Ep. 59-Richard Oelberger, PhD: Mind Over Pandemic

This is the You Winning Life podcast, your number one source for mastering a positive existence. Each episode, we'll be interviewing exceptional people, giving you empowering insights and guiding you to extraordinary outcomes. Learn from specialists in the worlds of integrative and natural wellness, spirituality, psychology, and entrepreneurship so you too can be winning life. Now here's your host, licensed marriage and family therapist, certified neuro-emotional technique practitioner, trainer and certified entrepreneur coach Jason Wasser.

Hey everybody, welcome back. Today I am with Dr. Richard Ohlberger, who is out in Beverly Hills, California. He is a licensed psychologist but also a sports psychologist, and he focuses on the approach which encompasses martial arts philosophy, somatic approaches, spiritual psychology, and mental performance techniques. All of these are grounded from his clinical psychology background and behavioral strategies. So we've been wanting to have this conversation for a while, and I know there's so much we can talk about. We're in the middle of a pandemic. There's stuff going on out in the world, not only with the pandemic, but with cultural stuff. Uh, there's been some other life stuff that's been going on that we both have personally been struggling with. But first of all, welcome and thank you for hanging out.

Thank you for inviting me into the family room.

Yeah, and as of a week and a half ago, the family room has completely given up its office and is now fully functioning. Not only was I online before, but as you know, like, but now I'm like, I gave up the office, so now it's really legit, 100% fully online.

Likewise, I'm right along with you.

Right, so I know we've been basically matching each other pace for pace with this scenario. So, so First of all, like sports psychology is a very unique and very cool and very like, you know, it's like, oh, I get to work with athletes or I get to work with sports teams and I get to work with famous people. So like, I want to talk about like all these positive things about it, but I also want to debunk some of the myths. So I'd love for you to jump in on that and just share like, hey, what got you into it? Why specifically sports psychology? And what are some of the positives that you've experienced and what are some of the myths you'd like to debunk?

Yes, thank you. That's, that's quite a few. That's a mouthful right there. But first of all, I gotta say, there's such, you know, inner child within me that I see the guitar in the back of your room and I want to like hop in and get a music lesson. And, uh, you know, I think that's the beauty about all these, uh, Zoom and podcasts is we're getting intimate looks at each other's spaces. Um, so, um, it's pretty cool to have that opportunity. And, and that will be something that I'll continue to grow music. I chose sports over music. The bouncing ball was much more appealing for my inner child. So music may be, if this quarantine continues much longer, something that's a gift to myself and way of connecting to some of the things we talked about outside of here, to grief and purpose and things like that. But back to the topic at hand. Yeah, I mean, when you look at sports psychology, there's a lot of different people, you know, that were either coaches that wanted to help players improve. And when you get to know some of the people like you know, we say the old guard, but, you know, maybe even people that are in their, you know, late 60s or 70s, when you meet the individuals who've been around sport and did it at times, maybe when it was less popular, it's pretty funny when you hear stories of Charlie Marr, who's now with the Cleveland Indians, who had to take service elevators dressed like a UPS driver just to get like snuck in the building. You know, that there was such a stigma around mental and sport, and that you didn't really want to be associated with having anything that was a challenge that was mental. And why would you need to work with a sports psychologist? So even that term, it's pretty interesting how they've arrived as the, the American Association of Sports Psychology has arrived at the official certification I hold and spent parts of 10 years achieving is called a Certified Mental Performance Consultant. So I'm sure you as a, you know, someone who dabbles in the world of coaching and business, it's very interesting, this world consultant. And what does your consultant do? And how does that operate practically within the framework of a team in a way that's non-threatening, in a way where you are observing and you're there as an, you know, a fly on the wall and to provide support for teams and athletes and to provide mental skills is "or performance techniques." This is some of the more threatening, non-threatening language that's used. Now, if you ask me if there's some crossover between your performance, reducing your performance techniques and reducing anxiety, absolutely. But the term anxiety, I've had, it can be threatening to families, can be threatening to players. I think, you know, real people want to keep the language separate from deficit. They want to keep it, you know, focused on something that's going to help them directly correlate into their performance. So when we say about debunking the myth, I think that the myth is that this is not something for the everyman like you or I, that you or I can't begin to apply these strategies and techniques no matter what realm we're in. Especially in some of the more stressful scenarios we find ourselves in, in our lives. So, learning how to apply, right? Some of these things become more commonplace to us. There are a lot of self-help books, learning how to focus, learning the things that are going to help you focus, not only in your mind, but in your body, learning how to use goal-setting strategies, how to use progressive muscle relaxation to remove tension from your body before going into a performance. So, I think, you know, one of the advantages that elite athletes have over you or I is just they're more aware of these strategies and they've almost unconsciously begun to use these techniques. And it's pretty amazing when you see how many are being used in very short windows of time.

So it sounds to me that sports psychology or working with a sports psychologist isn't limited only to athletes and should not just be limited only to athletes.

