the country. I knew I had the athleticism. It was, there was a disconnect between me and the coach. And maybe that's happened with other people is you feel like you belong. you know you can do it, but there's a disconnect between, you know, your actual results and what you think you're capable of. So, yeah, I guess I guess in my inner knowingness, I knew I belonged. I kind of identified with being an Olympian. It was going to be 96 in my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. And it wasn't like, you know, I really want to be there. It's like, I have to be.

Starting point is 00:06:20 to be there. This is, you know, so there's something in there that allows you to keep returning to the drawing board, figuring it out, getting more input, getting better, you know, that it was the, I guess the inner evidence that I could make it. I would argue it was the belief. I think, you know, I had a great call with my entrepreneur in a community. If you guys don't know, Everyone should be joining the entrepreneur DNA communities from this podcast, right? It's on school, sk-o-o-l.com. Go look up entrepreneur DNA. Andrea will help you guys beyond just this episode.

Starting point is 00:07:01 So she'll be in here. And maybe I'm just telling her this now, but you'll be in there. And the whole point is last night we had a call with another expert, specifically about human behavior and human habits in the face of fear and how that fear dictates your habits and your behavior and how that could either catapult. you or cripple you. And one of the things that he was talking about is, is I literally learned this last night is what you, you are exemplary at, which is your belief was so big. It was deaf to the results that it was seeing. Like I knew I'm going to make the, you know, obviously

Starting point is 00:07:36 the proof prior was first time or first team, all American, year in, year out, like always captain the team, all these accolades. And although it wasn't going your way when it came to the Olympics, your belief was so big you were deaf to the rest of it. Like it was a shoulder shrug mentality. And so those are the behaviors. Those are the habits that if you are in alignment, if you were in flow. And again, this was literally, you should go check it out. Pat Precourt gave the talk last night.

Starting point is 00:08:07 But if you are genuinely in your flow, right? If you think about energy, nothing else gets in the way. This is what you were meant to do. irrelevant of when you get to do it, that's what you're meant to do. And you exemplify that. Like you said, two, three, four, however many times you were cut from the U.S. team until you made the U.S. team. Yeah, I really like that you're saying, I wish I could say that I was in flow. I'm going to say that I was definitely either riding or driving the struggle bus. It was, you know, it's not much fun when you're used to kind of, you know, being a star and then not being a star and struggling.

Starting point is 00:08:48 along the way. Can I tap it up for a second? How did that shape your identity? You've been a star your whole life. You are that girl, right? Everyone gives you applause and gives you praise. And all of a sudden, you're cut, like not good enough to make the team. How did that shape your identity? How did that feel? And then what did you have to do to reframe your identity, to either cut out the noise or not care, but you said you were writing the struggle bus. how did that shape your identity? Well, it is a great question, but just real quick, I'll just say that part of what helps persistence or being able to persist, persevere, is that the goal has to be bigger than the fear and other people's opinions. So that doesn't mean you don't have moments of self-doubt, you know, wondering, you know, what the hell's wrong with you that, you know,

Starting point is 00:09:47 you can't make the team when everyone's telling you you're good enough. So how did it shape my identity? I guess, you know, I am one who persists. I have faith. I have commitment. I can keep, you know, being curious and open on how I can get better. You know, self-development is part of my DNA. And it's what I hope to help others with is that, look, they're not always going to make it the first

Starting point is 00:10:17 time. They're not always going to start. They're not always going to get the playing time that they want with, you know, the athletes that I work with or coaches, they're not in the position where they really want to be or parents and their own stuff, what's going on in terms of their work identity or their parent identity. You know, things are not going to always work out in the way you've plan them out. And so we got to find that inner game and develop and train the inner game because it's not a matter of if adversity is going to strike. It's a matter of win. So we, you know, I think people have why problems or challenges or obstacles hit them so hard is because they think they shouldn't have to ever face them. And it's like, no, no, no. You actually want to face

Starting point is 00:11:10 them to find out who you are, who you're becoming, you know, what's really important to you. So you get to practice the game of who you are at your best. But if it's always so easy, you're not going to grow in the ways that your potential or your DNA is asking of you to express that full and best version of yourself. many people have a very hard time dealing with adversity. And they quit. And this is why your brilliance is so imperative on this episode is because there would be plenty of people

Starting point is 00:11:53 probably after the second or third time that would have quit. And just, ah, it's not for me. It isn't what I was meant to do or whatever. Whatever the talk that they do, right? There's no way to become the person that you envision yourself without, going through it. Like there's no going around it.

