Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloud Base Mayhem. A very different, very cool show for you today that I think all of you will get a lot from and help your performance in the sky and on the ground. Many thanks to Kevin Booker, who put this guest in front of me, reached out a few months ago, a longtime listener and sailplane pilot we've had on the show. But Kevin said, hey, you got to get Brett Burchard on the show. And I thought, I don't know who that is. And he told me about his recently published book called Catching Confetti, Developing the Mindset of a Champion. And I got the book and read it and was really impressed and kind of blown away. And Brett is a former NBA coach who worked for the Suns and has been involved in basketball his entire life.
He grew up in a basketball family. His father is a very famous coach and player. And he noticed when he was when he got into the coaching ranks, especially at the really high levels in the NBA, that there was something different between the really top tier guys, you know, Steph Curry and Kobe Bryant and others and the guys that were just below them. You know, so they were the guys that were playing four to six minutes a game. They weren't the starters, but they had all the talent that all the drive they've been playing their whole lives. They. They had the work ethic and the desire, but for some reason they were not completely able to crack the code.
And, you know, at that level in the NBA, you've got nutritionists and psychologists, you've got everything, but and certainly the coaching and the time and the talent and the size. But there was something that just held this other group back and it was the mental side. It was the mindset. You know, Steph Curry could just make absurd shots over and over and over again because of the confidence, because of flow state, because of the lack of fear. And he really dived into why. Why did these other guys not have it? And could they learn it? And of course, he discovered they could. And so he developed a whole training regimen and a mental training regimen to help these.
Athlete athletes out and turns out this there's a lot of connections with you'd be surprised with flying and the NBA, because what we do is mostly mental, of course, and then there's a lot of threads here and just general life and just being a better human, better husband, better wife, better father. So I found this just a really fun talk to learn about. Mindset and the difference between mindset and mindfulness, how you can find flow and prepare to get into flow. It's not something you achieve. It's just something you relax into. So we've talked a lot about flow on the show, but Brett is a real expert in getting there.
What happens when you get out of it? How to get back into it, how to utilize it, not in just extreme situations or high level situations. Sports, but just in life, we talk about the kind of transcendence of flow in this one. We talk about accidents and recovery. You know, can you can you come in too fast? What does it look like, how to do it? You know, it's, of course, in the NBA, if you have an accident, the people sitting right next to you on the bench are going to take your spot. So there's a lot of stress there and there's often the desire to come back too fast. And to skip a lot of the lessons that are involved in that and that there was really a lot of that that struck a chord with me because, of course, in our sport, the risks are very different than in the NBA.
Obviously, injury is a big one in the NBA, but you're not often going to die because of a mistake. So anyway, we really riffed on that and it was a lot of fun to to explore the various aspects of recovery and coming back. We talk a lot about fear, how important it is, but also trying to understand the difference between irrational fear and wisdom. And we talk about ego and the place of ego and how the ego can both be supportive and destructive in terms of performance and many other things. Just had a blast with this. I really appreciated the the chance to talk with someone who.
Was there's not a pilot, but obviously someone who is explored and dived into and is coaching and teaching things that are so relevant to what we do in the sky, both as pilots and as people enjoy. This is a lot of fun. Enjoy this chat with Brett Burchard, the author of Catching Confetti. Cheers.
Brett, thanks for coming on the show. I've just finished up your book, Catching Confetti. And I'm really psyched that Kevin Booker, a mutual friend of ours, connected us. You know, he's a sailplane pilot. He's been on the show. I don't have many non pilots on the show. You know, your your journey has been in coaching and in the NBA and writing great books about flow and mindset. So we're going to get into all that. But welcome to the show. I really appreciate your time. I enjoyed having a conversation with you last week. We were kind of getting ready for all of this, but I think this is going to be a lot of fun.
Yeah, cool. Thanks for having me jumping into uncharted waters here a little bit. But I'm excited to learn from you and have an interesting conversation on mindset and flow states and elite performance and how all those things come together and draw out the best of us. So thanks for having me on.
Yeah, I'm really excited for it. Let's let's spend just a few minutes here on how the the the world got us together. What what is your what has been? Your journey you've spent, I think, most of your career in the NBA in coaching and then, you know, bring us to how you ended up writing this book with your co-author. It wasn't just you, but take us through that journey a little bit.
Yeah. So my background is is primarily in basketball. I'm a son of a coach who had a very successful career, Hall of Fame's championships name on the floor, all that stuff. And so I was born into the profession, raised in the gym. Been around basketball my whole life and as really started on that journey early, early on, got into the coaching profession, following dad's footsteps a little bit and found my way into the NBA. So I've coached for professionally for over 16 years, NBA, you know, minor leagues, college, so various levels. And it was really during my time in the NBA that I started getting interested in.
I started looking at the coaching team and seeing their talent and their skills in the NBA and seeing the mental side of the game and watching these guys, you know, just being around elite performers like best in the world at what they were doing and seeing like, All right, these guys are different, different than me, different than other people I've been around before. And and so I started learning from them and just seeing what what made them tick and and what they were working on at focusing in. And at the time I was in the NBA, there was really a gap in in the mental side of the game. of the game as far as development goes it's getting more commonplace now but at the time i mean our our staffs they had of course skills coaches and strategy coaches and had athletic trainers and strength coaches working on their bodies working on their skills working on the strategy but there was really nobody giving them focus on the mental side of the game and i started thinking this is a real opportunity here because i was noticing it as a separator you know the guys i was working with weren't necessarily the starters or the stars of the team i was working with some of the role players the rookies the sophomores the guys trying to break into the league the guys that are trying to stick you know the guys that might only get four to six minutes a game and they had to make that moment count um this was like okay how can i help these guys aside from making them better shooters or improving their ball handling how can i help these guys
take the next jump in their career because the reality in in in a place like the nba you know there's so many talented players like they're they choose what 12 15 all-stars a year 20 all-stars a year but there's probably a couple hundred all-star talented level players in the nba but there's a difference in mindset and and that was separating like the really great ones from the guys who were hanging on so so
you're saying that technique and the ability and athleticism and and all the things that you think about in an athletic sport like the nba they're they're they're more or less equals it's this little thing it's this mental part that was the separator for
sure here's a guy on our team that's like the best shooter in the gym on any given day but when the lights come on and you're in the moment and you've got one shot to decide your fate do you make that decision or do you make that decision make it or miss it and could he perform in that moment like here's a guy that could jump out of the gym he was more athletic than anybody in the league but he couldn't apply that to what was going on the game here's a guy who was great until failure hit and he couldn't recover under failure and it would knock him off balance he was too easily knocked off balance he couldn't recover quickly and so that hurt his hurt his ceiling and his potential um and so in my role i was a development coach and i just naturally like my own mind says like okay i can teach how can i teach this how can i help people learn this i wasn't going to settle for a one guy's got it and the other guy doesn't it's just your dna you know so i started digging in how can i help these guys improve the mindset even if they can't get to the elite level can they get to their best level and so i started studying got deep into flow states mindset and then and then got connected with a guy in ohio who's now a business partner of mine and we wrote the book together where we started really deciphering okay what's what's the operating system happening beneath the surface like our subconscious mind that's really driving us under pressure and under stress and so we started diving deep into that applying it to to athletes and high performance
and and that's what produced the book catching confetti where we're just trying to offer a guide for how to how to develop your own mindset to the to the best it can be you
