976 How to Stop Choking Under Pressure with Psychologist Sian Beilock

This is episode number 976 with psychologist Sian Bilock. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur, and each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. The great NFL quarterback Peyton Manning once said, pressure is something you feel when you don't know what the hell you're doing. And professional dancer Derek Huff says, pressure doesn't exist, we create it for ourselves. My guest today is an expert on the science behind feeling pressure and performing under stress. Sian Bilock is a renowned psychologist, professor, and the current president of Barnard College, as well as the author of multiple books including what the secrets of the brain Reveal about getting it right when you have to. And I know what it's like to choke under pressure. We've all been there, stressful times in our life, big moments. And while I wish I'd had this conversation years ago, I feel fortunate that I can apply what I've learned going forward. And in this episode we talk about the value of practicing uncomfortable situations, the importance of positive self talk and treating yourself with kindness. And yes, this is not some woo woo self help trick. This is actual science, reframing how your mind interprets signals from your body, why it's dangerous to praise talent instead of hard work and effort, and so much more. And I'm so excited to share this conversation with you. If you're finding value and President Bilox wisdom, make sure you share. Share this with a friend or post it on social media and send it to someone who needs to hear it. And quick reminder, click subscribe on the School of Greatness on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Whether this is your first time here or you're a regular listener, just click the subscribe button right now and make sure to always rate and review. If you are a fan and you haven't left a review yet. All right, and without further ado, let's dive into this episode with the one, the only Sion Bilock. The Kia Sportage Turbo Hybrid has a bold design, a spacious interior with 232 horsepower and a 12.3-inch panoramic display to keep the adventure going and fit with the way you live. And with SiriusXM, every drive comes alive, bringing you closer to the music, the sports talk and podcasts that you love right in your vehicle or on the SiriusXM and app. Every SiriusXM equipped Kia Sportage Turbo Hybrid includes a three month trial so the experience begins the moment you drive. Learn more@kia.com sportage-hybrid Kia Movement that inspires this message is brought to you by Apple Card Apple Card members can earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases wherever they shop. 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Don't wait. Go to quint.comlewis for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I n c e.com Le W I s free shipping and 365 day returns. Quint.com Lewis welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness podcast. I'm super excited about our guest today. Sian Beilock is in the house. She's the president of Barnard College Cognitive Scientist and she's the author of a few books. One being called what the secrets of the brain Reveal about getting it right when you have to. And you are someone who is a very competitive athlete. Back in the day yourself, you were in the U.S. olympic Development Pool as a soccer player and goalie.

Yeah, I played soccer in the development program and I played lacrosse in college and I ran cross country. We went to the state championships a couple times. So always looking for that next level.

I hear you. Did you ever win?

No. I was like the slowest of the top seven on My team, but we came in, I think third at the state, so not good.

Okay, well, I'm also. We have something in common then because I'm also currently in the US Development program for Olympic handball with the USA national team. So I currently play.

Amazing.

I currently play in the team. I think I'm one of the oldest guys on the team. 37 and I found the sport when I was, I don't know, 29. I found, I found the sport on, on TV. I was watching Olympics. I moved to New York City was the reason I moved to New York City was to learn the sport of handball. And then within the year I made the USA national team and have been in the pool ever since. For the last eight years, I played arena football. I was two time all State, two time all American and football and decathlon as well. So I've been in the sports world where I've seen a lot of people choke. I've choked, I guess sometimes, but I think the more pressure I always had in sports, the more I rose to the occasion. It was the pressure in other areas of my life, like school, where I choked every day. I mean, any scantron test, any pop quiz I was flunking, getting Ds and needed to essentially cheat my way through school. Don't. I'm telling a professor here that I was cheating my way through school bad. But it was the only way I could survive because I could not pass tests. So I could pass the sports tests in a game, but I did bad on time trials, on like the combine, when there was a lot of scouts, people testing things, but it was in the game time moment. I could make the plays, but in school class I couldn't. And combine training, I wasn't able to perform at that level. Is there a reason why some people perform well in certain pressure moments versus why they choke in other areas of their life?

It's a great question. And actually your story, I think really exemplifies something important, that you're not born a choker or a thriver because you were able to rise to the occasion in some places and not others. And so people often ask this question, is this something innate? Do I either choke or thrive? And this, your example, is a great one. The answer is definitely no. And I think, you know, when I talk about choking, I'm talking about worse performance than you would expect given your skill level. Right? So it sounds like in tests you couldn't pull it out. In the combine, when all eyes were on you, you had trouble. But in a pressure situation, that some people might think of as really high and intense a game. You were able to put it aside and put your best foot forward. So a lot of it comes down.

