Become Mentally Tough with Dr. Haley Perlus

I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book, Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life, nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome to Lead On Purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion musician and now executive coach to global leaders and high performers. In every episode, I bring you an inspiring leader or expert to help you lead your life and business on purpose. Thanks for taking the time to connect today and investing in yourself. Enjoy the show.

Our thoughts impact our emotions. Our emotions alter our biology and our biology increases our performance. Those are the words of Dr. Hayley Perlis. She's got a PhD in sports psychology and she works with olympians and Fortune 100 CEOs. Today we're going to dive in and talk about mental toughness. Enjoy the show.

Hayley. A massive welcome to the Lead On Purpose podcast.

Thanks, James. So happy that you found me and that you're having me here.

Yeah. So great to connect. We're going to thank our mutual friend Joe decenna for connecting us.

Yes. Yeah. I'm so excited that you guys spoke and that he mentioned me to you. Super exciting and flattering. He's amazing.

Agreed. Absolutely agreed. Well, let's focus on you. We want to talk about mental toughness and for the listener that is listening right now, mental toughness is one of those essential aspects of life. Just to get through life, we need to develop that. So where did the mental toughness journey begin for you?

I was 12 years old, actually. I think I'm fortunate enough to have chosen my career at 12, and I didn't really waver. I'm from Toronto in Canada and I was a fairly decent alpine ski racer. So I did a bunch of sports. But then when it really came down to it, I think my best sport was was downhill ski racing, more specifically the technical component of slalom. And When I was 12, I was asked to go and compete world championships for my age group. So I went off to Whistler. It was in Canada at that time. It was called the Whistler cup and it was a solemn event. And I'm bib number nine and bib number eight was in the starting gate. Which gives me about 45 seconds until it's my turn to go and compete. And so my coach comes up to me and does what we all know coaches typically do. They give you some tips and tricks and they try to psych you up to do your best. Well, my coach decided to psych me up in a different way. He straddled my skis, looked me straight in the face, pulled out a hundred dollar Canadian bill, placed it in front of my nose, and with the most seriousness look he could, serious look he could. He said that he had bet on me to win this, you know, junior, junior, junior world championship. He then made sure to tell me that he had bet on a different athlete on my team who was competing in a race the week before, a race that I was not in, and that he lost and that he was not prepared to lose today. On me, unstraddled my skis, pointed me in the direction of the starting gate, smiled and told me to go have fun.

So, you know, if you think about mental toughness, right then and there, I'm in a mental fork in the road. On one hand I could think, how could he, how could he bet on me and then tell me, what if he make, what if he's wrong? What if I make a mistake? All these what ifs and fears and anxieties creeping in. Or on the flip side, I could think, hey, that's pretty cool. If my coach believes in me so much that he's willing to bet on me, why shouldn't I believe in myself?

Can't tell you that. At 12 years old, I had that consciousness. But I do remember thinking, hey, if my coach has high expectations, doesn't that mean I'm doing something right? So I went down that race course. I did win. He then came down, shook my hand, congratulated me, kept the hundred bucks for himself. But he said something that stuck. He said, it's amazing what your performance can be like when you get your head straight. He knew I would thrive under pressure. He had just, we had a relationship, that I trusted him and he knew that he could push me. Not only that, but then he brought a sports psychologist to come and speak to my ski team two weeks later. And I connected the dots and I went home and I told my parents that I wanted to be a sports psychal when I grew up.

That's phenomenal. That's seriously amazing. Wow.

Super cool. I think. And then, you know, and then, and then you have your vision and then you have your direction. But interestingly enough, two weeks ago, I Was talking with my father, who I'm super close with, and he's actually probably my greatest teacher and coach in life. And he's kind of headed towards retirement now. And I was asking him about his goals and, you know, everything, evaluating his progress, and he said to me, you know, you make goals and then life happens. And so. And, you know, kind of looking towards that. I always thought that I'd only work with sport athletes, but then as I started my education and started my life, I realized that it wasn't just sport. It was all aspects of performance and competition. So now I work with not only in the sport industry, but also in the health and wellness and obviously the corporate and business world.

Incredible. Yeah, I was reading. So you're working with some Olympians, working with Fortune 500 CEOs. So incredible to see that crossover. And I think that's important for the listener to realize that mental toughness is not just for athletes, it's for all of us.

Absolutely. I need it now more as an adult in the corporate world than I ever did as a sport athlete, navigating all of the trials and tribulations and figuring things out. So, yeah, I think it's important for everyone.

Can we talk about. There's two things I want to talk about here, and I would love to see what your thoughts are on the definition between both. So one is, what is mental toughness? What is mental weakness? What are the difference? And we can talk about mental wellbeing or mental health outside of both of those things, but if we think in the sporting and the business world, mental toughness versus mental weakness, what do you think are the separators there?

No, that's a really great question. To me, mental toughness is showing up when you don't want to. So it's. The easy piece is to doing what you love and to doing what you're good at. But the work is when you. Overcoming the struggle. So showing up when you don't want to. To me, that's a mentally tough person exerting every ounce of effort you have, even though you may not have 100% to give that day, even if you're not feeling your best and you only have 50%, are you given 100% of that 50? To me, that's mental toughness.

And really, it's about. I think mental toughness is also having what we call unconditional confidence. So it's the confidence that doesn't come and go with the results. It's the confidence that comes with the perseverance and the Determination. To me, that's mental toughness.

Beautiful. And I guess what I hear from that is to be mentally tough. You define your success. It's not what the media thinks, it's not what your peers or your competitors think. When you define what success is, that that's you on the way to developing mental toughness as opposed to letting everyone else's views and perceptions define your success.

Correct. And we don't want to let ourselves off the hook when it comes to reframing our win or redefining what success.

