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
Mental Strength: The Key to Peak Performance
Gary Kupik, an international speaker and mental performance coach, reveals how we can unlock peak performance by strengthening our minds just as athletes train their bodies. He shares a powerful framework for building an ironclad mindset that creates consistent results regardless of motivation or circumstances.
• Mental performance suffers when we overthink – "thoughts are like calories; too many weigh you down."
• Self-trust develops through exposure therapy – putting yourself in challenging situations repeatedly
• Optimism differs from positivity by requiring evidence and reasons to believe in yourself
• The mindset equation: Experience → Thoughts/Feelings → Response → Belief → Mindset → Behaviors
• Creating winning daily rhythms puts you in position to succeed regardless of motivation
• Reframing nervousness as excitement changes your hormonal response from cortisol to adrenaline
• Winning the day early (by 8AM) through consistent mental performance rituals builds momentum
• Mental health often stops at crisis and coping but mental performance focuses on thriving
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All right, welcome to another episode of Playing Injured. We have Mr Gary Kupik, who is an international speaker, writer, professional member of the Association of Applied Sports Psychology, and he's a certified professional leadership coach through the ICF and ordained minister of 28 years, which is amazing. So, gary, you work with professional sports teams, some of the biggest companies in the world. We appreciate you coming on the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited about this.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love it. So I love starting the show with who is Gary and how does he spend his time today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, my name is Gary Chupik, from Seattle Washington, and I'm a mental performance coach. I unlock performance in high-performing athletes and teams and, believe it or not, I'm more and more with businesses than I ever thought that I ever would. And what does my life look like today? It's just traveling around North America teaching mental performance and leadership to businesses FBI, thrivant, keller Williams, google just yeah, I had the privilege of speaking on some incredible stages and I'm just grateful for the opportunity to spend some time with you. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1:So I really want to get right into it, because I've got a chance to listen to other podcasts that you've been on. Look at some of the content on your Instagram, and one of the things that really stuck out to me that I think has resonated in my life recently was how you said that things that hold the athletes that you work with back people that you work with in business back, is that they think too much. Right, they think too much and me right. I think I'm a really smart guy. I've read a lot of books. I've been able to speak with a lot of amazing people.
Speaker 1:One problem that I have, or challenge, is that I tend to overthink and think too much, and I remember in sport, right when I played basketball growing up, we used to hear don't think, just do, just act right. So I would love to hear from you what causes people to think too much and what can folks start to do to kind of shut those thoughts down, or is it even? Is that even what we could do? I would love to hear kind of the remedy of thinking too much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really interesting. I played high school football in Canada. I know that doesn't count in America too much, but I played a little bit of high school football. And I'll never forget my head coach, who ended up coaching professionally. But I remember one day he grabbed me by the helmet and he said Chupik, what are you doing? And I said well, I thought. And he said I never asked you to think. Not one time did I ask you to think. I just wanted you to do this. And it was like that was like my baptism into the combination or synchronization of thoughts and actions. So I've never forgotten that little fun, little experience with him.
Speaker 2:But it's really true, I think when we think too much, it just sort of slows us down. We get kind of stuck in paralysis about you know, you know, and then, in fact, even in this day and age, with all the analytics that are out there, we just take in so much information where it becomes detrimental to us. And so to find ways to learn the essential things and just focus on what we need to focus on, I think that that like figuring out that ratio is so important, because we really do need to play instinctually, no matter what sport we're playing, so if we're not, if we're thinking too much, we're just not playing instinct're not? If we're thinking too much, we're just not playing instinct instinctually. And if we're thinking too much, it causes us to hesitate and, as you well know, hesitation in sports is the difference between winning and losing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, see, when I'm thinking about this, I always feel like this is a great analogy. Or I feel like people can visualize this you go into a networking event, right, and you're by yourself. Or you go to a party, or you go to anything by yourself, and you know that you need to engage with people. I feel like that's when your mind is the loudest right, which is why most folks go to the bar to go grab a drink really quick, right. Or they try to find something, or maybe a group of people. It's a lot of analyzing and a lot really quick, right. Or they try to find something, or maybe a group of people. It's a lot of analyzing and a lot of thinking, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in fact, I was just studying this recently. So every Monday morning I do a Monday morning mindset and people can sign up on my website, elitemindsetnationcom, so they can get a free Monday morning mindset from me. So I was just working on one this morning for the month of August and I was studying Steve Jobs and what he called the signal to noise ratio. In other words, the signal is the most powerful thing that we need to receive, but there's distortion, there's noise all around us, and so what he was really challenging us to do is to operate our businesses just focusing on the signal and not the noise. So, in other words, if we can get to that 80, 20 percentage or ratio which is the Pareto principle right, like 20% of the people do 80 or 80% of the 20% of the people do 80% of the work Then if we can just sort of figure out, okay, what's the 20% of the most important things that I do on a daily basis will give me 80% of the work, then if we can just sort of figure out, okay, what's the 20% of the most important things that I do on a daily basis will give me 80% of the results I'm looking for.
