Athletic Fortitude Show
Athletes all over the world endure countless mental physical and psychological adversities over the course of their careers. We are here to bring you the solutions to those adversities with some of the top professional athletes, coaches, and sport and performance psychologists around the world!
Athletic Fortitude Show
The Uncomfortable Truth About Excellence: Why Tension Is Necessary For Growth- Alex Auerbach
Exploring the dynamic tension between hard work and rest creates a valuable framework for achieving exceptional results. We unpack strategies for integrating virtues into daily decisions while recognizing the importance of listening to personal needs.
• The significance of understanding tension as a guiding sign
• Curiosity as the foundation for making thoughtful choices
• Balancing the virtues of hard work and restorative rest
• Coping mechanisms for managing performance pressure
• Importance of self-awareness and physical needs
• The role of analytics in enhancing personal performance
• Building cohesive teams through understanding personality
• The impact of values on personal fulfillment and achievement
Tune in and discover how you can better integrate these insights into your life.
it often feels like anything that we want to achieve that's exceptional is a tension between virtues. So, working hard, rest right. How do we adequately work hard and rest and then do the millions of other things that needs to happen in order to achieve something exceptional?
Speaker 2:man just jumping in with the heavy hitters man, I love it. I love where your head's at. I mean, it's interesting. I think the tension is probably valuable right, in that it sort of is a signal that there's stuff you need to pay attention to. So I think it's starting from a place of curiosity about why that tension exists in the first place.
Speaker 2:I think can be a big unlock for thinking about making the most of action in service of these virtues. Right, the virtues are sort of a compass, a guiding framework for decisions and ultimately for behavior. But there's not like a right or wrong, good or bad or one better than the other, right. So what makes them useful is understanding when to prioritize which virtue, and the tension is sort of a sign that there's maybe some conflict or there's a virtue that needs some attending. So I think, from stepping back and sort of looking at it from that framework, I think makes it a little easier to navigate some of those things, because it's not really a work hard or rest. It's a work hard and rest right and being strategic about understanding when each one is required. Right, they're like I think of you know guys like you, right Pro athletes where it's like you might wake up on a Saturday, your game day Sunday.
Speaker 2:You wake up on a Saturday, you might feel great, you know. And so your head might be like man, I could just totally crush a workout right now, like, okay, but is that what's best for your performance tomorrow, right. Is rest better for your performance tomorrow? Or NBA guys like we'd have guys showing up at 3am into the gym. It's like, okay, you're working hard, but is that what's best for your performance long term, right? So thinking through at each choice point, really what virtue or value would best serve you, I think is kind of the key to making the most of those things over the long term. And then, really, it's the integration is the source of the excellence, right. So honoring and respecting that both values are important, that both virtues matter, is what actually, like, leads you to making the decisions that lead to the long-term success over time. If you over-index too heavy on one or the other, you're probably never going to make it.
Speaker 1:Where do you find the best way to measure what you need the most in a moment?
Speaker 2:Honestly, like I think people are pretty intuitive, um, just as a virtue of self-awareness, right? So like I think the most important thing you can cultivate is a little bit of a sense of your own goals, needs, values, drivers, right, so you can sort of listen to that at the moment. But then I think I would use your own body as information, right? So you use like a really simple metaphor for a minute. Imagine strength training, right? Like maybe you go, you know, I did this CrossFit open workout this morning. I can already feel it in my shoulders, right. So like you should pay attention to that.
Speaker 2:I probably shouldn't hit shoulders tomorrow, you know. Like you should be thoughtful about that. And so I think it's little things like that, right, like being aware of what you have been through, what you're going through, what's important to you right now, how you're feeling. You know those bits of data are really, really important. Obviously, you can then use things like wearables or other devices, right, so I get a sense of readiness, but I think, ultimately, like the best source of data is just trying to listen to yourself and understand yourself as best you can.
Speaker 1:At what point you bring up wearing like wearablesables, like my whoop I'm wearing right now? At what point is focusing too much on analytics over complicating what's actually supposed to do, which is to provide you like data on whether or not you should be doing something or not? But sometimes, if I look too much at my sleep and I'm like I'm never sleeping, I'm never sleeping, I'm never sleeping, it's going to make my sleep worse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean speaking of tension, right, so there's a balance, of course, to walk there. And you know, I mean there's some data even that suggests that, like, if you have sleep issues, you shouldn't use a wearable, you know, because it does create some of this anxiety you're describing. I mean again, I think it's kind of like the way I think about it is the way sports teams use analytics models. Right, these models are here to inform and provide meaningful prediction or insight about what could happen, but they're not here to decide for you. So, you know, use the data as just another piece of information, but don't let that be the only thing that you use to make a decision.
Speaker 2:And you know, if you look at kind of championship level teams to zoom out to a slightly more macro level I'm not going to name any team names here on the podcast, but there are definitely teams in the NBA, for example, where you understand and you know like these teams draft based on the analytics, right, they're not really looking at character, who this person is, how hard they work, what they value, what they think about right, they're looking at the numbers and the metrics and those teams can fare decently well, but those are not the teams that have won the championship in the last several years. And then you've got kind of the other side of the spectrum where, yes, there's a heavy analytics component, but there's also a people component, a goodness of fit component, a thinking about leadership who's the coach? And so you can see how, like, having a little bit above and beyond just the data can often make you a bit more accurate in going after what it is that you are trying to pursue.
Speaker 1:Speaking of, like building a roster leadership. How do you balance the different types of personalities, and when is one personality too much where you need to kind of counterbalance it?