It'S not about. Well, I only achieved this, therefore I'm going to deem this as success. That to me, sometimes that's letting yourself off the hook. But in the world in which we live, circumstances change and we often talk about how that's the moment to where we have to reframe the win. And what society or media is telling us just may not be a realistic intention right now, a goal that can be achieved right now. So in order to stay mentally tough. Yeah. You have to look inward and see.

What you're going to deem as success.

And if you think back in your career, do you have another example there of where you really had to dig deep and find that mental toughness?

Sure. In my doctorate getting my PhD, I almost got kicked out of my program.

And I'm a straight A student. So it wasn't about me not doing the work, but I doing the work that my advisors didn't want me to do. So talk about how, what other people deemed success, you know, or what, what they wanted me to achieve. So I was two years into a four year degree and I was all about practical work and the, you know, I wanted to teach and I wanted to, to practice. And two years into my four year degree my advisor brought me in and told me that I wasn't doing enough research and that I should possibly go and find another program.

And it was the first time that she had brought it up and you know, I had to, I had to really look to see what I was willing to do and what I was not willing to do to be true to myself. So we found a compromise at the end.

But I thought I was on my way. I'd already gone through like I had two more years left of a 10 year graduate degree or you know, 10 years of, you have, of, I guess, you know, undergrad I guess was four years and then two years masters and then a four year PhD. So I was so close to the end and now I'm being told that I may not get that doctor in front of my name because I didn't want to play their game, I didn't want to do it their way. So I had to figure out how to navigate around that. And it took a lot of mental toughness because there was a lot of anger and anxiety. But I had to turn that fear into a challenge. I had to turn that anxiety into something that was going to help me figure it out and persevere.

I love what you're saying there. When we think of a lot of the leaders, whether it's corporate or team leaders, we have that drive, that ambition to be successful, that competitive nature. And often that means we do want to do things differently, we do want to do things our way. But it sounds like you find a compromise, so how do you go about that? So if the person that's listening right now going, oh, yeah, I'm very much competitive and sometimes I want to be going against the rules or against the grain. How can you be individual, be driven, meet those needs whilst also just compromising enough so you're part of the team?

I think it's a. For me in that particular moment. And again, I had someone to help me work through this because I was learning myself. But I had to really understand what my advisor wanted, what was, you know, I had to understand her side instead of just being angry at her and, you know, blaming her, because that's not going to help. I really had to understand what her intentions were, what her motives were, what. What she wanted, and then knowing what I wanted together, figure out a way to move, to move forward instead of me just saying, well, you know, blaming her and becoming a victim, that was going to help no one. And I was probably, actually, I probably would have gotten kicked out because then I would have put on my, you know, be a defensive player.

But being able to understand her, her desires, her intentions, her reasonings, then we could work together, which. Which we did. And actually I think we both got some research out of it and which helped me. I mean, it's not bad to learn how to do research. It's good. Even though I didn't like it, I did it. And then I also got to teach and I. And I got to actually start my consulting practice while. While doing it. So I think that's a good lesson.

Huge. And empathy is the word that comes to mind. You started to think about life from her perspective and what her needs were. And, you know, I think for anyone list, such a key thing is developing that empathy.

Yeah. Without compromising your own values.

Right. Right, exactly. And mental toughness. So is this something that someone can read the book 10 minute toughness and just read and hypothesize and think about and develop it, or is this a thing to develop mental toughness, you've got to be in the world and you've got to be facing adversity.

I think both, you know, how do we, how do we develop skills? If I think about how we develop skills, I think about three. Three way is to watch and observe others. So expose ourselves to people that are doing it.

And watch them and role model or I guess they're really role playing for us and modeling. But there's something that's called vicarious experience from that. So if we watch others do it, then we think, well, if they can do it, so can I. It's exposing ourselves to people to develop mental toughness skills. Or sure, we can educate ourselves, we can read, we can learn tools, right? Educate, get yourselves in training, listen to podcasts like this where we're learning. Or you could jump right into the deep end and you know, jump, jump right in, you know, climb up that steep hill, you know, race down that, race down that trail. You jump, you jump right in. And you will definitely learn along the way through that experience. So sometimes I like all three. I like, you know, making sure that I'm exposing myself to people.

Who I admire and learning from them. Definitely educating myself with the specific trainings and techniques and then also just jumping right in and seeing what happens.

Love it. The trifecta there, it's brilliant. So a book or a resource? What would you recommend someone that's listening right now to get, to get on Amazon and order right now. What's a great book around mental toughness?

So if I think about why people come to me, one of the main reasons.

There'S a lot of anxiety from competition right now. So competitive anxiety. I think there's a lot of intimidation with social media. So for those people who are listening, those people have children on social media there's a lot of jealousy, envy, but really intimidation. And in sports a lot of people will say that they train really well but they can't compete because in competition they have anxiety. And it's usually about focus on what other people are going to do to beat them. And even in businesses, I'm actually working with an organization right now. In a few weeks time I'm delivering a keynote to them and training and they have, for the first time they have real competition and working with them to go through it. So I think anxiety in A high performance environment.

Is really key right now. So there is a.

A concept in performance psychology that is called coopetition, cooperative competition. And there's a great book out there called True Competition. And it doesn't just focus on competition and focuses on all, you know, performance psychology aspects. But I've been recommending this book.

Quite often because I think it embraces motivational climate. It embraces, you know, this concept of unconditional confidence and anxiety control. And even though, you know, again, my background is sports, so even though it brings you, you know, it delivers these concepts through sport, I think parents, I think children, I. People in the corporate world, people in the athletic world, anyone. Even though it comes from sports, it can be applied to everybody. Life domain, because it is the world in which we live right now.

100%. Well, I'll be getting the book and I'll make sure and put it in the show notes for anybody that wants to order it. That's fantastic.

Yeah, so that's my favorite book right now. I think it allows us to embrace. You probably heard this term before, embrace the suck.

It allows us to embrace the anxiety that we're experiencing and use our best self to go and conquer whatever stress we're experiencing.