Speaker 2:So it's like taking those 10 things that we think we need to do and just doing the two that we know that are essential to the success of our business. So, yeah, it's, it's. You know, filtering out all the distractions and the too many thoughts is really interesting, and, in fact, what Steve Jobs says is that we shouldn't focus on what to say yes to. It's actually what to say no to, and so if we can just sort of learn how to say no often enough, then it'll allow us to focus on the no's.
Speaker 1:Focus on the no's yeah, so you're saying is can we organize our? Can we focus on the things that really matter in the moment, Not all the external, maybe thoughts that might come your way?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the other thing too is, I think the way I like to describe thoughts are like calories, and so if you have too many thoughts, it's like having too many calories. If you have too many calories, it just kind of weighs you down and you feel lethargic. And if you have too many thoughts, it's like having too many calories. If you have too many calories, it just kind of weighs you down and you feel lethargic. And if you have too many thoughts, well, it's kind of the same way, right, you get you kind of slow down, you hesitate and you get lethargic and all of a sudden your thoughts aren't helping you, they're hurting you. Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:So when I'm thinking, and even with myself, what I've practiced is that I don't have to listen to every thought, right, I don't have to. I think about a thought as, like me getting a text message that I don't have to respond to, right, I can just, I can just let that. I don't have to respond to a message, right, I can just let it go. And so when it comes to thinking and overthinking that's a challenge that I've seen also too Right, I think with that comes self-trust, right, I feel like we probably think a lot in moments where we don't believe that we maybe add up or are worthy for the moment. Right, because when we do feel very worthy and we feel we have that self-trust, we're not really thinking at all, we're just, we're just doing. How can folks start to build that self-trust, that self-belief? Um, how does that happen?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean self-trust is really interesting. So I've done a lot of public speaking in my life. I've probably been on stage I'm not exaggerating uhating over a thousand times, it's probably a couple thousand, but just to be safe let's say a thousand times. And it was only the last couple hundred where I learned to trust myself, consumed with saying the right things rather than just letting us be our authentic selves and sort of speak authentically and and inspirationally. And so I had to really figure out how to trust myself, and I don't know if there's like you know, I don't know if there's a secret formula other than what I call exposure therapy. In fact, I think all fears have come, have to come back down to exposure therapy. In other words, you have to like be exposed to the thing that you're afraid of. So if it's public speaking or taking a big shot at the end of a game or wanting the ball in your hands, like you, you just got to do it. There's no other way. So if you are afraid of snakes, guess what you got to do eventually. Right, like you can't handle rubber snakes forever, like you have to grab a snake, and I think in the same way, sort of getting comfortable with yourself and learning to trust yourself. That takes a lot of courage and for some people like me, it took quite a while to feel that calm.
Speaker 2:But there was a book that made such a big difference in my life. So one day I was watching a Seahawks game and there was a defensive end for the Seahawks who was really struggling with his self-trust and his performance and he would really beat himself up after performance. And so one day Pete Carroll went up to him in the middle of the season in a bye week and he said to him here's a book I want you to read. Again, this is a defensive end in the NFL. And Pete Carroll says well, here, why don't you read this book? It was the inner game of tennis by Tim Galloway. So you have an NFL football player reading about the inner game of tennis and and I thought, you know what, if it's good enough for this defensive end, it's good enough for me.
Speaker 2:So I picked up the book and started reading it and I was just so blown away by the truth and wisdom that I read in that book. I was like, wait a minute. When I'm tense, my heart races, my blood vessels close and I just don't play as limber or play as well. And so I thought, well, what if I went up on stage and I was just like super easygoing and super relaxed, even to the point of just like almost? You know, people just say, oh, you look so, so relaxed, you look so natural. I mean like like hardly, like I'm so nervous about being on stage, Like I can't believe how nervous I am. But when I, when I just learned to trust myself and be relaxed and, you know, work on my inner game, and then it really produced results on the exterior.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean that's that's the key right there is that you have to. You have to do it. You have to create evidence that, oh, I am okay. Actually, it wasn't that bad Right. Yeah, yeah, Go ahead. It sounded like you had a thought.
