Maximize Your Confidence With West Point Director of Performance Psychology Nate Zinsser

Nate: 0:00

you ask any competitor, how much of your success is due indeed to your ability to be confident, despite setbacks to be focused despite distractions, and everybody will say, oh, that's at least half the battle. Some folks will say that's 90% of the battle..

Cody: 0:32

Dr. Nate Zinzer is the director of west point's performance psychology program. The nation's gold standard curriculum for teaching and training the mental skills that underlie excellence in any human performance, confidence, despite setbacks, concentration, despite distractions and under composure under pressure doctors. Insur has been the lead performance psychologist at west point since 1992. He previously taught sports psychology at east Stroudsburg university and in the university of Virginia's continuing education degree. He is a certified mental performance coach with the association for applied sports, psychology and presents nationwide to university professional, athletic and corporate groups. His new book, the confident mind, a battle-tested guide to unshakable performance is coming out on January 25th. So without further ado, please welcome Dr. Nate syncer. Thank you for being on the podcast today. Doctors answer. Thank you,

Nate: 1:33

Cody, for the invite. It's a pleasure to be.

Cody: 1:36

So after reading your book, it was, I love the analogies, the references to Eli Manning and the other Olympic athletes and the book and the general theme. It seems to be this inherent condition that all humans seem to suffer from, which is an inherent lack of confidence. And this, this feeling like we're never good enough. Could you possibly explain what led you to, to write this book in the first place?

Nate: 2:05

Well, I've been interested in the topic of confidence for a really, really long time. this particular book came out of my repeated experience, dealing with. NCAA division one athletes, some professional athletes, some Olympic aspirants, and many cadets at west point who aren't necessarily NCAA division one athletes, but are still involved in some very demanding and very competitive activities. And the theme that kept coming up time after time after time, uh, was, gee doc, I could use some more confidence. Um, it was a level of self-awareness on a lot of these people that they did not feel confident enough to succeed at the, desired place in time, whether we're talking about the Olympic trials or whether we're talking about, you know, the final exam for a nuclear engineering.

Cody: 3:04

And certainly some level of confidence is required to have the self belief in yourself to make an attempt at doing the thing that you're very much afraid of. So how does somebody obtain that level of confidence if they have no experience or if every attempt that they've made has so far been a failure,

Nate: 3:24

then you have to look very carefully and sort of parse out from your previous experiences, the small successes, the little tiny indicators of progress from which you can build a sense of certainty about yourself. Sometimes you've got to look long and hard for them, but if you do look long and hard, you're going to find them. What's been my experience is that unless the success comes relatively quickly, people don't tend to look for. Indicators of progress. People don't tend to look for possibilities or potentials for success. I got to help them look for it. And I think most of the work that I do is just getting people to be more aware of how far they have come control their thoughts about their memories, so that they are drawing more of the constructive memories from their past. And making sure that they're really excited about what might be possible for them, whether they've achieved it or not.

Cody: 4:33

Right. You mentioned in the book several different exercises that I would like for us to go over a little bit later in the podcast from the, from the nightcap, the open doorway affirmation script. But I would actually like to just start off and ask you, how does one become the director of performance psychology at west point? And how did you obtain this seemingly prestigious position to begin with?

Nate: 4:57

But I didn't have a lot of hard work and a heck of a lot of good luck. I won't, I won't, I won't describe it any other way. I owe my position at west point to a pioneer in the field of performance psychology, a retired Colonel Lewis that's spelled C S O K a for everybody out there when the definitive history of sports psychology in the United States, or even worldwide is written, loose Ciocca better Geta if not, uh, an entire chapter, a big fat mention, because back in. 1988 into 89 and into 1990, Louis chaga did something that had never been done before and still not too many places have done it even in the last 30 years, what he did was convinced the highest levels of administration at a very traditional hide bound institution. The United States military academy to heavily invest in a process of teaching and training. These various mental skills. Colonel chaga was a. Colonel west point graduate combat veteran decorated, combat veteran silver star in Vietnam. He was the director of a required junior year psychology of leadership course at west point. And he was also serving as the head officer representative for the west point football team, uh, a, an officer representative as essentially a military mentor for the cadets in a given team, every inter collegic team at west point. And we've got the full slate, has a, has an Orr. And in some of the bigger teams, a full staff of ORs officer representatives in that officer representative role, Colonel chogel was very close to the head coach of the football team at the time, a fellow by the name of Jim young, who's in the college football hall of fame and Jim young and Colonel chaga both looked at each other and says, yeah, The ability to do some intangible things, relaxed under pressure focus in the moment, these things are really important and everybody talks about how important they are, but nobody really has figured out how to train those things, how to make those things practice. A bowl, improvable skills. So Colonel Choco, who had a PhD in psychology from the university of Washington, uh, looked around and he discovered this little known academic field of applied sports psychology, which is a division of sports science, exercise, physiology, motor learning, curriculum, teaching and physics. These are all some divisions, uh, within sports science and sports psychology is one of them. And he started reading and he started putting together a skeletal program that he piloted with the football team, and it was quite successful. And over the next few years, Louis Joe got added some staff, you brought in some junior officers and he created a little performance enhancement center at west point. Really the first applied sports psychology lab, in the country. He was way ahead of all the, you know, big time, big 10 big, 12 Southeastern conference schools in terms of really formulating and formalizing a curriculum for mental skills training. And in the fall of 1991, he decided that he needed to hire a civilian subject matter expert with a doctoral degree in this field who had experience working with athletes, not just an academician and west point, put out a national search for such an individual and lo and behold, they ended up with me and I started. In July of 1992, working under Colonel Toga's supervision, learning the ins and outs of the United States military academy, which is quite a fascinating place. I must add a Colonel Trobe who retired in the spring, I think June of 1993. and I've continued the work added quite a few touches of my own and evolved the program over the last almost 30 years now.

Cody: 9:20

So Colonel saw the need for a mental component of the training, not just the physical part. And you came in to help serve that purpose

Nate: 9:31

indeed. again, you ask any competitor, how much of your success is due indeed to your ability to be confident, despite setbacks to be focused despite distractions, and everybody will say, oh, that's at least half the battle. Some folks will say that's 90% of the battle. And then you ask them, well, do you systematically. To build that confidence to enhance your ability to keep your mind in one place. And everybody pretty much says, gee, no, uh, I don't do that. I didn't know. You could learn how to do those things. so what we've done is try to demystify those intangibles and turn them in, turn them into practice, simple steps that people can improve upon. the army, if you don't mind me using some coarse language is in the ass kicking business. And there is a whole psychology to kick in, but we want to teach that psychology because they're going to need it when they get out there into the army. And they're certainly going to need it when they're up against competitors from other Patriot league schools and other intercollegiate competitors.

Cody: 10:35

Right. As you say, in the book, confidence has relatively little to do with what actually happens to you and pretty much everything to do with how you think about what happens.

Nate: 10:44

And that is the insight that a lot of people got to get straight because we're kind of taught to rely on the ups and downs of our lives. You know, if things aren't going well for us, we tend to become more worried, more scared, more doubtful. We have a run, a good, good luck on our spirits buoy up. But as soon as we experienced a downturn, our emotions take it down to it. And so we're on this constant roller coaster. that's not necessarily, it's not the events themselves. As the stoic philosopher Epictetus would say, it's not events themselves that determined the person. It's how a person responds to them. And there are very clear and obvious ways that are more constructive in terms of responding to your own human imperfections. Um, the gust of wind that takes your golf ball out of bounds, be not so great call that a referee might make to you or your team. You have to be able to respond to these imperfect imperfections in the universe constructively and maintain a certain level of confidence, a level of certainty, which allows your accumulated training and experience to express itself.