Why is that, though?

Yeah, a lot of it comes down to how you feel about the situation when you know all eyes are on you. One of the things that we've shown is that you often pay too much attention to what you're doing. You become, like, really hyper aware and you just can't perform as well. So you can't remember that fact from school or you start thinking exactly about how you're going to throw the ball. And we know that when you get really good at something, it often operates outside of conscious awareness and you can actually mess yourself up by thinking too much. And it happens in all sorts, sorts of situations. But it's a good example that I like to use is like, if you're running down the stairs and I ask you what you're doing with your knee, there's a good chance you're gonna fall on your face because you don't think about it. And you're good at running down the stairs. And what happens in these situations when you're just really aware that everyone's watching is you start trying to control what you're doing in a way that's just really disruptive.

Is it that we just care so deeply about the opinions of other people with our performance, what they're going to say about us, what they're going to think about us? Is that what is making us choke? Or is it just we want to impress our friends? Like, what is the main thing? Because judgment, the fear of judgment, I feel like, holds so many of us back from doing anything.

I think that's true. And I think it's not a one size fits all. It's whatever makes you worry about the situation and its consequences for you. It could be the coaches watching. For someone else, it could be taking a test that their parents will get really mad if they don't do well. You know, it can be in something very small, like for me, parallel parking when my friends are in the car. Like, I choke all the time. I'm very good. I'm really good when no one's watching, but, you know, when all eyes are on you. So it's just, you know, anytime that you sort of have this hyper fixation.

How much of it is, you know, memories of past choking from physical trauma, the feeling of the body towards the memories of the mental, the mental memories, how much of it plays into. Is it both the Heart trauma versus the mind trauma. Is it the. Just the movie we play in our minds and we don't want to replay that movie in real life.

I mean, I actually don't really differentiate so much between the two because our memories are in our head, right. I think this idea of muscle memory is kind of misplaced in a way, because it's not that the memory is actually in our muscle, Right. Our brain tells our body what to do, and our body can send signals back up to the brain. And I think what people are talking about when they talk about, like, muscle memory a lot is that they just don't have to think about. They kind of do it by rote, right. But that's still happening in the head. And so it's really. When you. It comes down to sort of your fear of choking, it can be something in the past, but it could be something in the present too, right. All of a sudden, something is really on the line. You really care about it. And I think one of the things that we do is often it's not actually in the moment as much as it's before. Like, it's the what ifs. Like, what if something happens? Like, how many times have you spent the night before, you have to do something important, worrying, and then you get there and you do it. Right. But it's that sort of. It is the what if that replaying what's going to happen. And we actually can see that in the brain.

It's that really.

Yeah.

The day, 24 hours before. It's the hour before you go on stage, right before you take the test, right before the big game, right before the interview, it's the what if I don't get this? What if I mess this up? So what should we be replacing? Should we be replacing with, what if it does work out? What if I get the job? What if I. The date works and she likes me? You know? Yeah.

All of these things, right. You can choke in any of these situations, big or small. So, I mean, I think a lot of it is sort of changing your own narrative. We often are really hard on ourselves. I think I talk a lot about how. Imagine some of the things that you say to yourself when you messed up or you're worried about something. These are things you would never utter to your good friends, right? To be supportive. I think I can say that, like, that inner voice can be really mean to ourselves. And so it's having this part of it is just having compassion to yourself, stepping back a little bit. There's even research showing that if you talk to yourself in the third person, like if I say sian, it's okay, think about what you're going to do. You've done this before. It kind of separates you and you're better able to get some perspective. So think about talking to yourself like you would build up a good friend, right. Instead of how you kind of beat yourself down.

How important is self talk? You know, days, weeks before a moment that's important to you in your life?

Well, I'm a big fan of reframing the narrative either through self talk or even imagining what you're going to do or even journaling about it. So there's lots of research that shows that getting your thoughts down on paper can kind of download them from mine so that you're less likely to pop up and dwell on them. We often this like rumination, this recursive. What if I don't do well? This is going to happen and you make yourself feel really bad without anything actually having happened.