Speaker 2:This might be a controversial opinion, colin, but I think the reality is most teams, I don't think, care that much about personality stuff when the talent is good enough. You know, people are willing to kind of tolerate most anything for a really, really good player. And again, I won't name any names, but you can probably think of countless popular examples right now across leagues where the right amount of talent overcomes pretty much anything else that people find outrageous. Because there's something there that you're trying to kind of tap into and it's basically like let's just kind of hold on and ride this as long as we can, and hopefully we don't get burned too much on the way down, kind of mentality. Um, but I think, I think that's a reality, you know. So where I think the personality starts to matter more is, um, kind of in like the 90th and below percentile of player right, or maybe it's 95th percentile below percentile, where you know there is a little bit of wiggle room but you still really care about how this person shows up, you know. No, no kind of criminal activity or whatever it might be Right.
Speaker 2:And I think for those folks what you're really trying to find is is less like is there a right personality and more like is this personality good for us? What are we getting with this person and do they fit with the larger group that we have here? I mean in sports, like aside from what's happening in the wmba with some expansion right now you very rarely get to really build a team from scratch, right. So a lot of what you have to do when you're thinking about integrating people is balance what this person could bring with what already exists and does you know understand, like, do they complement or do they enhance or do they hinder the group that's already there? And so I definitely think the best teams are thinking about that. But I think a lot of what they're thinking about is making sure that bringing this person in doesn't like totally derail what we've got going versus this person's a real kind of culture enhancer in the way that you know we might think is maybe most important.
Speaker 2:Can you change personality? Depends on who you ask, you know. Depends on, depends on what scientist you ask. I think you can change behavior. I'm not sure you can change kind of the more ingrained patterns that people tend to have across spaces in their life without really deliberate and intentional work, like people just have a predisposition to showing up in specific ways. That I think is most likely going to kind of carry them. But you can definitely change some of the behavior.
Speaker 1:What is something tangible that you can do to start changing someone's behavior in the right way, particularly if there's someone who's a little harder to reach or they're more reluctant to take advice or coaching? How do you begin to pull those people in the right direction?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it's hard, it depends on the person, right. But I think a few things are really important. So the first is aligning the change with some kind of incentive or reward, right. So people have to understand the benefits of making the change. You know, you know this like change is hard, change is scary. So people are not going to be super excited about making changes if they don't understand what's in it for them. So, regardless of how hard they are to reach or how easy they are to reach, you first have to kind of establish that this, this is what's in it for you if you make this change, and this is why this change is important for you, if you make this change, and this is why this change is important. The second thing is, I think you need to give people small but significant steps they can take to make progress in that direction, and you need to reinforce that progress as they go.
Speaker 2:So a lot of times, when people think about making behavior change, what they think about is sort of all or nothing, right, like he either does the thing or doesn't do the thing, or she makes a change or she doesn't. So it's not that simple, right Like people are going to hit obstacles If they start changing. They might have, you know, new thoughts or new internal dialogue that interferes, or they might feel something new that's uncomfortable, that they have to navigate. So, like people need other skills or resources to sort of deal with change effectively. And so the small steps with reinforcement makes it a little bit easier to kind of juggle some of that. And then, third, I think you need real feedback, right Coaching or some feedback from your environment that tells you whether or not the change is working in the direction that you want and how to keep kind of iterating there. There's obviously other things you can do. You know, you can provide some education about the change. You can, you know, use external or internal incentives to sort of promote it.
Speaker 1:But I think those kind of three things are at the core one thing I notice is, you know, particularly with draft prep season for for the nfl, is some guys who have like a natural level of talent that others do not, but they really struggle with the awareness piece and the actual tangible hard work it requires, the intentionality in the weight room, the intentionality in position drills, and they kind of just nonchalant, go through it in the amount of times that you'll try and correct it and give a speech Even so. It's like a team right, a team environment where it's like you will go on and on as if you're talking to all 50, but you're really talking to one person, and then there's times where you separate that one person, try to have a conversation with them, and it just feels like sometimes nothing gets through. Are some people just not reachable?
Speaker 2:just not reachable? My short answer is no, but I think oftentimes, um, people are pretty afraid to be direct, um, when they would need to be, and so it's. It's not necessarily that people are unreachable, it's that the tools that we're using to reach them aren't working. You know, like I mean, I can think you've been on big teams, I can certainly think of teams I've been a part of where, like you know, coach gets up and gives this big speech about effort and practice and you know, to your point, he's talking to like the three guys that are having a water bottle fight on the sideline during team period. You know, and it's like, well, those three guys are the issue. Like, don't give us a lecture about energy and effort when the rest of the group is like grinding.
Speaker 2:Lecture about energy and effort when the rest of the group is like grinding, like just talk to those three guys about not doing that thing Right and so. And then, of course, you know, oftentimes those three guys are not the people that are like, oh, he's talking about me. You know, like if they had that level of awareness, they wouldn't be over there having a water bottle fight. So, you know, I think, I think you've got to figure out like different mediums, right, Different mediums for the same message, whether it's, you know, film review, whether it's one-on-one conversation, whether it's using an assistant coach or a teammate or a captain right, there's lots of ways, but I don't think there's anyone that's unreachable. I think it's more a matter of not reaching them effectively with the strategies you've tried.
Speaker 1:Yet effectively with the strategies you've tried. Yet Do you think there's value in using the negativity of a situation to drive behavior? For example, hey, in three weeks, if you don't do well on your pro day, you're not going to be a football player anymore, right Like? Is there value in that?