It's not. I mean, there are— even in my journey into the field, there are those who don't necessarily have a PhD in psychology. And just either they got some great training through the military or just been around one sport or one team enough. And they have worked with some of the best. And they've gotten their brass, so to speak, that way. And that's incredible. And there's others who've come up from the academic realm. So the knowledge may be more theoretical. So, you know, being comfortable or getting around somebody like, look at, you know, Phil Jackson brought this into basketball. You know, Ken Ravizza, who worked with the Chicago Cubs, the Olympic team, and Cal State Fullerton for years, you know, just, he was an educational psychologist. So, You don't need to be limited. No, you know, and I think now with the amount of resources and books that are out there, and athletes have started to see this is how you create a winning formula. There's got to be something. There have been cases of the Yips in golf and baseball where players all of a sudden can't throw the ball in a certain direction. So people are becoming more and more aware, I think, in the last 15, 20 years, number one, of mind-body connection, right? The relationship between the way you think and your fears blocks that can— cognitive blocks that can be created that impair your performance, as well as the need to really be free to execute these skills at a high level, that being encumbered or held back in any way or distracted can be really detrimental. So whether you be an elite athlete or whether you be, you know, just somebody who's looking to become, you know, better as a therapist, better as a, you know, I mean, nowadays I joke, right? I mean, can a mom of staying at home during a pandemic and having to manage Zoom classes and an entire household benefit from performance strategies? Absolutely. So, you know, can an ER physician who's managing, you know, a line of clients? Absolutely, because, you know, if there's no strategy for managing stress, regulating arousal, tension, then, you know, there are things that we do to cope and survive, which is a lot of overlap with the work you do, Jason Wasser. And then those survival strategies, although helpful in the short run, they may not be helpful for us to be a healthy long-term performer. They can lead to a lot of term burnout and compassion fatigue, things that have really become known against the, you know, in the healing professions and even athletes, right? Like if they lose the joy, in playing that they once had. Like I said, that inner curiosity, that desire just to be out there playing and doing all the small stuff, all the boring stuff, you know, still showing up early, still stretching, still working on, you know, improving your game day to day.

So it sounds with what you're saying, the word strategy came up a few times. And one of my favorite words to use with my clients is, "How can we be strategic about this?" And my realization of working with clients as a therapist is our job is not to tell them what to do, but to help them figure out what strategy is going to be the most strategic for them to help them get unstuck from what they're doing, because whatever they've been doing to this point, they've been doing consistently the same way over and over again. And in order to build new emotional muscle memory or new physical muscle memory, they have to build consistency in a different direction based on different beliefs in order to get the more profound outcomes that they truly desire. But I think the first step is the word that you used a few times, which is strategy. So if the strategy isn't right, useful, whatever that's gonna allow you to be seeing multiple possibilities instead of one possibility, then I think that we're not starting from the right place to help the people, right? And I want people out there to hear that, right? That if you're looking for someone or you're going to someone as a mental health professional, as a therapist, as a psychologist, and you're just going in and debriefing every session, that's not strategy. That's just more of the same and repeating the story and the narrative and the beliefs and the scripts over and over again. That's not gonna get you to a more profound outcome. But what I think you and I do differently is we have the end in mind. Where would you like to be? And let's reverse engineer it from there. And that very much sounds like our overlap in that regards.

Yes. Yeah, thank you for mentioning that. I mean, you know, listen, am I happy when someone has not expressed or holds in all their emotions when they finally find a place to come and they like connecting? And, and my default is I will listen. And I do think there's some power to, especially for work with men and vulnerability and authenticity and letting people get closer to somebody else, and even developing that trust. And that trust starts within your own nervous system, right? Wow, I can tell somebody, I can bring this to somebody else. I don't have to hold it all. Because, right, there's a lot to talk about spiritually, emotionally, holding on to too many, especially negative emotions can really be toxic. But when clients come in with some sort of a plan. And when you tie it into sports, you know, I always look back here, you're in Florida and, you know, everyone's big, big LeBron fans, or at least they were, um, you know, like, yeah, I mean, you know, the big, uh, you know, you know, Bob Rotella book, which I have here on my shelf, How Champions Think, which is a classic, you know, you know, it's a very, you know, powerful vignette of LeBron when, uh, you know, I think he lost the championship and realized that people were making him shoot a lot of 3-pointers, he committed to becoming, you know, not just improving his 3-pointer, but becoming one of the best 3-point shooters in the league. And I think, you know, he went in with the intention of, I want to be the one, you know, the greatest of all time, you know. And so that mentality was what he went in with. Now, so when you talk about strategies, right, there's a combination of, yes, did, you know, was Bob Rotella going to set how many jumpers he needed to take? Well, they did agree upon probably an amount of shots he was going to take and where he was going to take them from and probably scenarios to walk through in terms of time left on the clock or going to his offhand. But mentally, the strategies which he had to walk through were probably some combination of positive self-talk. What things— we have to counter the negative messages we say to ourselves. So it's not enough that you missed the 3-pointer that we start to believe. I'm not good enough. I'm not the greatest, right? I have weakness. I am vulnerable. You know, at least in this case, right, that vulnerability makes you feel exposed or not, you know, not the one. And then maybe the behavior implements as I'm giving the ball to D-Wade every time. I'm not taking the shot.