Speaker 2:Well. Well, this is such a an important subject, like in sports or in life. Confidence is so important because I think, if you're going to be successful at anything, you have to have a certain level of confidence, because if you don't, it's really hard to succeed. And so, as you mentioned earlier or intimated, you sort of have to give yourself a reason to believe in yourself, or reasons to be optimistic. And so I call it sort of like you know, the the difference between positivity and optimism.
Speaker 2:I'm not a big fan of positivity because I think positivity is more of a feeling, but optimism is more of an outlook on life, and and you constantly give yourself reasons to be optimistic. So, to be positive, you don't have to give yourself a reason to be positive. You can just like put a smile on your face and think you're good at something. You might not be, but you can say to yourself that you are and hope that it improves your performance. However, with optimism, optimism always requires a reason for you to be optimistic. And so if you just worked on the reasons, giving yourself proof, as you said, then all of a sudden you can lay your head on your pillow at night and say, well, wait a minute, like I did this. I did this, I did this. Perhaps I have a reason to feel optimistic that I can win this game or do whatever it is I want to achieve, so. So optimism is built through reasons to give yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one hundred percent and optimism, right. It also, you know, I feel like it creates those positive emotions organically Right. And I love how you mentioned, with positivity you mentioned that you don't necessarily need anything. It can be false, it can kind of be a false positive Right as opposed to optimistic. I may be feeling down right now, like I genuinely feel down, but the outlook, I know, is going to work out in a good way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you've given yourself reasons to be optimistic, even no matter how you feel. It doesn good at this or I've accomplished amazing things already and if I've utilized my skills and talents and abilities in this particular area, most likely I can transfer it to another area, and so you become a confident person by being optimistic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Wow. And then also too I think it's a quote that I heard is you can't think your way into better acting, you have to act your way into better thinking right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everything happens twice right. It happens in your mind first and then it happens in real life. So your thoughts really determine a lot of your actions and behaviors. So it's worth spending time developing and strengthening your thoughts, yeah strengthening those thoughts.
Speaker 1:And then also, too, what you also mentioned was that nervous system, the feeling too, not even just the thoughts, because the thoughts, you know, you start to strengthen your thoughts, it's also these emotions that you feel, right, you know, you get on the stage and I've been on stage before and I'm like, oh, I'm thinking, like I feel good, my mind is great, my thoughts are great, I feel good, but, man, my chest is tight and man, I'm sweating and I can't stop sweating. I'm still looking for the remedy of how can I stop sweating in those kind of high pressurized moments. Have you came up with a solution to, like you said, the relaxation, the let me breathe, let me relax when these high pressure moments come, or those moments where, you know, I'm kind of exposing myself to, to that fear?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really interesting. I was reading about Ken Griffey Jr this morning and he said the more fun you have, the less pressure you feel. Isn't that interesting? Yes, the more fun you feel like you're having, the less pressure that you feel, and so he always had a smile on his face. He had this million dollar smile right and the sweetest swing in baseball for years. So, yeah, when you're thinking about pressure, I often tell my clients tell yourself that you're excited, that you're not nervous, and if you can just tell yourself you're excited, you'll actually change the release of hormones in your body from cortisol to adrenaline, and adrenaline, we know, is a much more helpful hormone than it is cortisol.
Speaker 1:Yeah, have fun. That is a command that I've even told myself have fun.
Speaker 2:It's hard to be like, it's hard to be really anxious and really nervous when you're just having fun and so, and so our response and how we interpret exterior stressors has everything to do with our thoughts. So in one sense I say you know, if your thoughts can make you sick which they totally can like I mean, if you have a lot of negative thoughts or anxious thoughts, you can literally feel like you're having a stomach, getting a stomachache or getting a headache, but in the same way your thoughts can make you well. And so if you just focus on, uh, not just positive but optimistic thoughts and positive thoughts and being, you know, maybe practicing gratitude or mindfulness, you can really change your physiology literally, and I think that's really important. So I'd like to say that we're all chemists, right, like, we're all like, we're all like, if we smile at one another, it changes each other's chemistry in our own bodies. So, yeah, we're all sort of chemists in one way, shape or form.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a few things you mentioned. First of all, have fun. I think that's one of the best things you can do when you are in moments where you're feeling not that great, you don't feel like doing it, you're feeling some type of fear. Have fun, and if I mess up, if that kind of that fear happens, it's like, oh, actually I'm still okay, right, but have fun. And I mean you don't know how special that advice is and it really comes from like childhood, when we just had fun doing anything. I mean, when we messed up, it was okay. We, we cut ourselves, it was okay, we were having fun um, but also you'll appreciate this.