Speaker 2:I think so. I mean, I mean you, you've known me long enough now to know some of my philosophy, but, like, look, I think people should be made aware of what the real consequences are of their existence and behavior, right, like, if you don't tell someone that there's a risk that they're getting cut, they don't really know, and then when they get cut, they're going to be surprised, right, and so that's maybe not the best way to handle it overall. Anyway, right, no one should be surprised by a bit of feedback like that they're getting. You know, they should be told along the way. So I think it makes sense to let people know, like, what's really at stake.
Speaker 2:Yes, that might increase pressure, might increase perceived anxiety, but again, that that information is useful, right. If you're anxious about the possibility of being cut, like, you can use that energy to help you work a little bit harder, perform a little bit better, grind a little bit more, rest a little harder, right, whatever it is that you might need to do. But if you don't have that information, you're not going to change anything. So I think you should give people that data to sort of make an informed decision to the best of your ability.
Speaker 1:What frameworks would you suggest to use that anxiety energy into a positive manner?
Speaker 2:I think the most important thing you can do is learn to, I guess, two things First is recognize that all emotion at its core is information, right. So we've got as a society we get sort of really wrapped up in this like positive versus is information right. So we we've got as a society, we get sort of really wrapped up in this like positive versus negative emotion. Right, it's like I want to feel good, I want to be happy, I should feel content, I want to be at peace, I don't want any stress and like look, that's that's nice, like it'd be great to have a world where we had all peace and no stress, like I'm, I'm here for it, but that's just not the world that we live in. So that doesn't make emotions, that aren't those things bad. And so I think that that first step is sort of recognizing this anxiety, that sadness, that fear. Whatever there's data for you about the environment that you're in and the situation that you're in, and you should try to extract whatever you can from that information to inform whatever your next decision is right. So maybe that anxiety is a sign that you really care, or that fear is a sign that you haven't trained hard enough or you're not ready in the way that you need to be right, or that sadness is a sign you need to connect with more people or maybe rest a little bit more so you're not burnt out, right?
Speaker 2:The second thing is to play with the way that you frame the emotion in your head to make it work for you. So the best example I can give of this and I know you've heard me talk about this in the past is the kind of stress is enhancing mindset. Right. If you call nervousness excitement, it works much better for you, even though the underlying physiology is the same. Right. If you see stress not as a problem but as something that helps you, you're going to tap into the benefits of that stress in ways that you won't if you're trying to just get rid of it as quickly as possible. So you've got to kind of take steps internally to sort of change the way that you think about what's going on, and I think it starts with recognizing again this is just data. What I'm feeling right now is just information about my experience, and then I can kind of choose how to categorize that experience in a way that works.
Speaker 1:Is there any like questions that you can ask yourself when you're doing that internal reflection on the information that it's giving you, so that when it comes time to reframing hey, nervousness as excitement, it's as simple, as just like speaking it as opposed to saying it but not really believing it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, like anything, it takes practice, right. So I think the first thing you can do is just get the reps in. You know, like, practice seeing it that way, practice reminding yourself I'm excited You're going to catch yourself in your default mode of launch, right, so the more that you can like, well, no, okay, maybe this is a nervousness, maybe I am excited oh, I can see why I care about that, right. Or maybe there is an opportunity here, like, the more you can rep it out, I think, the better it will be and the more natural it will become.
Speaker 2:But, honestly, I think the easiest question to ask yourself is just what is this trying to tell me right now? Forget, like, how do I get rid of this as quickly as possible, which is the default question most people ask themselves. Right, like, you know, what is the information here? What can I learn from what I'm feeling right now? And try to slow down a little bit and answer that question. And if you can answer that question, then that'll be a really meaningful step in the right direction to sort of like getting that good data out of it and also make it easier to do some of the reframing of the next part.
Speaker 1:How do you use this when it comes to pressure we're talking about, like legitimate pressure, like hey, this 40, my career depends on it. Like, how do you recognize the concept of pressure but not put too much into the, you know, emotional attachment to the outcome?
Speaker 2:How do you not put too much into the outcome? So, the deal with the pressure, I mean very tactically. We know there's kind of three steps you can take when you're under pressure to improve your performance. The first is to have a really clear goal in mind. So if we're taking a guy who's running a 40, it's like what's the time you need to get, and like let's, let's crystallize that in our mind and then let's break that down into the steps we need to take Right. Let's break that down into the steps we need to take right. So maybe it's fast off the line or it's a quick jump or whatever it is that you kind of trained for. You want to focus your attention on not on the pressure, right, but on executing that goal to the best of your ability. The second thing you want to do is see that pressure as an opportunity. Right, this is a chance to show what I'm made of. This is a chance to demonstrate my signature strengths. This is what I've been training for. I'm excited, right, All this kind of self-talk that supports this idea that this is an opportunity. And then, third, is you're going to consciously increase your effort, and you've heard these stories of people who, like you know, lift cars off infants, right, Like a lot of this sort of idea that humans really do have an untapped sort of energy store that, if they really push themselves that they can access. There's some interesting data that shows that our brain starts to send signals about pain when we're running, for example, at as early as maybe 30% of our capacity, right. So like at 30% in your brain starts to be like you're working kind of hard, Like are you sure you want to work this hard? It might be better if you just slowed down, like you don't have to run, you know, don't have to run so hard, right, and your brain's doing what it's designed to do. It's designed to preserve your energy and keep you alive, but it's not really that useful. At 30% of your capacity, right, Like you got a long way to go before you're really tapped out and go before you're really tapped out, and so this kind of conscious increasing of effort allows you to sort of push past that point.