know help me convince my listeners because they're they're probably going okay how does the nba connect to flying and you just said something you know flow state is something that's a really common theme on the show so i think they're getting it but you know in in an nba players in the in a game or something you miss a shot uh that could you could you could blow the game but you're not gonna but the the risk is different it's a massive amount of risk especially for these guys that you're saying that are they've got this four to six minutes to to make something to make the team to stay on to make a mark you know not just be a fleeting glimpse through their career that you know that it's not ending it's just starting but help me connect the dots you know i know you're not a pilot but i'm seeing i'm seeing a lot of synergy between you know making that shot under enormous pressure and stepping off stepping off a mountain into enormously strong conditions for example i mean just a lack of focus for a brief second can be literally fatal yeah
that's the separator right and in your world it's it's physical failed fatal like it's life or death literally there's a physical danger to it in in a basketball world not as much a physical danger as much as you know and an insecurity or an emotional risk you know these guys i was working with in the nba are putting themselves out there on display vulnerable exposed facing the most intense competition under the most scrutiny that they're ever going to experience um so every time they put themselves out like every time they show up to a game and step on the court there's just like vulnerability that they're exposing themselves to to be changed and they're not going to be judged by others to be criticized you know we have a saying in basketball like the competition always tells you the truth like when you step out on the court you're going to learn real quick
are you good enough are you bad enough where's your weakness where's your strengths like and at the nba level it's ruthless it's relentless you know if you have a weakness they're going to expose you yeah to the whole world and then it's going to be on twitter afterwards and it's going to be on sports center and you just be like so there's this an emotional risk that that plays into it um but so so not the not the physical risk but you're still like in these moments of pressure whether it's a physical pressure you know physical danger or there's an emotional risk you're looking at how can i be at my best when the moment matters the most and and both of those things can distract you can take you out of the moment um can can cause you to be less than you're better than you're better than you're better than you're better than you're less than your best whether it's a physical fear or it's you know it's a intangible emotional fear and so these guys you know whether you're flying whether you're playing basketball if you're if you're trying to get to the best of your abilities whether you're just trying to be
a good husband or a good father like you're trying to get to the best of your abilities it's like how do i quiet my mind and and and tone down the that subconscious mind that's that may be distracting me from my best self so i can be at my best in the in the most important moments and
is this your your template you talk about you talk about the seven mindsets in your book how do you start you so you've got this guy first day insanely talented you can tell he's just he's just he's just smidgen away from being a kobe bryan or something but he needs that where do you start him on that where do you start how do you how do you help him focus or unfocus from what he needs to be doing
yeah the the the place we start is is kind of a diagnostic can be self-diagnostic we have a measurement tool we use but it's it's it's trying to figure out like what is the real fear underneath like we can say oh i've lost my confidence or you know i just i don't have confidence i lose focus whatever there's there's an underlying fear or insecurity that drives our actions our reactions our decisions under stress and under pressure and so we try to really quickly drill down to what is that underlying insecurity or fear that is that is kind of ruminating beneath the surface and this happening at a subconscious level so we have to really peel back some layers to to get down to you know to the core of that
but but that's what we're looking for yeah is
the opposite of that confidence i mean is that is that the steve curry's and the kobe do they do they not have that fear or how would you compare
yeah so they those guys have learned how to you know i wouldn't say they don't have that fear they they do have the fear they've learned how to reframe every moment to quiet that insecurity that may be there
okay you
know steph curry was like the the poster child for me and i've been when i first got into this because you know he was at the peak of his career at the time and just doing things that are like unheard of like how is he making that shot how is he pulling this off and looking so like relaxed and poised and you know and it just he he embodied that flow state mindset and so he was the poster child for me is like how do i get other people to to to adopt that like to figure out how to develop that mindset and here's the here's the thing about these these guys the guys who perform well under pressure it's not they don't have a special dna you know they got it you don't the guys who can perform well under pressure don't feel the pressure really
which is a wild thing to think right and this can be a learned state but i'll tell you a quick story so lebron james was had joined the miami heat you know this is when they joined the big three him duane wade chris bosh and you may remember like the opening press conference he was like you know this big promise like not one not two not three we're gonna win four five six championships like these big it was this big thing right and then it didn't start well you know that dynasty so to speak they actually like went to the finals and they lost and then the next year they're back in the eastern conference finals so the semi-finals of the
against boston celtics at home and they lose and now they got to go to boston on the road for an elimination game if they lose in boston they're eliminated from the playoffs two years in a row they haven't won a championship it'll likely destroy the dynasty probably kill lebron's legacy like there's a lot riding on this thing and he's going into boston which boston is a basketball town the celtics are going to win the championship and they're going to win the celtics are like have so much history they love them so they are ruthless they are ruthless lebron would say anytime i got to boston like as soon as i landed i could just feel it in my pressure cooker it's just a yeah it's a brutal environment to go into well he said this particular time when he landed in boston he said i felt nothing i felt nothing he went on to have like one of the greatest playoff performances of his life life they won that game they end up winning the series they go on to win the championship that year the rest is history but these guys who can perform well under pressure they just they don't feel the pressure they're so in the moment that subconscious mind is quieted down that insecurity is not driving them in the moment they're just they're fully present fully engaged and
would you say that lebron when he landed he was already in a flow state was what you you said something that i that i hadn't heard before maybe this was in rise of superman but you can't achieve flow state you relax into it talk about that yeah
100 you you know and this is the mistake i think a lot of guys a lot of high performers and athletes make is they're trying to obtain it i gotta get they're striving to it they're they're struggling to get there and it's not that's not how flow works like you receive it and so the work we do with athletes is not about hacking into flow as much as it's positioning yourself to receive it and part of that is quieting the mind part of that is your your processes and your routines leading up to it and so it's it's it's a received state it's a relaxed state you're not going to you for basketball players you know i have a lot of them come up to me like i have lost my confidence i've lost my confidence i've lost my confidence i've lost my confidence and they're trying so hard to get their confidence back and they're putting so much pressure on every shot and every shot becomes an indictment on do am i confident or am i not like they've put all of their identity all of their belief on the result and that's giving them feedback on am i allowed to be confident today or not and uh um it's it's this striving
that keeps them stuck so what we really try to do is help them relax their mind relax into a state position your state position yourself to to receive that flow and
is it how do you teach a lack of striving in people with egos the size of the moon i would imagine right i mean they're they're i i'm just picturing myself in the body of somebody who just how how do you not go but what if i miss what if i don't i mean that's hard that's some serious mental training
mental training because it is our natural state especially with high achievers where you think if i work hard enough i'll get there and that's the that's the mindset that i've been that's been like drilled into our psyche from a young age work
hard just work
harder just work harder just drive more just give more effort do more reps and you'll get there um so it's very counterintuitive and it's hard to break that break that default mindset but once they figure it out it's it's it's a game changer for sure tell
me about i mean i think it might be too much to go through all seven mindsets but what there must be three or four that are these are the ones these are or is it is it pretty equal i mean you give 20 to each one i mean when you're when you're when you're taking this fictional player that we're talking about that that you're you're he's in the b squad you need to get him as a starter and he's got a lot of tools it's just here it's just up in his head what what are the three that you find in your co-author found that okay these are the ones yeah
