Loading summary
Transcript101 lines
- [00:00]
Podcast Host
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:05]
LG X Boom Advertiser
Stop settling for weak sound. It's time to level up your game and bring the boom. Hit the town with the ultra durable LG X Boom portable speaker and enjoy vibrant sound wherever you go. Elevate your listening experience to new heights because let's be real, your music deserves it. The future of sound is now with LG X Boom and for a limited time save 25% at LG.com with code fall25. Bring the Boom XBoom.
- [00:35]
WashablesOfAs.com Advertiser
Tired of spills and stains on your sofa? WashablesOfAs.com has your back featuring the Annabe Collection, the only designer sofa that's machine washable inside and out. Where designer quality meets budget friendly prices. That's right, sofas start at just $699. Enjoy a no risk experience with pet friendly stain resistant and changeable slipcovers made with performance fabrics. Experience cloud like comfort with high resilience foam that's hypoallerg and never needs fluffing. The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime. Check out washablesofas.com and get up to 60% off your Anna Bay sofa backed by a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund. No return shipping or restocking fees. Every penny back. Upgrade now@washablesofas.com Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
- [01:35]
Podcast Host
Every business has an ambition. PayPal open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. And your customers can pay all the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo, pay later and all major cards so you can focus on scaling up when it's time to get growing. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations.
- [02:05]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Good morning.
- [02:06]
Podcast Host
Welcome to today.
- [02:07]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
From back to school to tackling your.
- [02:09]
LG X Boom Advertiser
To do list, the Today show is.
- [02:10]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Your best start to the day. It's a new season and every morning.
- [02:14]
Fox One Advertiser
We'Re here to help you take it all on as the forecast calls for.
- [02:19]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Football all across the country, blockbuster stars, live concerts, and so much more. Wake up to where it's all happening.
- [02:26]
Podcast Host
We're getting back to all of it and the best way to start is together.
- [02:30]
Chase Sapphire Advertiser
Watch the Today show weekday mornings at 7am on NBC.
- [02:35]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
We know quality of relationships is a predictor of life satisfaction too. And people feeling like they've they've lived a life well. And I don't think that's any different for high performers in any industry. And again, you know, the relationship between an athlete and a coach, for example, is really critical for high performance. The relationship between players in a team sport is really critical for high performance. The importance of those relationships cannot be overstated because those are the people, you know, the people around us are what give us the sort of fuel that we need to keep pushing when things get hard. They motivate us in ways that we don't always know we need to be motivated. They give us alternative perspectives. They help us feel supported. There's a ton that comes with having high quality connection.
- [03:23]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Hello and welcome to the Psychology Podcast where where we explore the depths of human potential. Today we have Dr. Alex Auerbach on the show. Dr. Auerbach is a licensed counseling and sport performance psychologist who works with the best athletes in the world. Olympic champions and NBA, NFL and MLB players count on him to elevate their game. He has also worked with high performers in other domains like elite military units, Fortune 5 companies and venture backed startups. In this episode we discuss his book called to Greatness, your personal playbook for the pursuit of excellence. Specifically, we discuss adaptive capacity, resiliency, the foundations of wellness, the role of self awareness in high performance, the importance of values identification, and the science behind confidence and self belief. Dr. Oyerbakh believes that we all have a chance to be great. We just have to answer the call. I really love his work and I know you will too. So without further ado, I bring you Dr. Alex Oyerbach. Hey, Alex Oyerbach. How are you, Scott?
- [04:29]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
I'm good. It's nice to see you.
- [04:31]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Nice to see you. Thanks for coming on the Psychology Podcast. Really been looking forward to featuring your work for a long time. Can you introduce yourself a little bit for our audience?
- [04:39]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Definitely. But first, thanks for having me. This is kind of like a little bit of a surreal moment for me. I grew up in graduate school listening to this podcast and now to be here with you is pretty cool. So thank you for having me. I am a Ph.D. counseling and sports psychologist by training, got my doctorate in counseling psychology from North Texas and most recently was the sports psychologist for the Toronto Raptors and now for the Jacksonville Jaguars along with one of my good friends. So I spent a lot of time helping athletes and other high performers across areas. I work with folks in private equity founders and folks in venture capital. I've worked with some musicians helping achieve peak performance and balance that with holistic wellness and becoming the best version of themselves.
- [05:21]
Scott Barry Kaufman
I love that, as you know, I love that balance. And it's. And it's good to see there's a trend for that balance to be appreciated among sports psychologists and among sports coaches. I've noticed a real increase in the past couple years in understanding just how important that balance is.
- [05:38]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
I think that's exactly right. And I love seeing this in coaches in particular. They're starting to think of themselves as performers, which I think is a generally good trend. But as you know, you know, the best athletes are doing a great job balancing rest and recovery with a push for excellence, and understand that that recovery and rest and balance is actually a key part of becoming the best that they can be.
- [06:00]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very, very well put. So, yeah, you're making me feel a little bit old saying you listen to my podcast. In grad school, you say in your book, you spent the last 15 years studying what enables performers to deliver consistent results and make meaningful progress toward achieving their full potential. I think that this idea of consistency is a central theme in a lot of your writings. Would you agree?
- [06:28]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Absolutely. I think it may be the most important thing. It's definitely up there. But to show up every day and give as much as you can. Right. It's not about giving 100% every day. I think that's a bit unrealistic. But giving 100% of whatever it is you have to give every day is sort of the foundation, really, for getting good at anything.
- [06:46]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Yes. And a lot of my research on creativity shows that creativity is not necessarily characterized by consistency. So how do you balance expertise acquisition, which does require consistency, and allowing a little spontaneity there, Alex, so that you can allow some unexpected connections to happen? Or is that just irrelevant to sports?
- [07:12]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Well, I'd be really curious how you make sense of that, because you've got an interesting background in working with creative experts, too. I mean, I do think in sports, creativity sometimes comes as a function of being really expert at what you do. And so because you put in the practice and you've seen so many different variations of what the game might look like, it does allow for a little bit of improvisation. And as you know, there are other cognitive factors that go into that, too. Right. High intelligence, for example, might make you a little bit more creative and a little less rigid on the basketball court or on the football field. And so I think you might see some of those factors play out, too. But I think consistency in training gives you that good foundation for understanding the most common ways the game might unfold and also allows you to see opportunities for being a little bit more creative and innovative. But I do think the reality in sports is we're playing from a playbook, right, in most sports. And so there is a bit of structure. And I think the best coaches are trying to find ways to give athletes freedom within that structure, but still sort of move the mission forward in ways that perhaps like a creative artist, a painter, a writer may not have those same kind of constraints. But I don't know, you tell me, what do you make of that?