Starting point is 00:12:14 It is going through it. So when going through those moments, whether you're an athlete, whether you're an entrepreneur, whatever those challenges, your parents, for love of God, all the challenges, right? It's placed there because you're not there yet,

Starting point is 00:12:31 in my opinion. How do you dig deeper in those moments to gain resolve, to keep your person surveillance going. How do you dig deeper to keep pushing? Well, you know, I alluded to it a little bit earlier when I'm talking about the goal has to be bigger than the obstacles. There's got to be some sort of internal drive that says that that goal, no matter what, is so important to me that it's going to pull and push me and stretch me and all those kinds of things that, you know, even when you, you know, even when you

Starting point is 00:13:12 you arrive, you say that, that, you know, it was worth all the lessons learned along the way, because it's also preparing me for something maybe even bigger than what I thought this goal was. But I think what's I've learned along the journey, you know, I'm not big on journey, but maybe the adventure. It's more like an adventure. is that thinking that reaching the goal is now going to make you happy and satisfied with your life is actually a misunderstanding. So you can be, you know, whether you call it happy or satisfied or finding meaning and value along the way to getting to that goal, that's going to make.

Starting point is 00:14:06 make that trip even more meaningful when you arrive. But what I thought, I'll be honest with you, and I've run into a lot of clients that I've worked with, it's all be happy when if this happens. That's like, wait, wait, wait. That's what I thought. I will have arrived. I'm an Olympian. I have a Ph.D.

Starting point is 00:14:30 I have an MBA. I will have arrived. No, no, there's no. There's no arrival. And it's all the, it's all a process so you might as well be happy along the way, finding meaning, finding joy, finding connection as you do high and hard things. When you have all the, like you just literally listed accolades, right, MBA, PhD, Olympian, when you achieve those things and you have the titles, what next?

Starting point is 00:15:04 It does it create fulfillment? or does it become very lackluster and anticlimactic? Well, you know, it's surprisingly, it's a little more lackluster than maybe I anticipated. I thought there might be a parade for me or something. There should be fireworks, but there were not. And so then it made me realize how much of the inner game really plays the role. like those were competitive arenas, if you will, to make you do the inner work, to find self-worth, you know, that my doing does not, my doingness is not my beingness, if you will.

Starting point is 00:15:55 It's a both and. How do I show up as I'm doing the things? you know, am I leading myself? Am I leading others? Am I impacting folks in a meaningful way just by being present with them? And I think all those accomplishments were really the arena for that kind of self-development. So now maybe I have a deeper and more meaningful understanding of how I might be able to help people. And what I'm finding is more and more, the more I'm just present with folks and allowing them to have their story and maybe providing some coaching or some adjusting or some ways of rethinking or some tools, then people can find their way.

Starting point is 00:16:49 Again, you're an extreme case, and I'm so honored to have you on because you've hit really big pinnacles in the athletic world as well as in the business world, right? I mean, we're talking, you come into the biggest companies in the world to help their executives. You come into professional athletes, the NFL. You come into special ops and help people understand your expertise. You also have this incredible resume in the athletic world. When athletes or entrepreneurs hit their target, they set this target, they become the Olympian, they get their PhD, they become the professional, multi-million. dollar contract athlete and then what where do they go wrong because they hit it why do we see so many professional people athletes hit this incredible benchmark and then like kind of dust what happens

Starting point is 00:17:50 sir it's a great question and i think and it's really happening more and more in more in the athletic world is that we're so results oriented, the fame, the money, the cars, the, you know, the status, you know, what I think that's going to bring me. And without the inner game of character and self-mastery and meaningfulness and impact and am I living my best attributes or characteristics. And it doesn't mean you're going to do it all the time. I call it your better to best self because you're not going to be 100% on all the time. And I also talk about kind of the multiplicity of self is who you are in terms of let's just call it your beingness, whether you call that natural intelligence or, you know, Versal life force or whatever that spirit that makes you alive that grows the trees and moves the