really the foundational concept is this is is a focus on where are you placing your identity and that's the the core of a lot of our work and so what we find in in most of the people we work with that are struggling in those moments it's they have placed their full identity on the outcome and the results either it's the results become an indictment on who i am either i'm a failure in my mission or i don't belong in the community anymore and so our brains are just are like biologically evolved to we're constantly obsessed around two questions am i doing a good job and do they like me and
everything we're experiencing we're filtering it through this lens am i doing a good job do they like me and do they like me do they approve of me was i good enough did i meet the scorecard and and that's driving this this insecurity so like we don't know this is happening it's happening in little tiny ways it's happening in big ways but we're constantly like posturing and and positioning ourselves to prove that we're doing a good job and we belong in the community or we're we're hiding we're withdrawing so we can't be invalidated no one can say that i wasn't good enough no one can say that i didn't belong i worked with a with a first round draft pick rookie he's projected to be a great player he really struggled with shooting and that was the piece that i was supposed to help him with we come into the gym early before anybody else got there and we were doing elementary drills like just rewiring and reformatting his his form um and
it's it's a little bit humiliating it's a little embarrassing like here's a professional athlete first round draft pick doing supposed to be a star and he's doing he's doing foundational stuff
and gavin is crazy every time we would be in the gym by ourselves working on this as soon as someone else walked in the gym i'm sorry i gotta go to the bathroom oh man i'm like i'm not really like my arm's a little sore today i'm not really feeling it he'd shut it down wow because the insecurity that's driving his mindset right now is if i'm seen doing these elementary drills that means i don't belong that means i'm not good enough i'm not validated for my draft status or the potential that people have have placed on me and so he'd hide he'd withdraw he'd bail from the situation and
he never got good enough at shooting to stay in the league no
way but
he had you know going overseas and he had it he had the chance he had the talent he didn't have the mindset to be able to address the skills that he needed to because he was so worried about protecting his identity protecting this false narrative or this false perception about who he was rather than having the humility to say who
cares i
need to work on this skill yeah yeah i need to work on this skill it's not an indictment on who i am it's just about me improving my skills and so you know the the false mindset there that shows up all the time that's like that leads to this insecurity is the results of my performance my belonging in the community are an indictment on who we are and so the mindset we have to reframe is you're not defined by what you do you're not defined by what who you're in relationship with if you can find a secure identity now we've developed the resistance to the fact that we're not defined by who we are resilience to learn from failure from mistakes process through what's happening in mission now we have the resilience to process through relationships that may be struggling or we need to have harder conversations you know relationships that may be changing or broken but with that secure identity we have the resilience to to withstand all that is
there a is there a mindset in your list of sevens is there one that's dangerous to have too much of is is there is there an is there an over is there an overachieving achievement in mindset yeah
that's a great question i wouldn't say i wouldn't say that i think it's it's all based on on you know that start you have a secure identity i have nothing to prove i have nothing to hide i know who i am and from there we can move forward and i think that's a great question i think that's a great question i think that's a great question we can we can build the the structure of the rest of the mindsets around that um so yeah it starts it all starts with that foundation and i think what happens is if you're trying to build the other mindsets around um around an insecure identity without that foundation i would answer your questions yes you could you could go astray but if you're built on that foundation now we're just layering in processes and systems to help you sustain your life and to help you sustain your life and to help you sustain your life and to help you sustain that um and and and grow your resilience grow your ability to to relax under those pressure moments the
the the psychology this really lands with me and then and that you know this having this your identity attached to what you're doing rather than who you are i mean i think in paragliding we've all seen you know some very elite pilots kind of have meltdowns and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and meltdowns if uh this race i told you about i've actually got the hat on right here that that i've competed in four times uh one of our best in the sport in this in the last edition there was a really quite quite a nasty day where you know the everybody flew but it was really dicey and and he just pulled out of the race decided it was it was too much because he had had a pretty scary incident in the race before and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and he really didn't need he's incredibly fit guy he could have just walked that day and still been in the race but he was just mentally it was too much and i haven't interviewed him about this but i'm imagining one of the mental things that was too much was not just the risk side but this is who i am this is how the community defines me as an elite Red Bull X-Alps athlete and
i imagine you know the demons he was struggling with when he pulled out of the race was along those lines was not just hey this isn't worth risking my life which is everybody totally understands but but this is who i am and how's my community gonna see me now yeah
and if i can't live up to the standard that that they perceive me at how does that define me you know that's the the physical risk physical danger is is real and legitimate in your world and it has to be taken into account um you know the other side of that is like you know what we what we do with athletes is is it's called a scenario switching exercise it's like okay if you can walk up to the to the precipice to the starting gate to wherever it is and and imagine how this race goes this is so counterintuitive to to typical mindset training because most people tell you to like imagine the perfect race right everything going smoothly like the perfect outcomes and we actually do an exercise where we're gonna imagine going poorly what
is the worst possible outcome here what could happen aside from death okay let's take that one off the table but let's say you don't perform your best let's say you crash and survive but you don't finish well now look in the mirror and you're like okay i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this here who are you who
are you what's your identity what does this moment say about you and then we'll do we call it scenario switching do the opposite okay go into the race and see it go perfectly now stand in front of the mirror and who are you and if those two scenarios are like drastically different how you see yourself that's a clue that okay our identity is misplaced here we are putting our identity on the results and and that's where starting place for us to be and that's where we're going to be and that's where we're going to start to work on um we we had a player if i told you his name you'd you'd know it but he came through phoenix on a pre-draft workout and there had been stories written about him just profile pieces that he was like really big into meditation and and mindfulness and all this we came into our workout and he was billed as a great shooter and he missed every shot in the workout like you started feeling bad for me like i know you can make shots you know you're a better shooter than
one and this is like a tryout you know are we going to draft this kid or not and so you start feeling bad for him and and the coach stopped him and he's like he's like you've imagined this workout before haven't you he's like yeah done a lot of mental work on it he said you didn't imagine it going like this did you he said no he couldn't recover he had only seen it going perfect he only seen it going well and now it wasn't going like he imagined it and there was there's no way for him to recover he had put his identity on his performance in this workout and and now it didn't go like he thought and now it becomes an indictment on who he is he can't get out of the rut you know old samurai warriors you know they go into battle and the first they're what they're doing before they enter battle is imagining their death imagining as bad
as it can
if i can be at peace with this going poorly then i can fight with no fear i'll be okay um and so yeah that's what they would do before before battle let me imagine my death i i come at peace with that and then and then i can fight with no fear i i one more story to illustrate it um you know the the bulls chicago bulls dynasty in the 90s with michael jordan scotty pippen they were going for the three-peat and they were going for the three-peat and they were going for the three-peat and they three championships in a row and they were actually down they were i think they lost maybe going into game seven against the indiana pacers to make it to the finals so again dynasty's on the line phil jackson he's like the zen master of basketball coaches he was super into to mindfulness meditation all that kind of practice on the basketball side and he goes into the team and he said this you have to be be okay with losing this game