- [08:24]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Well, I'm still formulating my thoughts about this, but let's think of some examples of some of the most artistic, creative athletes and see what separates them from the rest. I think that may be a useful exercise. Obviously, Michael Jordan enters my mind because I grew up with him and I felt like he was an artist on the basketball court and he did creative things that other athletes can't do. Alex, what do you. Who are some artists that come to your mind?
- [08:53]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
What's an interesting way of thinking about an athlete? I think you've, you've given two great ones. Barry Sanders comes to mind for me on the football field. You know, someone who could sort of make anything happen even with less than ideal circumstances. I think if I'm thinking about football, I'm thinking about guys like Lamar Jackson right now. Right. Kind of a creative, different outside the box player. Patrick Mahomes too, I think, is a pretty creative player. I'm thinking about guys like Leo Messi as a pretty creative soccer player. So I think there are a few artists out there. I think we might have some selection bias. I'm not sure we're picking anyone who's not also the best of the best here, which is interesting, but I think that's noteworthy too.
- [09:44]
Scott Barry Kaufman
But yes, and in all those cases, they still put in the work. I mean, consistency was not at odds with their creativity. I mean, my gosh, I think for these individuals you mentioned, they're probably also in the list of the hardest workers of all time. So maybe you kind of have to put in your reps in order to be able to have enough to be able to improvise on. I think that's kind of a general consensus in the creativity literature. And would you say that applies in sports as well?
- [10:15]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
I think that's exactly right. How does that play out in the creativity literature? What does that look like?
- [10:20]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Well, in the world of ideas, the more knowledge and information you have, the more fodder you have to play around with. In a way, the more unexpected connections you can make. You can't make unexpected connections among things that aren't in your head.
- [10:38]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Very fair.
- [10:40]
Scott Barry Kaufman
But creative people don't just stop with the expertise. That's the thing. There really is a beyond expertise element there to creative people. So I'm just trying to think through how that works in sports. I don't think that most athletes have as their goal creativity. They have high performance. So a lot of your work really is delivering consistent results, which is not necessarily at odds with creativity. So how do you respond resiliently to adverse conditions and setbacks? What are some techniques or strategies you have found are really important?
- [11:19]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Well, with athletes in particular, I'm always thinking about a couple of things when it comes to dealing with mistakes. The first is how do we respond in the moment to not let that mistake totally derail performance. And I'm sure you can think of people you've worked with too. But it's not uncommon when, when people make a mistake to spend the next, you know, 15, 20 plus minutes in their head beating themselves up for whatever just went on. But in the context of a basketball game, let's say it's not super helpful to be in your head beating yourself up while the game is going on, right? It takes you out of the moment. It limits your ability really to perform at your highest level. And so we've got to find a way to help you deal with that mistake effectively in the moment. And so there are some, you know, simple techniques we would teach athletes, like a release, reset, refocus routine where we help them learn the skill of basically letting go of the mistake as quickly as possible and refocusing as quickly as possible so they can be in the game as much as they can. I think the second element is often learning when the right time to deal with the mistake is. So one of the things that happens a lot in sports is that a team will lose or a turnover happens and player comes off the court or off the field and you see the coach yelling at the player right away. And I think we've got good data that shows that that kind of response delays recovery and actually increases cortisol and makes players obviously more, more stressed out. Interestingly enough, players who perceive their coaches to be more stressed also perceive their coaches to be less competent. So it's all around a bad cycle where the players feeling more stressed and not recovering and also has less trust and faith in their coach's ability to help them. And so we've got to teach athletes the right time to deal with the mistake, which is usually after they've had some distance from the game or from the mistake itself. I don't think most people deal well with reflecting on a mistake in the moment or right after the fact. We're still trying to defend our ego a little bit or justify whatever's happened or kind of explain it away versus look at it like a scientist and really try to understand what happened here and what can we adjust in the future so it doesn't happen again without it being so central to the way that we see ourselves or how good we think we are as a performer just because we made a mistake.
- [13:30]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Thanks, Alex. I really like that. Do you find in your work with professional athletes that they are. Well, certainly there are humans. I don't need to ask. Do you find they're human? But do you find they get affected by what the media says about them? If the media is harsh or tears someone down, can that really affect a player psychologically? Have you seen that up close?
- [13:55]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
I have, and I think you're exactly right that these athletes, even though they entertain and we sort of see them as superhuman for a lot of the things that they can do, they're people first. And so if they're getting torn down consistently in the media or even on social media when you try to get them, you know, I spent a lot of time trying to get players to not go on Twitter, right, or not go on social media and avoid the comments because there's usually nothing good waiting for you there. But the reality is for all people, right, words heard and language really matters for the way that we think and feel. And so it's not uncommon for an athlete to be disrupted by what's being said about them. And of course, we can teach them, you know, good tips and tricks for managing that effectively or distancing themselves or coping with whatever's being said, but especially amidst, say, like a bad streak in the season. Right. It's not uncommon to have, you know, 10 articles written about how you're underperforming in the course of two or three days. And for anybody, I think that that would get to them a little bit. And we've got to give them skills to manage that. And I do think the best athletes find ways to either use that as fuel, right. And become a source of motivation or something that helps them overcome, or they find a way to just disconnect and not be so impacted by the opinions of people who write about them and sort of find ways to let that go.
- [15:14]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Wonderful. Well, what is this Expression adaptive capacity that you talk a lot about. What is that?
- [15:23]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Our friends Brad Stolberg and Steve Magnus, I think, put it quite well in one of their books. But it's the basic idea that stress paired with rest can lead to growth and progress. Right. The idea is that the more challenges we take on and the higher, harder challenges we take on, and then when we rest and recover, we build our ability to do harder things again in the future. Kind of dovetails with things like stress inoculation theory and some of these other principles where we know that when people are provided or do experience a bit of stress or tension and then they again, they recover, they can take on more. So the easiest metaphor to use here is the weight room. Right. If we're using sports like if you go. Go to the gym and you get on the bench and you bench press on Monday, and then you give yourself a break on Tuesday, by the time you come back Wednesday, you should be a little bit stronger and ready to take on a little bit more. In contrast, right? If you go to the gym on Monday and you bench, and then you go on Tuesday and you bench, and Wednesday you bench, Thursday you bench, by Friday, you might tear a peck. And so adaptive capacity is really about giving yourself the adequate amount of stress and the adequate amount of rest to consistently grow over time.