Speaker 2:Um, charles barkley said pressure is what you put into tires. Like that's what tires experience, right, you could just hear king charles saying that. Right, like it was. Like what pressure, what that's goes, you know, which is so funny. And so he was. He was, he had a great way of interpreting an exterior stressor.
Speaker 2:So our response to external stimuli actually determines our belief system about ourselves and our mindset. So I like to explain it this way it took me about six or seven years to figure this out. Josh, literally, I'm not kidding. I've been thinking about this for about six or seven years to figure this out. Josh, literally, I'm not kidding. I've been thinking about this for like six or seven years, but I came up with an equation that is magical. It literally can teach someone how to change their mindset about a particular thing. So here it is. I'll give it to you for free. Here we go.
Speaker 2:So you have an experience which can happen when you're really young, or it can happen in your adolescence, or even happen now. So you have an experience that you have thoughts and feelings about. So you have thoughts and feelings associated with the experience. Sometimes you can control your thoughts or feelings. Oftentimes you can't so having the thoughts and feelings they're. They're neutral, they're not necessarily positive or negative, they're just what your thoughts and feelings are. However, the next step is really the crucial one, and that is your response to an experience and thoughts and feelings. So how your mind is interpreting the experience and your own thoughts and feelings is, I mean, it's crucial. So if you can change or alter your response, then it'll change. And this is the fourth step It'll change your behavior, pardon me, your belief about yourself.
Speaker 2:So, you have an experience, that you have thoughts and feelings about that. You have a response to that all lead, when you put it all together, to a belief about yourself. That's how beliefs are built. So now I have a belief about myself, and if you put all of that together the experience, the thought and the feelings, your response, your belief, and now you get a mindset. Yeah, and so you can literally learn to build a mindset.
Speaker 2:But Andy McKay from the Seattle Mariners he taught me this he goes, gary, you just can't stop with your mindset, though. It's got to result in new and improved behaviors and I just thought that was such an amazing addition to my equation, because what he's saying is okay. So you have a good mindset. Who cares, you know? So it's good. But it's got to result in new and improved behaviors, which, if you think about it, cycles back around to a new experience. So a behavior is like an experience. And so now, if you give yourself a new and improved behavior, now you're giving yourself a new and improved experience, that you have new and improved thoughts and feelings about that, you have a new and improved response to that. You have a new and improved belief about yourself, which literally leads to a new and improved mindset, and then it just keeps cycling over and over and over again. So that is how you actually build an ironclad mindset.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. So can we break that down in the example of you going on stage, right, and so the experience is going on stage at first and we can talk about hey, this is what it was your first 10 speeches, right, you go on stage. The thought and emotion was probably some, it's probably some fear some nervousness there.
Speaker 2:Am I going to mess up? Am I going to screw up? Am I going to stutter? What am I going to say? Am I going to miss something? My feelings are a complete dread nervousness. The spotlight is on me, everybody's going to be listening to every word I say. So I have definitely have thoughts and feelings about me being on stage. Well, now I have. I get to choose my response to all that. So if I say no, no, no, wait a minute, I have fun up here, Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2:Like I, my response to all that anxiety and my thoughts and feelings and being on stages I can't wait to get up. I can't wait to get there, I can't wait to share my heart or my thoughts. So I'm telling myself to respond differently to the experience and the thoughts and feelings. So now I'm excited about being up there. My belief that I'm creating about myself, as you could well guess, is hey, wait a minute, I can do this right, I can do this. I've talked in front of people before maybe not a lot of people, but you know I can do this Right. And so your belief is I can do this. I can do anything that I put my mind to. And then, uh, and then the.
