Playing Injured
Playing Injured reminds us that life challenges us all—athletes aren’t the only ones who play hurt. Whether it’s setbacks or unexpected curveballs, our response defines who we are and how we grow. This podcast explores the universal journey of resilience and perseverance, inspiring listeners to face adversity head-on.
Ranked in the top 2.5% of podcasts globally, hosts Josh Dillingham and Mason Eddy—entrepreneurs and former collegiate athletes—deliver over 100 episodes featuring diverse voices. They explore mindsets, uncover strategies, and motivate listeners to thrive and play through anything.
Playing Injured
Understanding Stress and Pressure with Brian Hite (EP 125)
This episode focuses on redefining identity beyond societal labels and how habits shape our perceptions and experiences. By understanding stress and fear as malleable constructs, listeners are inspired to embrace their core values and live aligned with who they want to be.
• Embracing identity through values, not labels
• The impact of daily habits on self-perception
• Understanding neuroplasticity and habit formation
• Redefining pressure and stress as perceptions
• The importance of reframing challenges as opportunities
• Utilizing mantras to foster resilience and adaptability
• Exploring fear as a tool for assessment and engagement
• Building confidence through experience and self-awareness
• Motivation rooted in internal values rather than external rewards
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Welcome to another episode of Playing Injured. I'm pumped for today's episode. We have Brian Hyatt, who is a keynote speaker, host, author, performance and leadership consultant and stuntman and stunt coordinator, Brian, how are we doing today?
Speaker 2:I'm doing fantastic. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:I love it, so I always love starting a podcast with you. Know who is Brian and how does he spend his time today. I've obviously put titles on you, but I would love to hear from you, like, who are you and you know, how does life look like for you?
Speaker 2:You know who I am, is it's. It's a tough question and it changes day to day. I really like to try to think of. I got asked that question the other day and I really kind of got thrown, and so I've put some thought into it since then and what I've come up with is you know, I try to define myself in terms of what I want to embody and what I want to bring each day, rather than what I want to do or what my job is or what label it, because the labels have just never fit, like you said. I mean, there are so many an author and stuntman and university faculty member, and you know all the things and, and so it really is a stupid thing to try to get into with people like what do you do for a living? Like I don't, you know, I just try to bring the best of who I am each day, in whichever environment and climate. I happen to be able to interact In this case it's a podcast with you and I'm grateful for the opportunity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. I'm glad you mentioned that. I've jumped back into Atomic Habits and one of the things that stuck out to me this time when reading it is about identity and how our identity is pretty much how we keep up with our habits, and I've been trying to break my life down to some degree in incremental pieces of what helps me feel like I'm having progress on a daily basis, and it's my small habits and being disciplined in it and understanding, hey, who you know, what's the person I want to be tomorrow, today, whatever the case may be, and how can I embody that through my habits on a daily basis? What do your habits look like, kind of on a daily basis? That's interesting that you say that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great book. James Clear does a wonderful job. It's really well structured. It's a terrific book. I've listened to him on some podcasts too. He does a great job of explaining it book. I've listened to him on some podcasts too. He does a great job of explaining it.
Speaker 2:I don't know that I necessarily agree wholeheartedly with the identity thing, because I think that we can pigeonhole ourselves and we can limit ourselves in some way when we do that. For example, if I woke up this morning and said you know what I'm a stuntman? What do I need to be to be a stuntman? Who is a stuntman? What is Brian as a stuntman? What are the habits that stuntman Brian needs to bring? Well, those habits might be very different from what author Brian needs to bring, or keynote speaker Brian needs to bring, or parent Brian needs to bring, and so we all wear so many different hats and we can label ourselves in so many different ways that it almost becomes counterproductive, because which hat are we supposed to wear? Do we blend the hats and if so, what do we call that?
Speaker 2:So that's why I say you know, I try to bring who I want to be. So, for example, today I want to be patient Brian. So what does patient Brian look like? You know well, when he's sitting in traffic he's breathing and he's focused on, maybe, a certain problem or issue that he's having. Or he's having a conversation with somebody about work, I don't know, you know whatever those habits are. Or I want to be healthy, brian, today. All right, what does that look like? Well, stop getting the candy. I'm a Sour Patch Kids like junkie. Stop eating the Sour Patch Kids and grab a piece of celery or something. You know there are different ways to think about that identity piece and I think that by limiting ourselves, by labeling us in that way I don't know, you know, that's how I kind of approach it. I really do try to think of how do I want to be rather than who do I want to be.
Speaker 1:So I've never heard that perspective, because we do have various different versions of who we are right. Like you mentioned, you got stuntman Brian. That Brian is probably a little bit more wild than the author, brian right, or the Brian as a father, and so it's more of the attributes of how do you want to be and that's how you can carry yourself through all the various different versions of who you are on a day-to-day basis. It's basically what it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do want to be patient, and I brought that up intentionally because I struggle with that. That is a thing of how I want to be. I want to be patient, I want to be compassionate, I want to be empathetic, I want to be committed, I want to be engaged. These are ways that I want to be, the way that I want to approach life, and it doesn't matter which activity I'm in or which goal I'm pursuing. If I'm embodying those values and those attributes, then I think that I'm moving myself forward in a productive way. I love that.