- [16:34]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Yeah, that's really not compatible with having an obsessive passion for your activity. You know, Valoron's distinction between harmonious passion and obsessive passion. I think a lot of athletes have that idea that I need to be the hardest worker in the room or else I'll never be a Michael Jordan. And in order to be the hardest worker, I need to be obsessively passionate about it, even when it's not bringing returns on my investment. Is that a myth?
- [17:06]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
I think you're exactly right. I mean, I used to see this with the rookies we brought in in Toronto. You know, you draft a rookie and then you fly him to the facility right away. And, you know, you'd hear the story of, oh, he was in the gym at 3am you know, for the next five. Five days. And I'm like, I'm not sure that's a. That's a good thing. I'm not sure I want him in the gym at 3am I want him sleeping at 3am Ideally so that he can come in the gym and perform well the next day. But I. I do think sports has an unfortunate way of sort of lionizing consistent work. And then there's all these sort of pithy sayings that cut against the idea that recovery is useful, right? So you've heard things like you're either getting better or you're getting worse, or while you're sleeping, the enemy is working.
- [17:50]
Scott Barry Kaufman
You know, that's a big one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [17:53]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Those kinds of sayings then discourage people from taking the rest and recovery that they need to be successful. But if you actually look at the best athletes in the world, they're all resting and recovering at an incredible rate, right? There's been articles written about LeBron spending more than a million dollars a year on his recovery routine. There was just an article written a couple weeks ago about Cristiano Ronaldo and his longevity and the routine he goes through. There's a ton written about Kobe and his, you know, famous 4:00am workout sessions, but less written or said about his naps in between, you know, and so the the best athletes really are engaging recovery as a part of practice and using recovery to facilitate their excellence so that they can be consistent over time. We just don't talk so much about the recovery part because it's not as sexy or interesting as, you know, an athlete shooting 5,000 shots or whatever it might be.
- [18:51]
LG X Boom Advertiser
Stop settling for weak sound. It's time to level up your game and bring the boom. Hit the town with the ultra durable LG X Boom portable speaker and enjoy vibrant sound wherever you go. Elevate your listening experience to new heights because let's be real, your music deserves it. The future of sound is now with LG X Boom and for a limited time, save 25%@LG.com with code Fall25. Bring the boom. Xboom.
- [19:23]
WashablesOfAs.com Advertiser
Let's be real. Life happens. Kids spill, pets shed and accidents are inevitable. Find a sofa that can keep up@washablesofas.com starting at just $699. Our sofas are fully machine washable inside and out so you can say goodbye to stains and hello to worry free living. Made with liquid and stain resistant fabrics, they're kid proof, pet friendly and built for everyday life. Plus, changeable fabric covers let you refresh your sofa whenever you want. Need flexibility? Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa anytime to fit your space, whether it's a growing family room or or a cozy apartment. Plus they're earth friendly and trusted by over 200,000 happy customers. It's time to upgrade to a stress free, mess proof sofa. Visit washablesofas.com today and save that's washablesofas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
- [20:22]
GoDaddy Advertiser
Running a business online look legit and own your own brand with professional tools from GoDaddy instantly build trust with your customers and boost your credibility with an email that matches your domain so people know you mean business. There's never been a better time. Just go to GoDaddy.com GDnow and choose from a wide variety of popular domains to find one that's right for you. Pair that with a professional email that works for all your business needs from daily communications to email marketing and everything in between. That's a little price for a lot of credibility. For a limited time, get a domain and matching professional email for just 99 cents a month for one year. Go to GoDaddy.comGdNow and look legit with GoDaddy. That's GoDaddy.comGdNow again. GoDaddy.comGdNow there's never been a better time to choose the domain and email that's right for you. New Customer purchases only products Auto renew separately See terms on site godaddy.com gdnow.
- [21:23]
Podcast Host
Every business has an ambition. PayPal open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours and with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. And your customers can pay all the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo, pay later and all major cards so you can focus on scaling up when it's time to get growing. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations hi all.
- [21:55]
Scott Barry Kaufman
I want to take a moment to make a few important announcements that I'm really excited about. As you all know, I'm committed to helping people self actualize in the service of that I just had a new book come out called Rise Overcome a victim Mindset, Empower yourself and realize your full potential. In this book I offer a science backed toolkit to help you overcome your limiting beliefs and take control of your life. Are you tired of feeling helpless? This book will offer you hope not by identifying with the worst things that have happened to you, but by empowering you to tap into the best that is within you. Rise above is available wherever you get your books. Are you a personal coach looking to take your coaching to the next level? I'm also excited to tell you that our Foundations of Self Actualization Coaching three Day Immersive Experience for Coaches is backed by popular demand. Foundations of Self Actualization Coaching is a course offered to enhance your coaching practice which by offering you evidence based tools and insights to equip you to more effectively help your clients unlock their unique creative potential. You can learn more about the course and register by going to centerforhumanpotential.com sac that's centerforhumanpotential.com Sac okay, now back to the show. Yeah, but yeah, this, this mentality though, that while I'm sleeping, my enemy is working out. I mean it's very prevalent in the biohacking or the bro. Bro science community. I mean it's this idea of like I'm waking up at 5am and I'm jumping in the bath. Are you, are you kind of like criticizing that culture? A little bit?
- [23:34]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
A little bit, yeah. I mean, look, I think, I think the persistent push to optimize everything ultimately probably leads to underperformance in the long term. Um, you know, I think it's a recipe for either burning out or building, you know, unhealthy habits or potentially taking shortcuts. Right. Like, I think this is the slippery slope that leads to people taking like growth hormone is. You're feeling like you're being left behind and you're looking for whatever edge you can. I mean we, we both know that the, the bro science community is also not using science so much. And so I think, I think that's part of it too. But again, I think probably across, across industries, right, the best performers really are taking their time to rest and recover. I'm sure you've seen it too. But I think Adam Grant wrote a little bit about the idea that leaders who engage in post work recovery have higher performing teams because their teams feel comfortable recovering. I think he wrote a Twitter post or a blog post about that at some point. Like across spaces, this just really matters. Same thing with sleep and surgeons, right? Or sleep and pilots. We know that that's really important for them performing well. So I mean, look, you can wake up and get an ice bath all you want, but you're still, you're still going to have to recover. You're still going to have to find just the basic ways of doing it sustainably over time if you want to be great at anything.