Starting point is 00:18:51 animals, whatever that is, I call that your leader self. Okay. That's going to permeate these other identities. So who you are in the performance ecosystem of the athletic ecosystem, I call it your role. So are you a parent? Are you an athlete? Are you a coach? Are you a team around the team member? So who are you in that role for that performance ecosystem? And then number three is who are you in terms of contribution in your work or your school or your volunteering? So we are not meant to just solely be focused on ourselves. We become our best selves so we can contribute to, you know, the meaning and development of, you know, life here on Earth, humanity, planet Earth, you know, planet Earth, whatever. So we're here to contribute, and that is part of what gives

Starting point is 00:19:40 our life meaning. So we have our leader self, we have our role, we have our, you know, kind of work, school, contribution identity. And the fourth identity is in relationships. So who are we in relationship. So if I'm working with an athlete and they're that fierce competitor, let's call it, you know, Kobe style black mamba, we don't want black mamba at home. No, nobody wants to live with a black mamba at home. So as a father, as a partner spouse, as a, you know, brother, sister, uncle, whatever, who do we come down from that competitive self into relationship? And I think when when folks have narrowly defined themselves,

Starting point is 00:20:30 either I'm an athlete, that's my only identity, or I'm a CEO and that's my only identity, or I'm special ops soldier and that's my only identity, they've just misunderstood that there's a multiplicity of self. Long answer, sorry for the TED talk there. I'm surprised you don't have that on your accolades. That's coming up next. We'll get you on Ted.

Starting point is 00:20:54 So I thought you would get to where you finished is the identity component of like, you know, what makes Tom Brady so special? It's like he just kept playing at such a high level, although he had every reason that he didn't necessarily have to, right? The money, the fame, the Super Bowls, the Supermodel wife, like, he kept going at an incredibly high level. literally for two decades, over two decades. The identity was already made. What continues to push people, business people, the Elon Musk's of the world, the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world, Bill Gates, right, in business, the NFL athletes, the NBA athletes, when they've reached, you know, the military,

Starting point is 00:21:47 you work with special ops, you work with the military, you help them, you have a general five-star general like what keeps them going over time because their identities made you already have it you are the best you made it you're the five-star general you're the six-time super bowl you know champion whatever those things are well those are accomplishments they're not who you are it's because of who you are that you keep pursuing the highest and the best so sitting on their couch eating pizza and, you know, lousy food is not part of who they are. So those wildly important goals that we have and who do we have to become to reach them, what we did before is not necessarily going to be what gets us to that next wildly important goal that we have.

Starting point is 00:22:48 but truly I think that the you've really struck on it is that achievements are nice sort of mile markers to inform you of kind of where you are in the process but that doesn't define you. So so you're going to if you're somebody like Tom Brady, he loves to compete. He loves to win. He loves to lead his team. you know, he's going to always be figuring out what is the opponent doing and how we, how we can, you know, strategize around continuing to win to continue to evolve because he's the kind of person who wants to continue to evolve. So even as an announcer, he might not be that great yet, but he's the kind of person who's going to bring in that competitive flair to become one of the best. I imagine. I think he's great. I enjoy his commentary anyway.

Starting point is 00:23:49 That's a personal note. I think he's great. Anyways. No, I'm sure he is. Yeah. So I'm right. Like, by the way, I love the fact that when I'm taking notes on podcast, it's just like, sometimes I get to meet individuals like yourself that I'm just like, this is just brilliant.

Starting point is 00:24:05 I heard the Rock say it best, in my opinion. He supports and leans into everything you're saying. But someone asked him in an interview. view you're the you know you're number one on the list of actors to be you know casted you've made all this money you have all these accolades you own tequila you're likely a billionaire already da da da da da da da like you're at the top of the mountain what's next his answer to this day gives me shivers when i'm about today he says i'm going to build more mountain like what the fuck No.

Starting point is 00:24:43 Right? Now, I bring that up because when you talk about who you are versus your accolades, the person who was interviewing him, and I don't know what it was for, but he went through this resume of accolades in the same way I did with you. And you say, okay, well, what's next?

Starting point is 00:25:01 And the person he is said, eh, who cares about all that? Right? Irrelevant. I have another mountain to climb. I have to build more mountains. because I'm not done. So let's dive into more of the entrepreneur space.