Cody: 12:02

And why is this such a human condition where this lack of confidence is really so ingrained in humans as a species compared to, uh, well, I suppose we can't compare ourselves to other animals, but, uh, w what do you say.

Nate: 12:17

Well, I haven't lived in enough other cultures to say that this is problematic for the entire species coding, but I've sure lived around here long enough to know that it's problematic for a lot of folks that grew up, uh, you know, in north America with our emphasis on success, our emphasis on social comparison, and we are very much socialized and culturated, if you will, to be extremely self-conscious when we are doing things to take ourselves seriously, you think about what we are doing, and indeed, to remember our mistakes as if that is something that will make us more motivated and energized to improve ourselves, we're socialized in a lot of ways that are counterproductive to confidence.

Cody: 13:08

we tend to remember our failures more than our successes.

Nate: 13:12

Absolutely. And unfortunately we are basically taught to do so indirectly and directly throughout our formative years, you know, especially those middle school years when, uh, we're really trying to get a sense of who we are as, emerging adults. And so there is so much pressure for us to compare ourselves to one another, to be realistic about our dreams and desires. Uh, we end up sabotaging a lot of our capability because we fill ourselves with tension as a result of focusing on our setbacks or difficulties in our imperfections.

Cody: 13:55

Right? And in the book you mentioned Sigma and Ford who theorize that memories of our earliest childhood remain in our unconscious. And they control us for as long as we live. And so is that something that you've found from an experiential perspective and the students that you've trained?

Nate: 14:12

I think it's very true. I'm not sure that the memories that you know, that Freud we're talking about, really have that much power as adults. I'm thinking more about the memories that are formed when we're 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, you know, I'm dealing a lot with, you know, 20 to 25 year olds. they don't remember a whole lot of. They're very, very early childhood experience. and maybe someone who's better acquainted with Freud than I am good could speak to this, but it's pretty clear. They all those, uh, those 20 to 25 year olds have a whole lot of accumulated experience from their, preteen and teen years that predispose them to. Self doubt that predispose them to unnecessary, worry that predispose them to the kind of perfectionism that ties them up and not.

Cody: 15:08

Right. Yeah. As we tend to be young adults, we, we tend to have this accumulation of these negative experience and failures that we tend to, to ruminate on. And so why is it, do you, have you answered this question before about why, why don't we teach self-confidence in school? Because it would seem to have such a huge effect on motivating these young adults to have larger ambitions, to set bigger goals and to not let those failures hold them back from achieving their, their true, kind of set set ambitions, because it's way too often that we ended up the number one regret on people's deathbeds is that all the things that they chose not to do, not the mistakes that they made from doing very,

Nate: 15:55

very true. I would sure like to see a lot of this stuff taught at, you know, more comprehensively, perhaps this book will break down a few barriers and get a few more, um, middle school teachers to incorporate it. And it's curriculum I've. I've been asked to do that in a few places, myself. looking at the bigger societal picture Cody, we, we do all acknowledge that confidence is important. You got to have some of it, but we also have this very sort of ambivalent relationship. Cause we really discouraged kids from getting too confident. Now don't get too big. Now don't get too far ahead of yourself. Hold, oh, hold down, son. Don't dream. So big. Let's be realistic. So on the one hand, we're pumping it up and on the other hand, we're, you know, we're pulling it back, we're putting the brakes on it. so it's that, it's an interesting societal tension. and a lot of that tension, you know, finds its way into my office and into my consultation rooms,

Cody: 16:52

better, they think to be humble and modest, and that means not developing too high of an opinion of themselves.

Nate: 16:58

Very, very true. That one of the glaring misconceptions about confidence is that confident individuals are loud, outspoken, somewhat arrogant, somewhat narcissistic, and a lot of people. Thank God don't want to be that. so they really inhibit any kind of reflection on their improvements on their talents, on their successes, because they've gotten the sense that to do. So will simply turn them into that arrogant so-and-so that they just can't stand. they will not allow themselves to become that person. I have to keep pointing out that, you know, for all the loud arrogant self-confident people that the media loves to, present there, just as many quiet, confident people, you know? Um, I love the Williams sisters. They don't talk any trash. They're not loud. You know, you won't find a whole lot of interviews with them where they're proclaiming their magnificence. They're humble, quiet, but very, very competent competitors. Um, the Manning brothers drew Brees, the list goes on and on and on. There are lots of quiet, confident people. So the message that I have in the book for all your listeners is that you can be very, very confident on the inside and you're going to need that in order to perform well, but you can be very modest and humble on the outside. And you're probably going to need that if you want to have a lot of friends,

Cody: 18:35

right? Yeah. That's a very excellent point that the confidence we portray doesn't have to extend in a bolster Russ manner that could have others perceiving us as being narcissistic and too full of ourselves. That really we should. Try to obtain that quiet level of humble confidence on the inside, because that's going to have the direct, greatest impact in our ability to perform in whatever it is, the thing that we're doing.

Nate: 19:02

Absolutely. So it's that inner confidence. Confidence is a function of how you think it doesn't matter. Really what you say on the outside. If you are a very outspoken individual in the mold of a Conor McGregor or the great, the late great Muhammad Ali, okay. It's going to come out, but for all of us who are not inclined to talk about ourselves really very much at all, don't fear that cultivating confidence on the inside, really developing a strong internal mental bank account that allows you to feel certain that is not going to turn you into an outspoken, arrogant, disagreeable individually. Any, any more so that the world's laziest individual is going to turn into a raging workaholic?

Cody: 19:56

I would like to touch on the bank account, but in the book you mentioned that real confidence is the absence of all that mental chatter and discursive analytical thought. Can you touch on that? Because I think that's, that's an interesting point in that if you're in the middle of something, whether you're playing sports or you're in a certain kind of flow, I suppose that flow in that experience where time seems to stop is an absence of self-talk. It's just being in the moment. Can you elaborate on that?

Nate: 20:25

you're right on the money with that point, the experience of flow in the zone, call it what you like really takes place when all the unnecessary mental activity. Drop out. this has been corroborated by neuroscience in many different ways. And the experience of high-performing athletes, is, is just a, an experiential expression of it. When those parts of your brain stop the parts of your brain that are indeed necessary to perform a task, to see the ball coming, to understand where you are relative to the sideline, to be able to take in the movement of the opponent or opponents, et cetera, your ability to do that. And then your ability to draw from your collected experience, and then your ability to have your autonomic nervous system send all the right commands to your muscles and joints. That's when it all works best. When there isn't that interference from your conscious self-talk analyzing, judging. And in some cases criticizing what you're doing. Those mental functions are unnecessary to performance. And the more certain you have become about your ability to hit the fastball, hit the tennis, serve, deliver the speech, make the sales point. The more you are simply certain about doing that, the more that discursive analytical self-talk is likely to tamp down, reduce and allow your experience to really come out when it matters.

Cody: 22:10

And so I suppose, in some ways you're also saying that there is an act of faith, a sort of jump into the unknown. And the example I might give is if you're training soldiers at west point, you, they, they can only experience so much live and emission, but when they're actually in the battlefield, if that's their first time, there's going to be a feeling of self doubt men in an unknown, unknown. And if you're an athlete who qualified for the Olympics, but it's your first time at the Olympics, you have nothing experientially to compare that to. And so you're going to feel that that adrenaline surge, the cortisol, and you're going to start to self doubt. So I suppose in some ways you're, you're training for that first moment so that they can have some kind of experience to go back onto and not have that doubt. But how do you train somebody who's having that first experience, whether in the battlefield or in the arena to have that kind of unknown confidence

Nate: 23:05

while we try to make the training as realistic as possible. Whether we're talking about tennis competition or marksmanship competition, or, you know, combat preparation, we try to make the training as realistic as possible. Soldiers do not heroically rise to new levels of heroism and bravery and the battlefield. No, they sink back to their level of training in almost every case. So you have to make the training as realistic and as appropriately demanding as possible. And then when you do get in that situation, okay, this is the real thing. This is my first Olympics. This is my first super bowl. This is my first actual patrol on the streets of Fallujah. At that point, your decision must be, I have trained enough. I know what to do. I am enough in this moment. That is the challenge that every performer faces when they step into a new environment. So we do as much as we can to eliminate that uncertainty. And as much as we can to empower that individual to say, yup, I know this is dangerous. I know this is new, but I'm enough. I have trained sufficiently to handle the things that are likely to occur in this environment. I'm the quarterback studying the opposing defense in the super bowl. I have studied that enough. I know they're going to be a million cameras on me. Even if that team has beaten us in the regular season, I have to come to the line of scrimmage each and every time, 60, 65, 70 times in that game with the best frame of mind, POS. So that I can read the defense, make automatic adjustments and then trust my eyes, trust my arm, trust my feet, to get the ball to the right person at the right point.