Speaker 1:I love it because now it makes me go back and rethink okay, what attributes do I want to bring and how does it all come together? Do you have mantras like a mantra? Right? I feel like folks, especially in the new year right, that's what this makes me think about. Is mantras right? People are like, hey, this is how I want to approach this year. It might be authenticity, right, it might be something of that nature. Do you think those help folks in their day to day?
Speaker 2:You know, I think that they can, if we can, if we can come back to the atomic habits, if we can make them habit and it's interesting to think about thinking as a habit, but it's, but it's. This is an important thing for people to understand is that habits are useful because we engage and we think about them as behaviors. So let's say, you know, going to the gym, exercising, eating healthily, these are behaviors and the more often we engage in them, the easier they become. And the reason for that, on a neurological level, is because of something called neuroplasticity and that is our brain's ability to rewire itself based on the connections it makes most often. It makes the connections that it makes most often more efficient. So, you know, just raising my arm if I raise my arm over and over again, well then, that's just connections among neurons that's allowing that to happen. Well, if I do that enough times, my brain says, all right, well, this guy clearly likes raising his arm. Let's figure out how to make that more efficient and easier for him. And that's what happens.
Speaker 2:We call it muscle memory, but it's not really muscle memory, it's brain memory. It's retraining our brains. It's rewiring our brains literally to make these things easier from a behavioral standpoint. But the thing about it is is that everything is the result of neuronal connections. So how I perceive situations, whether it be optimistically or pessimistically, that's a habit, that's a thinking style, that's something I can control and it's the result of connections in my brain and engaging, embodying, patience. These are all like our attitudes, the way of thinking, our way of perceiving and explaining and understanding the worlds around us, the things that we prioritize and put our attention on. Those are all habits and we don't think of habits in that way, but they are and they're habits for the exact same reason that behavioral habits are Because we're doing them. So often. Our brains are rewiring themselves to make those ways of seeing things and understanding things easier. So when we want to shift those ways of being like we were just talking about, we can do that and we have to approach it in the exact same way as any other habit we're trying to either create or break. We need to have that happen over and over, and at the beginning it's hard. We have to intentionally bring that stuff to mind.
Speaker 2:So those mantras that you're talking about is a great way to remind us of how I want to be. So, for example, you asked if I had one, one that I tried to use last year and I forgot, and so it wasn't really as helpful as it probably could have been, and I've tried to adopt it again this year is ride the Tao. The Tao spelled T-A-O. So from Taoism and without going into a whole, you know, spiritual whatever about Taoism, the Tao is essentially everything. Everything is connected and the Tao just is. It just is and it's continually shifting. It just is all things and how, the whole complete thing.
Speaker 2:And Ride the Dow for me, just reminds me to let go and just flow through life rather than to try to hold on so tightly to things that I think I want, I think I know the right way, I believe that my thing is the way to go. Well, you know what? Sometimes life has a different way. Sometimes the Dow has a different flow to it, has a different way of moving me, and I need to be okay with that. So it doesn't mean just getting battered around by the winds and getting flopped around wherever. It just means, you know, ride the wave, just like a surfer, would you know, you can't control the wave, but you can certainly ride the wave, and that's how I think about the Tao, so ride. The Tao is an attitudinal approach. It's a mantra that reminds me to not hang on so tightly, to just let go a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love man because I've been practicing that, the Taoism. I got really big into that, I would say, maybe about five, six years ago, listening to Wayne Dyer and things of that nature, and that was one that really stuck to me. Because control I want, I feel like I need control of a situation, right, which causes stress, which causes anxiousness, and a lot of times, a lot of the stress and anxiousness was all for nothing, right, the situations ended up being out of my control anyway. The situations ended up being out of my control anyway, um, and the things that I did cling to or wanted to have control over, um, definitely didn't go my way, Right, um.
Speaker 1:And then I started to find, when I kind of just let things flow and I was detached from outcomes, things started to just go better for me, right, I was able to approach situations as my best self, right. And so now that you mention it, right, you talk about just the flow of life, and I know one of the things you mentioned is like flow in fire. Is it flow in the fire? Right, flow flow under fire.
Speaker 2:Yeah, flow under fire. Fire Right.
Speaker 1:How can folks start to let let go and have more flow in life, especially when things are under fire, when it is pressure, when it is stress, um, um. How can?
Speaker 2:folks handle that. Well, it's interesting that you worded it the way that you did. It's one of the reasons why I have the programs that I do. So the way you just said is how can folks let go under pressure, under stress? Well, my answer would be well, let's not experience the stress and pressure in the first place. Let's take a look at that, you know, because one of the things that I enjoy doing is challenging the status quo quo assumptions that people make and that our culture makes and that society makes and that we just assume is just how it is. And one of the things that I hear a lot is, you know, we have to learn how to perform well in pressure situations, or perform well under pressure, and that assumes that pressure is inevitable, that we must experience pressure in certain conditions. And I can just tell you, after three decades of stunts, as I think back on those experiences, I don't think that's true, and I'm not alone in that.