like why would you on earth would you tell someone that it's like you have to be okay like what he's saying is you have to go into this being okay with the outcome however it goes so that you can be fully present fully engaged you can fight with no fear you
can fight
with no fear
a caveat i would never tell a golfer that's standing over the putt you know on the 18th green of the masters to imagine this lipping out like i you know you want success you want to you want to imagine the grit swing but as a preparation to position ourselves to receive flow in those biggest moments we have to make sure our identity is not on the line
we're jumping ahead i want to come back to fear but i wanted that you just brought up something is there a pre-event meditation mindfulness is there something we can be doing to help us relax into flow beforehand like lebron when he's on the airplane um this is something that pilots struggle with you can you're often just in flow whoa i'm there and that but then something can happen whether it's nasty weather or suddenly gusty wind or you find yourself in the lee where you're bonked out of it sometimes it just intensifies the flow and it's great but other times it's not like like you said it's you can often be unrelaxed out of it you know a stressor will kick you out of it but i'm wondering if there's something pilots can do on launch or the drive up the hill or the hike up to launch where they can prepare to try to enter in into flow before the flight before they're actually yeah just suddenly the subconscious takes over a
hundred percent and this is part of the skill work we do with our training but our meditation practice we call it identity space and it's it's creating the flow of the flow of the flow of the flow of the flow of the space where you can go to feel that secure identity and so the scenario switching exercise is is a great preparation practice i do it all the time i do it before a podcast with you okay imagine this going terrible how would it be imagine it's going great how would it be so i can show up nothing to prove nothing to hide my identity is not on the line here i'm showing up to serve but so that's a great great practice our identity space meditation is about creating a space where you can go to to feel the security of your identity to know i have everything i need i don't need anything from this performance so now i can show up and engage with however the circumstances um show up whatever variables happen i'm ready to to react to to to respond to and engage nothing here is going to be an indictment on who i am and then we build triggers on top of that and so how can you access that space where you can go to to feel the security of your identity space you know on a moment's notice um and so we so we activate all the senses around that so we can build build in triggers but the key here the the key here and this is where i differ a little bit from the typical you know mental skills training is there's there's such an emphasis on mindfulness right let's just breathe and calm and let emotions pass over you and and all this and and that's good it's a starting place but you know
i don't know if any monks have become like world-class pilots i just don't know if that's happened you may know some but if you're really trying to like achieve like make something happen accomplish amazing things lead somewhere change something you know it's not just a mindfulness a detachment from reality it's how can i get to a secure identity so i can engage with reality from my best self and so it's a mindfulness to start okay let's become aware of the sensations that are happening the emotions that are happening the fears whatever might be there and now it's can we flip that into a mindset upgrade okay how can i come out of this meditation this mindfulness and now engage with the moment that's in front of me um that's how you're going to make the most gains and most change yeah you
do a really good job of this in the book and you just explained it pretty well there but just give us a quick difference between mindfulness and mindset because it's important yeah yeah the talk is all mindfulness these days it's all mindfulness but there's there's it's
it's the buzzword it's the big thing right and and again it's it's a starting place okay i'm not against mindfulness yes be aware pay attention to the sensations we want to detach from maybe the feelings or emotions that could drive us unconsciously okay okay put a little separation between feeling and action so we're not responding impulsively um but it's not just a removal from the world it's not an escape from the world like the leaders i work with like the ones who have done the most yoga retreats and and mindfulness sessions tend to be the most like insecure and stressed out in the biggest moments like i work with i work with a coach that came into the practice one day we've had it we were in a meeting and we were talking about mindfulness were in a tough stretch and like he came in so angry and so mad and he said this is so funny he goes man i did yoga three times yesterday on our off day and i'm still pissed off it's like it's like yeah because mindfulness isn't the end point right okay let's pay attention to that and now let's rewire let's flip it okay let's let's re-engage can we re-engage with a secure mind a secure identity gives you somewhere to go and if you're not if you're not activating that part then you know hey that's fine you can go you know sit on the couch and be enlightened in peace you know with your life but i usually work with like super ambitious high achievers who are trying to trying to do big things and push the envelope and so there has to be that mindset upgrade so you can re-engage let's
dive into fear i think you'd be a perfect person to talk about and explain to my audience kind of the psychological architecture of you know the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the fear you've mentioned it a bunch of times every pilot no matter what they're trying to achieve if they're a weekend warrior or they're a world cup pilot and world class has an intimate not even they're intimately aware of fear and we always talk about it as that their fear is good it keeps you alive you don't want no fear if you have no fear it's really really really sketchy it's the difference what what can be very hard to understand consciously is is this a rational or an irrational fear you know is this just the barking between the ears that you should just ignore or is this wisdom you know is this because we all the we talk about the little guy on your shoulder you know that you know wait a minute this might not be the day okay is that just noise or is this maybe not the day you know it's it's can be very hard to decipher is is this irrational or irrational on the outside but it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's this day at this time are these conditions that i've i've got the skills for this yeah talk about that i mean fear is different but i i imagine there's a ton of fear with your athletes and who you've coached and again it's just on that it's what if i miss what yeah yeah
this is such a this such an important topic and and especially in your world where that discernment is is so much more important because of the physical danger that's that's present and so you categorized it perfectly i think you know rational fear versus irrational fear like like there is a rational fear that there's a real danger you know that exists like especially in your world hey i could get hurt i could die like this is a real thing and what you said is right on like that's that's good it drives your focus and this is where i i admire your world so much and and i wish i had the courage to to get into it more because um because that fear is driving focus like it it brings so much of your attention to the present to the here and now um and and that's a good thing right that's that's drawing out the best of you and and i think that's we we jammed on this a little bit the other day but like my first introduction to to flow states and all this was that the book the rise of superman and and they did a lot of study on me high chick semi high and all that but but their studies were around these action adventure athletes it's like how are they breaking records and and advancing the sports and stuff so much faster than everyone else and part of that was because of the fear component like it it requires you to be so focused so present that that amazing things are possible on the flip side of that there is an irrational fear there where this it's it's the insecurity it's my identities on the line not just my life but my identities on the line
and and how this goes is going to be indictment on who i am and so it is parsing out the difference between rational fear versus irrational fear and i think you know the rational fear the risk the dangers that are present it it's so valuable because it's going to force you to do your preparation to to improve your skills to to not cut corners right to be diligent in your work all that is super important and valuable and so so that's driving your focus now what could take you out of the moment is that irrational fear i have to prove something with my performance i have to prove something through this race through this flight or i'm going to hide from being invalidated and i'm not going to take that like jump in like i know i'm such an amateur i feel i feel ashamed even sharing my action adventure stories with you but like you know in my experience downhill skiing like you have to have a little bit of speed to to make it work and if you're if you're so cautious and and hiding and i'm afraid and and i'm hesitant
real risk
you're gonna be even worse right and so like if i'm if i'm showing up to protect myself i'm not going to be fully engaged fully present like i'm not going to give everything i have to do to protect myself i'm not going to be fully engaged to it um and so yeah in your world especially that that deciphering in my world it's it's more of the emotional fears you know not the physical danger but the emotional and most of those irrational fears that are taking them out of the present moment