So— Right, am I good enough? I'm not capable enough. Let me push it off and minimize myself.

And avoid, right? Avoid, which in this instance, right, we see, right? The avoidance is self-protective. Why would you want to feel all those things? And most of us are doing this in some way, we're not stepping into the spotlight. You know, don't step into the stoplight either. But we're not stepping in the spotlight quite in the ways that we could be to grow and reach our full potential. So to say I have a plan, when somebody comes in with a strategy of, I'm not just here because I'm in a crisis or I'm in a place now where I'm stuck, but I want to look at a way to free myself to get beyond it. So this looks completely different. So I'm either raising the bar, so I'm setting goals for myself, you know, so that my baseline shifts or that my desired outcomes are different. And so allowing in both the physical practice and the mental practice, which, you know, there've been studies done, you know, scientific studies that if you practice mentally, meaning rehearsing your routines, as well as accompanying that with physical practice, your performance is better than those who solely rely on just physical practice. So, you know, in that case, Okay, so the positive self-talk, countering negative self-talk, some degree of visualization, actually seeing yourself in those situations as if they were happening and allowing yourself to, this is where the conversation of imagery comes in, where most people think it's like, right, probably, you know, you and I in the backyard or with your guitar thinking, I'm just going to see myself on stage, you know, which is one level of visualization, right? I'm gonna be Axl Rose.

Axl Rose in the '80s, not Axl Rose today. He can use both of us together.

Sorry, I've been— my quarantine therapy has been '80s music, so to each his own.

Still Axl Rose, just, you know.

But, but the power of not just taking in, right, like being and seeing the crowd in front of you, but to allow in, like, hearing the sounds, hearing people calling your name, or even if you're, you know, a basketball, baseball player, right? Even hearing people say, "You bum, you can't do it." Because if you can learn what it's like to hear it and to let it go and not internalize it, then you can stay more present for the moment.

Love it. Because what I'm getting from that is the word that keeps popping up in my head about what you're saying is versatility. And I started jotting down some notes, as you see me when you're talking. My brain is kind of expanding at the moment. And the word that I came up with, why versatility really goes on top of strategy or being strategic. So versatility in my mind, based on what you're saying, is how strategic can you be in multiple settings and still show up in the way that you need to show up? And I think that's what we're looking for. For the most successful person. In other words, to be successful only in one area of your life isn't success. It's imbalance. Right? So the people who talk about work-life balance, really, I like, you know, I've been playing with this belief, and I've heard this from other people that there is no such thing as a work-life balance. You have to be good and consistent in every single one of these areas and be versatile enough to create boundaries about when you're in one area, you're focusing on one area of your life. And when you're in that other area, you set the time and you transition into that other area, right? It's like transitioning between offense and defense. Because there are players that are great at offense and crappy at defense and vice versa. Right? I can think of like Shaq, who's pretty great. He was great all around except for when he got to the free throw line. Right? So the versatility was like, we just got to keep him inside the paint. And don't let, you know, hopefully he doesn't get fouled. But once they figured that out about him, they would send him to the line as much as possible. But that skill never developed, so he wasn't able to get past the next level, even though he is an incredible, insane athlete. That versus—

yeah, that's really hard, right? That's so hard. I mean, you know, I don't know about, you know, being a man that strong, how hard it is to develop the mechanics. Uh, you know, there are, there are some physical things that go into, um, just, just when you have so much strength, right? And this is where, you know, martial arts philosophy— you mentioned in my intro, and people are almost like, "Hmm, that's interesting, but how's that going to help me when I come to see you as a client? Like, are you gonna— we're gonna do some kempose together?" You know, not yet. That version of therapy doesn't exist, but there is something to learning your style. And for me, you know, even when the senseis would have you spar, and I always tell people that the people who would defeat me almost consistently would be like 5'1" and 100 pounds because, you know, and usually it was a woman, right? Because I did not have, you know, the awareness of my weak spots.

Right. They were using the shorts.