Fantastic. And just before we look at mental weakness on the anxiety side of things, do you have a go to. Do you have a breath technique or some kind of mindfulness that you practice when you're experiencing anxiety?

Yes. And so just to go to sports right now, I have picked up mountain biking in the last year.

By far, this is my most feared sport by far. And you think because I'm a skier, I can go downhill fast, no problem? No, I am scared out of my mind. And luckily I have a great coach who is my significant other. And so, which is not often the case when you're, you know, your. Your boyfriend can. Can be your coach too. But it goes well for us. But every time we're about to approach something really fearful or technical or tactical, it's just taking a moment. And literally it's a brief moment because this rocker, twig or branch or downhill is right in front of me, right? You just take a moment, literally, to take a deep breath. But I'm specifically focused on my stomach. So when I inhale, it's a belly breath, you know, feel your belly button expand. And then I lighten up something muscular. So it's for me, because I'm holding onto handlebars, I lighten up my grip, right? And then from there, so I take a deep breath, I lighten up my body somehow. And then I actually zone into something very specific, technical or tactical. For me, it's typically get my butt back because it's usually going downhill. If we were to put that into a reset, it would be again, take a deep breath, but from my diaphragm, from my belly, where you really actually experience your belly button expand. You feel that belly button push out and then contract. Then somewhere in your body there's going to be some muscle tension that is in response to your anxiety. So if you already know where that is, release it and then zone into something very technical or very tactical or something you know you do best. And you bring that to whatever meeting you have or you bring that to whatever you know, stressor that you're about to experience.

Really powerful. And I love that you talk about the diaphragmatic breathing and the difference between like high chest or lung breathing versus diaphragmatic breathing. So for the people listening, that's so, so important that we breathe like that, right?

Oh yeah, absolutely. Well, if you're breathing, if your breathing's in your shoulders and you can see shoulders increase, you know, coming up and down your chest expanding breath is really shallow when you bring it down into your diaphragm. And when you focus on that, it actually does three things for you. Physiologically, it's going to calm you down. So depending on how long you do it, lower your heart rate, release some muscle tension, change your skin conductance. Mentally, because you're really focusing on your diaphragm and your belly, you're practicing a mindfulness technique called centering. Your thoughts are literally on your center so you're not focused on your past stressor, your current stress or your future. You're giving yourself a pattern interrupt. And then emotionally you're going to experience some calm and peace, which gives you a whole lot of room to then follow that up with something very technical or tactical on how you can move forward through that stressor.

Amazing. Thank you for sharing that. Hopefully the person that's listening right now is going well, I'm going to use that today, so that's fantastic.

Or you can do. I'll share a funny story though. So there's a seven. Well, he's now eight. An eight year old who's near and dear to me and he's been kind of, he's only known me for about a year, so he's been kind of watching and asking me what I do and he plays sports and he's constantly falling down and getting back up and he came to me about a month ago or so. And he goes, you know, I think I have something to add to your presentations. And I'm like, what? He goes, well, so he's. This is when he was in skiing mode, so now he's doing other sports. But because for the spring, when I was in skiing mode, he goes, you know, when I'm afraid of when I'm on the mountain, I'll just, I just turn around and then I turn back around, more confident, and then I can jump off the cliff.

Oh, he said, turn around, take a deep breath, take a deep breath, turn back around and become more confident, then jump off the cliff. And I think we are just constantly go, go, go, go, go, go. And we don't take a recovery pause. And a recovery pause is really just a reset, something very quick, something very simple. We all think that we need an hour at the end of the day to recover, or an entire evening or weekend or vacation. But I actually think we just need these quick little recovery pauses and these resets that will help us persevere.

The power is in the pause, right?

No, I like that. Yeah, I love that.

Like what you're saying is powerful. So like, let's say we have a 10 hour day and we're in the corporate world. Well, like every hour on the hour, if you can just take a 30 second break and just do some of the breathing that you're suggesting, that's got to make a difference to your psychology, your physiology, right?

Absolutely. And there are people who still will be challenged with the every hour on the hour, because what if a call runs later this. So I actually have, in addition to that, because I do believe we need to move every, every hour we need to move our body and get blood circulating. But sometimes for people, it's actually easier to think, okay, between every phone call, I'm going to stand up and sit down five times. You're basically doing five squats. Or, you know, between every email I'm just gonna open and close my fists really fast and faster until I feel something, or I'm gonna do a gratitude exercise. What have I already achieved today and what do I get to do next? So these are those recovery pauses. And if you. One way is to definitely go according to the clock, you know, every hour to do something. Or you just get into the ritual of after every phone call, I'm going to do this, or after every email, or after every five emails. Whatever, whatever works for you. Burnout right now, burnout is in the last two years we've done A lot of research on burnout and the emotional and mental exhaustion that burnout is, is actually not a result of these high extreme stressors. It's the result of limited recovery between the normal stressors of our lives.

What can we do about that?

Well, here's the good news. There's only one way to treat or prevent burnout recovery. There is no other solution. Which is a great thing because unlike nutrition, right, where there are so many different competing philosophies and programs, you know, when it comes to burnout, it is recovery. And we can recover in two ways. One is stillness, deep breathing, meditation, the brilliance of boredom, just staring at the window for a moment. Or it's active recovery, just taking yourself out of one task and putting yourself into another. As long as that other creates some peace. But when you ask, what can we do, James, that's a really great question. Because what we need to do is actually change our mindset about recovery. It's no longer a reward.

People think that recovery is something that I will do once I get all this other things. Once I get all these other things done right. It's. It's going to be a reward to crossing off my list or it's a. Something I get to do when I have the time.

Well, if we can go back to sports for just a moment. Professional athletes do not recover when they have the time, nor is it a reward. It is a mandatory component of their performance program.