Speaker 2:And again, if you take the distance runner, let's say, right, you're running a marathon. Well, 30% of your marathon you're at what like five miles or something like that, maybe a little bit more. Your legs start to feel a little bit heavy. But then if you keep running and you sort of like waited out, you find kind of that runner's high and it starts to not feel so bad and things keep moving on. And that's just purely a function of putting the effort in beyond kind of what you felt was possible. And so the same thing applies kind of in the 40 time.
Speaker 2:You don't need to run a marathon to access this. It's like, OK, I'm going to like choose to give 100 percent and like really give 100 percent here. I'm not going to hold back. I'm not going to hold back, I'm not going to be worried about the outcome, which we can talk about next. I'm just going to give that kind of full effort. So that's kind of what I would suggest for dealing with the pressure, because I think those three steps there's good data to back that up but it's also like an easier formula to apply when it comes to deal with the outcome.
Speaker 2:It's hard because the outcomes do matter. I know everyone loves to talk about the process and I think that's great and there is some merit to being process-driven and process-focused. That's the only thing you can control. It's a much healthier way to approach high performance, but we kind of have over-indexed on this idea that the outcomes don't really matter if you just love the journey. And that's just not true, Like the outcomes do matter.
Speaker 2:I don't know any significant thing that happens in life where the outcome doesn't matter, Like it does matter. But that doesn't mean that you have to define your value as a person by the outcome you achieve. And I think that's really the key. Right Is like you can work really hard for something. You can want something really badly and not get it, and that doesn't mean that you're not worthy. You know, like those two things can be true. And so you have to kind of work hard to recognize that what you achieve or don't achieve doesn't determine your overall value as a person and whether or not you're worthy of some of the basic human needs we all have right Love, connection, companionship, whatever. And I think if you can get to that point where you can say, look, this really matters to me and I'd love to win, but if I don't win I'm going to be okay, that's a pretty good outlook to have.
Speaker 1:One thing I really struggle with personally is when I reach an achievement right, because I agree outcomes do matter, but it's not enough. I want to achieve more and once I achieve that goal, then I want to achieve more and it's some ways it's great because it pushes me, it moves me, I do a lot of really cool things, but in the same breath sometimes it can be exhausting, like lacking that you know, full fulfillment piece of it. And I talk with a lot of athletes who are like this, where it's like, yeah, hey, you know, have a great pro day. Okay, well, now it's hey, now I got to get to camp. And then it's like, okay, now I get to camp and I was like, okay, now I got to make the roster and you just keep pushing and, pushing and pushing and it's it's great because you achieve a lot. But then it's like at some point you like look back and you're like I need to take like a breath. And it's where do you begin to kind of deal with that in a healthy way?
Speaker 2:So what you're describing is called the hedonic treadmill and it's this idea that as you achieve more, you just kind of move the goalposts, and usually we associate that with what we just talked about. Right, like really connecting your value and your sense of self-efficacy or self-esteem to what you've accomplished. And where it gets sticky is, like you know, to use your NFL example right, there's always people that are ahead of you. You know, there's always a player that makes more money than you, or a guy who had a better career than you, right? So, like, moving the goalpost continuously and using that as your benchmark for your value, you're always going to be a bit disappointed. Right, you're never going to find that kind of like inner peace or satisfaction you'd be looking for, because you can just look to the next milestone and even you can play this out in the most extreme examples. Right, like, even if you're the best quarterback of all time, like, someone's going to come after you and probably break your records. Right, there's a. The owner is always going to have more money than you. You know, like there's there's lots of ways to slice it.
Speaker 2:The other way we think about wellbeing is so this is kind of hedonic wellbeing. The other way we think about it is what's called eudaimonic well-being. Your success is really based on how well did I become the best version of myself today, right? Did I do what I said was most important to me today? Did I live my values today in a way that represent me becoming the kind of person that I want to be?
Speaker 2:And what we find is that people who approach life that way one tend to have ironically more success, right, because if you're sort of pushing yourself to become the best version of yourself, you're probably going to achieve a few things along the way in your chosen field. And, two, they feel better about it. But it just requires getting real clarity on your values and understanding what it is that matters most to you. It requires consistently aligning your actions and goals with those values, so the system kind of works in harmony. You're not saying that you value one thing, but your goals or your actions reflect valuing something else. And then, you know, speaking of being conscious, right, we have to sort of like recognize when we're doing the thing where we move the goalposts, right, you know? And not getting so hung up on that as the definition of success, but a little bit more, you know, present with the idea that aligning with your values is going to lead to what it is that's really most important to you.
Speaker 1:How do you compare that to like the obsessive mindset, like which one wins in the long term, and where do trade-offs begin?
Speaker 2:Well. So I'll reposition you a little bit, right, but you're kind of you're barking up the same tree here. So then there's this other line of research which is really closely connected. Here it's basically obsessive versus harmonious passion, right? So obsessive passion comes from this place of like you almost feel compelled to do it because it feels like it's the only way that you're going to add value or be experienced positively in the world. Harmonious passion is like you're doing this because you intrinsically care about it and it's exciting to you, right and so. But both, both can sort of manifest as obsessional behavior, right? So like both both people you know, you, let's say, you have a harmonious passion and I have obsessive passion.