I know. Dr. Guy Winch talks about rumination and how it's really affects us in a deep way when we ruminate on things so much. And I was telling my producer Ben about when I was. I had a goal of being an All American athlete in college. And when I was a sophomore, I broke the record for the most receiving yards in a single football game. 418 yards. But I didn't become an All American because it's very subjective in football. It's kind of like there's a committee and they select who they think it should be, right? So my senior year of college, I said, you know what? I'm going to try the decathlon. Because I ran track, I did the high jump. I was a sprinter. I was like, maybe. And I couldn't qualify in any one event, but maybe I could qualify from all 10 just by being at all of them. And I had six months to. Once I made the decision for the national championships and I never done the decathlon. So I said, okay, the pole vault is going to be the hardest thing. And every night I would. And I was terrified of the pole vault, going upside down, cracking my head open, all these things, breaking the pole, whatever. And every night I would watch this tape of the top pole vaulters in the world jumping whatever, 17, 18, 19ft and imagining myself every night before I go to bed, I'd watch this for like 30 minutes. And I dream of me being that person going over the bar.

Fantastic.

And I did this for six months. And it helped me overcome the fear. It Helped me visualize when I practice that next morning. It helped me truly see myself as kind of an alter ego, as one of those great athletes and believe that I could do it. It took many, many months and it took doing the repetitions every day, physically doing it. So I felt confident as well. Not just I'm going to visualize and make it happen without practice, but I truly believe exactly what you said, that self talk, you know, before I get on the Runway, I would say, you got this, you can get away. I believe in you. I would journal and I would visualize. And I think that combination, those three things. I don't know if there's scientific research that this, that you've seen of those three things, but for me, I believe that's really powerful.

No, I love there's actually. I was going to say that there's a lot of science that supports what you're saying, especially the interleaving of visualization and actual practice. So it turns out that when you watch someone do an action, your brain is the way you understand that is through motor areas of your brain, like you were doing it yourself. And so watching them and then physically practicing, watching again is training your brain essentially to be able to succeed. And it doesn't happen overnight. Right. It can be a long road. But that visualization, along with the self talk, everything getting you ready, the journaling, I mean, I think there's a lot of work that suggests that that's a good recipe for success. Did you make it?

I did make it. So here's I have an interesting story. At the national champ, I barely qualified for the nationals. And then I knew. I knew. The second day of the decathlon. There's two days in the decathlon, five events in each day. I'm not sure how familiar you are with it, but the second day for me was going to be the hardest. The 110 high hurdles, which I'd never done before that six months. The pole vault, you know, in the mile, the 1500, which I was a sprinter. So I was like the last event, after two days, you're exhausted and I'm. You get three attempts at each height in the pole vault. And I missed the first two attempts on the pole vault. And so if I would have missed the third one, you couldn't have gone on. I would have been done. I would have got zero points and it would have been over. It'd been like the Dan and Dave from the Olympics back in the 90s, I think it was where he missed the pole vault and I. And I remember thinking like, okay, this is your moment, this is the time. Are you going to choke six months and your whole childhood dream going to be completely over in this one attempt, this single attempt, or are you going to rise the occasion? And I was just. I put all disbelief aside. I said, I just need to fully commit and go all in and do it without fear of failing. And if I. And if I do that and I miss, then at least I know I would call in.

Yeah.

Didn't do it like hesitating, and I just sprinted like a bat out of hell as fast I could down the track. I slammed the pole in the box, I flipped upside down, went over the top and was like flying over the bar and just screaming, like back flipping on the mat afterwards. I was so excited. And then I went out and have a PR in the pole vault that day, one of my highest.

That's great.

So it was moments like that where I did rise the occasion when, like, my dreams were on the line, but when it was just like in practice or testing or something like that, I wasn't able to perform that well. So I don't know why that is. I think it was because I believe, like, no, I've been preparing every morning at 6am I've been doing the visualization. Like I put in the reps. Yeah. That allowed me to trust myself and not to say, well, I'm not prepared.

Yeah. And that's actually one of the techniques that researchers have looked at actually focusing on why you should succeed. Right. Rather than why you should fail. And if you remind yourself that you've put in the work, or if you're going into a test and you remind yourself how much you've studied, that you've got the homeworks, that you can do this. Even going in to give a talk when I was a faculty member, just reminding myself that I knew more about the subject than anyone I was talking to was a boost. Right. Because even when I'm talking to famous people or when I'm talking to heads of Fortune 500 companies reminding myself that I know the science, I'm here to tell them something. And that can be a way to sort of get you on your game.

Right. Isn't there a famous study of like two different sets of athletes who were playing basketball, free throws, and like one set was actually physically trying to shoot the perfect free throw, and the other set was only mentally shooting and the mental performers actually did better come test time or something like that? I can't remember exactly.

