140: How Movement Training Builds Adaptability Under Pressure: Dr. Veronique Richard Explains How she has Sculpted the Coolest Career!

We sit down with performance psychologist Dr. Véronique Richard to unpack how movement can train creativity, presence, and adaptability in sport and beyond. We talk through concrete ways to change environments and routines so people stop running on autopilot and start solving problems in real time. 
• moving from one-on-one consulting to changing systems and culture 
• how Cirque du Soleil shaped a research-driven view of movement and expression 
• translating practitioner wisdom into evidence through applied sports science research 
• why labels matter and how reframing “creativity” unlocks trust and participation 
• simple movement activities that build adaptability without shocking team culture 
• “ready up” versus warm-up and what real engagement feels like 
• using constraints, variety, and social mirroring to train presence under pressure 
• where this work fits outside sport including medical simulation and ICU teams 
• embracing anxiety as a useful signal rather than something to avoid 
if you know someone who would benefit from listening to this podcast or the show in general, do it now and share it a live. Pressing follow on the pod makes a massive difference. Taking two minutes to write up for season seven means that more people will get to hear these stories, which will widen the impact.

The Podcast's 7th Season
Welcome to In the Game, a podcast where we aim to touch, move and inspire you to what's possible in life. My name is Sarah Maxwell and I am a self-proclaimed relationship engineer. Ever since I was a little girl, I was curious about how people work and how they interact with one another. With a degree in biopsychology representing my country of Canada in beach volleyball. With a degree in biopsychology representing my country of Canada in beach volleyball, retiring from sport into mindset and purpose coaching, I now spend my days running Chatta-box Media, where we aim to story-tell for brands through the medium of podcasting, all while raising an eight-year-old daughter with my partner of 24 years. We are now in season seven of this podcast, featuring a special series on women called who Knew that Was Work aimed at young women who want to broaden their horizon when it comes to career choosing.

Go deeper into the pod and discover incredible stories of changemakers who manifest their dream lives. Gain tangible tools to apply to your own life by scrolling back to that initial season where we were more workbook focused. Have a laugh when we initially were coined the Nat and Sarah show, when my five-time Olympian partner, natalie Cook, and I bantered and had loads of fun interviewing and discovering our common passion individuals who rise to the occasion in life. Okay, now it's time to dive on in to this episode.

Ge...

Transcript

Welcome And Acknowledgement

Dr Veronique "Vero" Richard 0:00

Hello. My name is Audrey Karunathillake and I'm seven years old. I'm Australian but Sri Lankan heritage. We wish to acknowledge the land on which this podcast is being recorded, the Min Jim country, the place of the blue water lilies. We are inspired by the world's oldest living culture and seek wisdom from the people who came before us, the Jaguar and Terrible people. We pay our deepest respects to the tradition of storytelling. When we share people's stories and we extend our respect to all Aboriginal and Terra Strait Islander peoples as the first Australians.

Sarah Maxwell 0:55

My name is Sarah Maxwell, and I am a self-proclaimed relationship engineer. Ever since I was a little girl, I was curious about how people work and how they interact with one another. With a degree in biopsychology, representing my country of Canada and beach volleyball, retiring from sport into mindset and purpose coaching, I now spend my days running Chatabox Media, where we aim to storytell for brands through the medium of podcasting. All while raising an eight-year-old daughter with my partner of 24 years. We are now in season seven of this podcast, featuring a special series on women called Who Knew That Was Work? Aimed at young women who want to broaden their horizon when it comes to career choosing. Go deeper into the pod and discover incredible stories of change makers who manifest their dream lives. Gain tangible tools to apply to your own life by scrolling back to that initial season where we were more workbook focused. Have a laugh when we initially recoined the Nat and Sarah show, when my five-time Olympian partner Natalie Cook and I bantered and had loads of fun interviewing and discovering our common passion. Individuals who rise to the occasion in life. Okay, now it's time to dive on in to this episode.

Meet The Performance Psychologist

Sarah Maxwell 2:16

Today I get to chat with a pioneer in the space of creativity and movement who hails from my home province of Quebec in Canada.

Dr Veronique "Vero" Richard 2:25

Yay!

Sarah Maxwell 2:26

Working with high-performance sport and circus art, Dr. Véronique Richard is a performance psychologist designing enriched movement activities to further investigate the impact on cognitive, effective, and socio-cultural variables related to creativity. And if you understood any of that, you're already ahead of the game. But she'll explain, don't worry. With a doctoral degree in sports science from the University of Montreal, Véronique would go on to complete a post-doctoral fellowship in sports psychology at Florida State University, and is currently a lecturer and researcher at the University of Queensland here in Brisbane. As a mental performance consultant with the internationally acclaimed Cirque du Soleil since 2011, Véronique has worked with various Canadian national teams while traveling the world creating enriching environments for the likes of Tennis Australia, Cricket Australia, next WWE, and PGA coaches, all while investigating the link between creativity and adaptability. So welcome to the podcast today, Vérault. We are very curious about the work you do and the career you have forged so far. So thank you for being here.

Dr Veronique "Vero" Richard 3:31

Well, thank you for inviting me. I can now say that at least for one podcast, my name will have been pronounced correctly, which is like a first big win. Yay! Woo!