neurologically what what's happening there and what what do you what do you tell your athletes when they're experiencing irrational emotional fear i think i think i think it's the same even though there is a real physical component of the risk to flying it's still emotional most and most of it a lot of it is really irrational you're thousands of feet off the ground if something happens right now you got plenty of time to deal with it what's what's what what do you when when someone's just bitten by too much fear that they got you know you you talked about putting a masters on the 18th green holy cow after four days i mean i just my dad my dad was a golfer i grew up golfing and so did my sister and i just he talked about it being the hardest sport in the world because it's so much time it's just five hours for four days you got to hold your shit together and if you get the yips one time you're done you know how do you how do you control that neurologically on the 18th green at the masters it's
like it's like golfers and tennis players are like just incredible like the physical toll that the games require the the the skill diversity that's required in both like the amount of shots you have to hit just all the different skills you got to have you know and then maybe the worst like the hardest part of it is like you're out there by yourself you know golfers have caddies and a great caddy can help tennis is now allowing coaching a little bit but for the most part you're like you have no teammates to protect you or cover up for you like it's you on the course to everybody and it's such wow physically mentally emotionally taxing both of those both of those moments and so you are looking for ways to to reset and it's the mindfulness piece knowing all right i'm off center here i've gotten knocked off balance how do i recover how do i recenter and so a lot of the prep work we do is is helping people understand quickly what is the likely cause that got me knocked off balance so i can recover quickly under pressure um and then it's it's practicing the identity space building the triggers on top of that so that we can reaccess those flow moments or position ourselves at least for those flow moments as quickly as we can it's it's a lot of your preparation and processes that go into place i mean i when i do workshops with basketball teams you know the first thing i ask people is how do i recover and i'm like how many of you are going to hit it know you're going to hit adversity during this season every hand goes up how many of you know that overcoming adversity is going to make you stronger every hand goes up what are you doing to prepare to overcome the adversity
silence it's like you're preparing your game plan you're practicing your shooting you're practicing you're rehearsing your plays why have you not rehearsed or prepping uh preparing for when this thing goes bad how to overcome adversity and and that needs to be this is where i i differ from a lot of you know mental skills training is that you know we're not just going to imagine the perfect olympic gold medal routine like we got to prepare for what happens when this thing doesn't go like i expect it to and am i secure enough in who i am that i can adapt and and engage with it um and then do i have the skills
to adjust on the fly and and re-engage so a lot that's that's got to be part of your preparation as much as the the skills and strategy piece
we've been talking about there's there's a lot of science now behind visualization and i would imagine that's a huge thing for nba players is just imagining or just seeing over and over and over again that jump shot going in going in going in going in just the technique and the coming off the end of your tips of your hand and all that goes all that foundational stuff that goes in i imagine that's a big part of training i mean it's something like you can get 90 done of the actual of actually doing it just if you do it in your mind but it sounds like you're talking about and and feel free to come in if that's not the case but it also sounds like you're talking about it's just as important to visualize it not going well is it visualization and that's
where the you're yeah for sure and and what you're talking about is true i think there's more to it than you're talking about more and more studies coming out now of how like you know injured athletes can do visual visualization techniques i got stuff yeah when they're laid up come back right yeah yeah catch right back up when i was with the when i was coaching with the in the nba you know the the virtual reality was just starting to like seep into professional sports and we were using that to like how can we train athletes that aren't injured or that are injured and can't be on the court you've probably experienced that in in simulators and things like that where you can practice and and get those reps but yet there's also the other side of the visualization from an identity perspective how can i untangle my identity my self-perception who i am from the actual results in in the outcomes of of my performance and so i think that's a big part of it and i think that's a big part of it and i think that's a lot of the work i'm doing with again i wouldn't go to a basketball player and say hey fourth quarter you got two free throws every time you walk up to the line just make sure you know do one rep of it missing and one rep of it being like no in that moment like i want to see that thing go through i want to track it and yeah you know but in a preparation for that moment i want to you know we have to you're not going to be able to drop into the flow state if your identity is all on the line so i think that's a big part of it and i think that's a big part of it and i think for this moment i have to make this shot or else i'll tell you a great story this is a great illustration i saw it real time i was watching my buddy my buddy's 10 year old son youth basketball game saturday morning went to the game sat with his family we were all sitting underneath one of the baskets and the bleachers so it was his dad his mom grandmother grandfather and two sisters we're all sitting on the basket the kid gets fouled
he's going to the free throw line he's standing at the free throw line waiting for it all to get set up and organized before the ref passes in the ball you see him like shuffling his feet back and forth like there's a little anxious energy in it and i'm looking at his eyes he looks up at the rim and then he looks down at us he looks at the rim looks down at us shuffling back and forth his eyes are going back and forth between the rim and between us say what do you think's happening in his brain right now he doesn't understand this but here's what he's saying he looks at the rim if i miss this shot he looks at us will they still love me
wow if
i miss this shot will they still approve of me wow if i miss this shot will they that's his identity is on the line in this moment right this was this was shown up in a 10 year old kid okay but this is happening to us every day all the time do they like me am i doing a good job
right he
gets the ball he ends up missing the free throw he crashes in there to get the rebound and put it back up everyone goes crazy but like what is wired in his brain right now like i have to work harder to win their approval wow i have to perform better so they'll love me and that's that's the when you talk about what's the irrational fear driving us in these moments that's it that's the core of it right there what
do you think about athletes who claim and i've got a few examples of this i don't know alex honnold really well but i don't know if you saw free solo it's the scariest movie you've ever seen if you haven't seen it the only thing that saves you is you know that you live it's insane right i mean just free soloing lcap but they talk about it in that movie that he's got a different they studied his brain and he's got a different amygdala than the rest of us have so he's he's got a different relationship with fear than most people have i have a buddy that i used to i used to do a lot of hair boating a lot of white water really seriously dangerous white water kayaking and one of the guys i did it with was a red bull athlete or became a red bull athlete after he and i paddled together for years and he claimed he didn't experience fear so for him it was all moves everything was just moves it was just a series of making moves and i saw him huck off stuff down in mexico that there's no way you couldn't be afraid of him and i'm like he scared to death but he claimed he just didn't his heart rate wouldn't go up it would just stay down at kind of 70 80 almost resting heart rate and i have a pilot friend who said he had to learn how to assess risk with paragliding because he didn't have fear and he knew that that was dangerous you know logically that he do i i because i don't have fear i have to approach this differently than someone would would would with fear because
that's guiding their decisions what do you think about that is that is that is that possible or is that something we should want to achieve is it is it even achievable and is it good yeah
i would say yeah i've watched the the documentary and read the studies about him and um his relationship to fear and i think that's 100 true and look there are guys like i'm not saying that i can develop myself to become steph curry like he has a genetic makeup that i will never have and helps him access a place that i'll never be able to get to um i can develop myself further to get to the best that i could get to and and my relationship to fear has a lot to do with that rational fear and irrational fear and so for sure there's like there's there's dna constraints there there's genetic