So there's been studies where they show that a combination of, like, the mental and the physical together can be the best. Right. So if you just physically do it, you do fine. If you just mentally do it, you do okay. But if you can interleave the two, you're going to be in great shape.

Which emphasizes the power of visualization.

Yeah. And it goes back to this idea that it's about training your brain. Right. Even though it's happening in your body, you know, part. It's getting your brain, helping your brain get your body there.

And you studied kinesiology, and so you understand a lot about the body as well. How do we train our brain so that our bodies become masters of the craft that we want?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of it is about getting the brain to get out of the way when you need to. I think I was just reading something about Yogi Berra today, and I was reminded of one of his great quotes. He had many, but he said, how can you hit and think at the same time? And I thought that was. That's it. That encapsulates my research. Right. It's about doing the reps, putting the hard work in, and then when everything's on the line, throwing everything aside and just going for it.

So not thinking.

Not thinking in the moment and a lot of that. There's different ways to do that. You know, we've done work with athletes, golfers, for example, where we have them focus on one keyword. Right. One swingshot, something that encapsulates the entire stroke.

So give me an example. I'm going up to plate. I'm like, it's a big moment. You know, bottom of the ninth, base is loaded, all that stuff, and the pressure is on me. If I swing a miss, then I'm a failure. So is this a mantra that they'd be saying over and over to kind of release the thoughts and prevent them.

From focusing too much on exactly what they're doing, whether, you know, smooth, you know, in anything that whatever keyword it is that gets them out of thinking too much. And of course, like, if you want to mess someone up, I always talk about, you know, if you're playing with your buddy on the back nine and you want to screw them up, you say, you know, that was a great shot. What were you doing with your elbow?

Ooh. And get them to think about something off of, like, being in the zone.

Yeah.

I mean, I like that.

So you can. You can have that in your back pocket when you want to mess someone up.

Now you're starting to sound like a motivational personal development. Woo woo person. When you just say, you know, self talk and mantras and you know, just say a simple keyword to yourself to get in the zone. But what I'm hearing you say is that there's actual science, research and proof backing all of this.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's not just like, you know, cheerlead yourself. Right? You know, you hear me talking about specific things. Talking to yourself in the third person, having a keyword, doing the hard work.

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Practice the way I approach how we think about performing at our best and how we think about groups of teams performing at our best is what the research says because the science has something to say about human performance. And if we look at the science, it's not magic. You know, it's about figuring out what the science says and then figuring out what works for us. You know, I talk about a toolbox of techniques. It's not one size fits all, but there's, you know, several decades of psychology and neuroscience work that can help us focus here.

What do you think are the top tools that we should all be practicing to perform under pressure then?

Well, first of all, I think one of the best things to do is to practice performing under pressure. We often don't do that. Right. You know, you maybe study for the test or you're doing the pole vault when no one's watching you but getting ready for the combines. Did you practice with everyone watching you with videotapes on you? Getting some coaches out there, like practice being uncomfortable. Right. I mean, that's how you get used to being uncomfortable. If you have to give a pitch to a client, practice in front of your colleagues. Get someone who you feel really uncomfortable in the room. And if no one will watch you videotape yourself, practicing in front of a video camera is a great way to feel self conscious and agitated. Just think about what happens when you take a picture of yourself. But you want to get used to it. So I would say that is like the first tip number one. And it's something that when you see successful athletes and you hear what they do to get ready, a lot of it is practicing under that same type.

Of pressure, seeking discomfort. I remember I was terrified to speak in public. It was the most embarrassing, humiliating thing in high school because as a dyslexic kid growing up up and being, you know, in special needs classes my entire schooling all through college, when I went to eighth grade. They tested us and they gave me a second grade reading level or they said I was at a second grade reading level. I was always self conscious and insecure about my abilities in school. And when the teacher, hopefully you never did this as a professor. But when the teacher would say, okay class, open your book, we're all going to stand up and read aloud a paragraph, it was like the most gut wrenching moments of my life that I still remember this day just having the kids laugh at me because I couldn't read. The words would be jumbled and sweating the whole time. So getting up in front of three people was terrifying for me. And I, and I remember when I, after college I said I no longer want to be afraid of speaking. And I joined Toastmasters and I went every week and I filmed myself and it was embarrassing, but I just kept doing it. I kept diving into the discomfort until it no longer had power over me. And I think that's a huge point that we need to be seeking discomfort as much as possible.