Cody: 25:17

As, as you say, in the book, strive for perfection, but don't demand it.

Nate: 25:21

Yeah. Yeah. Boy, is that a hangup for a lot of people? I'm glad you mentioned that. we all want to be great. We'd love to be perfect, but we have to realize that that is an impossibility, but the idea of going for perfection each and every time, this particular point, this particular speech, this particular interaction, this particular play, we, we go for it with everything we've got with the optimum confidence and belief in ourselves. And if we get it great minor celebration, if we don't. We gotta be really careful not to beat ourselves up over the fact that we didn't get it. What can we learn from what just happened? What can we tweak for the next play from scrimmage for the next, uh, paper that we have to write for the next, sales meeting that we're attending? What do we have to tweak a little different? Can we be kind of curious about those imperfections without drawing the conclusion from them that, oh, I have this, I have a systemic longstanding problem. Maybe I don't have what it takes to succeed in this field, strive for it, but don't demand. It don't think less of yourself when it does not occur. That's the.

Cody: 26:41

because we all have this compulsive need this, these, this, these high standards for ourselves and this level of self-criticism self-doubt negative self judgment. And when we have one mistake, we tend to use that as a way of defining ourselves and especially young adults just have this attitude of I'm a failure. This is not right for me, imposture syndrome. And this, this almost kind of a pandemic in a way of this, of this mental attitude with young adults.

Nate: 27:14

Okay. Oh, you're, you're a hundred percent right on that. unfortunately social media has made it so easy for people to make inappropriate comparison. With their peers, because everybody puts, you know, on their social media feeds. So I'm having such a good time here. I just accomplished this. and so now a lot of young people think that, oh, I have to be measuring up that way too. I have to get as many, positive responses on my social media feeds. it's all really quite bewildering and unnecessary. How, how about decide, defining yourself from within, from your own criteria and then how about being your own best friend, giving yourself some of the same compassion and helpfulness and empathy that you find it pretty natural to give to your best friend when he or she might be having a rough day? It's certainly okay. To give it to your best. But for some reason, it doesn't seem to be as appropriate to give to yourself, but you're the person who needs it the most, the way I'd like to see that, that bat barrier broken down.

Cody: 28:28

I love this comparison that another psychologist referenced. He said that you should, in some ways, talk to yourself like, like a stupid friend, like you, you, you love them, but you don't always have to listen to them.

Nate: 28:40

I like that. You, you, you better love yourself and you better not listen to each and everything you say at some point, you want to just turn that in that internal chatter. Or at the very least talk back to it, your best friend probably would not let you continue to talk like

Cody: 29:02

that because if we, if we can't love ourselves and how can we expect others to love us.

Nate: 29:09

Yeah. And if you don't think that you're the right person for this particular job, if you don't think you're the right person to make the lineup in this team, if you don't think you're the best wrestler, the best guy on the mat, stepping out there against one other competitor, if you don't think you're the best competitor at that moment, that how can you expect to beat the guy? If you don't think you're the best player on the ice, how can you have a dominant hockey shift if you don't think you're the best performer in New York Austra, how can you expect. The conductor or the orchestral director to single you out and maybe give you a chance to move into the first seat or take that solo. You got to think that way about yourself and be willing to hang on to that. Even when you experienced it, life's inevitable

Cody: 30:03

setbacks. And as I was reading your book, there was an interesting question I pondered is at what point does self-confidence become self-delusion,

Nate: 30:16

you know, I wish there was a mathematical way to determine that departure point, Cody I'm afraid. It's, I'm afraid it's a dynamic balance. You know, it's not, it's not a static balance, a little of this and a little of that equals perfect because the world is always changing you as a human being are always changing. The balance is dynamic. the, the best answer I have for you. Is to be very realistic with yourself about what you can do today, maybe this week, but to be kind of delusional about yourself in terms of what you can accomplish in a month, six months, an academic year, a career, I think the longer you're the longer the horizon you're looking out at, basically the more delusional it's okay to be. I ask people all the time, well, tell me what your big dreams are, pal. And a lot of times they sort of shake their head and they looked down at the floor and they say, well, you know, this isn't very realistic, but, and then they go on to explain that they'd like to be, you know, president of the United States. I'm not making this up. Who cares if it's realistic? Um, how do we know? It's not realistic. Okay. You're certainly not going to become president of the United States or a national champion or an Olympic gold medalist tomorrow. But what can you be doing today? Let's be realistic about what you can be doing today that moves you in that direction. I hope that helps some of your listeners distinguish between the value of realism and the value of self-delusion.

Cody: 31:57

Yeah. In some ways it's, it's a, it's a moving needle. There is no defined point at which you become self-delusional unless it's something absolutely crazy that in some way is just not achievable, but I'm sure the Thomas Edison don't think that way when he was trying to invent, invent the light bulb so to speak. But I know there's a, an aspect of. Why confidence is so powerful. And I believe there's an author. I want to quote Marshall Goldsmith. And he explains that people who believe they can succeed, see opportunities where others see threats. They're not afraid of uncertainty or ambiguity. They embrace it. They take more risks and achieve greater returns. Given the choice. They bet on themselves, successful people have a high internal locus of control. In other words, they do not feel like victims of fate. They see their success as a function of their own motivation and ability, not luck, random chance or fate. They carry this belief even when luck does play a crucial role in success.

Nate: 33:03

That is a wonderful quote. I should put that on my wall. I think a lot of people could benefit from it. you know, the, the thing I really liked about that is. The idea of when mistakes happen, when bad luck comes your way, you do not interpret that as a current recurring time and time again, you don't interpret it as, a definitive statement about yourself. You look at the failure as rather temporary, you look at the failure as, you know, in a way kind of a fluke, okay. It happened, but it's not the final and final end word. It's not the conclusive statement. It's an indication that something else might be possible and the ability to be looking at yourself and your life and your circumstance and your opportunities in that way is a skill that people can cultivate. You know, that's not just a, genetic disposition that some person might have. That's some other person might not have. No, no, no. That is a habit of thought that is learned that can be reinforced, that anybody can get better at, they, the folks who say that, you know, I wish I had, you know, if I only had tiger woods level of concentration, I'd be such a great golfer. Oh, that's a little bit of a cop-out because tiger woods re worked really hard to develop that level of concentration, you know, and you're just saying, well, he has it because he's tiger. no tiger is tiger because of what tiger has been doing for decades and decades and decades. How about you started doing some of those same things yourself and we'll see how good your concentration becomes.