you know factors at play and each of us has our own unique wiring and all that um but um it's it's about how can we access our our best self so can i improve my relationship to fear what does that look like i need to be more cognizant of the actual fear that's at place or i need to be more okay with the risks that are happening so i can can i calm that fear but we know either direction like when fear is is is gripping us rational fear irrational fear we're not going to perform at our best so we have to find ways to to relax in those moments back
back to flow state yeah there everybody who's listening it we've all experienced it and you said you can come you can do it playing music you can do it with your kid at the soccer field you know it it it comes sometimes in odd odd places and it's it it's it's it's it's it's almost transcendent i mean it is the the feeling of it you know in rise of superman he describes it very well as you do in your book yeah i was just thinking about the last dance you know what with michael jordan and pippin and the you know the the three pete you know the runs that some of these guys would go on and jordan would just take over i mean that the the mindset that would be the euphoria that he must have been in during those times but what about when you lose it you talked about you can do it you can do it you can do it you can do it you can do it you can do it you can do these things in preparation to get into it before the game or you know the the the whistle blows and you're and you're in it what if you fall out of it how what do you train them then yeah
this is uh this is a an important thing because i i do believe this like maturity is not that you never get knocked off balance but it's how quickly can you re-center after you've get knocked off balance and so you know these guys who have these incredible runs over long periods of time it may look on the outside like man they were in flow for like six straight years how is that possible it's like what's more likely is they were able to re-center and reposition themselves you know on the fly in the moments and a lot of times you you mentioned this earlier where like a change in circumstances will jolt your attention back into the present like maybe you start wandering maybe your mind goes on autopilot a little bit and and you you come back
uh the the one of the cool stories with with steph curry it's like his breakout game in the nba i think he dropped like 55 points in madison square garden or something of a national televised game like it was the moment where he like landed on the scene and and came into public consciousness of of how great he was i had a friend who was on the coaching staff for the he told me that steph actually missed the bus to the game that night whoa it's like oh so you mean the perfect routine the perfect process all that didn't line up and he had the best game of his career to that point like it's not how not that you never get knocked off balance that i did my routine perfectly all the time it's how quickly can we re-center how quickly can we get back to to the present to now and and refocus and um and so what you're calling out is is exactly right and and there are there are routines triggers we can build in place that um that can help us get back in the moment you know you you you mentioned this and i think this is a great easy practical way for people to start building kind of routines and triggers
that you just enjoy for the sake of the activity nothing
to prove nothing to hide your identity's not on the line like you just love it it could be like swimming in the pool it's playing in the backyard with your kids you know it's grilling out on a saturday like what is that activity and then start building triggers around that activity triggers should activate all the senses play a song on repeat before during or after that activity have the same drink during attach a smell or a scent to that activity um it takes some time you know 25 30 times do this over and over and over but what you're doing is you're attaching an extra sense to that physical activity your brain making connection between between the two um quick story of application um um i live in phoenix arizona it's warm and sunny all the time we can be out by the pool all year so i had an afternoon routine where i would sit by the pool i would drink a smoothie in the sun it was like perfect relaxation moment for me nothing to prove nothing to hide no ambition nothing on the line
i did that and i was like i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this every day for like a month well now when we were in milwaukee second night of a back-to-back things weren't going like i wanted them to i was starting to get frustrated i was knocked off balance well i can't go sit by the pool in milwaukee in january how do i recenter well i just get a smoothie have my smoothie on the way to the game my brain felt like i was sitting by the pool again it helped me relax i attached a trigger to that moment and so a practice we do is is helping people develop these triggers so now in the moment hey i'm in the cockpit and i gotta access maybe there's a token in my pocket that makes me feel like or reminds me of throwing the ball in the backyard with my son and that's a moment i feel really relaxed and so we're trying to attach attach the senses to and build triggers around these moments that that put our mindset in the best possible state i
like that that sounds a lot like emdr have you are you familiar at all with emdr therapy not
as much tell me well
it's it and i i can never say it right yeah i am meant i mental it's basically retreat the trigger thing is exactly the same mind is the pond right down the street here where i i got involved in a lot of these things and i got involved with this after a death of a really good friend of mine in an avalanche back my kind of main backcountry partner and it's retraining your brain especially it's it's especially useful with ptsd or any kind of trauma where you're trying to get your brain to map to something good and and working through something bad but often our brains just go to the horrible and and it's it's so it's it's kind of mapping to the sitting by the pool having a having a smoothie and you're just you're just visualizing it and and then adding the trauma and visual go add you know but you're at the pond and it's surrounded by flowers and the ducks mine's the pond down the street where there's you know there's ducks and it's beautiful and all these kids play and the dogs run on the water and it's just it's the most peaceful place to be in the world and and nothing can hurt me there and nothing could be bad and so and then and eventually that the death or whatever the trauma is whatever the ptsd that your experience is is
light it's still there it's never going to go away but it's your your brain is remapped to trigger it as life yeah
yeah that's great you're trying to you're trying to rewrite that narrative that your brain is circling around the
d is d senses it desensitization i can never say that word yeah yeah yeah
i'm tracking with you i'm tracking with you and a similar practice we do like and and we do it through the identity fears you know through those insecurities is like trying to track where were that where was that introduced you know i mentioned that moment with my my friend's son you know in his in his youth basketball game it's like most of these these identity fears or insecurities that we we live with some of them are wired into us genetically a lot of it comes from just experiences we've had in our life whether it's one big powerful moment that like introduced this fear to us or you know death by a thousand paper cuts you know we're just we keep getting nagged by it um but trying to go back and relive relive those moments um a lot of them happened in childhood like children are are great recorders terrible interpreters so what happens in in childhood we just write it on our heart write it on our mind and we keep it forever and we don't we need to go back and reprocess and be like hey what was actually happening in that moment you know my dad's insecurity caused him to react to me in this way which introduced a insecurity in my own or a lie in my own mindset i need to go back and rewire that from 10 year old me remap it forgiving my dad for you know what he said or how he responded or how he acted um and and
rewriting the narrative in my own mind that that's not true that's a lie about who i am what's the truth about about my identity and who i am what
role what role does ego play in in working with these athletes in the nba i mean i think again to the last dance you know just the brilliance of phil jackson dealing with these guys that are they're making they're ballers right they're making so much money and they can have anything and i mean rodman how do you deal with a guy like that i mean it i'm just wondering how i'm coming back to you and i'm just wondering this word wisdom for some reason right now you know how do you how do you push past that and and and get to the real wisdom with these guys where you're you're maybe you're trying to peel back that onion that hard shell that they've had to develop to perform and be in the you know in the big leagues and this could be any sport this could be any elite thing but how where does that play where does ego play into mindset and you know kind of mental
stewardship
yeah this is such an important topic because i think you know ego is it gets misconstrued or misinterpreted or misunderstood um so i'll address this from two two angles one from like a coach's angle because i work with a lot of coaches too and and in the nba like you are you're working with a lot of big personalities and like we've said you know they've got a lot on the line you know they're making a lot of money they think very highly of themselves and so you're managing your way through this and what i try to encourage coaches a lot is like you know these guys are insecure you know you think they're lazy selfish a-holes but really they're human beings with insecurities and fears that are trying to protect themselves you know some of the best coaches i've been around one of the things they do what great is they um protect the athletes