Speaker 2:This is a concept that is at the heart of cognitive psychology, cognitive theory. It's something Shakespeare knew in Hamlet Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. It's something that the Stoic philosophers understood Epictetus, marcus Aurelius, 2,000 years ago when they said, it's not events that determine what we do and how we feel, it's how we perceive those events, it's how we think about those events. That's what determines what we feel and what we do. And so this idea of a pressure situation assumes that there are certain situations out there that will inevitably bring pressure, and I don't think that that's right. I think that there are situations, and in those situations we may experience pressure, but the pressure is not inevitably tied to the situation. It's up to us, it's how we perceive things, and stress is the same way. So stress and this is another point too is that people will often conflate stress and pressure, meaning that they tend to use those words interchangeably, and I don't think they're the same thing. I think that they are different things and I think that they're different in important ways. So when we talk about stress, I think stress is best understood.
Speaker 2:For any I don't know psycho theory geeks like myself, it comes from the transactional model of stress that a guy named Lazarus and Folkman it's not a guy, it's two guys, but Lazarus and Folkman put this theory together transactional model of stress and what it says is that stress is the result of two things. One, how we perceive the situation. If we perceive the situation as a threat, that's setting conditions for stress. And the second part, and this is critical do we believe that we have the necessary resources to handle the situation effectively? If we do believe that we have those resources, then stress is typically lower. If we don't think we have the resources, then stress tends to be high. So when we experience a lot of stress, what's typically going on is number one we're in a threat, we're in a situation we're perceiving as a threat and we don't think we can handle it.
Speaker 2:We don't think we can deal with it. That's where stress comes from. So it's a situational thing. It's in this circumstance, in this place right now, do I feel like I might be harmed and if so, do I have what it takes to deal with it? Pressure, on the other hand, that comes from a focus on consequences, not even the outcomes success or failure, or getting what we want. It's about the consequences of those outcomes. So if I fail, then this really bad thing will happen and my life will turn around in this really bad way that I don't really want. It's that focus on the consequence. And it works the other way too and this is something a lot of people don't talk about either is if it goes right, then my life's going to explode for the good in all these wonderful ways. And if I hit this, if I get it right, if I do it well, man, my ticket's punched, I'm on the fast track to all kinds of goodness.
Speaker 2:Well, that creates pressure too, if that's where our minds are in a performance environment. So the whole key is, if we're in a situation that matters to us, high stakes environments is what I call them high stakes situations, situations where the consequences do matter to us, and this isn't just on a stage or in front of a camera or on a field. This is in life. In life, every day, we encounter circumstances where the consequences matter to us. It might be a conversation with a spouse, or how we deal with our kids, or it could be some meeting that we're supposed to lead at work. These are things that happen all the time and we care about how they come out. So it's a high stakes environment for us and in those high stakes environments, if our attention is on those possible potential consequences that might end up happening, if this outcome occurs, then that's where pressure comes from, and I emphasized all those words to highlight this fact.
Speaker 2:When we're experiencing pressure, number one our attention's in the future and number two it's on stuff that's not real. And those two things go together because the future hasn't. It's not real. There are certain things that are maybe more probable than others in the future, given circumstances being how they are, but nothing's real yet. Nothing's been realized. We're just imagining these things. They're not actual. So we're creating this pressure in our minds by putting our attention on potential consequences that we're imagining. So that's where stress and pressure come from. And and so, again, my argument is that there is no such thing as a high stress or high pressure situation. There are just situations, and that we are better off in those situations, not experiencing stress or pressure. Because you know I mean here. Well, here's why is if I'm not experiencing stress, then that means I'm not experiencing that situation as a potential threat. How might I look at it otherwise? Well, I could look at it as an opportunity, as a chance to move forward as a chance to improve.
Speaker 2:If I'm not experiencing pressure, what it means is my attention is not on these consequences, either good or bad. It's in the moment, it's right now, it's on the task-relevant things, the things that I need to do in order to set conditions for that outcome. I want to manifest and this isn't even a hard argument to make to people Truly everybody listening has been in a situation, whether it be cooking a meal or again leading a meeting or having a conversation with somebody you care about where we've been in the zone, we've been in flow. Whatever you want to call it, I call it my bubble, like you've been in the place where the outside world, anything that's not relevant to what's going on, just disappears. It's not there, you're not attending to it.
Speaker 2:What's real and what's tangible is just in the moment. We've all been in that place where things are just happening, where our movements are just occurring, where everything is just going the way it's supposed to, of its own accord, and in that moment there is no stress, there is no pressure. If you ask anybody to describe what is it like to be in the zone, what is it like to be in flow, what is it like to be fully present in a moment. While you're engaged in any activity, you will not hear the word stressful or pressure. It's just not going to come up for that present moment awareness, that present moment engagement to happen.
Speaker 1:Because if we do, by definition we're going to eliminate stress and pressure and we're going to create conditions where we can be at our best. I love that I was sitting when you talked about. That is all in our mind, right? I thought about this quote. We suffer more in imagination than in reality, and I can't remember who is the philosopher.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:Seneca, one of the stoic philosophers. Yeah, that's Seneca, one of the stoics. That was a quote that stuck with me because we do, right, we a lot of this stuff is in our mind, in our imagination, right and just. I know for me, right, especially when it came to pressure as an athlete, pressure even in doing and doing different podcasts. It's so many things I'm thinking about of. If this goes wrong, I'm going to get laughed at.