Cody: 34:49

there is a cognitive bias called fundamental attribution error that I'm sure you're familiar with, where we tend to blame others based off of their personality. And when we make mistakes, the bias seems to indicate that we tend to blame the circumstance, but this seems to be in some ways, the reverse of what we tend to believe about ourselves. If we make a mistake in something that is deeply meaningful to our sense of purpose or self-confidence,

Nate: 35:16

this is true. I am a D trying to flip that around a little bit. and I find that a lot of the really confident individuals that I've come across both personally and through, you know, just through reading and exposure to sports media, they do think in that very counterintuitive way. the defensive back and football who thinks that anytime a ball is thrown in his direction, well, that ball was meant to come to him. Well, that's not the case. The ball was not meant to come to him. The quarterback is not trying to throw him the ball. The quarterback has been practicing all week to keep the ball away from that guy, but in his partially delusional, but very constructive mind that ball is in the air. It's an uncertain situation. It might as well come down in my favor. It was meant for me. I think the ball in the air was meant to come to me. That's the attitude that the dominant defensive backs have. And I can see variations on that theme for everybody else. That's spot on the roster was meant for me, that place on the all American podium was meant for. That top salesman of the, of the quarter of the year. That was meant for me, that's mine. I'm going for that. I'm believing that I have that. And I'm just going to feed myself with how great it's going to be, and I'm going to energize myself and I'm going to train myself and do the things that I've got to do that are going to make that an inevitable reality. But I have it as an inevitable reality already in my mind, very constructive delusion, if you will.

Cody: 37:01

And that's part of the mental bank account, which I would like to touch on that, but I'm actually curious about the training that you've done at west point. So we've probably seen many movies and just the drills. And the, the aspect of education and a part of what you're teaching in this book. And self-confidence in general is not, is, is there's two types of this confidence. There's the confidence in the moment when you're having the experience. But there's also an aspect of self-confidence that is prior to having that engagement, where you, you journal, you have some level of affirmation, some self thought. What degree of the tools and practices you mentioned in the book, have they actually implemented, or have you implemented at west point? Uh, like, do you have soldiers actually sit in a classroom and think about a future experience in what they're mentally prepare? Like, what is that.

Nate: 38:02

Um, we teach this in classes. We teach this in team meetings. We teach this in individual consultations. I supervise a staff of three wonderful sports psychology professionals. and I work with coaches and other administrators to ensure that they're communicating the same kind of message. We will indeed sit in a classroom and I will ask a room full of hockey players. I need you to reflect on yesterday's practice. I need you to put yesterday's practice, basically through a filter and out of the bottom of that filter, just like the coffee filter releases, the good tasting coffee. I want your mental filter to release into your long-term memory. At least one episode of quality effort that you put in yesterday. Some some moment in practice where you just bore down, push through some discomfort, gave quality effort. And I want you to push yesterday's practice through that mental filter and come up with at least one episode of a success. Something that you got, right. It could be. I made this perfect pass on to so-and-so or I was, I made perfect maintain perfect defensive position in this other drill, some small success, a highlight, if you will, with a very small age. And then again, pour that practice through your mental filter and come up with an episode or an indication of something that you seem to be getting better at as a result of yesterday and the day before. And your last new experience. What is yesterday's experience telling you that you're probably getting better at that exercise, that daily ESP effort, success progress. That's an exercise we formally do in a class. We give them workbooks. We encourage daily journaling as far as this goes, so that they're in the habit of looking for the best in themselves. The most helpful memories, day by day, practice by practice the implication being, if you do this over the course of weeks, over the course of months, you're going to develop this repository. What I refer to as the mental bank account, you're going to develop a repository of moments where you have worked hard, gotten things right, and made a lot of progress. And having that is what allows you to step. In the next game, put your eyes on your appropriate target and play all out with the L with the minimum amount of, as we've been talking about that analytical discursive self-talk

Cody: 40:57

I recall a quote from Maya Angelou, who said, I've learned that people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. And I find that interesting in this context, because if we have a game. And we made a mistake. We tend to associate so much negative emotion to that single event that it becomes a thing we remember in the future. And so what you're teaching is to extract what are the positive things that happened during this experience into recall even perhaps the emotion and to have the feeling of gratitude and to, to remember that so that we're able to have more positive experiences in that mental bank account. So when we're in that next experience in the flow, we're not going to second guess and go down that rabbit hole of negative experience or thought we're going to have a huge swath of positive experiences and feelings that will are almost kind of unconscious to us in a way, is it, am I saying that correctly?

Nate: 42:01

Very much. So, emotion is kind of like glue in terms of your memories. We all can remember things that happened a long time. Because they had a significant emotional component to them, a a very, it could be a very positive emotion. I mean, I think most people remember their wedding night, when they're pretty excited about it, because boy, there were some good things going on, you know, and they can remember, you know, the rooms they were in. They can remember, the clothing, et cetera, et cetera. The details that memory is really solid and really clear because of the emotion that was in it. for people of my generation, the memory of the day that president John F. Kennedy was assassinated is very strong because it was such an incredible emotion of what, you know, confusion and disbelief. It's so powerful in a moment like that, that you retain. I mean, I can remember I was sitting in the fourth grade classroom, but the green village road school. And my third grade teacher who I hadn't seen in weeks months walks up to the front of the room, whisper something in my fourth grade teacher's ear. And my fourth grade teacher stood up and made the announcement. And I can see that room as if I was sitting in it right now for a lot of other people. September 11th, 2001 is a similar day. Some people were actually on their computer screens watching the newscast on TV. When the second tower was hit, they had gotten the information about the first tower. They ran to the nearest television monitor moments later. The second tower was hit. That was a moment that's going to be in you because of the high level of emotion. So getting back to the performance situation of the moment, it's kind of important to recall. Your effort, your success, your progress, and all other stuff to feel good about it. Have some good feeling about it. And by the same token, let's minimize the emotion associated with a loss. Let's minimize it. You're never going to eliminate it all together. If you're a competitor and you train hard and you try hard and you lose, it's going to stay. There's no question about that, but you don't need to keep that memory. You can minimize the emotion by specifically looking for the more constructive memories that may have happened within the context of an overall loss or setback.

Cody: 44:48

And so you mentioned the previous exercise ESP and in the book, you also have two other exercises. I'm wondering if you can take a moment to explain what is the top 10 list and what is the immediate progress? Sure.

Nate: 45:00

Okay. the daily, ESP is a way to look at your short term experience, your memories of the day that has just passed, or your memories of yesterday or of the practice session or of the training session that you just finished. If you really want to establish a powerful bank account, let's go back to your longer term memory. Let's think about the moments in your life going back previous, previous days, previous months, previous years, previous seasons, what are your most powerful, encouraging, beautiful memories of playing your sport or playing your. Or interacting professionally, what are your top 10 memories? I encourage my clients to literally list them out and we'll sit side by side or put them up on a, on a whiteboard. Tell me about the best memory you ever had playing the sport or working in this particular professional specialty. When we write them out and I have that printed laminated put a nice full color photo on it. Stick that up on your board. That's those are the long-term memories that you want to keep with you. Those are the things that pass through the mental filter and really establish your mental bank account. Then day by day, you build on that with the daily ESP, my effort today, my small successes today, my progress today. And then if you really want to narrow it down and take it with you. In terms of your immediate memories and get in the habit of pouring your last practice, drill through that mental filter and extracting the memory of the single best repetition you add of the 20 reps that you just completed in the basketball shooting drills or the, um, the weight training session that you just had extract the best of memory from your immediate past extract, the best memory from each class that you just completed. You walk out of your American politics class. What's the one point that you really get from this particular class, take that with you. That's an immediate deposited to your metal bank account. So the idea of looking at your interactions day by day, And the idea is you perform a drill, perform an activity, immediately filter it before you start the next one you perform the next activity, filter it, drill filter, drill, filter, drill, filter. That way. You're making these multiple deposits, small deposits perhaps, but deposits. Nonetheless small deposits drill by drill hour by hour into your mental bank account. You get to the end of the day. You've got a whole lot. Material from which to say, yeah, I did good effort here. Yeah. I succeeded with this and this and this. Yep. I'm making progress in these areas. So these three exercises to long-term exercise for your top 10, the shorter term exercise for your daily ESP and the immediate short term immediate experience, the immediate progress review, they all work together to build up and make the most effective, constructive use of your human memories.