Not just that my weakness for women, but rather that people who are mobile or the agile, and if your whole approach is just, you know, like a tiger, forward and back and through aggression, that that leaves you vulnerable. So applying some, you know, philosophy, Eastern philosophy like Phil Jackson has, learning more about your style and your character and who you are, and maybe addressing some areas where you could be more versatile can be really helpful. Because if you're constantly targeting your areas that you want to develop in your offseason, Right, you know, so you look at players who come to the league, they're purely home run hitters who then learned, you know, you know, how to build upon their speed or learn on that, work on their fielding, right? So that constant commitment towards improving and developing, you know, it's pretty phenomenal. Even learning about, you know, Mark McGuire was a pitcher at USC, right? So You know, and that applies to all of us. That applies if you're a therapist, and I'm amazed by the amount of therapists out there. Like, are you really looking at shifting your character? Are you becoming, you know, so fixed in the way you are? Are you becoming, you know, are you training? Are you learning new developments? Right now has become, you know, I'm not sure it's a topic for today, but, you know, are you learning about racial sensitivities? Are you learning about your own privilege? Are you willing to look deeper and have that conversation. And if you're an ER doctor or somebody out there, you may be really, really knowledgeable, but the one thing that you may need help with now is finding some boundary for your own self-care, or finding some space internally that you're not responding to the never-ending deluge of administrative emails and, you know, bombardment that's coming your way. So learning how to have this inner filter, learning how to get to a quiet quieter place, setting clear goals for yourself in terms of— for your self-care and things, routines that are in there, right? So it's part of the other thing that we work with in terms of performance psychology or performance routines. So if that means I go swimming at 6:00 AM 3 times a week, and that's what keeps me sane as an oncologist or ER doctor because it helps give me meditative and quiet time for myself, then that may be, you know, something we have in there. If that means we need to schedule 30-minute, 30-second, or 1-minute meditation, right? We've got to build up, chunking up. Some people say, I've never meditated, I can't sit still, Jason, please leave me alone, this is bombarded, my mind is on everything else that's going on, right? So even if you could track 60 seconds with the timer on your phone, right?

It's massive. It's a massive gift. One of my favorite, um, story jokes about meditation is that the, uh, the guy goes to the guru. It's like, I've tried this, I've tried this, like, I just don't have time for the meditation. And the guru goes back to him, you don't have the time to not meditate, right? So this belief that we have, right, you don't have time to not meditate. So, right, you'll create space, you'll create an experience for yourself just by your mindset. So there's 5 words that are standing out to this point of our conversation that I want to give to the listeners to kind of maybe be, you know, chapter points of our conversation, but it's also very strong guidelines of kind of what I'm hearing you say, which is strategy. Let's be strategic. Let's strategize. While you're doing that, then you have to Gain the knowledge and learn what you need to know in order to get you to the next level. Be versatile, be vulnerable, and then evolve.

Yeah, yeah.

And those are going to constantly feed into each other as continued growth. It's not like you do it once and you're there, but these are what I'm hearing from our conversation, the 5 steps at a bare minimum that we should all be engaged with: strategy, knowledge and learning, versatility, vulnerability, and evolution.

And yeah, and I think the other term— and it gets— maybe people say evolution, you know, it's such a grand term, you know. And I use the term authenticity a lot, and maybe it's played out in the, you know, in the field. But for me, you know, this evolution into becoming more fully who you intend to be and set out to be. So the power of having this goal— these goals and the strategy is that I'm moving in a direction towards greater self-understanding. And with that greater knowledge, self-understanding, goals, and strategies, I can become, you know, more fully engaged, more fully alive. I mean, the end of the day, that the tie— the tie over to traditional therapy is, right, why are people coming? You're kind of— for my people, You're not coming here, like you said, just to have me hear the pain. You're coming here because at some level you want to get towards happiness or fulfillment, right? And so, right, maybe there is—

it's re-narrating the story. It's, it's not just debriefing in that regards.

That's right. And maybe an athlete is saying, well, gee, you know, I, I'm here to be a champion. I don't care if I'm all happy all the time. But at some level, there's a level of, you know, ego consistency with, I'm a champion, therefore I need to win. So there is a happiness portion, even if you're driven like Michael Jordan towards achieving it over and over again, there is a certain amount of fulfillment in putting in the work. So I think you can be both. I think you can be— happened to be at a soccer field the other day, and in the wake of— if your goal was as a player to become a better teammate, to become more aware of the racially diverse teammates and community that you're in, you want it to evolve based on what you see as pain out there in the world. And I happened to be a fly on the wall, you know, yesterday on the sideline. And the player came over and was just, you know, hey, where are you going to school next year? How are you affected by the coronavirus? And, you know, normal conversations for the state that we're in. And then the player led after sitting there in kind of those uncomfortable silences of like, you know, good luck and good luck, and said something to the effect of, you know, my parents are French and from Nigeria.

My dad's from Britain.

Where are you? You know, what's your makeup? And there was a whole conversation about, you know, racial makeup and history. It was very opening and connected. And I was just, you know, for me, that's— but that's a goal for me. I'm tracking that. I want to see that connectivity. I want to see that happening in my teams and in my— the groups that I work with. So if that's a goal for you, it's important, you know, people are not as skilled at tracking the wins. And I think elite performers are. They'll say, I got in my 100 push-ups. I got in my 2 miles this morning, you know, and they look at a little bit more about what they can and do accomplish. And that kind of serves as a springboard to take on more. And if we get caught in deficit thinking, I'm not doing enough, who I'm not, you kind of don't get off the platform.