Starting point is 00:25:18 Okay. I have five principles of success, and I won't run through them all because everyone's kind of heard them on my episodes. But the first one is define what you want and who you need to be to get what you want. Mm-hmm. From your experience, all the things that you do,

Starting point is 00:25:37 again, with being an Olympian yourself and working with athletes and being a part of that to the military, to these incredibly successful, you know, I think 10 companies that are, you know, how do you come up with defining who you are and who you need to be to get it? How do you do that? How do you do that work? I love this question. This is great.

Starting point is 00:26:02 It is a willingness. It starts with a willingness to do a deep dive and not everybody's willing to do a deep dive. But I would say a couple of things that, you know, any listeners can, you know, do immediately is think about the mentors or the heroes or the people in their lives besides their parents. I mean, obviously, you've gained a lot from parents and people, the safe answers to say, my parents are the best influence. Yes, that is true. And what else? So they can be characters in history, you know, real or, you know, characters in a movie if you really wanted to go there. But you've had teachers, you've had coaches, you've had people along the way professors who have influenced how you think

Starting point is 00:26:51 what's important, what's not, they've shaped you. And what is it about them that you admire in them? So really think through what are those characteristics, attributes, their values that you look up to. So writing some of those down. And then you can also look at. at significant life achievements? Who were you, who did you have to be in order to save the perseverance piece, you know, hard work, connection with other people? What helped you achieve? How did you show up for other people in important ways? What significant obstacles or challenges have you overcome? And so you're looking at. that when your character had to be optimized, what were you doing and not doing, and flesh that out.

Starting point is 00:27:54 And then you're looking at your wildly important goals. You're looking at one of those four life domains, right, that we talked about earlier. And then you're taking the best of those characteristics to say, actually, this is the type person, this is what I'm doing and not doing in order to reach that goal. Now, you might define that. You know, Black Mama didn't come up from a one-hour coaching session. That was like a probably a two to four-month process. And you've got to evolve it, practice it, train it, adjust it, right? And, you know, I think probably one of the most important things that I have. I have. I, you know, I think probably one of the most important things that I hope that folks take away from this is if you achieve this wildly

Starting point is 00:28:48 important goal in your lousy person, not a big fan of that. Yeah. I just think what's the point? Oh, what's the point? I mean, listen, we can go super, what's the word I'm looking for? But we can say what's the point of any of it? There's a word that defines that question. But really, what is the point of any of it?

Starting point is 00:29:10 think the older we get right now I'm 44 and when I was 25 the point was I'm going to be rich as fuck and I don't care and I'm look at me all about me all ego driven 100% of it right that was 100% of why do any of it because I want everyone to see me watch this right which stems from my childhood right I wasn't seen necessarily in the way that a child would want to be seen and so I wanted to show everyone isn't at all how do we talk to the person that took everything you just said. And a lot of it was reliant on look at your past history and the things that you were able to do and the accomplishments you have done regardless small. What if people sit here and say, like, I don't have a whole lot to look back on, but I want to achieve big things, right? I want to

Starting point is 00:29:58 go create a business and make a million dollars a year. Like, I want to go do that. Now, I have not a lot of proof that I can do it because I'm 25 years old. And sure, I graduated high school and I graduated college, but I want it. How do you get yourself to understand? You can achieve it. So the real question becomes, how do you build your belief system so that you can go achieve the thing you want to do? Well, you've asked a lot in that question, and hopefully I can kind of piece some things, things apart that we can put back together. But that's why those mentors or those role models or those are really important because success leaves clues. Now, a lot of times people want the result that that person had, but they don't want to, if you ask somebody, do you want to have lived every day

Starting point is 00:30:52 the way that person did to get that result? Most people say, not really, I just want the result. So, yes, success leaves clues. We, you know, I don't know whether this has been studied. I should look this up. Are we really the average of the of the five people that we surround ourselves by? Certainly they're going to influence who we become. So who are you surrounding yourself by? And are they going to be the kind of team, if you will, the kind of guides, the kind of allies that are going to help you with that goal? Are they going to, you know, doubt you. Sometimes doubt is great because it really makes you, makes you, you know,

Starting point is 00:31:38 want to prove, prove somebody wrong. It definitely works for the right people, right? It's that carrot or the stick kind of thing. Like when someone doubts me, I go, oh, watch this. And that works. You're bringing up something I'm pretty near and dear to recently

Starting point is 00:31:51 in my own rhetoric, putting stuff on social media, which is your environment. And you just said, you don't know if anyone's really studied, are you really the average of the five people you hang out? Like, you don't really know.