Hey, James here. I wanted to take a quick moment to let you know about something. Look, I get asked to deliver keynotes and workshops for teams and companies all over the world, from London to Antarctica, from America to Australasia, from armies to small businesses to large corporates to sports teams. But I go in and deliver keynotes around the mindset of high performers, around the habits of high performers, about how we navigate change. If you would like me to come and speak to your team or speak at your conference or deliver a bespoke workshop, please get in touch with my team. Carolinejlochlan.com will be able to help. I'll also make sure that we put that in the show notes.

That's amazing. And the individual listening right now. I want you to think about what Hayley has just said. And this is how I feel about what you just said. Rest and recovery is not a luxury. It's a necessity.

Absolutely. It's your performance program. It's part of that. Which then gives you. And what does recovery do? It renews energy. So it actually then gives you the energy to be mentally Tough to show up when you don't want to, to exert every ounce of effort and to persevere with your strengths. You can't do that if you don't have the energy. And the only way to create energy is to recover. So we really have to change our mindset about recovery. It's not a reward, it's not a luxury, it's not a, you know, it is mandatory and it doesn't take hours.

Yeah, minutes, Seconds, Seconds. This is great. And I know that there's a few listeners that are in the hospitality industry and they run chains and restaurants. Please, for those that are in the industry, listen to this because I know that many of your staff are doing 8 to 10 hour shifts and taking a 10 minute coffee or smoke break. Please pay them the 30 to 60 minutes and give them their break and their recovery and encourage them to get off their feet every hour. You know, it's, it's so crucial and I think there's certain industries where we neglect rest. We're like, no, this is hospitality, we can't do that.

Yeah, one of one of my client accounts. Am I able to say, are we good? If I. Of course, because it's all a good thing. So Marriott is a, is an account of mine and it's not Marriott spreading the word, it's Marriott like Chariot.

So I work with them every month. They, and it's me coming in and delivering resilience training. And they are so on board with what you just said and that, you know, that's a huge hospitality company. And yes, it is the recovery piece. Life is no longer a marathon. I think we have to dismiss that. Life is not a marathon. It is a series of sprints. Sprint, you recover stress, you recover. Sprint, you recover stress, you recover.

That's brilliant. And you think of the Marriott, that, that's truly a global business. And if, you know, for the person that's listening going, oh yeah, I don't know if I could do that. If they can do it, we can all do it. Because they perform at the highest levels. It's one of the greatest hospitality brands, hotel brands, entertainment brands and the plan it. So I love that. And I guess.

40, 50 years ago, for those that are listening and not watching this, we didn't have these little bad boys. I just lifted up my iPhone. But often when we're resting and recovering, we just reach for this and we scroll and we look at messages and we look for reactions and hearts and comments. Truly that keeps us, I believe, at a heightened step. I don't think this is true. Rest and recovery. So what role does digital technology play in our ability to either burn out or not?

Yeah. And specifically, it's the technology at night.

Right.

So we want a break from the work and so we turn onto our phones and we. Social media. And I'll be honest.

I'm not a fan of social media.

I think one of my weaknesses is that I'm not a great digital marketer, marketer for my own business because I. Because I'm not on social media all that much. But I do think that there is a benefit in that sometimes it does provide some joy and even just some, you know, there is a little bit of peace and calm, but you're still getting the stimulus. You're still not being able to choose what you want to watch because other people, you know, the advertisements, and you're still getting thrown in all of these things that are not going to cause that recovery. So in the perfect world, you would get to choose exactly what you get to see and watch and learn on social media. But unfortunately, that's not the case. So that's one hindrance of recovery because you're there perhaps to get a distraction away from work and to throw yourself into what your friends are doing and to learn, but you don't have control. You know, there's a couple of settings I'm sure you can take, but then you never know when you're going to get bombarded with things that will actually cause more anxiety.

Then there's just the lights, like, then there's just the light. I mean, the blue light in those phones are the same as the sun. So if you're trying to physiologically recover, it's really hard to do when you're getting the stimulus that the sun gives us.

You have the blue light blocking glasses. Would you recommend those?

Absolutely. But I don't want to recommend those because I just want you to get off your phones even better.

But if you cannot. Absolutely, absolutely. There's certain apps that get rid of the blue light or those glasses for sure. Best case scenario, find another activity to do. So. It's not just focusing on putting the phone down. Actually, that's not the focus. The focus is what are you going to do instead? Have a replacement behavior.

Get a deck of cards and let's get old school again. Have some fun.

There you go. Learn some magic tricks, hard tricks.

I love it. Now I'm going to swing back around. We talked about mental toughness. Let's talk about what mental weakness is. The polar opposite of that. And for those people listening, you know, if you get triggered thinking about mentally weak, you know, I want you to be open minded to what that means and that it is. There has to be an opposite to mental toughness, and there's mental weakness. And I know that all of us can experience mental weakness at times. So for you, what does mental weakness mean? Hayley.

I want to congratulate you because no one's ever asked this question of me. I've never actually had to think about, because everyone's always about mental toughness. So I'm glad that we've had a little bit time for me to think about it, and I do love that you've asked that.

I think mental weakness is when we let ourselves off the hook. So I did bring that up a little bit earlier. I think there's a very big difference between giving ourselves some grace and letting ourselves off the hook. And I think letting ourselves off the hook when we know we could do something and we give up too soon, we know we could persevere, and we just justify all the reasons why it's okay not to. I think that's mental weakness as compared to, okay, the world is what it is, or I'm just recovering from an injury, or, you know, my business had a recall, so we cannot go and actually sell anything right now. We have to reframe the win. To me, that's still mental toughness. That's giving ourselves some grace for what is. But letting yourself off the hook and trying to justify all the reasons why it's okay to sleep in again and not exercise. Why it's so, you know, why it's okay to stay on your phone for another night. Well, this week is ruined. So I'll just do whatever I want and I'll start again on Monday. They're making me do this. I have no control. To me, that's mental weakness.