Speaker 2:We might still both be in the gym at the same time, right, or on the practice field at the same time, but we might be doing it for very different reasons. So it's the underlying sort of source of fuel that becomes the thing that determines whether or not you're going to sustain or how we're going to respond when adversity hits or the other things that are sort of inevitable in performance. It's fine for both of us to stay after practice. But if I fold at the first sign of failure and you keep going because you just love the game. That's going to make a big difference in our long-term outcomes. So I'm cool with people being obsessed. I think being obsessed is a good thing, as long as it's in a in a healthy way and it's something that you genuinely are invested in. You know, if you're obsessed just because you feel like you should be right, or someone told you you were going to be an NFL player. Someone told you, you know, if you just obsess enough, you're going to you're going to be an NFL player.
Speaker 1:Someone told you, you know, if you just obsess enough, you're going to you're going to make it to the league, like that's probably not good enough to sustain you over the longterm. And this episode is brought to you by all black everything performance energy drink, the official energy drink of the athletic fortitude podcast, available in Walmart, meyer and select GNC franchise locations. So when it comes to that adversity piece, so when it comes to that adversity piece like you just talked to, what is like is there a healthy amount of time, like when something hits and you're just like you feel it right and you're like this sucks and all the negative thoughts, all the frustration that you failed is hitting you. Is there like an appropriate amount of time for you to recognize that type of pain and emotion before taking action to get out of it, or is it simply the healthiest way is to minimize the gap between thoughts and actions of getting out of it?
Speaker 2:There's no like right time, you know. So the people I've seen have the most success with this are kind of like the Nick Sabans of the world, where they have the 24 hour rule good, good and bad. I think coming up with a framework for yourself, I think can be probably the most important thing you can do, and everyone's a little different, you know. So, like, when something bad happens to me, I usually say, like if it still bothers me after a day, then I'll like probably do something about it. If I make it a day and it like no longer bothers me or it's like not that big of a deal that I'm just going to like move on, you know, and it gives me sort of a way to give myself permission to feel whatever I'm feeling and not feel the need to like overreact or overdo it.
Speaker 2:You know, and we've all I mean this is not a perfectly true scientific concept, but we've all heard of, you know, people acting out of emotion. Right, you shouldn't make a big decision when you're in the middle of something emotional, and the reality is like we all make decisions with emotion present all the time. You can't like shut your emotion off, but, you know, when you're feeling really intensely. Sometimes action can get you out and sometimes action can dig you deeper, can dig you deeper, and so I think the real answer is really how much time do you need to make a decision that most reflects the kind of person that you want to be, and how much time requires for you to get like enough distance from whatever that adversity is so that you can see it?
Speaker 2:You know and if you take like a sports example, right, people talk a lot about learning from failure. I know we've talked about this on your podcast the reality is you don't do it super well in the heat of the moment. So, trying to just fix it right away, you might get lucky and you might fix it, but you might not. You might say something that makes it worse or do something that makes it worse, and so just being thoughtful about that and having a framework, I think is probably the most important thing you could do. But I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. I suppose there's probably like a too long to wait, you know, like if you just let yourself go on for weeks, that's probably not right. But I don't know that the right answer is 10 minutes either, you know.
Speaker 1:Have you found a personality trait that can be developed, that equates really well to overcoming adversity or to being a really resilient person in general?
Speaker 2:The concept that kind of first comes to mind is grit, right, so this idea of passion and perseverance for long-term goals. There's a pretty healthy scientific debate about whether or not grit is real or whether or not it's just conscientiousness, which is actually like a big five personality trait kind of manifesting. And conscientiousness is really like the tendency to be dutiful, purposeful, controlled in the way that you approach what it is you're doing, and so I think that's probably like the true personality structure that'd be most important for responding well to kind of adversity. And then I think you can think about sort of mental skills or mental states that would contribute to that Right. So if you've got someone who's maybe more like quote unquote mentally tough, right, or who understands how to deploy specific mental skills, you might get a different response to adversity. But I think a lot of that comes from that conscientiousness in the first place.
Speaker 1:I think about. You just talked about it briefly there. But in my own career where somewhere I was naturally really resilient was like playing with injury, like I mean I played with broken bones, torn ligaments like didn't matter, like really hard to get me off the field, even though I missed a lot of games because there were some I just I couldn't play with a torn ACL. But somewhere where I struggled as an athlete and I know there's a lot of athletes like this where play snowball, right, good and bad. I make a good play, it turns into five. I make a bad play, it turns into five. Right. And how do you transition the resilience in one area of your life to another, relatively, I want to say seamlessly, but I understand things require work. But it's how am I naturally resilient in one area, not in another, and how do I transition that?
Speaker 2:Man, you're bringing all the hard questions you know, um, I mean, I guess I guess my first thought is like I would really dive into what is it that allowed you to be so resilient like that in one context and and what's missing from the other that you could kind of try to mimic right? So my hypothesis would be like you really cared about football for lots of reasons. One was probably like you, just really liked the game. One was like your teammates. One was the monetary upside for participating, one was pride or ego. Lots of reasons to be persistent.
Speaker 2:And my hunch is that some of those things are probably missing in other areas. Maybe you don't care about it as much, the monetary upside isn't as high, the teammates aren't around, right, and so those external things, those things going on in our environment, they play a huge part in the way that we think, feel and behave. So I think the first thing I would do is try to construct my environment, to mimic the parts of the sport environment that most encouraged whatever behavior it is I wanted to see. Um, so if that's you know, you were able to push through things or you just worked harder like really dial into what is it about that that allowed that to happen, and then how do you replicate that somewhere else? Um, so that it's not like a thing missing from you, right? It's like something you build into the system around you to sort of sustain it. That's probably how I would tackle that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have a hard time articulating it because I'm obviously now completely different than I was when I played and I wish I had my mindset now that I that I didn't have, you know, 10 years ago or whatever, because and I always have a hard time articulating it.