Speaker 1:If this goes wrong, you know, whatever the case may be, I'm going to face some type of consequence. Whatever the case may be, I'm going to face some type of consequence. But if this goes right, man, you know, I get all this validation, things that will make me look good, feel better, rather than just being in the moment and saying, hey, I just really love, you know, the game of basketball, I just really love whatever the craft is that you're doing, just being immersed in the craft of it and seeing it as an opportunity to grow and get better. Now you talked about stress and seeing it as a threat, right? Do you ever reframe these threats as like, hey, it's not a big deal, right? Actually, this is not a big deal. This is not a threat. This is not a real threat, right? Do you ever refrain and kind of make these situations less of a threat?
Speaker 2:I mean I do, and I certainly encourage other people to do that too, and that comes from just a really accurate assessment of what's going on. But I don't lean on that as the only way of handling the situation because you know what, sometimes the threat is real and I've been in those situations. I've been in situations where if I do it wrong, I or somebody I'm working with may not go home. I mean I've been in that situation and I've been there regularly and in that situation you can't just tell somebody look the consequence, it's not really that big a deal, it's really truly it's not that bad. You know you can't do that because it's not true, but at the same time a lot of the things. So two things. One is a lot of the times that the quote unquote threats that we face they're only threats because we make them that way, we blow them up in ways, we blow the imagined consequences up in ways that probably they shouldn't be blown up. Like you mentioned, other people might think well, so what?
Speaker 1:What?
Speaker 2:difference does it make? You know, I mean truly what? First of all, I'm probably wrong, because other people aren't thinking about me. They're thinking about themselves. But even if they do happen to be thinking about me, are they really going to think about me as badly as I'm imagining that they will, or for as long as they will, or that those thoughts will have the impact on my life that I think it will? Probably not.
Speaker 2:So there are certainly ways to walk back, some of the ways that some of the threats that we create in our minds and just recognize the probably the more honest answer is just this really isn't as bad as what I'm making it out to be, if it's even going to happen at all. Again, we're just imagining stuff that may happen in the future. But you know, the second piece of that is it is the case for some people some of the time that the consequences are no kidding important and that it really is a situation where you can be harmed, and so if you look at that situation and try to minimize that, it comes off as inauthentic. So you have to approach it a little bit differently, and that's the way that you were just talking about, which is how is this an opportunity, whether I succeed or fail, or whatever this situation is. How is this a chance for me to grow, to improve and when the consequences of failure are really high, you have to. It's even more important, I would say, to lean into that. So how is this a chance for me? So, for example, I was working on this TV show I don't know, it was maybe a month or so ago. It's called the Cleaning Lady. It's a Fox TV show.
Speaker 2:I was assassin number one. You love when they put the numbers after your name. You know you're important then. So I was assassin number one on this thing. And I'm looking for somebody on a sailboat that's up on a trailer and I'm walking around and all of a sudden he attacks me. There's a little fight that we do on top of the boat and he knocks me off and I fall off the boat. It's about 10 feet down to a picnic table. I bounce off the picnic table and go to the ground. There's no mats, there's no pads. You just fall off the boat, bounce off the picnic table, go to the ground.
Speaker 2:I knew that was going to hurt and I knew that there was significant potential for injury if I screwed it up. So if somebody were to come to me and say, brian, the consequences I mean, if you screw this up, it's really not going to be that bad I mean I'd have told them they were crazy and they need to climb up on the boat, go, fall off and bounce off the picnic table. So that would have been inauthentic, it wouldn't have been a way I could handle it, but a way that I did handle it to reduce that perception of threat was, man, what an amazing opportunity I have right now to demonstrate some of the skills that I have, and now that I'm 51 too, another way that I look at it is I don't know how many more of these chances I'm going to get. I don't know how many more shows I'm going to work on, and so each one is precious to me. And I have the opportunity to go do this thing that I love for a friend of mine who's the stunt coordinator and who I've known for two and a half decades, who's a tremendous friend of mine, and in front of the director was Lou Diamond Phillips, who was is also a great guy and somebody who I just love his work. So that's the opportunity for me is I get this chance to do this thing and challenge myself in a way that most people don't get to. And that's something I can lean into.
Speaker 2:And that's an important distinction is, when we look at something as an opportunity, we do lean in, we approach, we go toward, whereas if we look at something as a threat, we hide from, we try to avoid and they're very different natural reactions.
Speaker 2:And if we're looking to succeed in any situation and truly anybody who's ever played sports, particularly a dangerous sport like football, or engaged in some sort of activity like that, knows as soon as you try to protect yourself from getting hurt, you're getting hurt you have to commit fully and that's just a lesson for anything.