Oh, good. And we are very good as humans at not seeing our blind spots, not seeing that we're going, it's 5am, can't be bothered not to snooze, and we go back to bed, and we get up, we have our coffee, and we go to work, and we forget about that action we forgot to take in the morning. What can we do to keep ourselves accountable? Is there a way that we can evaluate, ask ourselves a question, give ourselves a score on a daily basis in terms of those things that matter, the health, the exercise? What can someone do to actually not let themselves off the hook?

Well, I think the best way is to actually have someone to hold you accountable. So we talk about accountability, right, all the time. And I'm sure people who listen are listening. That's not new. But I might be able to dive in a little bit more and help us a little bit further with choosing the right accountability partner.

So there's two things that I want to share when it comes to accountability. First, understand that we can be our greatest allies, but we can also be our worst enemies. So we need to choose someone who, when we're going to be our worst enemies, they are going to be our best allies. And that means that you choose someone who's actually going to hold you accountable and not be an enabler. So when you say, I wanted to do this, but I wanted to exercise, but I wanted to take a recovery break, but they're going to say, the truth is they're going to hold that mirror up when you can't hold it up for yourself.

Now, often this is challenging because you're kind of setting yourself up to be yelled at, right? You're setting yourself up to be caught. Sometimes. Your spouse, your significant other, your best friend, they can be great, but they also may be awful. They might be more. They want to support you, but they're enabling is what they're doing. Now, for those of you who have children, children who can speak are often fabulous accountability partners because they're more than willing to tell you when you screwed up, right? So children, children can be great, but you really want to choose someone who's not afraid to tell you the truth.

And also, not only are they not afraid to tell you the truth, but you're also willing to listen. So it's a really important relationship that you have to have with this, with this person. You can't just choose someone because they happen to be in your physical proximity. You have to choose someone who's really going to hold you accountable. The other piece is there are different types of accountability partners. Depending on who you are as a person and depending on the challenge that you're trying to achieve, the intention that you're trying to accomplish, you might choose someone who's a fan, who. A cheerleader. You might want that for yourself. I know that for me, if I want a fan, if I want a cheerleader, I just call my mom, right? Like, my mom is my ultimate cheerleader.

So good.

If I want a coach, she's not necessarily the person I'm going to call. If I need a strategist, I'm going to ask somebody else. For me, it would be my father or my boyfriend. Those would be the two people that I would strategize with, and I really want to listen to their technical and tactical input. Perhaps you need someone who's kind of going to do it with you. So someone who's going to stand on the, you know, stand on the field with you. So again, there's different types. This is not just an easy choosing someone. It's really being strategic. And then, and then it gives you a best shot to go about it.

Brilliant. And when, when you've got this accountability partner and you've set a goal and you keep coming up with the buts and the oh, but, and your accountability partner's doing a great job going, hey, come on, you said you were going to do this. Why are you not doing this? But this just keeps happening and happening and happening. So you're totally incongruent with it and the partner's calling you out, but you're not. Nothing's changing at that point. What must you do? What could you do?

Yeah. At that point, in my opinion, you have to change your focus. So let's just say I want to exercise after work today, but I'm too tired. Okay, I'm sure that classic line, right, Right. I want to exercise after work today, but I'm too tired. And no matter how much your accountability tells you, come on, it's, you know, exercise is good for your health and exercise is going to let you do this. And we have a trip coming up. All this stuff, it's not working. I am no longer going to be focused on the exercise after work. I'm going to be focusing on what the but is. And the but is I am too tired. So now I'm going to set a goal around.

Reframing the too tired after work. So, for example, if after work is 5pm, I'm going to advise the people that I'm consulting to have this big calendar reminder pop up at 4:45, not 5pm but 4:45, saying, you are mentally and emotionally exhausted. You are quite physically well rested from sitting down all day.

I'm really even not focusing on exercise. I'm now focusing on specifically conquering that but with the reality. Because most people, when, when I ask, what have you been doing all day? Sitting? So you're quite physically well rested. So now we're getting into the mental, we're getting into the cognitive reframing, and I'm going to focus on that aspect. And then it's like, do something for five minutes. What are you going to do for five minutes to move your body.

Just Five minutes. And then I, in my experience, when you start focusing on that, but forget about the exercise for a second. But when you start cognitively reframing that, but, and then just doing something relatively easy, five minutes, what are you going to do? Are you going to, you know, go for a walk outside? Are you going to do yoga? Or you're just going to, you know, do progressive muscular relaxation? Just five minutes. What you're doing is changing the way you think. Right. You're changing the story. And then eventually my experience, exercise does, does happen.

Brilliant. And you're being that hyper specificity. You're using that for your subconscious mind going hey, at 4:45 this is going to happen. You've been really specific, I'm well rested physically. And then you're saying, hey, I'm going to do it for five minutes. And so there's a specificity there. So I think to take action when you know exactly what's going to happen, I guess the chances increase greatly, right?

Yeah. In my opinion because right now, so we all have barriers and those buts are barriers and the barriers are preventing us from achieving the goal. So now for temporary, just for temporarily, I got to put, I got to shelf the goal and I gotta now really conquer the barrier.

That's brilliant. And that's simple.

It's not easy, but it's not easy for sure. And then, although I'm a really big believer in not doing it alone and why bother? It's so much more fun to do it with people. So have accountability, just have people help you. Why not?

So good. And for a second I'd love to ask you, where does mental toughness and mental well being intersect? Where does that intersect there with mental wellbeing, mental toughness? Because I've read David Goggins, I've watched David Goggins, I'm in awe of a lot of the stuff he does, but, and he's very mentally tough. But I know if I was to practice exactly what he does, I do believe that would not be positive long term for my mental wellbeing. So where's the intersect? Where can we be mentally tough and still really respect and nurture our mental well being?