Sarah Maxwell 3:42

Yeah, well, we're gonna call you Vero today, and that'll just confuse them all because then let's see who can roll their R's and who can't, hey? Exactly. So, you know, even clearly mentioning that, you are a citizen of the world. And yet currently you're a lecturer and researcher at the prestigious University of Queensland. And I'd love, I just sort of had this thought about daily life now, like

From Touring Teams To Systems

Sarah Maxwell 4:08

these days, compared to five years ago when you were constantly jetting off with Canadian national teams and gigs with Circe Soleil. So just give me a little, just give us a visual in a way of what those two worlds look like.

Dr Vero Richard 4:21

Yeah, well, it looks, it looks very fancy, this whole like like traveling the world, and which, don't, don't get me wrong, it's a huge privilege um to get to work and travel. But it's also it brings some, there's pros and cons to every work situation, right? So before uh my work was a little bit more uh one-on-one or impacting individual or groups, sometimes groups that were a bit bigger. For instance, when I was uh going from show to show at Cirque du Soleil, um the cast are quite like it's a hundred people, but still it's small impact. And while I do love impacting every single individual one by one, it still feels that there are limits in doing this. Um, which is why when I got the offer to continue my research and maybe impact at a bigger scale by coming here at the University of Queensland, I think I was ready for this. I was ready to move from this more very deeply embedded, um, connected experience with athlete and artists to working a little bit more with organization, a little bit more with systems as well. By working with athlete and artists, you realize so many things. Like, even if I would have given them the best mental skills ever, if the environment never changed, you feel you're a bit kind of back and forth all the time. You help you help the artist, they go back in their environment and uh it go back to baseline kind of changes, yeah. Exactly. So then I was like, how can I impact like environment? How can I impact system? How can we make a real difference? And this is where I felt well, research is a good way to applied research, like I do testing how things are, looking at what are the best environmental factors to actually help these performing population. Um, so yeah, so my days now are way more uh working with different so again as an applied researcher, I do a lot of work, which you named a few, like Tennis Australia. I'm not I'm not working with any athlete there, but I'm working with the directors, and we are like looking at bigger projects of how we can change how, for instance, the organization operate at different level, you know? Okay. So that's a little bit the biggest difference. I get to travel still, just a different um capacity and for a different purpose, I would say.

Sarah Maxwell 7:13

Yeah, it's interesting. As you shared that, I was thinking in a way, I could see how your life is probably even more systematic than when you're traveling, you know, to work with different individuals or teams. In a way, it's a more creative environment and it's changing every day. And so the irony of your research is that yeah, the the your life probably is even more systematic routine than it probably was five years ago.

Dr Vero Richard 7:39

Yes. And I would say though, you know, when you get in a new show, you arrive there, you know a few people because I've been working online with a few of them, you know, maybe the coach, and then all the other people are new. So you're in this consent, like adaptability brain, and you're responding to everything, but you haven't necessarily you don't know what will come your way. So you could not pre-plan how you would impact, you know, it just happened with your skill set and the situation that presents. Now I get to go to organization with like kind of more of a plan. So you come to me telling me a little bit about their situation, what they want to achieve. It's a little bit more like proactive. Yeah. Okay, now they're experiencing. I have time to think, I have time to go into the evidence and gather things, and then I come back to them and I'm like, what about this? What about this? And then we do this back and forth, and we build a project together that will be a little bit more, hopefully, will be more impactful than getting on a show. There's a conflict in one team, two people are, and then you're just like, you didn't know that was going to happen. You're there, you're sitting with the people, and then you just use your skill, but it's a little like it's responding to a situation that you didn't even necessarily plan to have to respond to.

Sarah Maxwell 9:05

Yeah, that's actually okay. So you're getting me excited about the word adaptable,

Early Clues From Music And Skating

Sarah Maxwell 9:10

because I am really intrigued, actually. And I'm like, oh no, hold on, I'm hold on, hold on. Because I want to get into the weeds of that word a little bit, because you mentioned it just then. And I think I feel like it isn't talked about that that much. So I'm kind of excited. But first, I do want to get some groundwork because you know, we've established that you're a pioneer in this space of creativity and movement. But then it got me thinking because whenever people are pioneers or something's new, I always want to know where these ideas kind of spark from in that space. So when you were a kid, what did you dream about being one day? And does it resemble at all the work you do today?

Dr Vero Richard 9:50

First, I have to say I feel very uncomfortable with the word pioneer. Pioneer. I will try to embrace the discomfort.

Sarah Maxwell 9:55

Blame your university. That's what they called you. But I also felt feel that in a my when I'm you'll notice it when you're um interviewing someone and you're doing a description of what their job is, and you basically take 10 sentences or or you have no words because it's not called accountant. It's not even we couldn't even, what did I say, performance psychologist or something, you know? And I'm thinking she's probably changed that definition by now, but you know, you're just it's not labeled fully.

Dr Vero Richard 10:24

Yeah, no, it's just because, you know, uh, to your point, there's so many people that I would consider pioneer in movement and creativity. And I probably inspired myself from them along my journey. Got it. And and maybe the little slight innovation that I brought to it is the fact of studying it. Um so all the people that have inspired my journey are there are academic that inspired my journey, just so we are clear.

Dr Veronique "Vero" Richard 10:57

Yeah.