Cody: 48:41

Right? As you say, confidence is a quality that you develop in the same way you develop any other skill ability or competency, which is through practice. And so this is that form of mental practice for our

Nate: 48:54

th th these are the drills in terms of your memory. That are important to practice the same way you're going to practice, you know, a particular drill for your tennis game or particular drill for your golf game or the way you're going to study, uh, an investment strategy, a product line to make you more expert in the technical, aspects of your profession.

Cody: 49:19

It's reminiscent. So I've never been into sports, but I've learned how to fly an airplane. And I know one of the things that my instructor would have me do is go home and actually go through the checklist about how am I mixing the engine and the prop, what buttons do I need to click? And I go through this mental checklist. So I know that when I'm in the moment, I have this already, this reference, this mental reference where I almost instinctively know what to do simply because I've mentally rehearsed a prior,

Nate: 49:48

right. I bet you were able to mentally envision, pretty much the entire cockpit late. the entire instrument array, you could feel the, uh, you know, the sticking your hands. You could feel the rudder pedals underneath you. You could feel the vibration in your chair as the, uh, as the engines revved up. So yes, being able, now you're talking about moving into the future and really getting a representation of how you want to be. That process also feeds your mental bank account.

Cody: 50:23

Right. And you also mentioned that a lot of performers who self-talk includes future-oriented language, like I will develop the skill and my expectation will improve on a side note. They're basically putting off any real change in their selves because they're talking to themselves in kind of a future person language.

Nate: 50:44

Exactly. there's a huge difference in terms of impact. Depending on whether you'd the stories you tell yourself about yourself are in the present, or whether you are thinking about something, oh, I will, I want to, I should, you know, put it in the present tense. I am. I do. I have, it is my skill. X is sufficient on target, constant, accurate, intense, basically your nervous system. Doesn't have a whole lot of distinctions. Doesn't really understand, you know, the future very well. It's it takes things very, very literally. So if you want to have something, now you have to affirm it in the.

Cody: 51:39

And there's the aspect of focus on what you want, not what you don't want. Like, if I say that the famous example of don't think of a pink elephant, you're going to think of a pink

Nate: 51:49

elephant. Yeah. And it is amazing how many people who have heard exactly that analogy that you just mentioned. Cody still are in the habit of telling themselves, oh, watch out for that. They're not do that. I gotta be careful not to do this. Okay. Wait a minute. Look at how you are basically talking to yourself. Your brain does not understand the command. Don't do X. All your brain knows is X. So if you don't want to do X, you better tell your brain. Do Y instead, talk to yourself about what you want. How do you want to be as opposed to telling yourself? Well, I shouldn't be this way. You know, I shouldn't be sloppy on my forehand side. I shouldn't be running that pass route, too short. No. Tell yourself about how you want it to be. I hit my stride. I make it to the first down marker. Plant hard and come back to the ball as opposed to I never leave a route short. Okay. Well, the only way your brain understands the statement, I never leave her out short is by processing, leaving a route short exactly what you don't want.

Cody: 53:13

And so it's very possible to be conscious of something from a logical conscious perspective, but then it's entirely different to necessarily implement that in the moment. And so, to what degree does the idea of mental awareness or what kind of practices do you find are most helpful for this, this ability to be kind of more consciously aware of our thoughts? I'm not sure if it's a single

Nate: 53:41

self-awareness ability. I just think it's more a, a willingness to put yourself in the moment and see what happens. Let's see how well I can play today. Let's see how well I can execute this. Let's see how well I can connect with this audience. I'm. I try to get people to begin any particular activity with this, the sense of, informed curiosity, as opposed to having a, okay. I think this is gonna turn out this way. No, I think you want to keep the door wide open. Let's see how well I can do this. Here's an opportunity. Let's make something cool happen here.

Cody: 54:35

We recently had the Olympics a few months ago, and I know that there is a famous example now of the Tokyo Olympics of Simone Biles, who said in an interview that she was the, she's still scared to do gymnastics. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts or if you recall her experience where she chose not to perform in the Tokyo London.

Nate: 54:57

Well speaking more broadly about a gymnasts saying, yeah, I got a little fear. I think it's pretty good to have a little fear when you're doing that stuff cause that's does dangerous. Okay. not that you focus exclusively on the danger for the reasons that we've been discussing, but a little self-awareness of, Hey, this move is dangerous. That means I have to pay attention to getting the right, lift off the vaulting horse. I have to make sure that I talk in this position. You have to be rack a little bit rational with yourself and thinking about what's important to pay attention to so that I can best deal with the uncertainty so I can best deal with the danger. I used to, I used to rock climb pretty well. But I'm in utter awe and amazement at the people like Dean Potter and Alex Honnold, who will climb those 3000 foot model it's in Yosemite national park. without a rope, uh, you're basically asking somebody to have a, an Olympic gold medal performance. And if they don't perform at an, at an Olympic gold medal level, they're going to die. now there is an awareness of the danger that actually brings out their heightened sense of focus and concentration. And for those kinds of extreme sport athletes, it really is the danger that brings out the best in them. So that's, that's how they're okay with it. I felt a little of that addiction to the danger myself. I probably wouldn't be here if I hadn't said, okay, I've had. it's been a great few years. but I think I'll step away from those gray, dangerous activities, now to get to Simone Biles and the example of her deciding that, Hey, I'm not feeling right for this. I completely respect that. You know, we, we put athletes on such a pedestal and we often forget that, Hey, these people are human too. You know, just as most of us are entitled to a sick day, once in a while, when we're not feeling particularly up to the challenge of our day, I can understand why Simone Biles or a Naomi Osaka or Tom Brady for that matter might not be up to it. And it's not a, a Spurgeon on their character. If they admit that, you know, I'm really not in great shape to do this. And if you're about to do something as dangerous as the Olympic level gymnastics, maybe it's smart that you don't. So I, I give Ms. Biles props for being honest. I salute her honesty in this regard. I salute Michael Phelps's honesty in this regard. and I'd like to see us as a society, be a little more forgiving for regarding the way we treat Olympic and professional athletes.

Cody: 58:00

And so we don't necessarily know what caused Simone to decide that she wasn't going to do it that day, but a common experience of whether you're going out and you're speaking, or you're doing an interview, or you're going to go to a game. Is that, that feeling of arousal, that the Automic nervous system firing up and you feel the racing heart and the twitching muscles, the sweating palms, and that is in some ways we take that as a default to, oh crap, I can't do this. I'm nervous. And then that just goes down the spiral path. But so what you teach is that the underlying biology behind that nervousness and excitement, it's, it's the same and our body doesn't know. Why can you explore more about that?