It's again such a great question. When I think mental toughness, I think it's, I want to develop mental toughness in pursuit of something. So David Goggins, I mean we all, you know, when I think of him, I just think of someone who has totally cognitively reframed the way he thinks about pain. Right. And he focuses on the Message and the lessons and the learnings and the embracing and the good things of pain to help him persevere. Mental well being to me is more of a longevity.

A long term health.

Stability, sustainability, those words pop up. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely.

With mental well being. Whereas mental toughness, I need mental toughness to grow. I need mental toughness to challenge myself. I need mental toughness to be resilient. And I'm not saying that mental wellbeing isn't being resilient either. But there's just more of this sustainability and, and eat more of an even flow in the way I visualize it.

That's really powerful. And if you, for that person that's listening right now, how could they develop more inner strength to maximize their outer strength?

So funny. On my video and my website, my welcome video is like, we need inner strength too.

To improve our outer strength.

Oh, good.

So good.

Yeah, well, you know. And what was the question again?

I got someone develop more of that to develop more of that inner strength because obviously you firmly believe that there's a big connection between inner strengths and outer strength, that mind, body connection. So how does someone develop more of the inner so that they can experience more of the outer?

Yeah, so.

I'm going to get really specific just with one tool.

Every day before you go to sleep at night, ask yourself, what did you achieve today? Every day be specific and make sure that you're focusing on what you achieved and not what anyone else achieved, but what did you achieve? The reason I asked that question is because I think right now, especially with the overload and the overwhelm and simply the.

The I'm not good enough, you know, self talk. Right now when you ask yourself what did I achieve today? You're focusing on some, you know, to highlight your strength, to give you that unshakable confidence instead of going to bed every night saying what I didn't, what, what didn't I do? What I didn't achieve?

And then the next question is, what do I get to do next?

What do I get to learn? Who do I get to support? How do I get to be challenged? What do I get to do next? What you are doing is with those two questions, I think you are removing yourself from an emotional state of anger and frustration and worry. What I haven't done yet or what I didn't get done or what I'm not good enough to what I did achieve. So now you're giving yourself a little bit of a pat on the back and then what do I get get to do next instead of what I have to do next.

Is huge. It brings back your purpose, it bring, it highlights your, your strengths and it creates energy from the inside so that when you go out and you are challenged and you are supporting someone and you are learning and you are growing, you now have that inner purpose and energy and confidence to go pursue whatever you are pursuing on the outside.

Please, for the listener that's listening right now, just press, pause, rewind like 30 seconds and just write that down. In fact, I'm going to turn that one into a quote and put it up on social media and put your name on it. That was just brilliant.

Hope so. I'm learning social media so hopefully I'll be able to retweet it or at least like it.

Yeah, no, it's phenomenal. Well, I'll tell you what, you've said a couple of times, you're not great at social media. When you are Biff, people find you. So when you're the best in field, it doesn't matter if you've got the best social media, people come and find you. And that's what with you. That's how I found you. Just like people talk about you and what you do. So you'll get good at social media. That'll be something that just happens. But you've got a great skill set that people want to know about.

Well, thank you. And you know, it's interesting. If I'll just use myself as an example, if you don't mind. You know, I'll be honest. Social media is a big stressor for me. It really truly is. And everything that I've learned is, you know, and what to do this and I just, I just really, it's a struggle for me so I'm just going to call it a big mental block, a stressor. And you know, when we were confronted with big challenges and stressors, there's some people look at it as I just got to take it one step at a time. Right? We break it down one step at a time and that's great. But what about this technique which is what I'm doing for myself and what everyone can do for themselves. Think about who you are when you're your best. Like what, who you are. And I think that I am bright. So I think about like the sun and what the sun gives the earth is what kind of what my brightness gives me. I'm curious as opposed to judgmental. And I, and I listen and when it comes to social media, what I'm doing for myself is every time I create a video and I post it on. On the various channels or send a message out to my distribution list, I tune out my insecurities. I tune out my. My. My mental weakness. If you in, I tune out all that. And I tune into the fact that I want to be bright with every video I create. I bright with every post that I make. And that is something that I'm working on so that I can share my best self to help other people highlight their strengths. And I think we can do that with any stress we're experiencing.

That's powerful. And I want to go back to that because I actually did want to ask you, what is a mental block? What? I heard you say that a mental block is a stressor.

To me, a mental block is a story that we tell ourselves. It doesn't matter if it's real or unreal. It's your story. A story that we tell ourselves that has the potential to debilitate our performance. But I say the potential because we're either going to let it run its course or we're going to stop it in its tracks and conquer it.

How do we stop it? So let's say we've got this mental block. Let's say it's someone who's applying for a big promotion. They're wanting to apply for president or CEO or they want to be the captain of the amazing sports team. And they've got this mental block around. I don't know. I'm an imposter. I don't think I've got the background experience. So they've got these kind of mental stories. How can someone overcome that so that it doesn't stop them?

When I teach in my consulting practice or in my keynotes or trainings, I have three solutions that I share with people on how to overcome their mental blocks. And I've never come across a mental block where one of these three doesn't help. So the first one is ask yourself, can you change your situation? It's the people you're around or the environment that you're in. Something. I'll just give a specific example of a person I was consulting with last week. She's obviously because of COVID She's doing a whole lot of virtual presentations. She used to do more of like boardroom, get up in person and speak. And she's experiencing a lot of just mental block around the virtual. And we talked about it and she's like, I just don't. I feel very cluttered. I feel very, I don't know That I know that I'm going to say, and when we looked at the situation, when she walks into the boardroom, sure, she may have like a cue card of notes, but she's just really clear. When she opens her computer for virtual, her desktop is a mess.