Dr Vero Richard 10:58

In this in this movement, creativity um uh idea, it's mostly practitioner. Um, you were talking about school. So I was lucky enough to go to a classical music school where we actually had once a week a what we call in French expression corporelle. Uh so the translation in English is not good, but like kind of body expression would be the best way to translate it. And I remember then loving this, it's not dance, that's where the people make it's not dancing, it's just expressing yourself through your body in different kinds of activities. And then I was a figure skater, so later on, I we had this amazing woman, her name is Anne Shelter, and she's unfortunately she has passed away very recently. Um, and she was making us do these weird exercises, and she was a little bit this like witch-looking kind of she was old and her skate were all destroyed. Uh, but the way this woman was looking at you with these intense eyes and the importance she was giving to connecting with the body, and everything was about the body, and we're doing these things where you were like, Where is she going with this? But uh it's those moments in my life, like I remember feeling something actually. I don't even know how we could label this, and then I bumped into Cirque du Soleil as a young professional doing an internship.

Sarah Maxwell 12:46

And how old were you when that happened?

Dr Vero Richard 12:49

Uh I was finishing my master's, so probably like 23, 4, something like that. It was in 2000, 2010, 11, something like this. 2011, I think. And seeing these professional using movement as a way to connect these artists from all over the planet that were not speaking the same language, that were coming from absolutely different culture, trying to make them go from athlete to artist. Um with again, uh what you most people would perceive as very weird, uh, strange, unusual, use the word that you want, movement activities that really, really ask you to leave your judgment at the door and be present and try to go get something inside of you to express. And uh, yeah, just all these people, Michu, Massimo, Caitlin at Circus were so fantastic. So they are the pioneers that I just got to observe along my own journey, sometimes as a performer myself, sometimes as an observer. And there was this trend over time that I was like, there's a power in movement that we're not utilizing correctly, or okay, I will rephrase this. Not that we're not using it correctly, we are not using it fully, right? We are using it for proper execution, we are using it for um performance, but we forget that it's such a strong, powerful tool of expression. And I think this has, I don't know, it got forgotten with time, or I don't know, and just with sport being so structured and so uh regimented to some extent that yeah. So I just wanted to bring this back into the things we talk about in sport. Um so yeah, so I'm not sure. I'm not a PR.

Sarah Maxwell 15:00

But you did, because you've said some really interesting things there about, you know, when you were talking about the woman who came with the the skates that were a little crazy, she looked a bit different, but her intensity touched you like something, you felt something. At that moment, was that merely like the feeling that you had was translating for you as a figure skater, as an athlete? Do you remember when you started to think about movement? Because I think what I think is quite interesting is that you've careerized this, you know, like you're actually researching it and studying it. And how do you remember that moment where you were like you just wanted to think about it all the time and and sort of like like move it forward like academically? Because I think that's quite unique. Because a lot of you know what I mean, like even this the circus performers might be having new feelings and experiences, but they don't study it.

Dr Vero Richard 15:52

Yeah.

Measuring Movement And Creativity

Dr Vero Richard 15:54

Well, definitely when I decided, so I think now I'm thinking back retrospectively on all these experiences. Where so after my master degree, for me, I I never intended to do a PhD. So when I was doing this internship at Cirque du Soleil, it was the end of my master's, and in Canada to become a mental performance consultant, having a master is enough. Then you just get to um do your hours and apply to the Canadian Sports Psychology Association. Nowadays there's an exam, but anyway, this is really important. And that was it for me. This is what I wanted to do. But then observing this, it was like a three-month internship at Cirkin. I was lucky while I was following the mental performance consultant there at the time. Um, I was allowed to go see anything I wanted outside when there was no mental performance happening. And sitting in these rooms and having access to these brilliant people that were all in their own different ways using movement as a way to help athletes become artists. So their main purpose was mostly artistic skills, but with the psychology, sports psychology background, all I could see was the psychological evolution of these people over three months. And this is where I started to get curious about it. And when I sat with two of the teachers, Michou and Massimo, and I just pitched them this idea that hey, maybe your stuff is impacting way more than the artistic skills that circus require. And their answer was quite interesting, actually, because they were like, Yeah, we know it's impacting way more. And I was like, Would you like to show it? Like, would you like to have a little bit more tangible um evidence behind this? And they were like, We would love to, like all these people, and this is what's fascinating between academia and like or science and like artistic field, it's like the same thing, just with different approaches. So they have their evidence in the artistic world as well. It's just that they don't write papers about it and measure it with numbers or values or whatever method that the academic field is using, but they know, they know that the group that they started with get way more connected after these three months. Like, I mean, they can see it, they can report it, they can talk about it, but it's not necessarily scientifically measured in the way academia would uh do it. So when I offered them to be that person that would just measure things and track things, and we would at the time we took a group of figure skater, which I thought were a bit stuck inside, like they're really great athlete. But when it comes to like expressing and just owning their performance, it was so it was a group of very high-level skaters in Quebec. And we had 10 of them, and we did a 20-hour intervention in which we measured three, like at three different time points, their evolution on self-esteem, mindfulness, creative attitude, and values, and just kind of start. Uh, we interviewed them, we tracked them qualitatively every single session they were giving, uh, they were self-reflecting on their experiences. So, yeah, it started that way. And then I just went on with it with zero intention that that was going to become a thing. I just I did a PhD out of curiosity, literally, with the same exact goal of becoming a mental performance consultant. I never really thought that was going to lead me somewhere else than this, but it did clear clearly.