Nate: 58:43

Sure. the human animal is just wired to undergo and arousal surge when it's about to do something that matters, whether that's something that. Something that you choose to, do you want to do, I want to play in this game? I want to win this match. I want to win this negotiation or whether it's something that you have to do, uh, like take a physics final exam, or, Hey, you got to go to the job interview. If you want to get the job. it's a requirement. We are wired as animals to experience a physiological surge, a higher level of arousal when we are preparing to do something that matters. And that means our autonomic nervous system is going to communicate to our various glands and certain hormones are going to get put in our bloodstream that are going to make our heartbeat faster. It's gonna oxygenate our blood. It's gonna make our muscles Twitch. And it's going to make those hundred million neurons in your stomach Twitch a little bit too, which is why you get those butterflies. the mistake that people make is to interpret that physiological arousal as an indicator that perhaps they're not ready, perhaps they're not fully prepared, nothing could be further from the truth. It has nothing to do with your level of preparation. It's just the way you're wired as an animal. So what I'm constantly teaching somebody. And I, I tell you this conversation happens pretty much once a week is to interpret that feeling, whether it's heart rate, pounding muscles, tightening Palm, sweating, stomach flipping up and down, take that as an indicator that you have a state of the art performance enhancing chemical being circulated in your body that is custom made for you. Delivered right when you need it, right. When it can be helpful and it's perfectly legal and it doesn't cost you a dime. So why don't you respect your body's wisdom? Why don't you explain? Let's expect that kind of sensation to happen. Next time you're taking that final exam, or the next time you step up to serve in that tennis match, let's expect it to happen. And let's be able to tell yourself, okay, this is my body turning on. I'm going to embrace this. I'm going to use this energy. That means I'm doing something great and be excited about it rather than worrying about it. And often it takes considerable reflection and considerable understanding. And yet everybody goes through this. I don't care how experienced you are. Um, I make the point in the book that bill Belicheck, the head coach of the new England Patriots. Who's. Bazillions of games and bazillions of Superbowls still gets nervous. Every Sunday still gets nervous every Sunday. What does he have to get nervous about? It's just about performing. He wants to do the best job he can. And so his body is giving him a little extra energy with which to do that. Isn't that a nice thing that his body does for him? I hope everybody can learn to think of it that way.

Cody: 1:02:07

On a side note, I'm curious. Do we know what the biological component is that causes the, the thought from, from our prefrontal cortex and that translates to that surge of adrenaline? Do we know what that transition is?

Nate: 1:02:21

I, I don't know the specifics of the route through which nervous impulses go from. Somewhat conscious level down through our mid midbrain, interacting with the amygdala, turning on our pituitary gland, turning on, uh, our, our thyroid turning on the succeeding stream of neurological centers. And then, glands. the best book I've seen on that is called why zebras don't get ulcers by Robert Sapolsky. I highly recommend that book. I could spend probably the next five years of my life memorizing a lot of the diagrams, which he articulates a lot of these things. but I think the takeaway for all of us is to understand that this is, this is something that is designed to help us be more effective in our lives. And even though it feels a little unusual. Well that's because you were about to do something unusual that matters to you. And so there's no, it logically doesn't make a whole lot of sense for you to feel normal when you're about to do something that's important. You want to feel important. This energizing is something that is making, helping you rise to the importance of the occasion. So let's understand that we're going to feel a little bit differently.

Cody: 1:03:52

Yeah. And, and I was struck at one point I had a, I used to have panic attacks when I was young and there was a point when I was actually meditating. And it's the only experience I've ever had, where I was simply meditating. And then all of a sudden I felt the surge of adrenaline go through my body and then my heart start to race. And I still don't know why in the middle of meditating, when I was seemingly calm, I was able to trigger this arousal response. And since then, I'll still have that arousal experience. Typically it will be like when I'm doing an interview or if I'm speaking, right. Everybody kind of gets that, but it just struck me as so profound at two. To what degree that that arousal is. So is so based on our own interpretation or our own thoughts or unconscious behavior. And since then, I've realized where a lot of people end up having panic attacks, as you know, and you'll, you'll get that arousal. And then that starts this cycle of, oh, I'm going to die. My heart's racing. I need to go to the emergency room and it's this, just this absolute shared terror. And. Any, and, and in the past, say five or six years, if I've ever had any of those experiences, I now have this mental repository of, oh, that's, that's my, that's the adrenaline going through my body. That's my, that's my heart racing. I know that our hearts can beat at, uh, three through 300 heartbeats permitted or some ridiculous number, and it'll be totally fine. And I'm able to reframe that to, I'm not going to die that, you know what, this is, this is fine. This is just going to pass. And I imagine in some way, whenever you're about to have this performance, you feel that nervous energy. And then it's an aspect of reframing that from not being nervous to I'm excited, which is that's the most common advice I've read is to reframe that nervousness to excitement. But my question is actually. And so how do we basically relined ourselves in some ways is maybe we can consciously reframe that thought as I'm excited, I'm really excited to interview doctors answer, but there's a part of me that still feels like, well, I'm, I'm a bit nervous too. And I think that there is some, some studies indicating that when we consciously lie to ourselves, it can have a negative effect on its own. But, but what do you say to all that?

Nate: 1:06:13

I think it depends mostly on how many times you have been through the experience and how many times you tell yourself? Oh, I'm nervous as opposed to, oh, I'm excited. And even the term nervous can be reframed itself. Nervous can mean apprehensive, worried, et cetera. Nervous can also simply mean Walden just pertaining to the nervous system. You know, in some ways, when you think about it, if the term nervous, simply refers to pertaining to the nervous system, then when you are very calm and very relaxed and your nervous system is in a sort of depressed state, if you will. Well, aren't you just nervous then also, why do we think of nervous only in a sense of being energized, hyped up, uh, aroused? that's kind of curious when you think about it. I really think that it's the experience that you have and the experience that you continue to have time after time, again, the way you label. The way you look back on what you've experienced, that really determines how you're going to be feeling the next time it comes around. So again, this is a train, no bull process. You can train yourself to say, okay, this is my body turning on. I'm getting aroused. This is going to provide energy for me to sustain my attention on the exam or my, focus throughout all nine meetings of the baseball game. It may feel like a lie the first few times, but what's your alternative. Why not continue to do that to the point where you can say, oh yeah, here it comes again. Same old feeling. I know all about you. Welcome pal. I'm comfortable with you. Let's go out and play. Great. Now it's getting to that. I have never had the, you know, that really, that same kind of panic attack experience that you described Cody, and I sure hope it doesn't turn you off to meditating because meditating still a really good idea.

Cody: 1:08:32

Yeah, no. I've been able to implement a habit of exercise meditation and reading, and I call it my mind body soul routine, and it's served as kind of a foundation to, to really my own reality and experience.

Nate: 1:08:46

Good idea. I wish a lot more people had that, you know, could ground themselves, in a mind body, soul experience.

Cody: 1:08:54

So there's, there's a question I have about the, the reframing of our internal. Dialogue is oftentimes there is a book I read called the untethered soul, and that was a book that really changed my perspective and being able to look at my thoughts as being objective and that I'm simply an observer of my thoughts, but I am not my thoughts. And that allowed me to segment and start to have a more positive dialogue. But often I don't feel like I'm having a dialogue. And I actually haven't, I've been trying to find an answer to this question. I haven't been able to find what is the, how do we answer this question about the, you have cognitive behavior therapy talking about reframing our inner inner dialogue, but often it doesn't feel like I have a dialogue. It just feels like it's kind of an unconscious level of emotion where there is no, no dialogue. Is that just my experience? Because I would often have difficulty retraining the emotion when I'm not aware of any dialogue that's occurring to actually attempt to reframe.

Nate: 1:10:02

Oh, I think that's relatively common. Lots of people have that. They don't feel like I'm having a dialogue. They just feel like they're having an attack. Okay. in those situations, I encourage them to talk back to the attacking sensation in weight, to create the dialogue, to make it a conversation rather than this overwhelming experience of, you know, being, I I'll use the word attacked. Okay. I'm being attacked. What is it what's going on right now? Is this something I want? Is this something I don't want? What do I need to talk back? What do I need to say to this? What, what's the dialogue that I would like to have, and what's the last word I want to get? In that dialogue so that I get a chance to put myself in a position to speak well, write well, test will play well interact well. so when you don't feel like it is a dialogue, I guess you have to make it a dialogue that you you're more rational and best intention itself, is going to win out on.

Cody: 1:11:24

And so having the internal dialogue is more or less a practice that we should have. And in the book, you actually mentioned three other particular exercises and practices. I wondering if you can elaborate on what the notebook nightcap, the open doorway and the macro affirmation screen.