Starting point is 00:32:04 scientific like is that true i don't think i think it was great marketing copy frankly uh but i think there's a lot of um truth to it and here's why i say that i live in miami now and when the weather gets like 65 degrees i am really cold now i grew up in san francisco and 65 degrees was literally jeans and t-shirt weather that was your everyday nice day in san francisco in miami i am a hoodie i'm wearing a hat like it is it but it's my environment that is now trained me to and maybe not trains the right word when it comes to the physiology but like it has created in me this this person that at 65 I'm actually cold because every day is 85 degrees here in Miami right so your environment really does dictate something right and if you're talking to Andrea and you're talking to

Starting point is 00:32:59 Elon Musk and you're talking to Justin Colby and Grant Cardone every day, all day, every day. And these are the, you're probably going to be pretty good at some certain things. Right. Because there's no one that has accomplished more that's going to shit on you and be negative. We're only going to help pull you up to where we're at. That's all because we don't have time to like say, ah, you can't really do this. Who cares?

Starting point is 00:33:25 No, we're going to say, hey, here's what I did. Andrew is going to say, hey, here's what I did. hey do that. Grants can say, hey, do this over here, right? Like, so there's, there's got to be this sense of community that people dive into, whether it's coaching, whether it's consulting, whether it's community. Because whether it's scientific fact that you become the average of the five people who hold around, I will say your environment will dictate a large portion of what you're able to accomplish.

Starting point is 00:33:53 You're absolutely correct. And I love that you brought this up and prepare for that. for TED Talk number two. Okay. Let's go. Okay. All right. So you, I knew I didn't answer your other question around beliefs.

Starting point is 00:34:08 How do you build up beliefs? Partly because I interrupted you. So sorry. Of confidence is confederere, intense and unwhole trust in what? In oneself, in the team, in the game plan, and the coaches. And so as I've been thinking about, confidence is not a do-it-yourself project. It's not just your own characteristics and traits.

Starting point is 00:34:35 There's a concept that, you know, I don't know whether I came up with it or not, but I've been now talking about synergistic confidence, which is the I can times the we can. So as I work hard, I get better. I make my teammates better. And as my teammates get her get better and they work hard, I get better. It's that back and forth, I can times we can. So you're right. When you're around people who have certain beliefs, certain characteristics and attributes, work ethic, strategies on what to do and maybe what not to do, and their goal focus, well, you're going to be naturally more goal focus.

Starting point is 00:35:16 You know, I said as a member of my family, I had very high achieving athletic and academic folks, tons of Ivy leagues, division one sports. you know, I was like, I'm not going to be the slacker being left behind, right? Like to be, belong to this family, you know, you better have high and hard goals, right? Where you're, you know, you're going to get criticized otherwise. So when you asked about building belief and confidary, how do you build whole and intense trust? Well, first things first is do what you said you would do. A lot of times people set goals or write their daily to do list or say, I'm going to get up, or they do their resolutions or whatever it is, and they go back to doing the same old thing.

Starting point is 00:36:02 Well, how do you build trust and belief in yourself if you're not doing the things that you said you would do? And then how do other people trust you if you say, oh, we'll do it on Wednesday? Oh, I can't. Okay, we'll do it next Wednesday. Oh, no, I can't. Well, how are you building trust that way?

Starting point is 00:36:18 And people are surprised at how simple, really that is. So, you know, I think with the environment things, okay, and then I'll get off my TED talk that light just flashed, is about epigenetics and how the environment turns on and off certain genes. That whole field is fascinating. And so, yeah, the light is kicking me off stage. But if there's any comments to any of that, that'd be great to hear your thoughts. I talk a lot about confidence in the same way you posted. I pose it a little bit more simplified because I think you've studied it more and I have. So I'm more layman's.