Sarah Maxwell 20:10

But you know, what I think is so interesting is that all people have these little inklings, like these little preferences or something. About when you said to the people at Circle, would you like to show how, just that kind of like primary question that you had within you, that I can still hear when I when you were describing the differences in your career. It's it's so cool how different people come into scenarios with their like dominant question, and and then they kind of like take it, like you said, the little innovation that you bring because that desire in you, like that's your talent, that's your kind of edge with it, you know, the pure curiosity that you have. And I think it reminds me a little bit of these days how um people are are giving statistics to Eastern tradition philosophies like meditation and and now we like breath work and we we call it all these different things. And people in the East are probably laughing because they're like, we already know that it does this for our well-being, or they just don't use that word. Um, and so this I don't know, this has had that sort of like similar vibe. It's like, yes, we know it works, but now you're in here going, this is gonna get over the line in organizations that often I I my experience has been they won't let it through the door unless it has certain check marks, you know. And so that's why it's kind of gonna impact more people.

Dr Vero Richard 21:41

It's funny also that you talked about the Eastern or these kind of so later on, I think it was in 2018 or something, I wanted to study the creative process of developing new circus movements. Movement at the National Circus School. So basically in Montreal, there's a street that is called the Circus Avenue, and on one side you have Cirque du Soleil, and on the other side you have the National Circus School. So I used to just cross the street, do the mental performance work on one side, and then do the research work on the other side. Interestingly enough. If we were going to ask the artists to observe their creativity, they didn't want. Like it there, there's this kind of idea or protectionism around creativity that circus artists, at least those that we asked, are a bit hesitant, like if they would reveal their secrets. But if I was asking them to observe their ideas and how their ideas are evolving over time and transforming or not into new movement, new sequences, they were thrilled about the whole thing. So we called this the journey of an embodied idea, and we remove the whole concept of creativity. And again, it's this idea, like it's just sometimes how you approach different fields depending on how they interact with different label. Yeah. So yeah, so this is another comparison where it's really interesting. Yeah, you can just change. And it was like in like instant. If I'm like, oh, can I can I just observe your ideas? I'm curious about your different like movement ideas and how you make them evolve. And but yeah, hey, they they were then coming to me to say, hey, you're observing the ideas of my friend in this class. Can you come in my class and observe? And I was like, Yeah, sure, that would be fantastic. But again, it's just a change of narrative of how you approach people about different um questions as a researcher that you need sometimes to be very flexible in how you adaptable, adaptable in how you present uh your project. So yeah, your your point was really good there.

Sarah Maxwell 24:04

Oh, that well, you I'm thinking lots of things by that. Yeah, you know, as a questioner um for life, it makes you really um conscious that there are questions that people will allow in, and others where there must be like blocks, you know, that must make it mean certain things that they're like, nope, tight-lipped, not going there. So that that thank you. I'll be thinking about that a little bit longer because that was really interesting. Um,

Learning English The Hard Way

Sarah Maxwell 24:32

but I just in this whole journey, I just don't want to forget this part because I feel that this is something really courageous that you've done in your career. But I think a lot of people from Quebec um don't realize actually how amazing it is. So I was just curious, because you grew up in a French-speaking part of the world, like I just want to know a little bit about the hurdles that you jumped over in order to be now a lecturer, like using your English voice, like in this English-speaking university. It is very prestigious as well. And teaching, like you mentioned before, we even started this conversation, more than 350 students at a time, and you're doing it in English. Like, talk to me. There had to be hurdles.

Dr Vero Richard 25:18

Well, maybe there's hurdles for the students now to understand.

Sarah Maxwell 25:23

We won't survey that.

Dr Vero Richard 25:25

Well, maybe first thing first that people like worldwide are not really aware is that Quebec is protecting its French very strictly. So it's not it's not true that Canada is a bilingual country. Uh in Quebec, we actually have the Law 101, which because I was born from two French-speaking parents, you cannot even attend English school, and the English that is taught at school is really second language English. So it's not like an equivalent as French at all. Uh, my mom doesn't speak a word of English, my dad think he is, but that's up to debate. Um so I didn't really speak English much, other than like at as a second language um like taught in school kind of subject before my twenties, really. And my first real um immersion in a real English was the postdoc that you've uh mentioned in the intro at Florida State University, which for uh anyone that knows where that is, it's in Tallahassee in Florida, so you don't have a lot of French speakers there. So it was a little brutal as a as an introduction to English immersion. Um it's this is actually unbelievable.

Sarah Maxwell 26:56

So, did you have fear about that?

Dr Vero Richard 26:59

I don't know. I think I'm a bit naive in life to start with, which is probably helpful.

Dr Veronique "Vero" Richard 27:05

Helpful, yeah.