Speaker 2:I mean, the more fully we commit. If we really get into and give our full selves, engagement and wholehearted efforts toward whatever we're doing, we are 100% creating a better condition for success than if we were to kind of go into it halfway or try to go into it safely. Is the way we try to explain it to ourselves in our minds. Explain it to ourselves in our minds no, you just go full out, you commit completely. And we're able to do that when we see things as opportunities, but we are not able to do that. When we see things as threats, it's just a natural tendency to want to shy away from, to pull back from those things that might harm us. So, in addition to lowering stress, we're also creating opportunities for us to be at our best in those situations by changing our perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, seeing you know I'm sitting here thinking like do you still get scared, like you've done over 100 different films, right, and doing dangerous stunts like that, do you still feel fear, right? Yeah, because I'm sitting here and I'm thinking about what holds us back from doing these hard things, right. It may for you, it may be a stump for somebody, it may be a presentation in front of you, know their whole organization, and it's some fear there, right? It's some self-doubt there, right? That's what the kind of the threat is, or what may cause somebody to avoid a situation. Is that self-doubt? Do you still feel?
Speaker 2:that. Well, that's part of it, that can be part of it. Here's the thing Fear is an adaptive, helpful emotion to experience, certainly under certain situations. So, for example, if we are in a legitimate threat, threatful situation, you know, in a situation that could harm us, fear is an incredibly valuable emotion because it helps narrow our attention to that thing that we are that we believe might harm us, which allows us to really attend more fully and and hopefully alleviate that threat if we can, or just avoid it altogether. I mean, that's so fear. Fear is a helpful emotion that's adaptive, keeps us alive.
Speaker 2:Where fear becomes maladaptive and counterproductive is when we experience it in situations where the threat isn't this kind of goes along with what we were already talking about where the threat isn't as real or as dire as what we've made it out in our minds, and so the fear is keeping us from engaging when we probably should engage. So, for example, if I'm standing on the edge of a 300-foot roof and you know I'm thinking, man, it would be kind of fun to jump off this thing and fall, you know that would be a really dumb thought. So I get on the edge and then I'm afraid, I'm afraid of falling from this thing. I'm not attached to anything. I'm standing on the edge. I'm afraid. Well, you should be afraid, because that helps you pay attention to those things that might put you at risk and you get off of the edge or at least you take care of what you need to to alleviate that threat. So, do I experience fear? Yes, and I believe that it's helpful up to a point. So, for example, if I'm presented with a particular stunt, if somebody says okay, brian, so here's what we want you to do, I want you to. You're going to stand right here and the car is going to drive at you and we're going to hit you with the car and I want you to land somewhere over in this area, over here, somewhere over in this area, over here. Okay, so that's a situation where I'm going to look at it and I'm getting hit by a car. Again, I know it's going to hurt. So there's some fear there, there's a potential threat.
Speaker 2:So the fear, what it does in that situation is it helps me analyze the circumstances better. Okay, so how do I minimize this threat, what are some steps that I can take to mitigate the risk, and if I can do that at a way that brings the risk down to a level where I believe I can handle it. Again, going back to stress, I perceive it as a threat, but do I have the resources necessary to deal with it? If I've been able to mitigate the risk to a point where I believe my resources are capable of handling the situation effectively, believe my resources are capable of handling the situation effectively, then I can move forward, then I can engage fully, then I can act in a way that will be likely to be successful. So the fear in that situation just helps me evaluate the circumstances.
Speaker 2:And if the evaluation goes the other way, if it's no man, you know what, like the car, the way you're talking about this car going, it's too fast, or the way the car is built is too much, or where you're talking about you want me to land, just because of physics it's not going to happen.
Speaker 2:Where I'm going to land is over there, on that spiky whatever, and I'm going to get impaled so. So no, I'm not going to do this thing, going to do this thing. So the fear allows me to analyze the situation effectively. So fear is a 100% helpful emotion when it allows us to be honest and really assess the circumstances accurately. But again, sometimes that's not the case and we allow fear to take over because our threat assessment is inaccurate, because we've assigned too much risk to the situation and that can hold us back. So what you just mentioned about the meeting chances are, whether you do well or don't do well, you know the consequences if you're experiencing fear in that situation, whatever threat you're you're anticipating or that you perceive, or whatever consequences that you're assigning to doing badly, whatever the threat is, are probably not accurate and we need to reassess that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. And then you mentioned the resources, right, do I have the resources? And I feel like this goes back to self-doubt too, and how do you feel about and this kind of goes back to mantras right, but the resources of, hey, I have done this over a hundred times, right, or I have done over a hundred podcasts, or I have played a hundred games, or I've done a lot of work, right, and I feel like a lot of times we can take ourselves for granted for things that we've overcame in our life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that's an important point because I believe in our life. Yeah well, that's an important point because I believe, I think that, from the reading that I've done around this idea of pressure and even stress, I think that confidence, which is what you're describing the lack of, when you say self-doubt, it's a lack of confidence, and confidence is, if we're going to go with one definition of it, it's the belief that we are capable of doing whatever we're setting out to do successfully. And that could be an individual activity like this one thing that I'm getting ready to do. I believe that I can do it successfully. So, confidence in this one moment, or it can be confidence overall, Just in general, when life presents whatever, I believe that I'm capable of handling these circumstances successfully. One is called self-efficacy. It's a situation-specific type of a confidence. The other is generalized self-efficacy, which is just a broader, collective confidence about ourself.