Starting point is 00:37:04 If you lie to yourself, how are you ever going to build confidence? Because you know you're worthy of lying. So I bring this to a marriage, right? Andrea and Justin are married. Justin cheats on Andrea. Would you allow that? Would Andrea allow me and be accepting of me not just doing, it once and oh i made a mistake i was blah blah blah this is going to be a consistent thing and

Starting point is 00:37:29 you find i know it's a it's a huge right well you say no i would never allow that we are married you gave me your commitment right so why are we willing to essentially and effectively do the same things to ourselves yes we do it to ourselves i committed to losing weight i committed to working until I can retire my family. I committed to and then we don't because we create excuses which then teaches ourselves

Starting point is 00:38:01 we aren't worthy because we can't even hold a promise to ourselves. We can't even stay committed to the thing that we want the most. It literally will break all sense of confidence because we can't stay committed.

Starting point is 00:38:16 So I use it in kind of layman's terms. You've done a lot more studying around it. But I think that again, it goes to get back to this first principle. Like, decide what you want and who you need to be to get it because the second principle and my principle, five principles, is commit to it. That's the big one. That's the hard one. Right. You want to go being Olympian?

Starting point is 00:38:40 Fucking commit. Get cut. How many times did you say you got cut? Eight. And then after being an Olympian got cut. Eight times. And she's still committed to being an Olympian. And so if you're here, her and I are kind of going off on sports because I love sports.

Starting point is 00:38:58 She's an actual athlete. I call myself an athlete. You know, there's just so many things that are in alignment with this because if you want to win in the entrepreneurial game, I believe it is a game just like a sport is. Because there's a timeline, you can quit when you want, whatever. Then you can't lie to yourself. Right? you have to commit to the thing that you want or the person who needs to be, who you need to be, to get the thing that you are desiring will never develop.

Starting point is 00:39:29 You will never get there because you've broken it yourself. You yourself are the one breaking your own ability to achieve the thing that you want. So I'm in full alignment with everything you just said. I just say it in a slightly different way. Oh, perfect. Well, all ears out there are going to hear things differently and probably we're saying the same things that they've heard it said in different ways. But what you made me think about in terms of the self-worth was the cycle of self-worth. So not having that, and this is somebody, you know,

Starting point is 00:40:01 a recovering, you know, somebody recovering from her own lack of self-worth, interestingly enough, even though it looks like I have all these accolades, right? When you don't feel worthy of your goals, you start doing little sabotagey kinds of things where you're not. following through, which then reinforces that, you know, that you're, this is all often happening at the unconscious level. You don't even realize you're, you're kind of doing it. There's an actually an assessment called the Saboteur assessment, which I use with my clients, because we can look at the bright side all day long, but if you don't look at your shadow sides or your darker sides that are the ones getting in the way, like, why do, you know, I'm in a great,

Starting point is 00:40:49 relationship. Why do I do these stupid things? Or, you know, I'm about close to my goal and, you know, something happens. Something always happens, right? These deep down beliefs that are often tied to I'm not good enough. And that's where a professional with expertise, I'm a little biased towards a licensed psychologist, but there's not a lot of, you know, there's plenty of that aren't great. There's plenty of people who tout themselves as mental performance coaches who don't have the credentials are the qualifications. I see them everyone. Every one of those people want to be on my podcast every day. Oh my God. Life coach, life coach, life coach. Okay, fine. So at least somebody who has life experience wise done done some work,

Starting point is 00:41:36 has some credentialing. I think, you know, vet vet who you start working with. But there's nothing like a coach, world class athletes, use coach. You know, that. So they can get better and look at the things that are not only going to be enhancing to that performance and health, but also turning down the volume on the things that are, you know, getting away or, you know, resolving some of those. Issues. Unconscious beliefs that are impacting results. Yeah. Okay. So you have a book, The Confident Performer, and we're talking a lot about confidence here. Do you have like a framework people could follow to build confidence? I do have a framework.