Dr Vero Richard 27:06

Yeah, not I don't know, yeah. So I think I was actually telling you when we had dinner um that I went back to Canada recently, like in July. And every time I go back to Canada, my mom um reduced the space in her house that she's giving me to store my Canadian stuff. So I always have one or two boxes waiting for my bed when I'm coming back, and it's like, okay, this is um it's been here for a long time, don't seem to use it. Why don't you get rid of it? Look at what's in this this box, and if you don't want it, let's throw it away. So I opened the box and it was all my binders where there was the scientific papers that I, you know, back in the 2010, we were still printing. Uh, computer like laptops were a bit bigger at the time. It was not the norm to bring a computer in class. So we still had the printed version of all these scientific papers that you use for your master. And then at the beginning of things started to change a little bit during my PhD. So I had all these binders with like pay, like a lot of different scientific papers, and then I opened this, and on the margin, there's all the words that I was translating. And I have a memory of this of having always a French-English dictionary with me when I was reading scientific papers. And I I didn't really have the memory of writing in the margin all these words, but then I started to look at what are the words that I didn't know at the time, and I was like, oh my god, very simple, basic words that you're like, I didn't know this. Wow. I mean, it must have taken me probably triple the time that it's what I was gonna say. Someone that does speak English as a native language to read, and then you you learn, I've learned a lot from reading scientific papers, and then I don't know, you gain a very naive confidence. I it's like this thing where at the beginning you're unaware of your incompetency to go with it and like speak, and then people are I don't know, probably did not understand you very well. Uh and then I don't know, you learn from experience. I also um I'm still doing this to this day, but sometimes in my shower, I will practice pronunciation of words. Oh, really? So I pronounce wrongly. Um, the worst words are always the same. It's the words that are the same in French but with a different rhythm.

Sarah Maxwell 29:39

I know. Ready? Here's one D E T E R M I N E. Determined. Oh, you're good. I played with a French-speaking girl all my career, and she this is really determined. You're doing you did that really well, but that's a tricky one.

Dr Vero Richard 30:00

But this is learned, like, that's the thing. I've you hesitate, yeah. I've made that mistake before, and then I learn, and then I'm like, okay, this like in that, and then you look, it's very cognitive, right? You learn that in that context, when these letters are together, they would just go. There's still words I have trouble that I say all the time, and I don't know, it just doesn't compute. Um pedagogy is one of them. I know I don't say it right, and also which word pedagog.

Sarah Maxwell 30:31

Oh, pedagogy. Oh, geez. Who can say that? That's too good. In French, it's pedagogy. Yeah, I was gonna say that's too yeah, but I don't want people, okay. I don't want people to lose a sense of why this question I think is really important to your story because I feel that because when we spoke at dinner about this, we talked a little bit about AI, because it was like, wow, imagine if these days, if you were studying, you could have just translated it all, and and it would have been a different experience. But what I'm starting to get, as you said it to me a second time now, I'm like, you do work, it's it's almost like I'm imagining the observer that you were, even with Sirk and all the different people from different countries and their languages were different, and and how there was like sort of this language of creativity that was just like my daughter learning violin. I can't read the notes, like I never learned that language. And so it's making me think it's not accidental that your your capacity to translate it it's what you're doing, like you're translating like movement into like the study that you're doing. I don't know, I feel like it's it's actually really important part of your story that that you were fully French speaking till until you did a postdoc. I mean, come on.

Dr Vero Richard 31:53

Yeah. It's a while. Behind be beyond the hurdles, though I think I need to also acknowledge that there's some benefit. I know that um it's easier for people to like having a di a clear difference makes people remember you, or like it's easy to put the French-Canadian label on me, it's easy to recognize my voice. It's like so there are things that are probably also helpful in a career when you're a bit different. When I was working at Circus, even to this day, because at circus, I mean, we don't have 50% of the artists that are uh native English speaker, it's way less threatening for a non-English speaker to speak to another non-native English speaker. So it makes you very accessible. Even here at the University of Queensland, we have a lot of international students, and I feel when they come to me, like they have their own accent, I have my own accent. I feel also when you're not a native English speaker, you have such a better understanding of other accent because you know the struggle, you know. I can tell you a lot of like mistakes that different languages are doing. So you learn them and you don't have to like you don't bother with them, and yeah, you go with it, and it's fine. Spanish don't pronounce the V and it's okay. And it's like, you know, you just yeah, so it has benefit as well. So it's I love that.

Sarah Maxwell 33:23

And we get to see your perspective, you know, how you see the world. You can really see how you you have a natural silver lining personality, you know, you find the good in things, and and you're very balanced as well in how you see things. And I just I I it possibly is my own obsession. I'm hoping other people have circus obsessions like me, because when I think we've we've sort of not really, you said I bumped into a Circuit Soleil basically as an internship, but I'm thinking, oh, do you just bump into those? Really? That would have been great. But but I do want to know how that worked there when you bumped into it, um, sculpted some of the ideas that are sort of like developing for you right now in this space of like high performance movement. Like, where did you learn there that is still shaping like the things that you're you're currently working on?

Dr Vero Richard 34:21

Yeah, when I say that I bumped into it, I mean in Montreal,

What Circus Teaches Sport

Dr Vero Richard 34:25

I know this company, it's like it's a it's very present.

Sarah Maxwell 34:29

Okay.

Dr Vero Richard 34:29

Like, you know, you can know a lot of people that are working there considering it's a a big company that hire a lot of people. And um, well, it started with an internship, like I said earlier. And I don't know, you just get into when you are in sport, sport attract a specific type of people, right? Depending on the of the on the sport, of course, but it would attract like people that are very disciplined, people that are good at following instruction, following plans, like you know, you have your which I was probably a bit part of this, and then you just step into a world that is like whoa, they achieve a very similar level of proficiency in what they do, but their approach is so different, and to me, I think it was this like at 20-ish years old, the moment where I realized, like, okay, there are multiple ways to achieve outcomes here. Like in Spore, we repeat, we follow like guidelines, uh, we are very like uh prescribed in our approach, and then you get into circus, which is like a bit chaotic to be honest. Um, explorate exploratory, like they explore a lot, they connect. Sometimes you feel like nothing has been done in a session, like a coach in sport would literally freak out. Like, it's like, what are we achieving?