Speaker 2:And there are four different ways that confidence, or four different things that affect our levels of confidence. And one is what you just said, and it's a wonderful thing to lean on is I've done this before. Yeah, I've been in these circumstances before and maybe, if, even if I haven't been in this particular situation before, I've been in situations like it. So, for example, you know maybe I haven't you know had to stand up in front of 300 people and give a presentation, but I've certainly talked in front of people when you know, had to stand up in front of 300 people and give a presentation, but I've certainly talked in front of people when you know and had everybody's eyes turned to me and I've had to make sense out of information when you know and try to explain it to a lot of people all at once. I've done that and it went fine. So we can generalize from other areas in that situation. So that's an incredibly powerful way to help boost our confidence. The other three ways are vicarious experience, meaning I can watch you be in that situation.
Speaker 2:So for example, if we're presenting at a conference, we can watch the presenters before us and like, look man, if he could do it, I could do it, you know. I mean, there's nothing different between we know the same stuff where we walk around at all the same time. If, like, there it is, I'm watching and you know. Not even just that, but you can watch what the people do. If they're doing it successfully, break it down. What are they doing? That's making it successful, what's happening that you know from their standpoint, that they're controlling, that's allowing that to go well, and then you can emulate it. You know from your own self. The third is persuasion. So people that we trust telling us, hey, you know what, you can do this. And here's why I think so. And it is it's important that we hear it from people that we trust. If we're just, I don't know, standing at the grocery store or something, some, some random person taps us on the shoulders like, hey, store or something, some random person taps us on the shoulders like, hey, you know what, I believe you can do it. All right, thanks, bud, appreciate that. But from the people that we trust, that really does matter when they believe in us and they express that. And then the last thing and this kind of goes back to that fear discussion is when we're in situations that matter to us, they're important to us, the sympathetic nervous system activates, and there are normal, natural and predictable things that happen physiologically. For example, our heart rate will increase, our breathing rate will increase and probably become more shallow, our blood pressure will change, our skin will start to sweat. So these are things that are normal, natural and you can just count on them happening when you're in a situation that matters. But here's the thing is that sometimes, when that stuff happens, we interpret it as nervous, and other times, when it happens, we interpret it as excited. Interesting thing is that if I were to attach physiological measures to you and put you in a situation that matters to you, and all I was looking at were what the physiological measures were, I couldn't tell whether you were excited or afraid or nervous. I just wouldn't know. And so the interpretation of this sympathetic nervous system activity contributes to the levels of confidence. If I interpret it as my body's getting myself ready, you know, it's getting me ready for action. My body's preparing me to engage in whatever's going on. That's very different from my body's reacting like this because I'm afraid, because I'm not ready, because I'm not prepared for what's getting ready to happen Completely different interpretation, which will lead to again that difference between approach in the first case and avoidance in the second case, and the perception of fear in the second case versus the perception of excitement in the first. So those are different ways that we can think about confidence.
Speaker 2:Another guy I just read his book. He's an amazing author For anybody out there who's a reader. I just read his book. He's an amazing author for anybody out there who's a reader. Ian Robinson is his name. He wrote a book called the Stress Test amazingly written book. He wrote a book called how Confidence Works amazingly written book.
Speaker 2:And the way he talks about confidence is can do and can happen.
Speaker 2:Confidence has two parts can do, can happen and you need both. So number one, I need to think that I can do it. And number two, I need to think if I do do it, then the change that I'm expecting will happen. So, for example, if we talk about being more healthy and working out or getting in shape or something like that, can I do it? I don't think so, man.
Speaker 2:I love the Sour Patch Kids too much. There's no way that I can get in shape and that I can do this or, yeah, I can. I can put the Sour Patch Kids down and I can grab the celery and I can exercise. I can do that. But you know what? It ain't going to make any difference because that's not going to make any changes to my overall health. Anyway. I'm 51. Nothing's going to change now. I'm just wired how I am. It's not going to make a difference. So whatever. So the confidence requires both. We have to believe that we can do and we have to believe that what we're doing actually will result in the changes that we're trying to bring about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's confidence in me and confidence in the plan, basically, or the process, right?
Speaker 2:If you don't have, the outcome will be what we wanted to do. Yeah, exactly, if I go back to school and get a degree, then I'm setting myself up for better success and opening up more opportunities in terms of the job market. Can I go back to school and get a degree? I don't think so. Man, reading is hard. I've never been able to write. I can't keep my attention where it needs to be. I just I can't even drive there. I can't, like, I can't do it. That's a lack of confidence. But yeah, I could do it. I could go to school, I could read the degree, I can put it on my wall. But that ain't going to do anything to affect any kind of job output. Nobody cares about degrees anymore, and the things that I'm interested in don't require degrees anyway. So can it happen? You know this whole job opportunity transformation, no, so again, it requires both parts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. What about folks avoidance right, Avoiding doing the hard things what happens? What happens when we avoid doing the uncomfortable things, when we do face these situations, right, yeah, what happens?