Speaker 2:The belief about myself is like, I'm confident in myself. And now my mindset is you know what, just about anything that I put my mind to, I can do. And so now, if I have a new and improved behavior associated with that, maybe that is that. You know, I maybe own the stage a little bit. I might walk around on the stage, I might share a funny story, I might share something that's maybe transparent or vulnerable, and so I get done with that experience. And now I've created a new and improved experience, which was hey, wait a minute, when I'm vulnerable in the stage, people really respond positively. Now I have thoughts and feelings about that, I have a response to that, I have created a belief about that and I've created a new mindset. So, yeah, it works. It works with so many things. Just thinking that through.
Speaker 1:I think and I think the first thing is is first noticing and actually observing the thoughts and the emotions that you feel with certain experiences right?
Speaker 2:Oh, very much so. Like, if you can and this is what I really love to do with my clients I'll say, like you know, because oftentimes they're negative experiences, and time goes by, we grow, and so I tell people listen, what if you could be the invisible person, right, and you go back to that negative experience? What would your present self say to your former self in that situation? And like, what would you? What would you whisper in your own ear? You might whisper hey man, you're going to be on like hundreds and thousands of stages in the future. Just relax, go have a good time. You know this is, you're just cutting your teeth. Go like, go be vulnerable, like, just so you might actually coach yourself into an improved response and an improved belief about yourself and improve mindset. Yeah, 100.
Speaker 1:I love, first of all, that for you to break it down is because and we all have these experiences, and a lot of times the challenging ones are the negative experiences, right, and those feelings and emotions that we have. You know, you know I talk about nervousness, things that might make us angry, things that might make us emotional, right, and you talked about gratitude and mindfulness, about gratitude and mindfulness, and I feel like those are some practices that can help with that response to those emotions and thoughts that we feel. Especially gratitude anytime I practice gratitude, I automatically start to feel really good because I'm focused on the good, my attention is going towards good things in my life currently, today, right, and it makes me feel good. And then the mindfulness piece right, the ability to kind of observe those thoughts and let them flow, right for you, how do you practice gratitude, mindfulness and and how does that help you with the response to those, maybe, thoughts and emotions that you might feel with a certain experience that you have?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it was Dr Andrew Huberman that talked about how many people who are sort of stuck in depression have such a strong sense of their self-consciousness, like they're analyzing everything, they say, everything, they think. They're just like they're stuck in analyzation and, and so when you get sort of you feel trapped right, like you, you're almost like stuck in a prison of your own thoughts. And so I do something called thinking on the outside, like keep your thoughts on the outside of yourself so that you don't get consumed with every word and every movement yourself or somebody else is making. So I think it's a skill to sort of keep your thoughts outside of yourself, so stay focused on external things, not necessarily on internal things. Be aware of them. Like your feelings are like sheep, like they're going to wander Right, and then our job is to build a fence around the sheep, the herd, and make sure that they're slightly contained, at least a little bit, and, and I think, to notice your thoughts when they start wandering. Sometimes you just got to bring them back inside the fence gently and acknowledge them, but you certainly don't want to dwell on them.
Speaker 2:So I think a great analogy for me when it comes to thoughts is is driving in a car, so you want to make sure that you're driving forward and looking through the windshield because it's future oriented. So you know you're sitting in your car and you want to be looking forward. Now, if you're constantly looking backwards, you're going to crash your car because you want to be looking forward. Now, if you're constantly looking backwards, you're going to crash your car because you're looking in the rear view mirror and so you tend to. You know, steer to the right or steer to the left, and the side view mirrors are there for you to glance at. They're there for you to notice things and what's at your side in the present moment. But I think looking through the windshield is one of the most healthiest things that we continue to get over some of the discouragement or setbacks or depression that we might be experiencing. So sort of that forward thinking and growth mindset can be really valuable, especially when we're struggling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. So even before, so, before we hit records, you talked about mental health. Versus that mental performance and what you just mentioned, now it feels more of that mental health piece, right, that, hey, how can we start to look at the big picture right, the windshield right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's really interesting when it comes to mental health. I remember walking in the inner sanctum of a professional sports football team and I was walking with the coach through the facilities and we passed the training room and guys are getting bandaged up and getting iced up and they're getting cared for. And we go from the training room to the gym and guys are pumping iron. You can just hear that sort of the clank and clink of weights and guys are grunting and throwing down weights and that kind of thing. And I looked at the coach and I said, coach, this is what I do.