So she opens her computer and she's just bombarded with all of this clutter. So changing her situation was really just getting rid of the clutter, cleaning up her desktop so she has a clean, you know, environment that she walks into when she gets a virtual presentation. So that's an example of changing your situation. If we're bored at staring at one wall, we've been working facing the same wall, you turn around and you, you know, focus on another wall, changing your situation. It's. I really can't say much more than just looking at who you're with and the things and around you. But if you can't change your situation to help with your mental block, then it's a little bit of that cognitive reframing and changing the way you look at that situation. So, for example, if someone puts pressure on you, right, you're going out. And someone like my coach bet on me to win, I was either going to think, oh no, how could he? Or oh, yeah, it must mean that he really believes in me and I'm doing something right.

So, you know, for everyone out there who's the captain, or going, you know, looking for a promotion, becoming an executive, you know, if people are expecting certain things of you, isn't that a good sign? Isn't that, doesn't that mean that you're doing something right? So we reframe it and if you can't do that, then you must accept what you are afraid of.

You must accept what makes you anxious and then focus on bringing your best self towards that stressor.

So I'm. There are certain things. I have insecurities when it comes to social media. There's a reason why I have this mental block. And one of the things is that I accept that people are going to see certain things. They accept that they're going to hear me stumble and mumble and make mistakes, and I accept that. But I'm going to focus on bringing the bright side of social media. That's what I'm going to focus on and bringing and doing the best that I can to highlight, to help people highlight their strengths. So I'm focusing on what I can do to help, and that helps me conquer my mental block.

Love it. That's really, really, really powerful. So when we're Thinking about what we're bringing, and we're focusing on that. You mentioned values right at the start of our conversation. So that brightness and that thinking of the sun and bringing this impact to people. I would love to chat for a minute about your values, two or three of your personal core values, just to see where the alignments are there. So what would you say are your key or core values?

I have three. Health, love, and adventure.

So beautiful. And I can see the brightness. Right, so you started with health, love, adventure. That's so cool. Where do they come from and how do they. Let's start with where do they come from?

You know, I'm a student, so. So even though I teach this, one of the greatest things that I get to do is learn every day. And purpose is something that we're definitely teaching a lot about now. We're helping people. I don't think we're helping people find their purpose. I think we're helping people bring it to. To the forefront. They already have it. And so when we do the work, we think about, you know, who we are, when we are our best, and what values.

What. What values are the most important to us. And in order for me to teach that, I have to lead by example. Right? And so I just kind of took inventory of my life, took inventory of my experiences, took inventory of my goals, took inventory of what makes me happy, what makes me sad, what makes me feel accomplished, what makes me get down on myself. Absolutely. Health. If I am not eating properly, if I am not sleeping properly, if I am not exercising the way I like it, I get down on myself, I get upset. So that is definitely unimportant.

Love. I don't have.

I have. I have. I am so fortunate that I have some really good friends and a lot and my family super close. And.

Unfortunately, there's, you know, been, obviously in the last couple of years, there's been a lot of death and suicide. And. And I remember having this conversation with someone, and I was thinking about it, and for myself, I was like, you know what? If I. Unfortunately, if I were to. Something were to happen to me right now, there is not one person I care about most that doesn't know how I care about them or what I think about them. And unfortunately, if anyone in my life or to have an unfortunate incident, they know my feelings toward them. So that was really important. So love.

And then adventure. Put me on the water or get me in a mountain any day of the week, sign me up.

I love it. And it's just. What for people that are listening. Obviously you can't see the body language, but I want to say, when you said love that value, you lit up. There was a brightness about your energy. So I can really see that. That's really prominent. That's the center. That's the middle one. That's the center of everything. So for those that are listening, if you don't know what your values are, please do the work and define what those values are. Now, once you define your values, why is it important to have values? I think of them as a foundation, obviously, of our life, and they shape beliefs. But for you. So your values, what do they help you shoot?

I mean, it's my North Star. They're my North Star. They're my guiding force.

When life gets really tough, when things bad happen to me or the people that I love, it's my values that get me out of bed and help me move right, left, right, left through life. But I want to address one thing that you just said you're offering and challenging everyone to find their values. I will tell you already a mental block that might pop up if I can.

Yeah, of course.

There are so many values, hundreds of values, right? Integrity, friendship, compassion, gratitude, empathy, adventure. There is health. There is so much. And I can't think of one value that I don't value. I can't think of one value that I would not want to have. But if we're trying to have everything, we will have nothing because it's just too much overload and overwhelm. But when we direct ourselves to have a few, and I like the number three, if we focus on just having three. So for me, health, love and adventure, if I focus on bringing those into my life, I'm probably going to be kind as well. I'm probably going to be empathetic as well. I'm probably going to be genuine and, you know, so other things will naturally pop up. But having three gives me direction. And when you have a direction, you pay attention to that and then you take action. And there's a great. This is a great book. If we could just. Again, it's not new. It's an old book. The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Gialdini. Or yes, I actually like the yes he talks about.

Three is a great number. More than three. We get confused.

So except for gelato tasting.

35 is a great number for that.

Then it's about having the experience of tasting all the flavors and all that stuff. But. But other than gelato and actually the color of your tennis shoes, which was the other One.

Really, if we can narrow it down and really focus on three things.

You will not only have those three things in your life, but you will have so much more.

That's brilliant. And I really agree that Robert Cialdini book is amazing. I'll put a link in the show notes and it makes me think of this. I chatted with David Allen a few weeks ago and he said, james, your brain or your head is for thinking, not for holding. It's like after four things, three or four things, you're not using your brain. Well, he's like, it's not for holding things, just use it for thinking. And when you said three, it made me think of this. I wanted to bring this up because I think it's really incredible. These are not my words. These are Dr. Haley's words. They're amazing. Our thoughts impact our emotions. Our emotions alter our biology. Our biology increases our performance.

You watched my video? Yes, my website.

It's phenomenal. It's so good. So folks, I want you to listen to that. I'd love for a second if we can just unpack that. So I'll repeat it again for those that are listening. So our thoughts impact our emotions. Our emotions alter our biology. And our biology increases our performance.

Every thought that we have.

