Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase 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, can cause you to be less than your best, whether it's a physical fear. 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, 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 that and and and grow.
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 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 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. Who are you?
Who are you? 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, 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 creating this 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, we're 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 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 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 the actual results and the outcomes of my performance? And so 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, 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 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 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 every day for like a month. Well, now when we were in Milwaukee. 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 ice skating this winter, and Alyssa, 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 mindset 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
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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