Speaker 2:So there are people that specialize in some of the mental health issues and I have some experience with that. But I'm really here really to make people's minds stronger and I think mental health stops too often at solving the problems of crisis and coping, but it doesn't go far enough. It doesn't give people enough tools to be able to thrive and transcend their present experience. And I don't know about you, but it's hard to win games, playing defense all the time, and I think a lot of mental health is about playing that defense. And you know, practicing gratitude, which is great, practicing mindfulness, which is awesome, but it just doesn't go far enough, and so I want to challenge people to act, to get much more resilient and strengthen their mind, because it's one of the three things that you can train you can train your craft, you can train your body and you can train your mind and we just don't spend enough time training our mind well, walk us through that with it, because I think a lot of people go to the gym.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, people go to the gym. Right, we are training our body, but our mind I think we don't spend as much time with when, like you said, hey, that's what can make you sick or help you thrive, right? So what does that look like to strengthen your mind, to perform better and actually thrive, as opposed to, you know, make sure you're at baseline right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's such a good question because when you think about a pro athlete let's take football, for example and let's say a pro athlete gets up at 6, 30 AM, he, you know, he gets to the facility by nine and then they have a walk through and then they have a full team practice and then they have lunch, and then they have positional meetings and then they have a full practice again and then they go home and it's what do they do the next day? It's the same thing. They just rinse and repeat. And I think that rhythm and consistency is just crucial to success. If you want to be good at anything, you got to put in the reps. Just crucial to success. If you want to be good at anything, you got to put in the reps.
Speaker 2:So these guys are literally building in a rhythm of performance into their life that allows them to perform at the highest levels in their craft. So, in the same way, what if we just transferred those same principles to our mental performance? And so if we woke up today, well, think of like a computer, that is, let's say, you get to install programs onto your hard drive. Well, what programs are you installing into your hard drive? Or onto your hard drive every single morning. It's the same thing. And what if you could? What if you noticed that there were certain programs that you could upload or install into your mind or boot up into your mind every single day? That puts you in the best position to succeed that day. And so you might find that there are a consistent five, six or seven things that allow you to perform at your very best on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:Well, what would happen if you just repeated those things and you created a rhythm of high performance in your life by doing these five or seven things Like, for example, you know, getting seven hours of sleep or more? So that would be. That would put you in the best position to succeed every day, as opposed to getting four or five hours. So what if?
Speaker 2:What if going to sleep on time was one of the most important performance enhancing things that you can possibly do? Well, you would make that a priority, because it affects your emotional regulation, it affects your decision-making, it affects your confidence, it affects what you eat, it affects your relationships and how you talk, it affects your self-talk. So I mean, there's so many valuable things. So what if you could stack your deck with aces every single day and create those rhythms, like a football player going to the facility and doing his daily rhythms so that he can be the best that he can be. Or what if we just did that with our mind? So what if we had a mental protocol that puts us in the best position to succeed? And that's what I want to communicate to people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you even talked about earlier you talked about the example of building like a fence around that force field around your mental picture, right, to keep you thinking in that kind of that optimistic format, right. So that protocol, right, here's what I'm thinking about in my mind. I'm thinking about listening to positive things or things that helped me grow, right Podcasts, audio books, things of that nature, right, thinking about reading books. I can tell that you read a lot, right. I'm thinking about the people I spend time around. The information basically that I'm getting is so easy to scroll and have that mindless content of that negative banter and things. That information is put into my mind that wasn't even there and now my mind is spiraling with all these negative thoughts, right, and so is that pretty much what you're talking about when you talk about that protocol is feeding your mind good information?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, I think that's valuable, but I think there's something better, which is coming up with a rhythm, like, for example, when I go to the gym, you know, in the morning, I get up at 345 am every morning and I go to the gym early and start my day early and I have my, I have a rhythm. So I'll have, I'll practice, you know, you know, prayer or meditation in the morning. I'll read something really uplifting in the morning even before I go to the gym, and so I'm I'm actually like giving my myself things to chew on or things to think about, and then, uh, and then by set, by 5.00 AM, I'm at the gym. And then I have a few other protocols that I do at the gym. For example, I'll quote my personal philosophy at the gym and I'll make three declarations every day at the gym before I get on the elliptical. And so I, when I come home, I'll spend some what I call blue sky time, and that's just a time for me to dream, and I'm a visionary. So I need, I need time to, I need time set aside to vision cast for my own life, and so I'll, I'll dream for 15 minutes and then the next 15 minutes, I'll try to put into practice the thing I just dreamt about. So what action step can I take to put my dreams into practice? So, right there, by by 7am or 8am, I've actually completed five of my seven things. And you might be asking why five or seven? Well, because I want to win every day.