Starting point is 00:42:25 And it's something that has probably taken decades in the making. And I was doing it the opposite way for quite some time until I realized that this is actually the better way. And it requires a little bit of a deeper dive. So let me prepare listeners for that. It sounds very simple. but there's a lot of complexity in it, and so the book will further explain it. I think a little bit earlier,

Starting point is 00:42:53 I alluded to the base of the triangle as the human first identity. So if you can imagine just a simple pyramid with two lines in it that divides it into third. So the base of the triangle is human first identity in those four major life domains. In the middle of the triangle is whole person, healthy performer. So on that continuum of health to performance, there's six performance

Starting point is 00:43:24 and health habits that every person as well as performer needs to optimize their mental, physical, emotional selves. You can even include spiritual if you want, but that's a little bit more in the human first identity. And then at the top of the triangle is the confidence. performer, which consists of four core mental skills plus one, which are what the world's greatest performers know and use to be optimized into performance. What I have found and what I was doing wrong a few years ago is I, not a few years, a few decades, I'll call it, flipped that triangle upside down, so it was on a wobbly surface. Not spending. enough time on your identity and everything was going into confidence and performance and

Starting point is 00:44:22 getting faster, stronger, eating the right foods, skill, practice, those kinds of things into performance. And when performance didn't go well without a solid base of identity, you drop just a lot further. So when you flip it upside down, do the solid foundational work first, when things don't go, well, which is not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, you don't fall as far because you have a foundation to, you know, bounce back up. So whether it's, you know, physical injury, emotional injury, mental injury, whatever it is, if something is a setback or a disappointment or, you know, something major happens without that foundational human first identity work, it just strikes you a harder.

Starting point is 00:45:14 Nate, talk about coaching. I want everyone, if you like Andrea, I need everyone to go follow her. I need her to go find her. I need you to hit her up. If you are an entrepreneur, you know, an entrepreneur, if you're a C-suite level individual, if you're an athlete, if you are, and you genuinely believe what she is saying creates some validity for you. It's resonating, maybe getting a little agitated or itchy or maybe angry.

Starting point is 00:45:39 Hit her up. So Andrea, where can everyone go? what's the best place to go find you? Probably my website. You can even make a 30-minute, you know, free consultation on that. I maybe shouldn't announce that. But anyway, it's Dr. DR. No, no period.

Starting point is 00:45:59 So one word, DR, Andrea, A-N-D-R-E-A. Weilland, which is WIE, Wileand, looks like Wyland, L-A-N-D. So, Dr. Andrea Weelan.com. Is it probably the best way? I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Facebook. All on your name, Andrea Weeland. Yeah, Andrea Weeland.

Starting point is 00:46:20 Yeah. So it'd be great to help some people if I can help them. Another way is I have a book called The Confident Performer, and it's rethinking mental performance for athletes, coaches, and parents. But the part is everybody has told me this book is for anybody in performance. I just happened to focus it on the, you know, the athlete coaches and parents because I've spent quite a bit of time in those arenas. And I wanted, I think there's nothing worse than, well, there's a lot of things worse. Let me rephrase that. I think it really sucks when sports suck,

Starting point is 00:47:01 you know, like when sports should not suck. And so when they do and athletes are miserable, we're going the wrong way. So, yeah, I felt like I needed to write a book to, to, to help people with that and disperse the pressure from the athlete into the performance ecosystem. Because if the athletes hearing one thing from the coach and another thing from the parent, and then they have their own internal dialogue going on, it's too much noise. So let's get everybody on the same page speaking a common language and everybody working on their own self-mastery first prior to giving a bunch of advice out. And that's on Amazon?

Starting point is 00:47:40 So that's on Amazon. Thank you. Yep, that's on Amazon. Is it a name one more time? Yep, the Confident Performer, rethinking, mental performance for athletes, coaches, and parents. If you go to my website.

Starting point is 00:47:55 Oh, good, thank you. Yeah, of course. Yeah, so you could click, it's on the front page of the website. You can take a quiz on the website. I also have a school, S-K-O-O-L, called the Confident Performer Academy. me. I'd love to have people join that. Right now, it's free. Just trying to build up. I just started it. So it'd be a great way to get going. Yeah. Yeah. Confident Performer Academy on School, S-K-O-O-O-L.com. And then if you just look up, is it the confident

Starting point is 00:48:25 performer? I think it's just confident performer. Perfect. Everyone should be joining them too. Andrea, thank you so much for spending some time with us. Thank you, Justin. It was really, really a very fun conversation. So I joined it so much. Thank you. That is Andrew Wheland. I am Justin Colby. This is the entrepreneur DNA. We will see you on the next episode.

The Science of Flipping - How to Build Unshakeable Confidence and Perform at Your Peak | Andrea Wieland

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