Sarah Maxwell 36:05

Yeah, because they're not achieving, like it's like not results driven any same way.

Dr Vero Richard 36:10

They don't count the reps and they don't uh have GPS to uh know exactly what kind of kilometers they've run today, so there's like the metrics are very different. And so, yeah, when I bumped into this for me, this is still with me today. And and every time I step too far, so for instance, when I arrived here in Australia three years ago, uh the the entry to sport was easier for me because I think I probably had, I don't know, it's just so popular here in Australia, and a lot of sport people in Australia knew me already. I was in the like I was doing a lot of work with Canada and we bumped into each other all the time, so I didn't felt I was coming here and I didn't know the sport community, but I didn't know much about the performing art and cirque community here. Um, and for the first year, it it was not really present in my life, and then you I really I was like, oh my god, I need to find my circus people here. And fortunately, some people from Cirque du Soleil connected me with Circa, which is a sort of a very beautiful circus company here based in Brisbane. And I've been connected with them. The CEO Yaron and Libby are fantastic anyway. So I just this is it's just needed in my life. I need to go sit and watch Euron works once in a while, just say nothing, sit there and look at what they are doing. Because if you go too far from there and too much into sport, sometimes the tendency to get back into this philosophy is a bit um yeah.

Sarah Maxwell 37:55

That's a really interesting point because and I I know while you consult with, well, I'm excited that high-level sporting organizations want to consult with you because I remember the experience of training with um teams from different countries, and all of a sudden they would just do it differently, even. And this is still in a structure, however, just even that was so mind-altering, like, oh, that you could do it that way, because in a way you sort of get taught that there's only one way, and you've just said it so perfectly. That environment says, no, there's many ways to get there, and and I've I feel that if we think there's only one way, we'd it's like just recycled, like it's just the same old thing, just with a different coding on it, you know, nothing new is really ever coming, and therefore, in my view, it's it's never as expensive. So, so this is like really interesting to hear that I would have loved to have that cirque experience that you had actually, um, and then be able to interplay it back onto sport like you're doing. Um, so okay, so we're kind of taught, we're yeah, we're like really onto that, this topic in general. So I'm starting to see how they interrelate with each other, and that, like you said, oh, you need your circus fix to kind of remember what you want to bring over to the other, you know, the other environment.

Enriching Warmups To Train Adaptability

Sarah Maxwell 39:25

Can you give an example? I think I just need something tangible, like a drill, or or like you talk about the creating environments, right? But what does that mean? Like, just describe a drill where you promote discomfort and like what does it look like?

Dr Vero Richard 39:40

Well, first I would never call them drill because it's very drills.

Sarah Maxwell 39:43

That's so sporty. I know. What do we call them?

Dr Vero Richard 39:46

Activities. Oh, activities. Okay, just movement activities, drills, yeah. Drills is like two. Oh my god, that's a territory thing.

Sarah Maxwell 39:55

Oh, yeah, it's like a military. Oh my gosh, I didn't even think about that. That's so funny.

Dr Vero Richard 40:00

I I think it actually comes from the military uh initially. So um, no, I don't know.

Sarah Maxwell 40:05

Oh, that's great, that's perfect.

Dr Vero Richard 40:07

Um, yeah, movement activity. Look, it will it would depend. We can go very simple. So if I go in an environment where I know it's gonna be a tough gig, and I always need, and that's why I always have someone from the organization that will plan this session with me, because I need to know what is the norm and culture at the moment and how far, like, because if it's like, hey, we use drill all the time, I will give a very good example. My friend will not, my friend Lachlan will not be um uh angry at me, but like if I go to NRL in an environment where they are a lot about structure, repetition, and stuff like that, we know that we don't like I cannot come in and be like, let's dance, boys, it's gonna be great. So initially, when I got there, all we started to do is what I call enriching slightly uh what they are already doing. So we take, for instance, a warm-up. So they are used to have five different stations in the warm-up before the strength and conditioning session. And usually they would do like squat, they would do mobility, they would like you know, it would be always the same thing. So I take the same what, we keep the structure, but now we change the how. So I use creativity supportive instruction to allow them to instead of just repeating movement to explore movement. So at the squat station, for instance, instead of doing 20 times the same, and I put same in little um air quote here because they are never the same, even if they think it's the same. Now I will ask them to show me as many different squat as they can. So play with the angle, play with the height, play with the, they can jump if they want, they can do anything they want with their arms. But all of this is subtly first engaging their mind much more because they need to always think of a different option.

Dr Veronique "Vero" Richard 42:22

Sure.