Speaker 1:So I asked you the question, see if you could say it better than me but over time, that same resilience I was able to apply to injuries and playing with injuries. That what I call like that physical, mental toughness to hey, handling some of the little detail failures or the in-game failures or whatever it was. For me it's probably what I talk about a lot is the identity piece, right, and living out those values and reflecting on them so I could use it to be able to communicate with myself when a failure happened and it was a weird kind of concept too, because I found myself in any type of competition really became more obsessed with winning but having the ability to move on if I lost, like it didn't have power over me, but like I wanted it more and I just I struggle to explain it other than that yeah, well, I mean, look, I think some of what you have is like maturity now right, you have time on your side, you know, like I think you're gonna tell my wife.
Speaker 2:You said I was mature there you go, there you go, she'll love me for it. Um, I think some of it is like uh, I think a lot of it is probably that right, it's like time and distance and ability to sort of reflect and like think about what you had or what was missing or how you did those things, and then to form like a thoughtful opinion around. It is also, you know, again to come back to your environment, right, like football, that's what's encouraged. You know, like, unless you're dead or bleeding out, you know like you play right, like that's kind of the mentality. And so I think, if that's what you're around all the time, like, I mean, look at, like Byron Lefkowitz, right, like this dude broke his leg, gets carried down the field by offensive linemen, wins the game and it, right, like this dude broke his leg, gets carried down the field by offensive linemen, wins the game. And it becomes like this hero story.
Speaker 2:No one's talking about how idiotic it is that this guy stayed out here with a broken leg, like all the potential damage that could have been done. Now, like I was like, look, I'm super impressed too, and I think it's, I think it's amazing. I don't know that. I think it's the right decision. But I think think it's amazing, you know, and so I was like I think you, um, I think you just some of it comes from the place that you're in to, where you can't see that, like, some of these things are good for you, some of them are maybe harmful. It's kind of it's kind of confusing. But you know, like, this is how I have to operate if I'm going to survive here.
Speaker 1:You said something earlier that I wanted to come back to. When you're talking about like acting out of emotion and like that's not necessarily scientifically correct, when is there enough evidence for you scientifically to start incorporating something new into whether it's your own practice or your work with athletes?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. I mean, for me, most of the things I try to do is look for multiple data points, right? So one scientific study plus my lived experience, plus some feedback from an athlete, that's three data points. It's probably pretty good, right? Or when, when I was doing work, you're deeply embedded in a team, right, it'd be like someone brings a complaint forward about johnny. It's like, okay, well, this is one data point about johnny.
Speaker 2:If I hear this data point about johnny two more times, like probably good enough to do something, so I kind of approach it pretty similarly. You know, like, um, you know, if I read it in one paper, cool, if I can find a couple other places that support that idea, like, all right, there's probably something to like bring in here. And then I apply it on my own and I see, like does this work or not? You know, I'm one of those knuckleheads who sort of, you know, tries to put it all into practice for myself first, like try not to ask anyone to do something I wouldn't do myself, and so there has to be enough data to sort of support that for me to feel comfortable going after it. And then I'm going to try it.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, okay, you know, if it works for me, then I can try to bring it to somebody else, kind of thing. What is something?
Speaker 2:that you see, that makes your blood boil because you know it's not scientifically correct. Man, how much time do we have, um? So there's a. There's a few of them. The first is learning styles. Learning styles are complete bullshit. I don't know if it's okay to swear on your podcast, so sorry pre-reign for you, my friend oh man, learning styles are complete bullshit.
Speaker 2:But we've been so indoctrinated into this idea that people are visual learners or auditory learners or kinesthetic learners that, like we, that myth just persists and the reality is, like most people learn really great by experience. So we're all experiential learners and no learning style touches that. Then the second thing is like we're all multimodal learners, which means that, like you need to see it and hear it and feel it and touch it and all those things for it to like really sink in. And third is you need some reflection. There is no learning without reflection and rest, and so, like I don't really care what your learning style is, because none of it's talking about this sort of like key process that makes, makes for learning actually happening. So that's one thing that I think is is sort of a an important myth.
Speaker 2:The second one that drives me nuts is the uh, like lizard brain commentary. Um, you know, there's just there's so much data refuting this idea that we have, like this reptilian part of your brain at the base of your brain, called your amygdala that was, you know, evolved that one time period and the rest of your brain evolved in another time period. It's just like it's all a load of crap. You have one brain. Human brains evolved to be the size that they are, in large part because of the social relationships that we had and in large part because we had unique demands for our species, like we're not the biggest and tallest and fastest and strongest right, so we had to become the smartest, like that's sort of how it works, and the brain evolved the way that it evolved to function that way and promote evolution and survival in that way. It did not evolve from like a reptilian brain. It's just nonsense. Um, so there's, there's a, there's a couple of them for you oh, I've never heard the reptilian one.
Speaker 1:What point me to? I got you're going to have to point me to where I can read that after. After this, I'm super curious about the reptilian whatever.
Speaker 2:Google tripartite brain T-R-I-P-A-R-T-I-T-E tripartite brain theory and then set your computer on fire from all the trash you just read uh, I've seen you talk about self-belief a lot.
Speaker 1:At the end of the day, is there anything more important than preparation that leads to self-belief?