- [24:55]
Scott Barry Kaufman
When I go in the ice bath, I spend the rest of the day recovering from going in the ice bath.
- [25:00]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
I don't even get in the ice bath because I won't make it out.
- [25:06]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Oh man. Okay, so what are some other foundations of well being in a sports context? You've already mentioned a couple, obviously, but what are some others?
- [25:15]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
I think probably the most important one would be sleep. There's just tons and tons of great data about the value of sleep for both well being and emotional health and psychological health broadly, but also for sports performance. There was a study done at Stanford in the early 2010s ish that showed that basketball players who slept a couple hours longer each night had an increase in their free throw percentage of about 20%. We've got data that shows that sleep is when then you know, your brain cleans itself and you consolidate learning and you grow muscle. So if you want to be a high performer, you know, all those things are really critical. And I think in most cases sleep is probably the number one thing we can improve for athletes to raise their performance quite quickly. Second would be something like nutrition. You know, I'm not a dietitian or a nutritionist, so I won't wax poetic about that for too long. But we do know, you know, there's more and more being written about like the gut brain axis and the role of nutrition and mental health. But we also just know high quality, quality nutrition and hydration is really important for, you know, again, muscle building and taking care of your body and things that are required if you want to be a high level performer. Really anywhere to be great. I think a lot about the idea of play and having fun as something that's really important for, well being. You and your work on creativity, you probably know a bit more about that than I do, so I'd be curious what what you think of that concept. But I know for me, if I'm even working with pro athletes, if we're not having any fun, that's going to be a problem. And I think play is a huge foundation of getting more creative in the work that you do and finding innovative solutions and also engaging in, you know, something socially that that makes you feel better. And the fourth one I'll give you without going through all of them is movement. And you know, for athletes, of course, movement's kind of baked in. Right. In practice you're running around or you're going to the weight room. But for performers outside of sports, again, the link between physical movement and brain performance and brain health is pretty robust. And so making sure you're getting exercise or yoga or whatever it might be, I think can be really important for building that foundational well being.
- [27:29]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Yeah, I know that this is not very like broly of me to say, but what's the importance of connection?
- [27:37]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
I love that you're not going the broy route there. That's okay. I support that completely. I Mean, you know as well as anybody, right, relationships are one of the biggest predictors of resilience that we have. Strongest predictors of resilience that we have. Again, athletes kind of have that built in a little bit, right. With teammates and the people in the locker room, though, those relationships are not always super high quality. That's one of the places where people like me and other sports psychologists or psychology practitioners can help intervene and make a big difference. We know quality of relationships is a predictor of life satisfaction too. And people feeling like they've, they've lived a life well. And I don't think that's any different for high performers in any industry. And again, you know, the relationship between an athlete and a coach, for example, is really critical for high performance. The relationship between players in a team sport is really critical for high performance. But even in individual sports, I don't know if you're watching any Wimbledon right now. Um, you can see, you know, the best athletes out there are still interacting with their coaches while they're on the court and they're thinking about the people in their, their circle and they're taking coaching, or it happens in boxing and UFC too, where the coach kind of comes up on the ringside and sort of coaches them up. Like the importance of those relationships cannot be overstated because those are the people, you know, the people around us are what give us the sort of fuel that we need to keep pushing when things get hard. They motivate us in ways that we don't always know we need to be motivated. They give us alternative perspectives, they help us feel supported. There's a ton that comes with having high quality connection. Also not built into the, the BRO protocol, but highly important.
- [29:17]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Yeah, because, well, the idea of relational tends to, it feels at odds with the, the need for dominance. And I mean, I feel like you need to integrate both in a way for high well being. And so I'm wondering how that works in a sports context where dominance is really such a coveted state to be in. You know, that's why you go into sports, because you want to dominate the competition. But as a youth sports coach or as a sports coach at any level, how can you kind of foster a healthy integration there of even creating relationships with your competition?
- [30:02]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
I think you see it at the highest levels of sport, there's a really healthy respect for people on the other team because if you're an elite athlete, if you're a pro athlete, you understand what it takes to be on the other side of the ball or be on the other side of the court. Right. It takes a tremendous amount of work and dedication and persistence to reach that level. And so I think there is, again, in pro sports, like this, mutual respect for each other that's sort of built in on top of the fact that, you know, you never know who might be your teammate next year, so you don't have, you know, bad relationships with everyone. But I do think there's this sort of element where for a few hours every other night, you've got to find a way to sort of increase the sense of connectedness and camaraderie you have with the people in your locker room and then channel that toward dominating the people across from you. And for, you know, three hours, be a little bit ruthless about that. It doesn't mean be disrespectful. It just means be focused on establishing your team as the superior team. And I think you can do that in a way that still demonstrates, again, like, a level of healthy respect for your opponent and respect for the game and really just prioritizes the connection that you have with the people around you. And I think, you know, probably the best example I've seen of this in. In recent times is Steph Curry. You know, Steph has been with the warriors for a long time now, but there was an article written not too long ago as the Kevin Durant trade rumors circled about him maybe going back to Golden State, and there was an article written that talked about Steph sort of basically saying when Kevin Durant came, like, okay, man, this is your. Your team now. Which is pretty uncommon. You know, in a lot of pro sports locker rooms, the player who's most established simply tries to re. Establish dominance over any new player that comes in. And so for someone to sort of step aside and recognize it'll be best for the group and best for the team and best for me. If you take over and we follow your lead, I think is quite uncommon, but speaks to this really high level of relational intelligence and the way that he's thinking about building a team that I think is quite special. And so to your point, I think people mistake that level of relational savvy and understanding how the pieces fit together for weakness, essentially. Right. Or being less than in the dominance hierarchy. But, yeah, and some. In some ways, I think being that attuned is actually a sign of obviously significant strength, but a little bit of dominance. Right. If you can be the one that decides whose team this is, I don't think you can find a higher position than that.
- [32:32]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Yeah, that's a really good point. It's a really good point. Well, what's the role of self awareness in adaptive capacity?