Yeah. Yeah, and I would see that in my practice as integration. And I would exchange, right? And I love the word authenticity, and I use that a lot. But it sounds to me like what you're really describing is by taking all those steps, they're integrating all of those parts and realizing that they are all of those parts and leveraging all that successfully. And I think that's, I think that's like our goal, right? I think that's our goal as clinical professionals, as human beings, as healers, whatever, that we're here to integrate all parts of ourselves to bring that to the world so we can bring our greatest potential and do the most good while we're existing. And I know that right now is a very challenging time to be existing and there's a lot of grief and there's a lot of anxiety. I know we were talking offline about, you know, I haven't even as a clinician, even I haven't been even, right? Even I haven't been sleeping well and as if I'm exempt from any of this just because I'm helping other people. And I know that there's been some, right? And I know there's been some some recent tragedies in your family and your life that you've been working through and going through. So what's your take on that, on the grief and the anxiety of this time period in general, and then even more so when there's a loss involved? Because there is a lot of loss, no matter what, doesn't have to be a loss of life. You've had that experience of two losses of lives in the last year.

Yeah, I mean, you know, and so Well, first of all, I want to, you know, say that as painful as those losses are, I do recognize them as gifts for my own appreciation and my own connection to life. And it's something I didn't have a year ago because, you know, if you don't go through these things personally, and some of these things are highly individual, if you are not a senior in high school or college, you didn't just lose your last season, there is grief there. I think there is so much grief and loss right now. We don't necessarily have the language for it. You know, not to get morbid, but there are cultures, there are— where they pray and visualize that their life will end at some point, part of their own day, to keep them mortal, to keep them alive in everything they do, to keep them appreciating. And some of these practices and connections, you realize, like, we really— you know, what if we could just stay vital and in the moment? And something I have to tell myself each day in terms of my own intentional practices when it comes to the spiritual approach of whatever faith you're from, whatever that practice looks like, whatever way you get to being centered, whether it be breathwork, meditation work, whether it be connection to your higher power and whatever way that looks, having something that gives you support, gives you something, a feeling outside of yourself is important for things like hope, for things like resistance— resilience rather, right? Yeah, I think it's important. I highlight for people, I did a Facebook Live yesterday and I was cleaning up my office as I transition my own teletherapy space and I found all these manuals from the county which I worked for for 5 years as a crisis and disaster responder. And I looked up the disaster psychology checklist of symptoms. And when you look at anxiety, numbness, irritability, you know, sense of lack of control, and these are things that could be going on. I mean, a few-day tornado, flooding, I mean, these are horrific things that I haven't had to live through. So the only comparison, we don't even really have a comparison for this, right? There is no, there was no page in there. There was one for shelter-in-place, there was one for pandemic flu, but this is completely uncharted. So I think some of this anxiety, I mean, anxiety, that's, I always tell my clients, is it's there to protect you, right? I mean, we do not want things to be constantly moving. We'd like to have a plan, like we'd like to have a strategy for how to live our life, whether it be how we're gonna work out, the things that keep us safe, the hiking trails, the beaches, the places we go, the holidays, the rituals, the festivals, the things that bring us together. And yet you and I were even speaking, well, what do I do now? Now it's a funeral. Now it's a time to grieve and come together, and I emotionally need this and we need this, and yet it's not safe. Safe. It's completely—

I can't even come together in most circumstances either.

And I think this is debilitating. I think everyone is going through this on some level, where on some level, just a trip to go pick up your takeout, or, you know, smallest things that are trying to give you a little bit of psychological and emotional peace, are met with, but if I go out and this one thinks we have to wear a mask and the other one doesn't, you know, this one practices social distancing, this one doesn't. There's a conflict there. So I feel like people are really having, taking a lot of emotional energy to do some things that maybe previously before we just thought were routine. So I'm really trying to focus with clients on being intentional on, maybe there is a risk there in having that conversation with a family member about a birthday party. Maybe it is a conversation worth having about just expressing values or boundaries and safety. And these are not easy conversations to have.

Jason Wasser. And I just wrote a blog article about that the other day, where the blessing of giving up my office would not have happened in order for me to be more strategic and to think bigger had I been held down to an office, had this pandemic not happened. And now 3 and a half months into it, where I had the option of keeping it or giving it up, had that option been there 3 months ago, I wouldn't have given up my office. So there was some sadness because it was a pivot into a new space about how to think about being a clinician and how to serve people. But there wasn't necessarily a loss of like my mindset of being a therapist that has to have an office and what that identifies me as. So if we're able to look at things through this lens of what is this allowing me to have, or what is this allowing me to connect to, What is this allowing me to experience? And it allowed me to not— in order that the decision I made was so quick to let go of this office that I've never made a decision this quickly without any anxiety. Now, again, there was some sadness and there was some like, part of me wishes, but now I can continue to see my clients anywhere in the world I want in the world and just keep my East Coast hours. And hypothetically speaking, you can do that as well. And we can see that we were, you know, what we thought was a job that tied us down to a specific place and a location, actually now because of this pandemic has given us a lot of freedom and a lot more, but now we have to step up to think more creatively about how to accomplish that and how to tackle that.