Yeah. And if you're just like, I mean I always say this with parents who are working with their kids, like maybe you have a kid who's playing tennis at a high level, don't just show up at the matches. Like if you're not there at some practices, then it's going to be really nerve wracking for them to see you just show up at the matches. You know, I mean it's, you got to get used to what it's going to be like. And your experience in school is a great one. I study in addition to choking in sports, we do a lot of work looking at people's fear of math, which is a big one. And you know, a lot of Americans, I'd say a majority have some form of anxiety about math. And they always talk about their first experience being in school where they were up at the board and they couldn't do the question.

Yeah. And it might be simple to so many other kids, but then you couldn't figure out the simple division or whatever.

And everyone's watching you.

I remember I had this is a whole nother conversation, but I didn't get vaccinated as a kid for specific reasons from my parents with our religion. And I got the measles during the early 90s measles outbreak. And I got it, didn't take medicine, didn't go to the doctor, like just stayed in quarantine. So I know a little bit about quarantine life.

Yeah.

As like a 10 year old, I missed A few weeks of school and I missed the fractions, like figuring out fractions and for whatever reason I could never figure out like fractions. And then I just kind of stopped trying and math after that. I missed this thing. I don't get it. And then I don't understand algebra. I don't understand.

Then you're out.

Thank God there's calculators because I would be a screwed human being if I didn't have it. It's so embarrassing when you.

And that's what happens. And then if you disengage, right. There's no opportunity to learn it. And that happens very early on with math. And it happens also because a lot of parents are afraid of it. And especially during this quarantine time when parents are schooling their kids, right. They maybe have zoom classes, but the parents have to be really, you know, and you. It's very nerve wracking for a lot of parents, especially since kids now I have a nine year old, they learn math in a totally different way than we did. And it's just, you know, it's a recipe for disaster if you're not helping the parents and the kids.

I am terrified to be a parent in the fact that I know my 7 year old kid is going to be much smarter than me on every subject they're studying. I don't think I'm going to be able to help them. I'm going to say, you're doing great, you know, keep it up. How do parents make sure that they get out of the way of their kids learning so they don't choke under pressure? Because I see a lot of this happening in sports, school and everywhere.

And I think, you know, just staying on the school topic for a second, a lot of it, and it's true in sports too, is the information you give your kids, first of all, that you're not born a math person or not. I mean, you talked about having some experience and then you got behind, right? But that wasn't. You're not born being not able to do this or not and actually communicating to that to their kids. A lot of parents say, oh, I'm not a math person. You don't have to be either. It's okay. Like it sends a very big signal. And it's true the other way around when you say to your kid, God, you're such a natural athletic talent. What that's. It might be boosting in the moment, but the second they screw up, it's going to suggest to them they don't have it. So instead if you talk about hard work and effort and you can see they succeeded because they put the work in, then when they don't succeed, it's not because they don't have it. It's because they didn't put the work in the right way or there's something else they have to do. And just that tweak and how you talk about it can be so important because if you make it so everything is dependent on their natural or the talent they have. What the research shows is that people don't want to take challenges because they don't want to show they can't do it. And you want to give them the information that failing is okay. It's not a sign you don't have it. It's a sign you're pushing yourself, and it's a sign you have to work differently.

That's a really important point. And I interviewed Sarah Blakely, the billionaire founder of Spanx, and she said her father gave her an incredible gift because every night at dinner, her father would ask her, what did you fail at today? And celebrate her failures to encourage her to keep trying, to not stop, to, like, try new things, be innovative. And he celebrated it every night at the dinner table. And she talks about today that my dad was there to celebrate my failures. What I'm hearing you say is we shouldn't celebrate talent. We should celebrate effort and hard work.

Yeah. And that's exactly true. Right. And, you know, even my daughter says, oh, I just got it. I just understood. I said, no, you didn't. You learned that somewhere and you paid it and you reasoned through it. Right. And so I'm not saying don't celebrate successes, but you have to talk about it in the right way. And it's okay to, you know, dissect a failure and figure out what you're going to do different the next time around. And I think, you know this, that we live in a culture where the kids are getting trophies everywhere, where there's not a lot of room for failure. And it's kind of uncomfortable when kids fail. And what we see at Barnard, which is the college focused on women at Columbia University, is that we have some of the most talented and bright women in the world come to Barnard, and oftentimes they're afraid to take classes outside of their comfort zone. They're afraid to fail because they've been so successful their whole life. And so we do a lot of, like, retraining, talking about resilience. And it's okay to do something where you're not the Best in the class.