from
themselves those
attacks on their insecurity yeah yeah they're giving them a shield where where they don't feel threatened at the core you know which is it's it's a pro move the master move is now help them transform those insecurities so they're not blindly driven by them which is the work i do um but but when a coach can see that and it's like okay these guys aren't actively resisting me because they hate me you know when when a coach's identity is not on the line he can see them for who they are and speak to the insecurities that might be under the surface um but but from an athlete's standpoint like this term ego it got it got misinterpreted a little bit you know i don't want to throw complete shade on it but like you know ego is the enemy became like the big thing like we got to fight against the ego and you know we got you got
your your mindset is made up of you know good wolf bad wolf like you got to starve the bad wolf and
look at the opposite approach like ego is not the enemy like ego is just information it's clues it signals it's telling me what to pay attention to like i have desires i have ambitions um there's things i want to happen there's things i want to be true and it's paying attention to that ego like let that ego rage like let's draw that out and then get under the surface is like why do i want this why do i want this so bad like i have this desire to be to be first to to win the championship to have a perfect score to you know whatever it is that that you're needing like we we do an exercise in our programming it's like let those desires rage like don't don't stuff them down don't suppress them because all that's just information it's clues it's signals it's it's stuff to pay attention to what's going on in me that i need to to pay attention to and work through
um and so so it's fine like let that out let that you know pursue your desires pursue that and now we pay attention to why do i want that what's under the surface there is there is there an insecurity that i'm hoping that winning the championship running the perfect race will quiet that insecurity in me or no i just i want to see the best of myself i want to get to to the bleeding edge and see how good i can possibly become um and so i don't like to you know ego is like i don't have an ego or often cow that guy's too egotistical like yeah let's let's bring it out tell me like leave nothing on the table i do this with with the teams i work with like no hidden agendas here tell me what do you want out of this season you know be honest about and they're gonna come up and say i want to be mvp of the team
or i want to be mvp of the league this year awesome thank you like let's be honest about it about about our desires and and what we want and then we can get under there underneath it and figure out the motive behind those desires but that ego ego is not something to to resist or punish or you know try to suppress i i think it's gotten a bad connotation in that in that sense interesting
talk about failure and and in a sense in our world in the flying world accidents are a big deal you know there's but there's two there main ones there's there's physical you know back breaking leg breaking there's you know there's there's bad physical injury or not so bad you know bad rolled angle ankle or something you know some common sprained ankle like in the nba but there's also we talk about fear injuries so getting really freaked out and miraculously pulling it off you know for for some pilots that could just be having a really bad collapse and not knowing what to do with it and then it comes out you know
just the wing does it's what it's supposed to do and you're not really in control and that can but that can be really scary and fear injuries can set you back in this sport is is badly or worse than a than an actual physical accident and often they're combined you can often have a physical accident that you recover from and you're dying to get back into flying and you get back in the air and you realize you're completely freaked out you're just really really scared of the irrational fear is is is overwhelming we've we've talked a lot over the years in the show about getting over this i'd like to hear your perspective because i imagine there's a ton of pressure on the folks you work with when they're hurt the world's passing you by you know there's the guy next to you on the on the seat is is more than happy to take your place especially nba i mean i'm sorry nfl i mean those guys are always getting hurt talk about that where where's the role in all of this with recovery both physical and mental yeah
that's that's a great question and great application when you first got going i started thinking of simone biles from the olympics um exactly perfect
example she's got the
yips in the middle of the olympics like and pulled out and it's like and what a what a hard place to be because something that nobody can really understand unless you been there right like you got the yips like yeah
come on is that
this is for you the narratives were so brutal right it's like this is for your country that everyone's counting on you like for the team social media get out there and do it
brutal oh it's just brutal like brutal attacks
right and then and then seeing her work through that and then like so she's got a she's got to deal with a i can't perform like i used to like i've gotten knocked off balance b i'm getting attacked just and now if if my identity's in this persona or you know my my status as an olympian and team usa and gold medalist and all this like and now i'm getting attacked on that too like what a just the confluence of of of all that come together just brutal thing to work through and then see her work her way back into performing again and process through that but but absolutely like you know both sides of the trauma there okay how do i heal from injury um you hear about nba players all the time torn achilles torn acl whatever long injuries come back and like i have to learn to trust it again yeah it's like that process of just trusting your body again trusting your process trusting your skills again is is a long road to recovery and then the identity part of that is like
you know these guys who who are out for long periods of time you just the loneliness they feel especially in a team setting where they're not on the court anymore they're not in practice anymore maybe they're flying and going on road trips with the team but they're not really like engaged in the fight and so how do they really feel a part of all that and and that's you know that's that's the identity work we talked about all the time and that's the identity work that's the time you know if you place your identity around anything that can be gained or lost you're setting yourself up for crisis so if you place your identity on um your your belonging on the team or in the community in the flying community whatever if you place your identity on that what happens when it gets taken away who are you if you place your identity on the results what happens when you can't perform like you used to or up to the standards that you want what happens when that gets what happens when you fail like all right simone biles if you've placed your identity in being team usa gold medalist olympian and now i can't perform like i once could now who am i what
i see is in simone from outside observer is okay here's someone with a a secure identity because she could process through that literally live with the misunderstanding the misjudgment the disappointment that other people felt but persist through that have the resilience to keep going to get back on the beam to get back on the floor and and get herself back into into competition um but that's that's the core work right that's that's the identity work without the secure identity you're not going to be able to to have the resilience to keep going and to get back on the beam to get back on the floor you need to get through those moments god
you know i'm thinking about the poster child for your work did you watch the much of the winter olympics this year yeah how about alissa lu the ice skater i don't know much about figure skating i used to know nancy kerrigan back in the day and i was actually standing feet from nancy kerrigan when she got hit you know the whole thing i'm coming off the ice and with tanya harding's boyfriend all that all that craziness but but so my but my daughter got really into watching i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know skating this winter and alissa lu that's her name right do i have that right alissa lu she she got the gold but she that was such a cool story and it's exactly what you're talking about i mean she quit the sport whatever it was 18 months ago or two years ago when she was 16 because the pressure and everybody just constantly telling her what to do and when to train and when to come and the whole thing and her whole identity is completely wrapped up in figure skating and she just said i'm out i'm done i'm gonna go hang out with my friends i'm gonna party i'm gonna have a nice time i need something else in my life and and then came back and crushed it and you know and the other two skaters the other girl and the and i i wish i would have written this down the you know the the the gurus the the guy skater who was supposed to win everything and the and the pressure just crushed him and and yeah yeah the quad god exactly yeah and and alissa but just her her final skate
you could just tell you can see authenticity and you can feel authenticity and just you know watching it on nbc you're going this girl's just loving this she's having so much fun and because she she kept saying i don't care about the results i don't i don't care where i place i'm just here to have fun and yeah a lot of people say that but but how many how often do you see people live it and you could tell she would just and you could tell she wasn't going to make it a mistake because she was just having one she's having so much fun and and smiling and even you could tell that she had lived losing she had lived the experience of not doing well and she'd visualized it and she'd done all the work like you're talking about and doesn't matter i'm not scared of that that doesn't define me i don't care if i win or lose and then of course she's going to win it was so awesome i just was