Yeah, I mean, I think as a professional, in fact, my greatest challenge to myself this month is to create more time for the creativity activity and the brainstorming because there's so many professionals that want to come together and, you know, learning to deliver content, learning how to reach mastermind groups for other professionals coming along. I've had other students who are trying to do the hybrid between sports psychology and clinical psychology, bringing people together, getting people, you know, recreating teams and groups so that people can, you know, share information, delivering courses which might be able to go through some of the concepts we talked about today, but it requires time time and energy to build.

Uh, requires strategy. It requires the things that we just talked about, right? Requires a strategy, requires a knowledge and a learning of what you don't know about how to do it, a versatility, vulnerability of like, you know, I have to be open to this, and I know that like I'm not going to be perfect at it. Then I have to involve and then have to integrate it into what I want to do in the first place. So I think that, that process really is a powerful stepping stone to getting to a lot of places that we didn't thought we can get.

Yeah, it reminds me of like, you know, the stages of change, whether or not you're trying to thinking about changing in your relationship or, you know, giving up on a substance or any other stage, right? Like, like we're talking about that integrating a change means you have to let go of some of the old things you were doing, uh, and believe it was— and believing in it, right? And all of a sudden— and it's also recognizing what you don't know and trying to find the people who do know or have done it before. So I do feel like there's a very, you know, humble process here of being like, you know, excuse me, raising my hand or going to YouTube or seeing the world as your teacher. I mean, I have students who have experiences both as an athlete or in their lives which enrich me. I have clients every week that I'm learning about how they are they're managing and how they're triumphing or even finding the hunger amidst tremendous grief on so many levels to still find a way to access therapy. You know, parents who are trying to do that for their children. It's just, it's really moving. It's really, you know, impressive to me. I have clients who were not athletic before because they were locked into 60-hour jobs with their suit and tie that are now, you know, 4 times a week getting up in the morning, going down by the beach, riding their bicycles and finding vitality.

Yeah. And I think this is part of the pivot of the blessing of if you can take on something new during this time, it goes back to what you say, to carve out the time, to create as a rhythm and a ritual, but also look at it as a therapeutic activity for yourself. So I know like yesterday was the first time I ran in over 2 and a half weeks. And I ran in the middle of the day when it was, God knows how awful it was yesterday here in South Florida. It's awful right now. Knowing that it was gonna rain, if I didn't do it in the next hour, it was gonna rain at the end of my run and I made it back. And by the time I made it back, of course the sky cleared up and then a few hours later it rained. But I knew that if I postponed an hour or two, I would've given my excuse like, well, it still didn't rain, but I have no energy anymore to do it. So the first thing is like, when you feel that inertia pulling you, you have to make that action step. Step to go in whatever direction that that positive thing is before you start talking yourself out of it. And once you start talking yourself out of it, that's it, you're stuck in that momentum. But I know that I always consistently feel better, even though I felt awful, you know, from the heat and for whatever. But I knew like, okay, I got my run in, that was good. I feel like crap, but it felt good, right? It's that, that duality. And it felt more good than it felt like crap. So I think, you know, I want to challenge people who are listening to us that right now, no matter where you are, especially if you're listening in America, in North America, there's no excuse anymore to hold back from bringing a therapist into your life because we're all online right now. And if you're in California and you're not reaching out to Richard, then, you know, shame on you. And if you're in Florida and you're not reaching out to me, then, you know, shame on you too, right? But like, and we'll find you the right person if we're not the right fit. And that's one of the cool things about having a referral network and resources. Like, we're not the right people for everybody. I have people all the time in the last month like, well, we only want to see someone in office. I don't know who to refer you to that I trust. Everybody I know that I trust isn't seeing anybody in office. And if they are, I only see them on Facebook groups. And I'm like, I don't really know them. And if they are making that decision that's counterintuitive to what's healthy, for what I believe is healthy, then I don't know if I want to send you there, knowing that, God forbid, how are they taking all the precautions to protect you during this pandemic?