Speaker 2:And so let's say I have five things on my list that I want to do every day to put me in the best position to succeed. Well, if I only do two of them but I don't do the other three, I get an L for that day. But if I do three or more than I won that day and I and on the calendar that day gets a W. And what I want to do is create winning streaks where every day I'm winning.
Speaker 2:And, by the way, these are all things I can control. They don't anything on the exterior is not necessary. I get to control whether I have a quiet time or not. So it's fully within my control to accomplish that task. So I just think if I'm in a stack, if I want a good day, I can stack my day with aces to put me in the best position to succeed. I can't control an outcome but, man, I can put myself in the best position, and in sports, whether it's basketball or football, you just have to be in position. And I think in the same way, if we can take care of ourselves, then we can put ourself in the best position to succeed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it sounds like it's customizable to everybody. Exactly, you have to find your own rhythm that puts you in the best position to have the best day possible, the day we perform at your best, exactly.
Speaker 2:I call it win the day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you win that before in the morning.
Speaker 2:Before 8am I'm pretty much done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you win that before you get all these core habits done before 8. And you feel good and you literally win the day before 8, which makes you feel great it does.
Speaker 2:It does, and what's interesting about that is I don't actually have to feel motivated to do them. If I just mechanically do those things, whether I feel like it or not, I actually have a far better day, like I'm okay. I don't need to be motivated to be a high performer, I just am because of the rhythms that I set up in my life. I like to call them rhythms because I think some people have a visceral negative reaction to disciplines or habits. Well, just use the word rhythms Like what rhythms do you want to create in your day that puts you in the best position to succeed?
Speaker 1:yeah, 100, and then also too, um, like you said, what it does is, it actually creates this belief about yourself. You already said you kind of said it like I don't need to feel motivated, it's just who I am because you've done it so much. Now it's a belief of yours that, hey, this is what I do, this is just what I do.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. You got it 100% correct, and so what I'd like to tell people is I like to create hard-to-beat athletes Because even on their worst days, they're hard to beat. Why? Because they don't need to feel motivated to be really, really, really good at what they do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%, 100% I love it. Well, Gary, before we go, I want to give you a little, a quick moment of where can folks find you, when can they get in touch with you and learn a little bit more about your journey and continue to follow the journey that you're on?
Speaker 2:Well, I appreciate that Most of my clients are on Instagram, and so people can find me on Instagram at elite mindset, and just look for the blue verification dot and people will see me there. And then I want to give a gift to your audience. I created what I think is the most thorough mental performance assessment on the internet and, trust me, I'm a research nerd, I know what's out there. I think this is the best thing on the internet and, trust me, I'm a research nerd, I know what's out there. I think this is the best thing on the internet. So people can go to elite mindset assessment. So it's elite mindset assessmentcom. And if they put in the discount code in all caps elite E, l, I T E and the number 100, they can take the assessment for free. So it's Elite 100, and they can take it for free.
Speaker 1:Elite 100, okay, I think I'm on it right now, so I'll make sure I put this in the footnotes, make sure I put that promo code in there as well, and folks can take this assessment. The dementia conditioning world is so interesting to me and I feel like it's only going to grow, uh, with so much going on. You got the world of AI. It's a lot, and so even the two you know the two working together. You know, I don't know what that's going to look like, who knows right, but I know.
Speaker 1:Um, the, the mental conditioning piece, is a piece where I feel like it's starting to gain momentum. It has over the last, I would say, five to 10 years where people can not just, like you said, feel good in the moment, but how can we actually thrive, how can we actually meet our highest selves with our mind? And so you hit it right on the head and I want to make sure that we recap. This is that find a rhythm that makes you feel amazing about yourself and live your best day over and over again, to live your best life, and then, over time, you'll start to create an amazing belief system about yourself. So you hit it right ahead and I'm excited to really dive into my own life and really create a rhythm and a protocol for myself to make sure that I'm winning a day every day. You know, maybe it's not at 3.30 am, but it is going to be early, right, and so no, I appreciate all the value that you share on the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, thanks for having me and yeah, all my best to you and, you know, go win the day.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. Thanks, gary.