Creates, you know, an emotion. Whether that emotion is going to be one of like fight or flight, survival, anger, frustration, worry, fear. Every thought will create that or it will create one of optimum. So like Mihaly Csikshima high slow state, you know, an emotion of, of challenge and excitement and passion. Or a thought will create peace and harmony and serenity or it will create sadness or, you know, despair. So every thought definitely has a consequential emotion. Now I think it goes back and forth then, right? Because then your emotions subsequently, you know, alter your thoughts.

But I'm a strong believer that everything we think will then impact our emotions. And your emotions, depending on what you're feeling is guy, are they going to release serotonin and dopamine and epinephrine or you know, muscles, certain muscle tension, skin temperature and heart rate.

And then those bodily responses, your physiological and your biology, you know, then alters your behavior which is essentially your performance and then it goes round and round and round again. So if we can optimize what I call the, you know, the optimum energy flow, you know, get your thoughts right to create, you know, you know, create the good emotions and then the, you know, have your body respond and then go and perform your best. So your mind starts, it's so funny. Like, in my profession, I'm a big believer in thinking less but more strategically. So when you say when you set up your mind and you go through, then you can just kind of shut up your mind and let your body know what it does, what it let your body do. Let your body do what it knows to do without you getting in its way.

Yeah, of course. And those thoughts, like you mentioned, the questions that you would ask yourself in the evening, they really stimulate positive thoughts. All right, what do I get to do? What have I achieved? What have I accomplished? So how else can someone. Because obviously we have some subconscious thoughts that just come in and they might be negative, so we can let those go, but how can we more proactively just start to think in a more empowering way?

So I think. Remember at the beginning when I just said, you know, my three best words about myself? Bright, curious, and listen.

Again, I'm so lucky that I get to teach this every day, so I get to learn it every day. But I would recommend everyone take the three words that describe them at their best. There's no right or wrong. And remember, just because you're not having happy on the list, for example, I don't have happy on my list. But if I'm bright, curious, and I'm listening, I'm going to be happy. So it's not like you're dismissing all the other words. I'm just giving myself something to focus on. Direction and attention. Put those three words on your bathroom mirror when you're brushing your teeth, staring at yourself each and every morning and each and every night, you're reminded of your three best words. Have a calendar reminder. Let them pop up so you can start taking inventory of them.

So it sets yourself up for success. In addition to that, we're not perfect. So as soon as you catch yourself losing your best self, it's not about saying, I don't have time to take care of myself right now. I've got other deliverables. I have other tasks. I have other respons. Responsibilities. I just got to go, go, go, go, go. That's not the best method. As soon as you catch yourself losing one of those three words, that is your moment to take that recovery pause. But be strategic about it. If I lose my brightness, a recovery pause for me may be out, may be to go outside and stand in the sun.

If I'm judgmental, perhaps a recovery pause for me is to ask me. Is to ask myself that person who is rude to me. I'm wondering what unfortunate circumstances they went through today. So you want to be strategic and do something in that recovery pause to bring back that word. So it is really, again, very strategic when we are working with these three words. But I believe it will help us be mentally well.

Yeah, truly, I believe that too. And I love what you're saying is don't just have your words, have your actions that you take from those words that help you get back into that desired state. That's just brilliant. So for somebody that wants to. The person that's listening right now, they're like, whoa, I want to know more about Dr. Haley. How can they get in touch? How can they work with you?

Well, we know it's not going to be social media. Right.

The best place is my website. From there you can just opt in and then even contact and I see every email that comes in through the contact page. So www.doctor haleyperlis.com is is my website of the social medias for everyone. You know more in the business world. I do. I am on LinkedIn more than anything else. So definitely connect with me on LinkedIn, send me a message. I, I just want to help and support and, and help everyone highlight their strengths to be the champions of their own lives. So I am. I so hope to hear from you.

Fantastic. Well, I'll make sure to put that in the show notes. I'll put your LinkedIn URL and also put your website so people can just click through and check it out.

Yeah, that's great, James.

Now, I've got one last question before we wrap up and I always like to ask this right at the end. So if we fast forward many, many, many years and it's your last day on earth and someone near and dear, they're maybe 40 or 50 years younger than you, they come to you and say, hilly, what's your advice to me? I want to live my life with purpose. How do I go about it? What would your advice be to them?

I'm going to laugh at this question because I'm going to say it, but I'm somewhat hypocritical.

Not in life general, but just in my most feared sport right now. Eyes wide open is what would be my. It would be my advice. So what do I mean by that? I love people with vision. If someone comes to me and they have a specific goal for their life, of course I'm like, let's do that. But I don't want people to close off any opportunities that they may not even realize are going to happen, but then do. If that makes any sense. We don't know what we don't know. So I love everyone having goals and direction. I want it to be just sports psychology. I wanted to just focus on sports. But then I was fortunate enough to have opportunity where I could be in the corporate world and the health and fitness world. And. And if I just focused on my one goal of sports, I would have.

Neglected such a valuable part of my life. I wouldn't have been able to live certain experiences. And for me, in the future, I'm still. I'm still young. I'm still going for it. So eyes wide open. And I say that because. I say that I'm hypocritical because in my most feared sport of mountain biking right now.

I'm constantly being told, keep your eyes open. Because when I get scared, I close my eyes.

So one thing that I'm learning for myself and my sport, but one thing that I feel like I actually have lived by in my life and will continue is keeping my eyes open to life's opportunities. And it is kind of like my dad just said to me, you set goals and then life happens. Have your eyes wide open for life.

Folks.

You heard it here first. Keep your eyes wide open. I love that. Thank you so much, Dr. Haley.

You're very welcome, James. I didn't even get to ask you any questions, which I wanted to, but you were just diving right in and it was super fun. I appreciate your time.

Thank you so much. And I wish you nothing but the best.

You too.

Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button. And I'd love if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks. And leaders, it's that time to get out there and lead your life on purpose.