Dr Vero Richard 42:22

And it also challenged their body because as soon as you move another part of your body, it's not the exact same configuration, right? And that is to me much more representative to the reality, which no athlete in NRL would do a perfect squat on the field when the game is going on, like okay, it doesn't happen that way. So by perturbating their movement of good word. Yeah, this is very scientific word, which I know I don't pronounce very well, but anyway, you did. That's good. Then we challenge them, and this is where the adaptability comes into play. If you do 10 squats in a row, I'm sorry, your body is not adapting to anything, there's no perturbation, there's no change, there's no constraint. When I start telling you, okay, no, you can do one in the regular way. After that, I want to see something else. So that doesn't only challenge your body, it challenges your mind as well, and it challenged the social dynamic of the team because of course they are looking at each other, and then it's like, who will go a bit further, who'll stay very close to the traditional pattern. So those are the kind of things I do with an environment that is um that is all that is very traditional in their approach. So that's that would be the first tiny step.

Sarah Maxwell 43:48

Okay, hold on. I have another question because that was such a great example. I love that so much because it's so um relatable. Like it's like, you know what I mean? Like you didn't go too far. So it's Seemingly more relatable. So just a little further question about it got me thinking about squatting. And then the moment you have to change it, it made me think about awareness. So all of a sudden, maybe, you know how you said you go, well, no one actually does it the same every time. But to me, you're kind of on autopilot. So you're just doing it what you perceive as the same. The minute you say different, it kind of brings awareness to this idea that oh, squatting has multiple um, I guess, varieties. Yeah. So yeah, well, I guess in that, what's the relationship between awareness and adaptability?

Awareness Presence And The Ready Up

Dr Vero Richard 44:40

It's very interesting. So we just finished a project with surfing Australia, where we did a full month, so eight sessions of creativity in motion. And now, if you take NRL and you take surfing, surfing has a little bit more opportunity for creative, like you know, the culture is already a little bit more creative. So I knew already that I was going to be able to push a little more. So, same kind of approach at the beginning, the first session of the eight was them showing me their regular warm-up. And one question I asked them after that is like, hey, on a scale of one to ten, how engaged were you in this highly automatized warmup that you do every day before to go for a surf? And I don't know, there were five uh surfers, some were like six, seven, some were like three, one, zero engage. I mean, I just go through the motion. So now I'm like, okay, you take the same movement sequence, the same routine. This time you can never repeat the same thing twice. So again, I then they had their own routine. And there won, and this goes back to your awareness, one of the athlete. Uh when we ended the five minute, which I by the way called ready up. So I changed the word warm up for ready up. So we are readying ourselves, not just warming our body. So it was like when I and then I asked them the same, how engaged were you when I was asking you to generate new solutions every single day. And then one of the athletes was like, actually, can I change my assessment of the first time you asked me because I said I was a seven, but now I realize that I was probably a two because now I was probably an eight, and I was and this athlete. So we interviewed all the athletes at the end, and he talked a lot about awareness, awareness of what is real engagement, what is really being present. You think you are present until you face a challenge that makes you realize, oh my god, I actually think about completely random things usually when I do my warm-up. But when we do the ready up and I'm forced or constrained to generate new options every single time I move, oh my god, it requires much more engagement. So yeah, you're completely right, awareness is a big thing in this part of it.

Sarah Maxwell 47:17

Our my yoga teacher says something to us, and it's I don't know if I'm the only one obsessed with it now, but she goes, Are you really doing what you think you're doing? And so I'm like, Oh, I and I've I've had this moment where randomly there's like a photo taken of yoga. There's sort of a funny meme about this as well, where there's a lady doing a plank, and it's like what you think you look like, and then what you look like is the hippopotamus type thing. It's very funny, but it's not that far off from what I perceive I'm doing to what I'm doing, because there to me, there's like the um percept, like feel it's a feel, like there's a feeling versus a well, let's air quote the word what you're really doing, um, like what is reality, basically. But I I think that's quite interesting as well with movement, because there's sort of like this world, like this perception of what I'm doing. And then other people, yeah, I don't know. This is like I I don't even know the words. It's like all mixed up in this idea of, am I doing what I think I'm doing?

Dr Vero Richard 48:26

And you know, if you never expose yourself to doing it differently, you have no comparison point. That's where I'm like, when we ask athletes to repeat always the same thing, how can we how can they know that there's not a better option? Because we've locked them into one thing, which often comes from external force. It's not even them that came to that conclusion or came to that solution. It was imposed on them without much exploration to start with, and we've decided that that was the right way to do things. When I do the creativity in motion approach, we allow ourselves to go back to exploration and then sample much more options, which my goal is for them to realize more at the psychological level what engagement means, what presence means, what what being um completely immersed in something. What does connection mean? Connection with the environment. Like we do mirror stuff where athletes need to uh face each other and just move with each other while keeping their eyes into each other's eyes, which is a bit confronting sometimes. Um and it's like, oh, I didn't like and and another surfer I work with before, it was like, oh my god, I'm in and out of it so much. I now realize how much it is difficult to stay present and to stay into the exploration and to keep searching for something different. And now they start being, oh my, well, when I do my repetition, then I'm I'm I'm not present at all. So yeah, there's a lot, and I just exposure to variety to different ways of doing, thinking, being, I think is a really powerful tool to help people find themselves. I'm I don't I never know what the answer is. I I'm offering and whatever they find along the way. Well, one thing I can conclude after doing it for eight years now is that they all find a different answer. It's never interesting, but it's something that suit them at a certain time where they maybe needed it.