Speaker 2:more important than preparation. I mean, I think it's probably preparation and experience, I think, lead to it right. So past success and good preparation, I think, are probably the key um, but I think preparation is there's not really a replacement for preparation, for feeling confident or having self-belief in the context of like an upcoming performance. And I think you know to break that down a little bit further like one of the things people sometimes get confused about is like like I have a CEO I work with right now, for example, who was basically telling me he's like man, I'm great in meetings without any preparation and I'm like I don't think that's true. He's like, well, I don't, I don't do any prep, I don't do any preparation anymore.
Speaker 2:I'm like well, the thousands of meetings you've had before this meeting were all preparation. It was all part of the practice and I would still venture to guess if you spent five minutes before this, you'd probably be even better than you were today. And so we do that little experiment. He's like, yeah, you're right, I was like there's not really a good replacement for doing that preparation. But I think the true inner sense of confidence, this self-belief, this idea that I can do anything that I set my mind to, I think comes from past success and really understanding what it was about those past successes that made that happen for you. I think if you don't grasp that, then it's kind of a fleeting feeling, you know. But if you can really get a handle on your strengths, if you can really get a handle on why you were able to deliver the way that you were, I think you can build this pretty solid sense of I can do challenging things and I can. I can kind of make happen what I need to make happen.
Speaker 1:So if you're in one of those situations where it's like losing begets losing, right, you're stuck in that cycle, but you're putting in the work capable of winning, it's just, for whatever reason, not going your way. You're losing that self-confidence. When the pressure gets too high for you, what is the first thing you can do to drive that belief that's going to get you over that hump of losing?
Speaker 2:well. So losing is like it's a it's a temporary thing, right, even if it's like losing after losing after losing, like it's, it's still in the grand scheme of your life. It's sort of a small blip. You know what I mean like. So I would, I would zoom out, would be sort of first right, like if you made it to the NFL. It's very low likelihood that you're also on losing teams the entire way there, you know. So it's like you. You have past successes that you can draw on. They're just not immediately evident right now. So that zooming out is going to let you capture some of that data. And those strengths are still inside you, right. Those still things you can do, even if you're losing or not getting the outcome that you want. So that'd probably be the first thing I'd suggest. The second thing I'd suggest is to kind of look outside your immediate field of performance, right, and so maybe what you do like this is something I recommend to.
Speaker 2:Honestly, everybody is like. The most powerful thing I ever asked people to do is like email or text the 10 closest people to you and ask them to describe you at a time when they saw you operating at your best. Have them describe what they observed and what strengths they saw you use to make that happen. First of all, you're going to get back like a bunch of really nice things about you which who doesn't love reading nice things about themselves? But you're also going to discover some pretty cool powers that you have and things that you can sort of rely on in the future that can drive some of that confidence. So those would be how I would choose to navigate some of those situations, because the data you're getting from your current environment basically says you have none. If you're losing and losing and losing, you're getting this signal You're not good enough, you're not good enough to win. But that's not really true. It's true in this one moment in time, but it's not even true of you as a person. It's like the whole system.
Speaker 1:If you're in a team game, it's really, how do we look outside that a little bit to get that information?
Speaker 2:So for a reflective process is there a reflective strategy that you use or implement that has documented success. Yeah, so there's two kinds of things that I could encourage you to do. The first is, like you've probably heard of, like a failure resume or a failure file. Right, it's like you. This was made famous by a professor, I think, at Harvard or Yale or Princeton, like one of these high-end schools, where he basically published, like all the experiments that didn't work out and all the things he failed at. Like I would just do the opposite, right, create a Google doc or a note like here are all the things I've done that are awesome. Here's what I think makes me really special and I would kind of lean into that. The second way you can do that. So I would call that like a confidence file, right, or a success file.
Speaker 2:The second thing you could do is what's called a confidence resume, and you can look back over the course of your career and basically draw a timeline and look at kind of the high points in your life and then ask yourself the same questions what was going on during this performance that made this so impactful? Right, and performance could be like I proposed to my girlfriend. Performance could be I won a state championship. Performance could be. I aced an exam, like what are kind of the key highlights of those moments? And then how did you do that? Right, I worked really hard, or I prepped well or I expressed myself fully, right, like those gives you some insights into the strengths. So those would be probably two reflective exercises I'd encourage.
Speaker 2:The other thing you could do and I've been experimenting with this some is you can go into ChatGPT and you could journal in ChatGPT for like a month about things that are going well for you, or reflect on some of these same questions and ask Chat gbt to surface back to you your strengths and I do this a lot with people I work with now like have them journal and chat gbt for 30 days and then, at the end of 30 days, tell chat gbt to give you some novel insights about yourself. You'll learn some cool stuff. It's pretty wild, um. So that would be a third way you could try it.
Speaker 1:Do you care if you type, write, verbalize or all the above?
Speaker 2:I mean, the data shows handwriting is still probably the best Right, but I don't personally care, like I think. I think probably the most important thing is to express it and like work with it in your head Right To like actually put yourself through the exercise of making sense of this stuff. And then you're just playing with degrees of quality, right. If you type it or you text it or you write it, it's like, yeah, it'd probably be most impactful if you handwrite it. There's just some unique stuff that goes on when we handwrite, but I can't read my own handwriting and so I'm probably going to be better off if I type it, and I think that's okay too off if I type it, and I think that's okay too.
Speaker 1:I'm curious about your, your use with AI in the sense of has it changed your perspective on things to implement or things that work?