Yeah, it's really complicated. And I've seen some people, like you have, in online chats that have a screen up. I personally, uh, feel that, that in, in the matter of the first session, people get over the feeling like, oh, I'm talking to a screen, and, and we get deep and personal and, um, feeling heard, feeling like someone truly understands and is applying to your life and is listening to you and in there with you and has carved that space and time for you, I think you're able to feel that. You know, in the long run, right, making sure somebody can take those precautions to keep safe, and that keeps changing all the time, which becomes so hard when we are, as professionals, given the burden of protecting others and making sure they're safe. And so this whole term safety, that kind of ties back to the anxiety, so, you know, we don't wanna be the cause or contributors to anxiety, and you don't want your therapist sitting there anxious about having something burning on the oven. You want them to be fully present for you. So if you're a professional, like I mentioned, you know, especially the people most hardly impacted, whether you be service people, you know, working for Amazon, people who've been on the front lines, or whether you be people in the fitness industry now having to wear masks and trying to communicate to multiple people at the same time, I mean, talk about a performance stressor. You know, you need to be heard and to be able to communicate to people in ways they can be safe physically. Or if you're, you know, a medical professional who's been going in since this thing— now when you start going on 4 to 6 months of enduring stressors and unpredictability, having somewhere you can get support is essential. You do not need to hold all that anxiety and fear in And there are ways you can still feel good, and you should feel good about what you're doing and what you've done for our country and how you've stood in there and provide solace to people and comfort, uh, trying to get answers and direction, just some steps, especially if they are, are having symptoms of the coronavirus.

So yeah, yeah, I had a client last week that told me we had our first session in about 2 and a half months, 3 months, and they're like, yeah, I'm at the end end of my week or two. They went to take a test and they never got the test results, but they know they had it because they had all the symptoms and they had someone in their family who had it that they were exposed to. And my first thought is like, what would happen if like during that time we were still doing our ongoing maintaining sessions in person? Right? Now every client I would have to let know that I was exposed and they would have to let all these people know. I'd have to, you know, exposure contact and possibly break HIPAA by contacting the state and letting them know, right? There's all these risks that are involved. And I'm always a big fan of simplicity. How do we solve the problem the easiest and most simplest way? Just jump on a call. How many times are you like, "Oh yeah, well, let's get on a call later," right? Emailing back and forth with a friend or whatever. But things— if multi-billion-dollar, multi-million-dollar companies can do this via technology, we can too for therapeutic purposes. Is for the most part. I think that 99% of stuff can be solved this way, as well as it can be done. It's gonna feel different, but I think it's still equally, if not more valuable at this time. So before our time wraps up, I know you have an incredible, incredible resource that you've been doing. Um, and then I was most recently a guest on. So let's talk a few minutes about your podcast and what you're hoping to accomplish with that. And how people can find it.

Thank you so much. Yeah, first of all, keep your eyes out for my book, Richard Liston's Crossing the Threshold. It'll be out later this year with some of the performance tips and strategies that I most enjoy working with. And it's told in a way that's applicable for you if you are from youth sports all the way on up to being a sports parent or coach. But the podcast, the Richard Liston's podcast, It's very personal to me. It's come to me kind of like we're talking about evolution. I left the county 5 years ago and found myself being invited to just sit in and be in here on the show. But it's evolved. It's been a way for me to feature the stories. You know, it's the wit, grit, and journeys of high performers. And so High Performers, you know, feature therapists like yourself who willing to put their voice out there, whether it be through music, public speaking, in showcasing their skills in a variety of ways and are moved by a bigger why. But it also, you know, tells the stories of athletes, sports psychology professionals, people who are trying to bring more wellness into the athlete realm, professionals who are dealing with treating concussions and making it safer for athletes to deal with their long-term preventative health. And we're also going to be breaking out a separate panel series from the podcast called Making the Jump, which deals with retired athletes and challenges they face. So, it's this great forum. It's a great place where I get to, you know, you can tell I get like to speak sometimes as much as I like to listen. Richard listens, right? So, hearing the stories just like you've done very skillfully here in our interview, right? Tying the themes together. And being, you know, the ability through audio to share to people no matter where they are in the world these stories so they can begin to glean off them and maybe imitate or kind of reduce some of the myths or the beliefs that they don't have it within them. And they don't, you know, that they are great and that they are heroes in some way. If it's just being a great big brother, if it's just being a great mom, if it's just being really amazing at your job, and still maintaining it in the course of a virus. If you're an amazing, walking around the block and giving care to animals and your neighbors, then be that and the power of that in our world.

Yeah, yeah, I love that. That's when I had a conversation, I had to call the police the other day for something. Thank God, nothing emergency. And I was asking—

Just called them to give them banana bread?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, it was something that happened. I was calling it on behalf of someone that I was at, something happened that whatever is irrelevant, but I ended up calling and I asked the dispatcher, "Why can't they do more to solve this if this has been an issue that's been ongoing?" And the dispatcher goes, "I'm just a dispatcher. I don't know the law." And I said to them automatically in my mind, I'm like, "You're not just a dispatcher." Because we limit ourselves by, right? I'm just a mom, or I'm just a this, right? Like you said, like, these are the amplifications. These are the things that, like, you're— if you're the person going around your neighborhood and your thing is to feed all the animals, you're not just doing that. Like, that's like, that's, it's, you know, what's that starfish, right? The guy walking on the beach, like, well, it made a difference to that one, right? That's not adjust. That's like, be the best at whatever that thing is and own that and be proud of that and let your flag fly about that. I'm on a big wave your freak flag, you know, and put it out there to the world to find like-minded people kick right now, especially when everybody's distancing from each other to how do you find your like-minded communities? You gotta broadcast your stuff. You gotta put it out there. But I wanna challenge people like with this, like what are the things that you can really focus on and push and get the help of people who are experts, who are really well known in that area. You don't have to know them in person. You can listen to Richard's podcast. You can also work with him. You can listen to, you know, read audiobooks or listen to books or watch YouTube videos. There's so many things out there that are free and accessible to everybody that it doesn't have to cost an exorbitant amount of money to invest in this process.