Sarah Maxwell 50:52

Well, I see like the the impacts are so obvious to me around performance when I'm hearing these drills, I'm gonna say drills again, these activities. I I'm I'm seeing the, you know, I I often now in retrospect think the difference between amateur and professional was I used to say concentration, but I basically your ability to stay present the longest, you know, and you know, losing games versus winning games and stuff. However, I'm I'm also, and I think you might be too, there's many more far-reaching impacts of the work you do. So do you have a a dream or a vision for um other fields that could benefit from the things that you're researching?

Beyond Sport ICU And Life Advice

Dr Vero Richard 51:36

Yeah, we I started doing a little bit of work in medicine uh for medical doctors. So there's a group here at the Matter Hospital, um, which they do a lot of simulation. It's not necessarily the yet, and this is where I sometimes I get in, I get into a new environment more with the mental performance stuff. Um, and then slowly we can expand to a little bit more of the creativity stuff. Uh, but look, any performance domain that has the need to adapt under pressure, and if they have also sometimes this uh problem solving, they not only need to perform something under pressure, but they don't really know what's coming their way, and they know they will have to solve the problem in the moment, and if they can solve it in a creative way that can be beneficial. Any domain that has these characteristics. So we are working with the ICU uh doctor right now, which they never know what comes their way. It's always about problem solving, it's always under quite tremendous tremendous tremendous. Tremendous.

Sarah Maxwell 52:50

Oh, and we're finding all the words, all the hard work.

Dr Vero Richard 52:53

Yeah, so that is one domain that I'm quite in. That's so cool in at the moment, yeah.

Sarah Maxwell 52:58

Well, you would be good, like, you know, we're talking military and drills, but man, like speaking of under pressure in the moment, like not that they're gonna be dancing out on the um the combat field, but adaptability. Hello.

Dr Vero Richard 53:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh yeah, this is a domain for me that is a bit, I don't know, yeah. Uh it's it would be a bit more difficult. Um, depending what branch of it. I know there are branches that are all about peace, which I'm a little bit.

Sarah Maxwell 53:26

I I hear you, I got it. Values-driven, yeah. So lastly, I mean, I want to hear words of experience for the younger generation coming through, because that is the the inspiration for these conversations, is really to showcase possibly careers that people didn't know existed. Um, you know, just like light, some sparks and things. But if you were to, you know, give some words of experience from what you've seen, um, what would you want them to know?

Dr Vero Richard 54:00

I do a lot of work on emotion, and I use emotion as a movement prompt in a lot of my activities, which got me to really explore in depth the whole emotion um theories and evidence. And one thing I really love that I've heard from Susan Davids, which is a prof at Harvard University, is emotion or signal, right? And they just tell you something that hopefully you can listen to. And if I had one word of experience that I would tell younger people, is embrace anxiety. Um, anxiety signal that worried, like you're worried or uneasy about an uncertain outcome. And there's nothing wrong with this. Um, most outcomes in life are uncertain. That's why sport is so exciting because we don't know who will win the game. I mean, most of the time we don't, uh, before the actual event happens. So it's uncertain. It brings you the butterfly inside of you, but there's a beauty in this, and I feel that now we are really, really seeking the certainty pathway. And it's like, oh, if I do these studies, I will become this. And this is already traced for me ahead of time. If I just get good grades and I put my head down and I do the thing, I'm gonna, it's like, uh, I don't know. I feel I still to this day, every time I show up in front of a new group to do these movement activities that I'm doing, I'm always anxious because I never know, even if I have a lot of evidence now to support the fact that I know it will work, I still have a little bit of uncertainty if it will work with this group. And we don't do enough of this. We avoid anxiety, we try to be certain of the outcome, we pursue goals that we know will work, and I just wish that more people pursue anxiety-provoking outcome, but anxiety is not dangerous, it's okay, it's just a signal that you don't know the outcome.

Sarah Maxwell 56:20

Wow, that is a I've just never heard it said so succinctly and so accurate. That's that's massive um words of experience. And just to know that you're still feeling those feelings, I hope encourages people to know that that's how you lay the foundations for the awesome life that you're currently living. And and I know you'll never big note yourself, but I think that this is um that really speaks to me personally. So I'm hoping that speaks to other people, but we know the statistics in our society, so I feel like you're really speaking to something um current, and we've gone on a trajectory of safety. Um, we use that word a lot too. It's interesting. Um, and that there is beauty in the in the journey of uncertainty. So thank you so much. This whole conversation is definitely in my wheelhouse, so I've loved it. Um, and I hope and I know people will be inspired because the moment somebody does something, like you basically your life defines that last those words that you gave us by showcasing that we find that within ourselves, you know, that that strength and and that exploration. You use that word, I like that word a lot. It's lovely. Um, so thank you again for um your capacity to show your life experience. And it's been amazing. So thank you.

Dr Vero Richard 57:52

Well, thank you for inviting me. That was a lovely chat, and hope we can have more of those in the future.

Sarah Maxwell 58:00

Right on. Woohoo!

Closing Thoughts And Share Request

Sarah Maxwell 58:05

Thank you for joining us on another episode of In the Game Podcast. We hope we have inspired you with these real lived experiences of incredible women navigating their careers their way. We are all about sharing around here, so if you know someone who would benefit from listening to this podcast or the show in general, do it now and share it a live. Pressing follow on the pod makes a massive difference. Taking two minutes to write up for season seven means that more people will get to hear these stories, which will widen the impact. Join us next time for more captivating stories of female trailblazers who are leaving behind clues for that next generation of women and girls.