- [32:42]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Again, I think if I'm, if I'm looking at the highest level athletes, they've all got this incredible ability to understand what they need or what's important to them at any given moment. Again, to use Steph as an example, he talked not too long ago about the thing that he believed made him so excellent or makes him so excellent is constantly paying attention to how he's feeling and what his body needs or what his brain needs to perform well. And I think you've seen this with athletes like a Michael Phelps or Simone Biles, you know, these folks who are paying attention to their well being. Right. Simone is probably a great example from a few years ago where she recognized like, I don't feel well going out here. Right. And if I keep doing this, I'm likely to get hurt and that injury is likely to be much worse for me than pulling myself out of this competition and taking care of myself. But I think you can only do things like that. And if you're aware of how you're feeling, if you're aware of what you need, if you're aware of how your body feels, how your mind feels, what your energy levels are like. And so to get to that level of excellence, you really do have to pay attention to yourself. You can't just go through the motions. You can't blindly follow whatever your coaches recommend because they don't know you. They're not living your body, they're not living your experience. And so you've got to be able to build that because that's going to let you figure out what's the next challenge you need to take on. How much rest do you need and what's that going to look like for you to get better and better over time?
- [34:05]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Yeah, you, you talk about some foundations of self awareness such as values identification and feedback serving. What the heck are those two things?
- [34:18]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Well, I mean, I think for me, the way I think about self awareness starts and you know, I was trained pretty heavily in act, so I'll acknowledge that ACT informs a lot of the ways that I think. Right. But figuring out what you value and what's really important to you, I think serves as an anchor for of the decisions you make. And so if you're unclear about what matters most to you or the person that you want to become, it's going to be really hard to make decisions that serve you well in the long term. And I think what you're going to find is you consistently optimize for the short term which for most people is fairly counter to long term success. If you really want to be a healthy competitor. But what's right in front of you is three pints of chocolate ice cream every night. I'm not discouraging people from eating chocolate ice cream. There's just a reality that you can't eat three pints of chocolate ice cream if you also want to get to the highest level of nutrition and pro sports. Right. To use a simple example. And so being clear that becoming the best, for example, is important to you can help you make that decision to sort of forego the short term pleasure for long term gain. So I think that's an important part of values identification. And again, I think it just helps you make decisions in the moment when things feel tense or you're unsure about what do to to do. Knowing what's most important to you can help you get clear and then commit to whatever that decision is. And then I think feedback is really important because you know, I wrote in the book about self awareness being a little bit of essentially what we know about ourselves and what others know about us. Right. And I think feedback helps us understand the impact that we have on the people around us and adjust our behavior so that we can have the impact that we want or understand more effective ways of being. Right. And again, this is why the best athletes in the world have coaches. Because even if you think that you're doing footwork correctly or you think that you're being a good leader or you think you're practicing enough, right. Someone else's perspective about what's missing or how your footwork is or how effective your leadership is can really inform what you need to do more of, less of or differently to be as successful as you want to be.
- [36:20]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Yeah, that's really quite profound. Nothing to gloss over. Yeah, yeah, really like that. Along your path on being, going where you want to be. I think low self confidence can rear its head, you know, especially if you're not performing how you want to be performing. How do you keep your confidence and self belief masking for a friend? I can't resonate with that at all right now. But how do you maintain your confidence in your self belief when you're not necessarily getting paid what you want to get paid or getting the successful results you want to get or it's cyclical, right. It comes and goes. No one's, no one, including us, is high performing 24, 7. Correct. So how do you maintain that confidence and self belief when it's not going well.
- [37:12]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
I think of confidence as being a function of really two things. Of course there's more, but the two that I think are most important are past success. So being able to sort of account for things you've done well and understand the strengths you use to get there and how you made those outcomes happen. And pushing past the initial tendency, we all have to sort of be humble and say, oh, I just got lucky. Like, no, you didn't just get lucky. Right. You worked hard. There are strengths that you had that allowed you to make that outcome happen. And we should figure out what those strengths are and figure out how we double down on those things so that you can be the best version of yourself more consistently. And then the second piece for me when I'm thinking about high performance and athletes is really about high quality preparation, Good practice and feeling as ready as you can be is going to help you feel more confident and believe in yourself when you get to the big game or when you get to whatever your performance is. And of course, you know as well as anyone, right, there are other sources of self efficacy, right, like physiological arousal and self talk and, you know, vicarious learning. But I think the preparation and past success give you a really good foundation for feeling confident about yourself in whatever endeavor it is you're going for. And so if you're feeling not confident, right, I might start by asking you to reflect on the things you've done well and how you made those things happen. And if you're preparing for something, I might ask you to think about, you know, what's missing from your preparation or what else you could do that would help you feel as ready to go as possible going into that performance.
- [38:47]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Yeah, yeah. Um, a lot of this is easier said than done, but it, it's very good advice. But you have to not just think it, you have to feel it. I think a lot of people, you know, can tell themselves all they want, you know, to pep themselves up and have the humbleness and, and think about. But maybe deep down they feel like they're kind of broken and. Well, anyway, that gets into trauma. But athletes are human, right? So this stuff's not irrelevant. Have you ever dealt with an athlete who had kept having, like, trauma triggers?
- [39:25]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Unfortunately, more often than I wish were the case. You know, I mean, many athletes come from a place of, like, either great hardship or a lot of difficulty growing up. You know, I can think of athletes I've worked with who suffered, you know, significant childhood trauma, whether it was like, physical Abuse by a parent or some other kind of disruption in their life. You know, I've worked with athletes who have experienced homelessness, you know, a full range of things that really have impacted them. And it's hard because in the course of a season, it may not be the right thing to do to sort of get deep into the trauma, because there may be, you know, they may have to play right every other night. And so if it's really disruptive or it's really hard for them or taxing, you know, dealing with that and coping with that during the season can. Can potentially hurt performance and then sort of make things worse. And so you've got to find ways to do that work kind of essentially in the off season so that you can be as successful as you want to be and heal. Heal a bit.
- [40:33]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Healing. Healing is a big one that we don't give enough time and space. I think there's a kind of. Yeah, there's that mentality of, like, you know, who's got time for healing when. When your competition is shooting jump shots in the gym at 5am, you know.
- [40:53]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Yeah.
- [40:54]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Okay. So a lot of what we've talked about is mental strength, self care, self awareness. Let's talk a little bit about the building blocks of high performance. You talk about passion, perseverance, and resilience. Ppr. Right. So are you a big fan of Andrew Duckworth's research on grit? Do you. Do you bring that into your work on high performance?