Nate: 1:11:41

Sure. I'll start with the notebook nightcap. I coined that phrase by learning the story of America. Olympic speed skater, Dan Jansen, who participated in several Olympic competitions and underperformed in all of them. He had one more opportunity in the Lillehammer Norway Olympics to dominate in the 1000 meter race, which he did. He skated a world record one day Olympic gold medal came back home, got his face on the Wheaties box, which for some, some of your listeners may remember that sports heroes tend to end up on the box of the Wheaties breakfast cereal, but it turns out that for an app for over a year prior to that final Olympic experience, Dan Jansen was writing in a notebook. The following affirmational phrase, I loved the 1000 meter race. I loved the 1000 meter race. I love the 1000 meter race. This was a daily drill to get him to say. To get them to a, from a desired state of being in that moment, because he sure as heck wanted to step up to the starting line of the 1000 meter race saying, this is great. Let's go as opposed to, oh, you know, you haven't done well at this race last couple times. You've been here. There's a lot of pressure on ya. Everybody in the world is watching you are the biggest question, mark. And this entire winter Olympics, Mr. Jansen, no, he wanted to step up feeling. This is great. I love this. Let's go. So we had to train himself to affirm that state. And so I refer to the, uh, the notebook nightcap, finish your day, opening up a notebook, pull out your pen and write 10 times 20 times the affirmational phrases that are appropriate. My footwork is precise and effective in the pocket. If you're at a quarterback, my shot is constant, accurate and intense. If you're a soccer, striker, or a lacrosse attack, then I easily communicate our team vision throughout the most difficult moments. If you're a manager trying to keep his team together during the challenging COVID environment, whatever the affirmation is that nightcap that's the way you reinforce it. that is one exercise that I think makes a heck of a lot of sense. And I've known a lot of people who have, benefited from it. the open doorway is another opportunity for you to repeat an affirmational or statement, but instead of waiting until the end of the day, As your nightcap, you do it throughout the day. Every time you walk through a door. the story that is in my book is from the experience of a wonderful lady, Dr. Alessandra Ross, who I met when she was training for the 2000, uh, summer Olympic games. the affirmational phrase was I run a 1 56, 800 meters. Dr. Ross was training to be, make the Olympic team and the women's 800 meter run, which is a particularly brutal exercise. And her best time was at that point was about 2 0 3, 2 0 4, and we're talking a year away, but that was the time she wanted to run 1 56. So every time she walked through a doorway, she was firing that off. And if you think about the number of doorways you'll walk through in the course of a day, 50 pretty reasonable number times every day for nine months. Well, that's a hell of a lot of repetitions. That's a hell of a lot of repetitions of a desired outcome. And you say it with a little bit of feeling, and that is a way of putting a whole slew of deposits into your mental bank account day by day by day, throughout the course of the day, you can do the math nine months, times 50 repetitions per day. It's a pretty good. the macro affirmation script is a very detailed and somewhat, very situation, specific exercise that I do with a lot of players. I do with a lot of individuals. I actually get them to look at the various parts of their game. If you're a golfer, you know, you have to drive the ball, you have to chip the ball onto the green. You have to, put, well, you have to get yourself out of trouble. You have to deal with adversity. And I will sit with a client and write a very specific paragraph about each of those parts of their game. And that is then recorded usually with a music background of their choice so that they can literally feed their mind with a complete list. This is how I want to be in this situation. This is how I want to be in that situation. And it continues all the way through. I refer to it as macro because it's pretty comprehensive. I'll have a paragraph. That'll maybe go something like this from here on in. Whenever I think about racing, I think about racing. Great. I accept that the best runners in the world will make mistakes, but they don't let it bother them. The great runners know that success in racing is all about how you handle your errors, that it's not about being perfect. It's about running well, despite making an error or two it's only when we overreact to mistakes that we have. I've come so far in dealing with the bad situation. I'm so much better at it than I was a year ago. So I'm going to keep a great attitude and hold my head up between every race between every practice run and between every interval in every training. That's just one paragraph of that kind of script, uh, for a track athlete. Um, and we can construct those,, situations, sport or profession specific. I've done it for musicians. I've done it for surgeons and I've done it for athletes and dozens of different sports.

Cody: 1:18:20

Um, on the topic of affirmations, there is some, there have been some studies done on that and they seem to indicate that when you say something that's not actually true, say, say, you're trying to lose weight. You're feeling unhealthy. And you say, I am thin versus. You're not being thin. There exists this kind of this inner conflict, this cognitive dissonance between your desire and your reality. And it can actually have a negative effect to believe something when you also know it's not true. So how do we work around that?

Nate: 1:18:56

I encourage people to affirm the actions that are important in order to achieve an outcome as opposed to affirming simply the outcome itself. So the affirmation about, getting exercise, the affirmation about eating the right foods, the affirmation about, breathing fully and comfortably all of these actions that are and characteristics that are important, that to lead to the desired outcome of, achieving a certain weight. those are very important to, I will very often have as a Siri in a series of affirmations, something that is very outcome specific. one of my favorites is I'm in the best shape of my life, and I love it for a lot of athletes. I have a full time full tilt motor I'm 215 pounds rock solid guided missile, but you also got to have affirmations about I'm careful with my diet. I eat lean protein and green vegetables at every meal. I have my water bottle with me at all times. I ensure that I get three quarts of water in me a day. Those kinds of actions that are important to achieving the outcome, as opposed to just. The focus in the affirmations on the outcome itself. Right.

Cody: 1:20:22

That makes sense. it be correct to say so if you have a weight loss goal, I think one thing you could say is I want to be healthy. I want to feel good. I want to look good, but isn't that also referring to yourself in a future tense so that that's not how you would say,

Nate: 1:20:36

right? No, no, I wouldn't use the word want to, okay. I would use a phrase such as I'm getting closer everyday to my desired way. Even, you know, if let's say your desired way to your ideal weight is just pull 150 pounds out of the air. You know, a perfect weight for me is one 50. I love getting to one 50. I hope that answers the question, Cody. These are great questions, by the way. I love the fact that you have dealt, then you have gone so deep into the book that you're pulling all of this out. I love it.

Cody: 1:21:10

yeah, these are the conversations I love to have. I came up with my own term, perhaps as some off-putting, but I love to have brain sex.

Nate: 1:21:17

Well, you know, and even the title of your podcast, mind hack, I really liked that because whether we know it or not, we're hacking into our software all the time. Okay. Our mental activity is changing our brains. Okay. I mean, I'm sure so many of your listeners have heard the term neuroplasticity, but do we really appreciate how plastic, how malleable, how changeable and hence how changing our brains are and the way we change our brains is through the way we use our mind. So, yeah, let's keep hacking the mines gang so that we're producing upgrades in all the various mental sub routines that govern our behavior. What a great idea,

Cody: 1:22:10

the, the difference between the fixed versus the growth mindset, concept that by Carol Dweck.

Nate: 1:22:16

So yeah, we've come a long way in terms of understanding just how malleable changeable growable God, is that even a word? Well, it is now just how much potential there is for the brain to change through both physical practice, through academic study and through mental practice. we're just beginning to understand. the breadth and the depth of the changes that we're capable of. And for many, many decades, it was assumed that once you reached a certain age, your brain didn't change anymore, except that, you know, certain neurons would be dying off. As you got older, we realize now that you know, the brain is constantly changing, that you can hack into it and make changes, depending on the habits that you cultivate and the way that you think about.