No, it's not about money.

You still do want a strategy, right?

Right, it's not about money. I think it's strategy. It's your willingness to integrate into yourself and it's a willingness to get uncomfortable and it starts with desire, right? If I, you know, the great thing about the podcast is for me is I continually need to build my team that without having those people who are in the trenches with me who I feel like really care or have a vision of what I'm doing, then, you know, several times, you know, and if you haven't read from Nick, What's it, From Good to Great or whatever by Jim Collins, a book, right, about companies, what's the difference between those that are really great? Really important because doing big things alone may be impossible. So I've been drawing on a lot of people who have the knowledge I don't have. If there is something I can learn, you know, if it's accessible for me to practice it and learn it, it may be inefficient, time, right, for me to learn it right now. I know some of the people in my tribe are spending like 6 months doing in-home, do-it-yourself projects. At some point, that may be destructive if it's taking away your place where you could meditate, exercise. So having balance between I can do this myself and I need support and being willing to walk the line between the two. And like you said, be versatile.

Yeah.

Yeah. I just— right, we were talking before where I might be partnering with some colleagues of mine to create a really cool business idea. But I told them that I'm not going to go into this as a partner with them if it's going to make my life any more difficult. I'm open to the challenge. But if it causes me any more difficulty and burden, it's not a business I'm going to be invested in. So in other words, I want to leverage out. Out as much as I can without me having to be involved in that day-to-day. Yes, it might cost me a little bit out of pocket, but I'd rather make a little bit out of pocket, right, with no effort at all, than a little bit more out of pocket with a lot of headache and chaos. So I think that I very much agree with you on it may not be worth it to be doing all these little labor tasks when you know that, like, you can pay, pay someone to do it, when you could be focusing on higher frequency, higher value activities for yourself. And if that is self-care, which it really should be, we have to make sure that doing those projects are self-care, not because we feel burdened and obligated to do that.

Yeah, well said. Or that they're not avoiding something else.

Right, right, right. What's that joke? If people are runners, you're either running to something or running away from something, right? So just make sure you're running because you enjoy running, which I don't know who really enjoys running, but, uh, but that's running You know, us runners who run, we run. So, but again, I want to thank you. I know our time has come to an end, but I really like— there's so much good stuff. There's so many more topics, but I want to leave everybody with just a recap of what we talked about. We talked about, you know, creating a strategy, going out and getting the knowledge and learning what you need to do, becoming versatile, being vulnerable, having an evolution. In other words, growing into what that new place is for you and then integrating. All of that together. And I think that if we do that, especially in today's really difficult time, we're gonna have much more successful results. So Richard, thank you so much for hanging out with us again today.

Thank you. And the Richard Listens podcast on iTunes— forgot to mention— you can stay up with me on Instagram @RichardListens. And if you want advanced content, some of the podcasts I mentioned, patreon.com/richardlistens. I'll throw that in there.

Yeah, for sure.

And those of you who are listening to both of our podcasts Jason Wasser, please check out his podcast and give it a subscribe. But also do us a quick favor. It takes you literally 45 seconds to a minute. Leave a starred and written review, especially on iTunes, because that not only makes us feel good for the amount of time, effort, and energy we put in, but it also allows us to get seen and be put in front of other people who have done, you know, may have a bigger following, more money the more, so to speak, popular people who are doing the podcast, but it allows us to be put into the rankings with them so that more people can get the value that Richard and I and other podcasters are putting out there. So if you do have the desire in your heart and an extra 45 seconds to a minute, and you're finding value in what I'm saying—

See, I'm so glad you said that, you see, 'cause this is a missing piece. See, Jason is tapping into, if you create a podcast and you want to build it, that having the interaction with the listeners and having people give their feedback and write reviews, just like when somebody writes a review on Wayfair or Amazon, that's why you buy the product. So people may love looking at my sleek picture or some of my great guests, but if they're going to subscribe, they want to hear from you. So please take the time. If the conversations Jason and I have had are impactful for you or motivate you, we appreciate uh, the time you're giving back to us and staying connected, uh, as, as members of our tribe.

Awesome, couldn't have said it better. All right, my man, we will talk soon.

All right, thank you, Jason.

Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Jason Wasser LMFT 🎗️.