- [41:23]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
I do. I am a fan of Angela Duckworth's work, and one of the things I respect most about her is the fact that she kind of evolved her thinking and the way that her work went in response to how the data unfolded. She's not. I don't experience her as super dogmatic about the work that she's done, which I really respect. But I think, you know, look, in sport, again, if you want to be great at what you do, you do have to essentially like it a little bit. Right. You have to care about it. You have to be passionate about it. It has to be something that you want to show up and work for. And then you also have to be willing to push when things are not going well or, you know, the way I like to think of resilience comes from Keenan Sheldon. He talks about resilience being the idea of seeking growth even when conditions don't support it. I think that's a lot of what it means to work hard and be good at something in sports. Right. I think the best athletes. I talk a lot and I think James Clear has written a bit about it too, about falling in love with boredom, right? And it's not all that pleasant to be bored and show up to work, but you've got to do it if that's something that you really want to achieve. And you know, again, Michael Phelps has talked about this in his work, Steph Curry's talked about it from his warm ups, Kobe's written talked about it. And so I do think you have to have that combination. I've never turned it into an acronym like PPR before, maybe I'll steal that from you now. But I think the combination of those characteristics allows you to show up day after day, to keep working hard at the things that are most important to you, and to push yourself even when you don't feel like it.
- [42:58]
LG X Boom Advertiser
Stop settling for weak sound it's time to level up your game and bring the boom. Hit the town with The Ultra Durable LG XBoom Portable speaker and enjoy vibrant sound wherever you go. Elevate your listening experience to new heights because let's be real, your music deserves it. The future of sound is now with LG XBoom and for a limited time save 25% at LG.com with code Fall25. Bring the Boom XBoom.
- [43:28]
WashablesOfAs.com Advertiser
Tired of spills and stains on your sofa? WashablesOfAs.com has your back featuring the Annabe Collection, the only designer sofa that's machine washable inside and out where designer quality meets budget friendly prices. That's right, sofas start at just $699. Enjoy a no risk experience with pet friendly stain resistant and changeable slipcovers made with performance fabrics. Experience cloud like comfort with high resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffy. The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime. Check out washablesofas.com and get up to 60% off your Anna Bay sofa backed by a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund. No return, shipping or restocking fees. Every penny back. Upgrade now@washablesofas.com Offers are a such subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
- [44:28]
GoDaddy Advertiser
Running a business online look legit and own your own brand with professional tools from GoDaddy. Instantly build trust with your customers and boost your credibility with an email that matches your domain so people know you mean business. There's never been a better time. Just go to GoDaddy.com GDnow and choose from a wide variety of popular domains. To find one that's right for you. Pair that with a professional email that works for all your business needs from daily communications to email marketing and everything in between. That's a little price for a lot of credibility. For a limited time, get a domain and matching professional email for just 99 cents a month for one year. Go to GoDaddy.comGdNow and look legit with GoDaddy. That's GoDaddy.comGdNow again. GoDaddy there's never been a better time to choose the domain and email that's right for you. New customer purchases only products Auto renew separately See terms on site godaddy.com gdnow.
- [45:29]
Podcast Host
Every business has an ambition. PayPal open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. And your customers can pay all the the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo pay later and all major cards so you can focus on scaling up when it's time to get growing. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations.
- [46:01]
Scott Barry Kaufman
It's a great point and I think that we can break down this idea of boredom as well. Falling in love with monotony. That's really what we mean by boredom. A lot of people find monotony boring, but I think a lot of athletes don't find it. The word boredom is a judgment call though, you know, that's why I'm saying like what is it exactly? It's doing the same thing over and over and over again. But I think that a lot of high performers kind of retrain their brain in a way where they don't need constant novelty of practice routine. They get excited to wake up, they get excited for the monotony because they know that it's going to really solidify some skill that'll give them an edge in competition.
- [46:46]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
I think that's exactly right. And the cool thing about sports is you get to see that monotony basically like play out and see if it's working or not for you on game day. Right. So you get to see if all that high quality practice and the monotony is leading to the results that you want. That's right. And I do think these highest level athletes are motivated by trying to perfect their craft. Right. And trying to become the best that they can be. We talked earlier about the idea of dominance, but I do Think for the athletes who have the longest, most successful careers, a lot of what they talk about being after is really self actualization, right? It's becoming the best athlete that they can be, becoming the best version of themselves. It's not about winning as many championships as they can. That's sort of an outcome that, that comes by way of pushing to be the best that you can be. But it's not the thing that they're seeking. You know, if you watch starting five on Netflix, for example, there's an episode where LeBron breaks the all time NBA scoring record. And the interviewer asks him something about like, you know, did you set out to break this? Like, did you have any idea you would break this record? And he responds with, I had no intention of breaking this record. Basically, like, I just wanted to be the best that I could be. And as a function of being the best that I could be, I broke this record. And so I think, yeah, it's really pretty special to hear these, these players think about what it means to become high level. And it's all about becoming the best that they can be. And I think if you then treat monotony as a part of that. Right. It's underpins deliberate practice, it underpins the development of expertise. Um, it can be something that, like, it may not be the most energizing thing every day. I've been to enough, you know, pro sports practices to see that there are some times when the energy just isn't quite there. And it doesn't feel great to go out there and work through the monotony. But the reality is doing that repeatedly is what helps you become expert at your craft.
- [48:38]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Yeah. What is, what are some of the best mindsets that a high performing athlete can harness? You talk about a challenge mindset in your book. What is a challenge mindset? And are there other mindsets that are important for athletes?