Speaker 2:Well, it depends on the person. I mean, that can happen for any number of reasons. One we've talked about, which is fear, another might just be. I mean because now we're starting to get into the realm of motivation, and that may just be. If we are confident that we can do what we're setting out to do, we tend to be more motivated than if we think, no, I don't even think I can do it, so why try? So motivation is tied to confidence in that way. But the other two things that affect levels of confidence are the extent to which we care about the behavior, to which you know, the extent to which it matters to us. It's important to us for some reason. Now, there are a lot of reasons why it might be important to us, and those reasons really do matter, which we can get into later. The source of motivation is important, but as far as levels of motivation, it has to be important to us for some reason. So if we don't care about it, again, we're not going to be motivated to engage in it. But if, for some reason, it's important to us, well then we're more likely to be motivated. And the third is the benefit has to outweigh the cost of engaging in the behavior. So I can believe I can do the behavior and I can even care about it. I can think it's important, but I can also, at the same time, believe that, even if I do it, like the benefit associated with doing this thing just doesn't outweigh the cost. And when I say cost I mean it could be a literal cost of money, like going back to school, but it could be a cost of time or energy or social capital. This thing is going to take me away from my friends. I'm not going to lose relationships or whatever. So, whatever the costs are there are a lot of them but at the bottom line is, if the benefits that we perceive outweigh the costs, then we're going to be more motivated than if the costs outweigh the benefits. And again, this is perceived. So all of this this is the interesting thing All of this comes down to us as people and how we see the situation.
Speaker 2:Nobody can force us to be motivated, nobody can force us to be confident. It is our belief that we are capable of doing what we're setting out to do. It doesn't matter whether you tell me that I'm capable of doing what I'm setting out to do. Even if I trust you. That still doesn't guarantee that when you tell me no, I'm telling you, brian, you can do this, that I'll believe you, and nobody can make us care about things. If I care about it, then I care about it, and if I don't, if I don't see any value in it, then I don't. That's on me. That's my perception of the situation and it's my math equation in my own head around the benefits and costs that's going to determine the outcome there.
Speaker 2:Nobody can force it. People can talk about it, they can tell me, they can give me information, they can try to persuade me, whatever it might be, but they can't make me. So anybody who says you know, how do I motivate my people, how can I get my people motivated and I used to get that question all the time when I was working with the military how do I, how do I motivate you? Can't is the short answer. You can create conditions as a leader that will help foster motivation. There are things you as a leader can do within your environment to create a climate that will likely boost motivation and sustain it over time with your people. But you can't guarantee it. It's all in our own heads. We create it in our own minds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so good, especially the costs and benefits, right? One thing, and I think even myself is struggling, or what I have struggled with, is even the fear of success. Right, I want to do this, I want to become this. The cost of this, though, is maybe less time with friends, maybe less you know less my way, and having these, you know, kind of self-sabotaging behaviors of wanting to stay comfortable in that environment, in that place, of wanting to, you know, remain with friends, keep my life simple, keep my life less stressed, but these are all perceived notions. These are all things that I'm more than likely overthinking, right, as opposed to really stepping into the actual person that I want to be right, and just letting go and flowing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's up to you.
Speaker 2:You know that's the thing it's up to all of us what you know. What is the thing and that was a great example, because you know people typically will use examples around. The thing that popped into my mind as you were talking about that was injury. Yeah, when you talk about injury recovery, can I go to rehab and do this? Sure, do I care about being healthy and being not, you know, in pain? Again, yeah, I do care about that.
Speaker 2:Does the cost of going into therapy and having these people rip my body around in weird ways that are incredibly painful, for hours on end, every single day for months, does the cost of that outweigh the benefit of my just sitting here on my bed, just laying here watching TV, in maybe a little bit of pain and maybe even, you know, a little bit more pain, but not the pain that I would be in if I went to therapy? Well, you know, maybe, like that cost may outweigh the benefit in that situation, because that's just how we see it. And but you went the success route, which I think is great, because that's also a thing like in good situations, like in what people would typically look at as good stuff, we would typically label success as good. Even there, can you do it? Yeah, I can achieve success. Do I care about it? Yeah, I want it, I see it, I see the value of it. There's a lot of goodness there. Does the cost outweigh the benefit? Well, I don't know. I think it might. I think it might.
Speaker 2:I think it might, and so the motivation might be lower.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. And you know, obviously, over time, right, you know, you learn to kind of grow your self-image right, things you want for yourself, how you see yourself, how you perceive yourself. And, like you said, no matter how many people tell you, hey, you got it, go for it, you're a leader, matter how many people tell you, hey, you got it, Go for it, you're a leader, you have everything. It takes, it's up to you. Like you said, it is up to you and we can end on this. What can folks start to do? Right, folks who want it, folks who do care, but it seems like, hey, maybe I don't want it that bad, or maybe the cost of it is not there, um, or maybe it's doubt. It's a lot of different reason, that reasons that hold folks back. What do you think people can start to do to kind of raise their self-image, the small things on a daily basis, to start to, um, gain more confidence in themselves? That isn't, um, you know, unnatural, it's actually earned.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not fluff that we're trying to. You know, like the rainbows and unicorns, we're trying to talk ourselves into that we are. Yeah, no, that doesn't work. And so this is where that whole I loved your play of. You know, I've done this before, I've gone this route and most of us have that Again.