she's the living example of what you're trying to teach right am i right is that i
got chill i got chills you just relive in that because i i had the same experience watching her in like and this is the beauty of of flow state right and and being able to compete from this from this mindset like it did come across with so much joy like like figure skating is just a beautiful sport in itself but the way she did it like had so much personality and like you said authenticity and it just it looked different it felt different than everybody else there and it's it is she did and i think what i think her you know the other part of that was like when they announced the the results at the end like she was just as excited for the girl who got second i think it was her first medal of the olympics or something like she was so thrilled for her like that's what she did and i think that's what she did and i think that's what she did and she's someone who's not not up there driven by ego like she has nothing to prove nothing to hide i'm not here for my own validation i'm here to just express the best of who i am i'm just here i'm in the olympics i've already won i'm just
here i'm doing it this is it was incredible you could just feel that though it wasn't it wasn't this verbal you know people always say that there's always going to be the cliches but she was living it and everybody knew it oh so cool
living it it's it to me to me this is like the perfect encapsulation of like what is flow state and this is kind of like the the climax of the the conclusion we come to in the book i'll give it away here but it's it's the perfect the perfect description for me is relaxed intensity and and this this brings together everything we've just talked about but like it's an intensity of focus right it's not a furrowed eyebrow stressed out state like i you know i i i'm grasping at focus but it's something that drives your attention to the moment to the present in your world the the natural fear does that like it brings you fully present into the moment but
then there's a relaxed presence i have nothing to prove i have nothing to hide my identity is not on the line i can just show up and be and now i can cooperate with what unfolds in front of me like the the race or the flight doesn't go like i expected but i have nothing to prove nothing to hide it's okay i can cooperate i can adjust i can adapt and because my intent my focus is all here like you know whatever conditions happen that that knock me off course my brain doesn't go oh no they're gonna think i'm so bad oh oh man they're gonna think i'm i don't belong here anymore oh my performance isn't no my brain doesn't do that because i have nothing to prove nothing to hide my identity's not on the line i just re-engage
oh new variable new circumstance how can i adapt right and i just go i just go all out and that's i think that's what elissa did like she i've got nothing to prove nothing to hide i'm not here for validation i'm just going to express the best of what i got um that's what lebron james did when boston he said i have nothing to prove nothing to hide just be fully present fully engaged i want to go for it another another great olympic story sean white up in 2018 if i got the right year but heading into the winter olympics and the the poster child for team usa for the winter olympics right everything's about sean white all the ads all the marketing for the olympics nbc come watch us you're going to see sean white make history he hadn't even made the olympic team yet he's still going through the trials
and he's at the he's got like three races and three runs in the finals of the trials and first one he drops into the half pipe and he said he said i was so amped up my legs just gave out and he fell so he takes a lift back up to the top and second one he drops in and everything's going perfect great run great run the last one for whatever reason he changed the technique or something and he up falling so now he's on his third and final one he's still got to qualify like and everyone's expecting him to be the olympics and he hasn't qualified yet so he's he's at the top and he's discussing with his coach he's like what's the plan what do we do how do we get there how we get there and then he hears the the race and as we're like sean white
go go go go and he's like i don't have a plan i don't know the coach is like just go for it and he dropped in kind of like steph curry like i missed the bus like i have no time to really like overthink this i just drop in and do it just he landed a perfect score it was only like the second perfect score they'd ever handed out but he said he's like there's this amazing amazing things happen when it's like you know you want it but you got to have this little like i don't care what happens yeah like lebron james you got to have a little bit of this i feel nothing like elissa lou you got to have a little bit of this i'm not here to win goals i'm just here to escape my best like there's this little like i don't i don't care about the results
and then great results end up happening because you can get into that that state i've got nothing to prove i've got nothing to hide be fully present fully engaged that's to me flow state the relaxed intensity under
normal circumstances this would be a perfect place to end but i i got to ask you one more thing because you you do this in the book and you do a very eloquent you've worked with all these athletes you know you've done all this mind set training and mindfulness training and mental training and getting over these hurdles and operating under pressure what has it taught you about real life you know you mentioned you can use flow state to be a better dad better husband uh what has it taught you about just the day-to-day and and operating what has it taught you about being a better human
thank
you for asking that because to me this is this is like why it all is so powerful it's like what we can learn in these peak experiences standing on the mountaintop standing at the starting line you know standing in the center court in the big arena we can have these peak experiences every day in the smallest moments um i think i think we can get into trap where um and a lot of professional athletes get this when you when you've had these like adrenaline highs these these really massive moments it can be easy to get addicted to that and like keep chasing that and pursuing that and the real the real life changing moment is when you can have that same experience on
a date with your wife you know at home with your kids watch i was just at the park the other night like watching these kids play you know little league baseball and like can i still have that same joy that same appreciation to be fully present to be fully engaged i have nothing to prove i have nothing to hide my identity is not wrapped up in my son's you know batting average like in t-ball like but i can just be there and and enjoy like can that be a peak experience in life just like whatever you experience on race day um and and that is the work we we find it um we
we do the work in those big mountaintop experiences but once you learn you know what it's like there then peeling back the layer and seeing that in the smallest moments and and it translates both ways you start seeing it in the small moments the little moments where oh man my reaction there to my wife was a little bit out of i was trying to prove my worth i felt an attack on my identity like i started noticing it in the very very small minute silly details of life it starts translating to even those bigger moments um but it is to me like this pursuit of flow state this pursuit of positioning ourselves for flow state like that is life's experience like that is life's like ultimate goal how can i position myself every day so today can be a peak experience i'm not i have nothing to prove i have nothing to hide i'm not distracted or or discouraged by the past i'm not
fantasizing about the future i'm future focused i'm present engaged
i'm not separating myself from life's challenges i'm not removing myself from the real work that needs to be done not just being mindful but i'm getting that mindset upgrade i'm re-engaging with life i'm re-engaging with the present circumstances so i can make an impact i can make an impact on my family i can make an impact
on my family i can make an impact on my family i can make an impact on my
community i can make the world around me a little bit better um but i can only do that if i'm showing up from my best self not distracted by fears irrational irrational um not not driven by insecurities but show up from a secure identity and make a make a real impact on the world around me
brett great awesome stuff the book catching confetti is fantastic all you listening make sure it's a it's a it's a hell of a read it's a lot of fun and very different from a lot of i mean i guess you would classify it as a self-help book i don't know that it maybe has a negative connotation but it you know it gives it's a template like you said it gives you it gives you something to work on and i was it was fantastic to connect on this and i think my audience is really going to jive with a lot of the things you're you're talking about it's it's cool to see all the all the fibers come together but brett appreciate you man thanks a lot thanks for the book and thanks for your contributions and thanks for coming on the show i appreciate you yeah
thanks for having me it's really awesome conversation thanks for inviting an outsider into your to your world and conversation love the work you're doing admire the risks you all take every day and and how it's changing you and impacting you so i have a lot to learn myself but inspired by what you're doing so thanks for letting me be a part of it
thank you appreciate it see you out there if
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