- [48:54]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Well, look, I want, I want to hear a little bit about the mindset you're writing about a little bit too, because I think that would be an interesting one to incorporate into the three that, that I've thought about or talked a lot about. But I'll start where you, I'll start where you left it and then I want to hear from you. But you know, we, you know, Dr. Elia Crom, her research is, is on stress as enhancing mindset. And the idea that the way that we perceive stress as a challenge or a threat does impact the way that we think, feel and perform. And so for the highest level athletes, we're trying to Train them to see stress as enhancing. And the most common way that we see stress is really as a debilitator, right? We see stress as bad or harmful, and that leads to, of course, worse performance individually, but also worse team performance performance. Right. And we've all kind of seen that play out, right? You know, it's the. It's the athlete who picks up their ball and goes home, right? When, when things get hard, if you quit, it's really hard to obviously reach the level that you want to. To be at. And so to be a high performer, we really need to figure out how we harness that challenge mindset. So seeing stress as an opportunity for growth or a chance to show what we're made of or a sign that we're determined or as excitement can help us kind of tap into that stresses enhancing mindset. The second mindset I talk about is this combination of growth mindset and fixed mindset. And we talked about this a little bit last week on a. On a webinar we did together. But, you know, people present growth mindset and fixed mindset as though they're sort of like two opposites, but the reality is they're sort of. They're orthogonal. Right? You can be high in both. You can have a high level of growth mindset and a high level of fixed mindset. And I think for elite performers, you do want to believe in the value of hard work and effort and persistence. That growth mindset oriented part of you to reach the outcomes that you want. But you also have to recognize that there's something special about you that allows you to stand out. And that's where harnessing that, that fixed mindset really comes into play. And then third, we've. We've talked about the importance of recovery, but I think learning to see recovery as an investment in future performance, not as time away from the game, but time that you're actually putting in to get better can facilitate high performance over time. But I want to hear about, you know, I know you're writing and have written now about the victim mindset. I want to hear more about this mindset you're exploring and see if I can think about how that folds into the way I think about mindset too.
- [51:20]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Yeah, definitely. I think that it's very relevant in a sports context where you can feel as though forces outside yourself are conspiring against you, that you don't have any agency left, that you keep trying to reach your goals and practicing, and you reach a plateau and you can't get past it. And it's the world's fault for that. And that can really hold you back from persevering and maybe even changing your goals in ways that are healthy and, you know, and moving on productively. Sometimes you do reach plateaus. You know, I, I don't think that grit can get you everywhere, Alex. You know, I don't think that grit can make everyone a Michael Jordan. You know, I agree. So I think it's equally as important to have a healthy mindset where you take responsibility for what you're putting into it, the amount of work you're putting in. You also take responsibility for your challenges and how you show up and what decisions you make when faced with those challenges and how you react to things. All those things are within your control. And when we have a victim mindset, we really, we outsource all those problems to the world. So, yeah, I do think, like harnessing an empowerment, I call it an empowerment mindset is probably very helpful in a lot of sports contexts. What it really is is it's self empowerment. So, yeah, I'm just kind of adding in a self empowering kind of mindset that I think is complementary to the other ones you mentioned. I don't think it can be reduced to any of the ones you mentioned, but I think it belongs in that canyon of healthy mindsets for success.
- [53:14]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
I completely agree and it's really interesting to hear you unpack it because I think this idea would resonate so much for coaches in sports. You know, there's so many times I've seen and worked with coaches who get frustrated because athletes essentially make excuses. Right. And that, that's sort of what you're saying is an empowerment. Empowerment mindset's about finding your level of responsibility, your level of control, and taking ownership over that as much as you can. Which is, of course, what every coach wants to see in their athletes. Right? Is them taking complete ownership for it. I'd be curious if I can flip the interview on you for a minute here, but I'd be curious, like, what are the skills you would teach either a coach or an athlete that would facilitate that empowerment mindset?
- [54:00]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Well, I would really, I mean, I would love to sit down with you and design a curriculum that brings all that together. Some things off the top of my mind include bringing in the idea of learned hopefulness, which is a construction that is only a recent construct, because the construct of word helplessness has existed for many, many years. This idea that our default state is to be helpless, well, we know that we learn to be helpless through repeated failures But Martin Seligman and colleagues have found more recently that actually our default state is helplessness. That's not what we learn. We actually have to actively learn the skills of hope. And that often involves coming up with plan B, plan C, plan D. What are you going to do if this first route is blocked? You know, Well, I have a plan, you know, so hope is not just a feel good feeling. It's a cognitive mindset as well. So I think that would be a big part of it. Helping with emotional regulation skills is a big part of it. Being able to not identify with the emotion that you're feeling so much that you're, you're saying, well, I am anxious, you know, so you're on the court, you're like, oh, I'm feeling some anxiety right now, but I'm so much more than this, you know, so you just, you know, I think that's a whole skill set right there. Is, is, Is trend. I'm basically just thinking of this on the spot because you asked me, but I think I'm thinking within, within a sports context. Those. And you asked me for. Did you ask me for three?
- [55:36]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
You can give me as many as you want. I just asked for a couple. Yeah. Or a few.
- [55:41]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Oh, yeah. I can't remember if you specified give me three. But, but also. Yeah, I think like cognitive distortions can, can really be big on, on the, on the court or whatever. Whatever the field. The field, the sports field. I think that you can kind of get things distorted. We're not seeing the reality clearly. And you maybe catastrophize, I think, I think catastrophizing is a big one. If you miss a shot, you know, oh my gosh, I'm having an off day, you know. Well, you just missed a shot. We'll see if you're having an off day. But don't, don't shoot yourself in the foot just yet. So those are just some immediately coming up. I think there's a whole bunch of things that we could add and that I bet, you know, when the day comes where we can come together and really share our mutual knowledge base, I think we come up a really valuable curriculum for, for, for, for, for coaches of all ages.
- [56:36]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Yeah, yeah, I agree. That's really, really cool to hear you unpack in Lifetime. Sorry for putting you on the spot there, but.
- [56:42]
Scott Barry Kaufman
No, I loved it. No, I loved it.
- [56:44]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Yeah. Everything you're mentioning I think would be huge for really athletes at any level.
- [56:50]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Yeah, you. No, you. You really got me thinking, which I appreciate. Um, you Talk about the principles of peak performance as preparation, immersion. I think adaptation is one of them. Energy optimization and resilience. I want to double click on energy. I think the newer generation, they don't even know what that means. Double click. But what is energy optimization? Is that different than staying motivated for.
- [57:22]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Elite athletes and I think performers at any level? Yes. I think it's about finding, at its core, it's about finding the right level of energy for the task at hand. Right. The reality is, you know, speaking to what we talked about around falling in love with monotony for, for example, like, you're not always going to feel like it, right. You're not always going to feel good again. If you watch, you know, some of the best athletes, if you, if you've watched the show Quarterback on Netflix, for example, Kirk Cousins talks about how basically from day one of training camp onward, you never feel 100%. You know, the idea of you feeling good is basically done the moment you step out on the field. And, and so you've got to find ways to get yourself into the optimal energy state to perform, whether that's ramping energy up, which we don't talk a ton about because we're, you know, most of us are used to running a little bit hot and needing to calm down when it comes to performance, but there are athletes who, you know, are not as, as energized and activated as they need to be to perform well. And so figuring that out, I think is really important. And then, of course, if you're one of the more common people who runs hot, right. Figuring out how to calm down and get yourself into a centered place so that you can execute your skills as well as possible is also really important. So it's a little different than feeling motivated. Right. It's not necessarily about feeling like you want to or don't want to do something. It's about getting yourself into the right psychological state to be able to execute that skill at the level you need to.