Speaker 2:Uh, I think for me, the way it's changed is like I think of it as more of a companion. I think I once thought of it as an adversary. You know like oh man. You know and that was a lot of the narrative when AI came out right Like AI is going to replace all human jobs. You see all these posts about like you know, ai is better than my therapist. You know like I'm going to be great. I was like man. Maybe this is true.
Speaker 2:There was even a study that was published that said patients preferred AI bots over doctors just as far as like compassion and responsiveness. There's one study I'm sure there have been more, but there was one. So I'm not considering it a trend yet, but I think now it's sort of like, as we've seen, that sort of initial burst of joy and excitement and intrigue around AI kind of subside. Now I'm sort of like this is a way to superpower a lot of what I do, and so you can superpower it by holding people accountable between sessions. You can superpower it by giving them some journaling. You can superpower it by having them generate imagery, scripts or other things for themselves. So it becomes almost like a partner in the coaching process and a place to store some data. That's more interactive and more fun than just writing it to yourself, so I'm excited about it and I use it pretty often now in the work that I do now.
Speaker 1:I've found ai to be an incredible enhancer in many different domains in my life and just in forms of like education, um, I do think that there's a component to to having high I hate saying like EQ, right, but being emotionally intelligent when you connect with people or I do think like AI could replace you, and one thing I always appreciate about having you on in our discussions is like you make really complex topics seem very easy and applicable, like you can break it down and just make it like easily accessible, um, and so I don't think you're going to be replaced by ai anytime soon, alex thanks, man.
Speaker 2:I hope not. I hope not. But if it happens, that's okay too. Maybe at that point we'll do away with all money and I can just live my life. I don't have to work anymore. You know, ai will be doing everything we need to do.
Speaker 1:Is there something that brings up a point about having things to pursue and chase that make us feel a little bit alive, Like if we removed all work? Would we be intrinsically more happy or less happy?
Speaker 2:It's a hard question to answer, very philosophical. My, my hunch is if we removed all work, we probably replace it with some other form of structure and goal-directed activity, like I think I think people do organize around goals, and they do. You know, we're still animals, right? So like, at its core, we still have a dominance hierarchy. That's why all jealousy and comparison happen, right, so like those things wouldn't go away just by virtue of, like, doing away with money or doing away with the economy, right, you'd still have some of that. And I think, do think people need a structure. Um, I think people need some structure and some goal, like something they're working for to feel most alive. Um, I think is pretty important. I think without that you'd be kind of bored tell me about your book called the greatness yeah, man, thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 2:So I mean, called the greatness was really supposed to be the book I wish someone would have given me in graduate school but nobody could give me because it didn't exist, right. It was like I was very disenchanted even though I love my grad school advisor very disenchanted with a lot of the sports psychology kind of training I got really until I got to the NBA and a lot of that was just like you know, people applying really basic stuff, not a deep way of thinking about like how do all these things fit together? Some nonsense. You talk about myths, right. Like nonsense about you know, performance and well-being are separate. Like I don't know anybody who gives a shit about what they do that thinks of that that way. Like that's just not. This is not realistic.
Speaker 2:So I set out to kind of write the book that I wish I had, and what that really broke down to is kind of two parts of the book. The first is about what's called typical performance. It's kind of how you show up on a day-to-day and work toward self-mastery, right. Like how do you get progressively better and build towards sustainable excellence? So I talk about concepts like adaptive capacity, like how do you take on higher, harder challenges? I talk about concepts like self-regulation. How do you get really attuned with who you are and what you need so you can become the best version of yourself? And then I break down some other kind of psychological processes like self-belief, that sort of facilitate the pursuit of this excellence over time. The second part of the book is about what's called maximal performance, which is what you sort of think of in like the peakest of performance moments. Right, it's like Michael Jordan hitting a game-winning shot or Game 7 in the NBA Finals or the Super Bowl, or, you know, michael Phelps swimming, right, like these moments where there's going to be one of them and it's probably going to have an outsized impact on your career or whatever is next. How do you actually perform well in those moments? And so I talk about preparation, which you know again.
Speaker 2:For me, like when I was in graduate school, you know, everyone would talk about preparation, like, oh, you set a goal and then you do some imagery. It's like no, but there's like you have to practice too, and like there's good ways to practice and there's bad ways to practice, you know. And so what? What are those good ways, what are those bad ways, and I talked about that in the book.
Speaker 2:I talked about resilience, which we've talked about today, like how do you actually respond to a setback in the moment. I talked about being fully present with performance and how presence really drives getting the most out of yourself in these more difficult moments, and so that's what the second part of the book is about, and the whole book together is designed to sort of give you like a playbook that you could run for yourself to sort of assess here's where I'm good, here's where I'm not so good, here's what I need to work on and move yourself sort of place of more sustainable, excellent performance and to be able to get the most out of yourself when it matters most.
Speaker 1:Beautiful Round three in the books. I can't wait to read it. It's on it's on my list of 2025. I have 100 books to read. It's on there, alexa. It's going to be read by me and I can't wait to talk about it more. Um, can't thank you enough for coming on. If people want to buy the book, they want to reach out to you. What's the best way to do so?
Speaker 2:you can find me all over over the internet alexsauerbachcom, twitter and LinkedIn at alexsauerbachphd. I guess it's X now and the book is sold everywhere Amazon, barnes, noble and from my website. So thanks, colin.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Appreciate you, man Listeners, thank you for tuning in. Tune in next week. Download the podcast Subscribe on YouTube Five next week Download the podcast Subscribe on YouTube Five stars only baby.