Cody: 1:23:17

Exactly. from a personal experience that I've had to overcome a lot of obstacles in my life to, to achieve a level of success. I honestly, once was never possible. I started my first business when I was 15. I lost both of my parents before I turned 18. I dropped out of high school. I was partly in foster care will actually running my own first business. And I thought so poorly of myself for all these years into my late teens and early twenties. Uh, it, I thought I was stupid. I thought I would never achieve anything, but inside of me existed, this desire to be a better version of myself. And I started to, I started out slowly. I started to read Forbes and Inc articles, and I read that well, what do successful people do they think positively they meditate. They exercise, they read. And eventually I've been, I was able to implement these slow changes. And learning material and actually implement that from a physical, mental perspective. And I went on this journey of self discovery where eventually I got a pilot's license, but I remember when I got that license, when I was young, I always play Microsoft flight simulator and I would fly like a 7 37 and I would love it. But I always thought to myself, I could never fly an airplane. I'm too stupid to do that. Or being able to dive in shipwrecks or eventually sell a company for eight figures. And I know that my story is kind of an extreme example of overcoming self-doubt, but in many ways it's the same desire that we all share to be a better person. And yet we're, we're, we're hampered by it. And so it's, it's incredibly difficult to overcome that level of, of self doubt when you have no reference to compare yourself to, and now with social media, we're simply comparing ourselves to others. And I think it's, it's honestly becoming difficult to, to achieve that, that level of success without becoming so self-delusional and narcissistic, because there's that balance as you say.

Nate: 1:25:14

Well, I think your own story is remarkable. Despite some self doubt, you persevered and developed a heck of a lot of success. one of the misconceptions that's out there is that successful people. And I think I'm looking at one guy named Cody McWane right here. The misconception is that successful people don't have any self. Heck. No, you know, we perhaps don't notice it when we see them from a distance, but the truth of the matter is that, you know, Thomas Edison had plenty of self doubt. We didn't let it stop him, but he had it. You know, Tom, Tom Brady in the Williams sisters, they have some self doubt. They just don't let it stop them. The idea that, well, these fabulously successful confident people never have any self doubt, but I know I have self-doubt henceforth. I cannot be a confident, successful person. This is the misconception that confuses a lot of people. Okay. The successful, confident people have some self doubt, but when it occurs to them, when it pops up those successful. Interpret that as a signal, Hey time for me to get control. Am I thinking let's change my mind right now. Let's go back to some of those affirmations. Let's go back to some of those things that we've put into our mental bank account through the top 10, the ESP, the IPR exercise. Let's go back to some of that. Okay. The average person perhaps lets the self self doubt continue to linger to fester the ooze. The confident person recognizes the self-doubt relatively quickly gets a handle on it, stops it and replaces it with something else. I'm pretty sure that's what you've been doing all your life there. Mr. Cody.

Cody: 1:27:27

I know even Michelle, Obama's famous for sharing her internal. Dialogue of the self-doubt that she had at being first lady. And also, as you mentioned in the book, that level of self-confidence while it's a skill that we need to build up, it's something that it's not just, we have self-confidence and then it applies to all areas of our life, or it's something that once we have, we're always going to have, we need to continue to work on it. And I don't think no matter how successful I am, I'm always going to have self doubt, but what separates me, I suppose, from somebody who lets that embellish them is I'm able to recognize that have a certain level of awareness and seeing the self-doubt and the understanding that everybody experiences self doubt. You know, there was a point in my life when I realized everybody is winning. Everybody. I know when you're, when you're a child, do you think all the grownups, they know what they're doing? They've got all answers. They've got it all figured out, but you realize at some point that no, they don't. And so then realize that it creates a certain level of, of acceptance with that feeling to be aware, to recognize it and to put it aside, like,

Nate: 1:28:44

and indeed, yeah, you just hit on so many important misconceptions, that I hope your listeners can become more and more aware of. Look, confidence is not this all encompassing, quality confidence is ridiculously situation specific, You can be confident in this, not confident in that. And then even if you consider yourself a pretty confident say golfer or tennis player, there are going to be aspects of your game that you feel more certain about and aspects of your game that you feel less certain about. I guess that's the bad news. The good news is that you can work on your confidence at any one of those areas and build it up. And you know, the second thing that you said is that, you know, you're always going to have a little self doubt. You know, confidence is not something that is static. Once you achieve a certain level of it, it's going to be stay there forever. No, no, no. You got it. Work and that you got to keep building yourself up. Um, my, my mentor at Virginia, Dr. Bob Rotella has a wonderful analogy of this. He talks about the sand dunes at seaside properties, and those talents have to keep building up the dunes because the sea keeps eroding them away. and our confidence is very much like that. We have to keep building it, to use a military analogy. There's no single decisive ending of the war victory against self doubt and worry. There's no atomic bomb that you can drop on it. And that's the end of the war. It's a constant battle of attrition. So you have to keep after it and keep after it and keep after it. And a lot of people say, oh gosh, that just makes it sound so depressing. And I have to point out to them and say, Hey. Everybody's dealing with this. Everybody is facing this ongoing war of attrition. If you can be just a little bit better than your opponent, a little bit better at it than your competitor, you just gave yourself an advantage, cultivate that advantage. Everybody's going through it, do a better job at it than most people advantage you.

Cody: 1:31:02

In your book. You, you mentioned that every day, every hour offer the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers, which threatened to Rob you of your very self, your inner freedom.

Nate: 1:31:17

Well, that's not, uh, that's not so much my words. Those are the words of, uh, Victor Frankel from the remarkable book man's search for meaning, which I cannot recommend highly enough to pretty much every human being on the planet. because that is indeed the. Every moment. We are faced with a decision about how we are going to think about ourselves, whether we will be, we will, we allow circumstance to dominate our thoughts, whether we will surrender our free will to the forces around us, or whether we will maintain that free will and make the best decision for ourselves minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, as our life goes on,

Cody: 1:31:59

right? Confidence is something that requires continued work, mental preparation, and it's never something that you have to, to just go without that. It's not built within you. And you, you mentioned in the book that success in any field requires both confidence and competence. It's the person who has done enough preparation who has developed enough competence and who then decides to feel totally certain about that level of competence.

Nate: 1:32:28

Yes. that's really what it comes down to. One can always look at oneself and say, you know, I could have done more. I could've studied more. I could have worked out more. I could have done more summer training before the, you know, football team tryout, you know, in the fall. Okay. Yeah. Maybe you could, maybe you could have that's all in the past. Will you believe that what you have right now, whatever that is is sufficient. What do you have that kind of peace of mind about yourself right now? That will let you step onto the field step into the courtroom, step onto the wrestling that and say, okay, I'm enough for this I'm enough. Will you have looked at yourself? Honestly understood the situation you're in and then come to that decision. Yep. I'm enough.

Cody: 1:33:23

And on that note, I think everybody should read your book. It doesn't matter who you are, where you are, what you're doing, your new book, the confident mind, a battle-tested guide to unshakable performance is coming out in January 25th. And I can't recommend it enough. Thank you for being on the podcast today, Dr. Zinzer,

Nate: 1:33:41

Cody, thank you for the opportunity. This has been a wonderful interview. you are a great and incisive reader and thinker, and I appreciate the opportunity to connect with your listeners. Thanks so much. Hey guys, this is Cody again. I hope you enjoyed that episode of mind hack. And if you're interested in getting more mind, hack worthy stuff straight to your inbox, then you might consider signing up for my weekly newsletter. It often contains links to new episodes, blog posts, and other interesting finds I've found on the interweb in the past week. It pretty much focuses around productivity and efficiency. So if that's your thing, then be sure to visit my website at coding. Dot com that's M C L a I n.com to sign up. Also, if there were any interesting websites, companies, books, blog, posts, quotes, or anything else. And that was mentioned in this episode, you can find it all in more by visiting the official website for the mind hack show@mindhack.com. And as always, if you have any feedback, good or bad, I want to hear it. Send me a tweet email, or what have you on either of my websites, as my goal with this show is to get. The maximum value in the shortest amount of time. That's all for now, guys. Thanks again for listening. And I'll catch you guys again soon.