- [58:48]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Oh, man, I love that. I need some energy optimization. I recently got this drink that has high caffeine content as well as a lot of nootropics in it, and they sent it to me to try it out to see if I want to advertise it. I was like, this is optimal. It gives me a lot of energy, but I want to do it more naturally.
- [59:10]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Yeah. Is it working? Do you feel, do you feel optimized?
- [59:14]
Scott Barry Kaufman
You know, the word optimization is a funny one for someone like me who studies self actualization because I've often Argued there's. The idea of optimization is really not what I'm after. Self actualization is a journey, and it's one where it's only. You can choose what path you want to go down. There's no optimal. Objectively. There's no objectively optimal path anyway, with all those caveats aside, I do think that when I am able to maintain a high energy and a high. Yeah. Like when I have the stamina, I think stamina is a big thing here, you know, and when we have high stamina, I mean, we can just handle so much more things even in our own cognitive. You know, our cognition is so tied to our physicality, our outlook just seems so much greater when we have the stamina for things. When we're just really lethargic and tired, we really were like, I can't be bothered to do anything. And so I just think it's. This is such an important facet of peak performance.
- [60:34]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Yeah, absolutely. I think we've. If you want to be great at anything, you've got to get used to finding ways to do things you don't really feel like doing and not. Not being so, you know, hung up by the initial kind of emotional response and let the. Let the mood kind of follow the energy and the action a little bit.
- [60:52]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Absolutely. Okay. We've already talked about resiliency, preparation, immersion. I think people get that, you know, like becoming an expert. Yeah, we get that. Right. But what is adaptation? Let's end there. What is adaptation? The last principle of peak performance.
- [61:08]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Well, now, now you're bringing me back to the roots of earlier, but, you.
- [61:11]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Know, the foundation of that's true adaptive capacity. Yeah, that's true.
- [61:16]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Yeah. And the way I write about it in this chapter is really about leveraging the principles of psychological flexibility. Right. And acceptance and commitment therapy to help yourself respond in the moment more effectively. Right. And actually, I think a lot of it fits with what you were talking about, with an empowerment mindset. Right. It's this idea that you can, you know, identify what you value and choose to commit to that path even when you don't feel so good about it. Or you can let go of the cognitive distortions. Right. If you miss a shot and you catastrophize, you can learn to let that go effectively, essentially diffuse from that thought. Right. And stay in the moment and stay. Stay present and stay performing and I think be really attuned. You know, we've got good data in sport that shows that being a bit more attuned to your external environment versus your internal Environment allows you to perform a bit better. Right. You're basically like reading the game and present with the game versus oh my gosh, I missed that shot. You know, how am I, how am I feeling? Or am I going to miss the next 30 in a row because I just missed this one. Right. And so I think the skills of psychological flexibility really facilitate that quite well. Right? Being able to recommit consistently to the game plan and to the things that are most important to you as a player. Being able to work through and accept difficult emotion or discomfort in service of the game you're trying to play or the skill you're trying to execute. And being able to let go of these unhelpful thoughts, I do think allows you to stay present and perform well. And so adaptation is about being essentially like the skill set. You need to stay fully immersed in the game to stay fully present and be your best when it matters most.
- [62:50]
Scott Barry Kaufman
Yeah, it's so good. So good. I love the work you do, Alex. And your book is called Called to Greatness. So you really do believe everyone has a high performer possibility within them. You make that clear. I'll end on this quote. You and everybody you know have the chance to be great. You just have to answer the call. Hopefully that inspires our listeners to answer that call. So go, go, go, go. That'll be the coach in me. That's the coach in me. I'm saying that to all our listeners right now. Hope this episode inspired you, Alex. Keep up the great work and I really look forward to continuing our collaborations.
- [63:31]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Likewise, thank you so much for having me and thanks for the opportunity. Opportunity.
- [63:39]
LG X Boom Advertiser
Stop settling for weak sound. It's time to level up your game and bring the boom. Hit the town with the ultra durable LG X Boom portable speaker and enjoy vibrant sound wherever you go. Elevate your listening experience to new heights because let's be real, your music deserves it. The future of sound is now with LG x boom. And for a limited time, save 25%@LG.com with code fall25 bring the boom x Boom.
- [64:10]
WashablesOfAs.com Advertiser
Life's messy. We're talking spills, stains, pets and kids. But with Annabe you never have to stress about messes again. @washablesofas.com Discover Annabe sofas. The only fully machine washable sofa inside and out. Starting at just $699. Made with liquid and stain resistant fabrics. That means fewer stains and more peace of mind. Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers allowing you to refresh your style anytime. Need flexibility. Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly. Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes. Plus, there is Earth friendly and built to last. That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch. Upgrade your space today. Visit washablesofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life. That's washablesofas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
- [65:09]
Chase Sapphire Advertiser
The day begins at the Chase Sapphire Lounge by the club at Boston Logan Airport. You get the clam chowder in San Diego, it's Tostadas New York Espresso Martini. It's 10:00am why not? It's the quiet before your next flight, the shower that resets your day, the menu that lets you know where you are. This is access to over 1300 airport lounges and every Sapphire Lounge by the club. And one card that gets you in Chase Sapphire Reserve, the most rewarding card.
- [65:34]
Dr. Alex Auerbach
Learn more@chase.com Sapphire Reserve cards issued by JP Morgan Chase bank and a member.
- [65:38]
Scott Barry Kaufman
FDIC subject to credit approval.
- [65:39]
Fox One Advertiser
Fox One is now live. It's the new way to stream all your Fox favorites all in one place. That means NFL Sundays and college football games. Breaking news with the Fox voices you trust and your favorite show streamed as they happen. So nothing gets spoiled. With Fox one, you get it all live. Edge of your seat plays, jaw dropping moments and that feeling like you're right there in the action. Start your seven day trial today. Offers are subject to change. Go to Fox One for complete terms and conditions. Fox One we live for life. Streaming now.
- [66:09]
Podcast Host
This is an iHeart podcast.