Speaker 2:We may have failed 10 out of 10 times at whatever this thing is. We may not have any success to draw from in this one area, but when we analyze the reasons for that failure well, I screwed up with this. Well, is there another situation where you had to encounter or you did encounter and you overcame a situation similar to that? Lean on that. Lean on that experience. These are things that can boost the confidence. Watch other people Break down their success. Is there something that they're doing that you're not? Maybe you just don't have the skills yet? Watch and learn the skills and then you get better so that the next time you try, then you're better off.
Speaker 2:Really, analyze what people who are good at it are doing and when I say good at it, I don't mean people who are good at it are doing, and and when I say good at it, I don't mean like if I were to go watch, um, uh, I don't know. Uh, you know, patrick, my homes play quarterback and and I'm saying you know what, I think I want to go play quarterback too. Like you know, let me go watch Patrick Mahomes. That may not be the right model for me, because I'm 51 and I've never played quarterback. So so, trying to emulate somebody at the top of their game, maybe that's not the right answer. But finding another person who's around my age, like maybe I go out to the, to the pickup league, wherever it is, and I watched somebody who's really excelling, who's doing really well, and I watch what they're doing and I ask them how they train and I pay attention to the ways that they prepare. Those are probably things that I can emulate, because they've got a real job too during the day. Their time isn't completely spent at the gym and on the field the way pro athletes are. So what are some things I can take away from people who are fairly similar to me? That's a great way of doing it. Me, that's a great way of doing it. And then you know, to be honest with you, I just taken us right back to the very beginning of this is because I mentioned sources of motivation and that there are a lot of them.
Speaker 2:Sometimes we try to draw on the wrong sources of motivation, ones that are just too volatile and that change and just don't hold up over time, meaning a lot of us will revert to, especially if we start talking about habits and building habits to rewards and punishments. Are rewards and punishments sources of motivation? Absolutely. If you say, brian, if you go 10 days in a row without eating any Sour Patch Kids, I'm going to give you $1,000. Well, I very much want the $1,000. So that's some good motivation to stay away from the Sour Patch Kids. But as soon as you say I'm done giving you $1,000, I'm saying, all right, well, I'm done getting rid of the Sour Patch Kids.
Speaker 2:And so the source of motivation, when it's a reward, it only works when the reward is around, and the reward can't always be around. That's a very hard thing for people to put into place. So the sources of motivation that work over time, especially when we're talking about the kind of stuff you're talking about, are those sources of motivation that come from within, not without. It's not the threat of something bad happening if we don't do this thing. It's not the threat of something good happening. If we do do this thing, it's not the avoidance of shame and guilt or negative judgment from others that's going to keep us going over time in these activities.
Speaker 2:It's stuff that comes from within us. What are our values? What do we care about? What are we living for? What defines us at our core? Those things that really, when you ask the question, what you asked at the very beginning, who is Brian Haidt? Well, let me answer that in terms of the values that I want to embody, because if I have those values and I'm trying to live those out and I connect those values to the behaviors that we're talking about being motivated to do in this behavior, well, because of this value that I hold, because it's connected in a way that's inseparable, that's where sustained motivation comes from. That's the type of motivation that will get us through those rough days, those challenging days that we all have, that we all have. That's the stuff that'll pull us out of those moments and keep us moving in the productive directions that we know we need to go in.
Speaker 1:I love that being connected to your values and connect those values to the behaviors. And when I'm thinking about my values right, I'm thinking about how it has nothing to do with any outside opinions, any outside events. It's all me being present and connecting to who I truly am and just letting go of the rest. So I love it. Brian, where can folks find you? Where can folks continue to kind of follow your journey? And you know, see the great work that you're doing, you know see the great work that you're doing.
Speaker 2:I'd say, start at the website brianheitglobalcom B-R-I-A-N-H-I-T-E global, g-l-o-b-a-lcom, and you'll find information about me, about some of the programs that I offer. You can reach out to me through there to schedule a discovery call. If you have questions, if any of the things that we've talked about today resonate with you and you want to bring me in to talk about them, either in a speaker capacity or they're workshops, or you want to whatever just get a hold of me through there. You can email me at brian at brianheightglobalcom. I will absolutely get back to you.
Speaker 2:These are tough things. You know the things that we've been talking about, the lack of confidence, the lowered motivation, the pressure, the stress, just a sense of general overwhelm in situations where we really feel like we can and should be doing better. Those are rough places to be and I've been there and it sounds like you have too and it's much easier to work our way through those when we have somebody to hold our hand and take us through and give us some guidance throughout, and I'd love to be that person for you. So, again, if anything I've said resonates with you and you want to learn more or just talk to somebody about it. Please reach out. I'd love to have the conversation.
Speaker 1:I love it. Yeah, I mean, you've added so much value and, man, I mean I didn't even get a chance to go to your story and really understand how you even got to where we went a full hour of just adding a ton of value, which I really appreciate. Right, it was just a flow of value and we just let go. And so, brian, I definitely appreciate you just just having your heart open and just flowing. I appreciate you Just having your heart open and just flowing. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2:No, I appreciate you, and if you ever want to get back into it and have the conversation about all the stuff you were talking about we didn't get to have the conversation about, I'd love to come back. This has been a pleasure. I've truly enjoyed it and thank you so much for having me on. Appreciate it.