Should we be putting our efforts only on the things we're great at and becoming better at those things, or should we be spreading ourselves and our time and our energy to. To constantly be in discomfort of other skills and techniques and tools to help us with that main thing we're going after?

Yeah, I mean, this is a great question about when to specialize. Right? And there's actually a lot of research looking at this and arguments about it. Right.

Have you seen the book range?

Yes. Yeah. But I think, you know, there's a real benefit, especially early on with kids to having a wide variety of experiences. And it turns out there's evidence that one helps the other. Right. I mean, so if you want to be a great golfer, a great baseball player, having played soccer is really great for. I don't think there's anything wrong with focusing on something you're really excited about and you succeed at. But again, if you're in a place where you're only succeeding there, how are you going to deal with failure when it does come? So is there something else you can fail in that helps you in that way?

And do you think children and adults handle stress and pressure differently?

You know, it's interesting, people ask me this a lot and I think, you know, it's not that it changes when you're kids versus adults, but I will say kids are predisposed to not use that front part of their brain to focus so much. In fact, not as developed. And so oftentimes they can do things that adults mess themselves up doing.

Right?

They just do it. They get out there and kick the ball.

They're just having fun. They're not thinking about who's gonna laugh at them or their parents are gonna yell at them. Right.

Just more fluent.

What can a kid do? A 10 year old, a 12 year old, a 14 year old who's listening. Because a lot of parents play this for their kids while they're driving or at home. What can a child do to teach and educate their parent who might be putting too much unneeded pressure and stress on them? What's the conversation they could have without hurting their parent or upsetting them?

Yeah, it's great. First of all, I'd say that there's really a time and place to have all conversations. So like when the kid is getting ready for the game or they're driving to the game, that is not the time for the parent to bring up how they did on their test or their homework or other things. Right. I mean, or even what they should do in the game that day. Like. Like that's the time to listen to music and relax. Right. It's not the time to start overthinking. You can have those conversations at other times if the parents really want to have them. But there's gotta be some sacred time as you're getting ready for an event. And so, you know, whatever it is, listening to music, listening to the school of greatness, whatever it is, that's not the time for the parent. They have the hour in the car to hammer home at them about something.

Yeah, there's a great man. I'm forgetting his name. I interviewed a great sports psychologist who said. Said we should be getting up and practice and getting down before a game, before a big moment. Like, we should be treating practice like it's a big game every day. And, like, get our energy levels up. And before a game we should be relaxing because our adrenaline is already gonna be so high that if we're too high, we're not gonna be able to focus.

Yeah. And you don't. You don't want the parents to be pushing the kids to focus on the wrong things in the moment. Right. Talking about everything they should be doing, you know, in terms of their technique right before the game is not the way to go.

Yeah. You got to just let it go and let them perform and have fun. And I remember seeing a moment of this. I played. I played at a few different schools, football in college and transferred around. And I remember I was going to a school called Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, for a year near Ohio State. And for whatever reason, one day the Ohio State football team team came and practiced on our field. I think their field was being renovated or something. So they were there and we were watching them practice. And I'll never forget, they had a big game. I can't remember if it was Penn State or something that week, but it was a big away game. And they knew there's going to be a lot of noise and it was going to be a lot of animosity and all these things. And they brought huge speakers on the field and just had people booing and screaming the whole time. They were running their offense and I was like cheering loud noise so they couldn't hear anything. And they had to, like, run the signals and do everything like it was a game. And I'll always remember that of like, they practiced under pressure as opposed to just, okay, let's go out here and do the reps. No, you have to practice and train your mind and your body for the Real thing.

Yeah. I talk about it as closing the gap between training and competition. You want them to be as close as possible, and it doesn't have to be exactly the same. We're good at learning by analogy. But you want to get as close as you possibly can.

If someone is. They've got their career, they've gone through school and sports, they've. They've been okay at certain things, but they choke and other things, and they still have fear. And they're maybe in their late 20s, 30s, or 40s. They're kind of setting their. Their habits and their ways. Is it possible to go from being a choker your whole life to now not choking anymore in different areas or you're kind of trained choker. You're always going to be a choker.

Yeah. Well, I think just as you're not born a choker or thriver, you can change your brain. And there's an old myth that our brains are pretty static once we get above a certain age especially. I mean, I guess it goes with, like, you can't teach old dogs new tricks. But the neuroscience research shows that that's just not true. Like, you can. Brains can change at any time. If you have someone practice juggling for six weeks, the areas of their brain that control motion will grow more connections. Right. It's just like anything else. We know that if you practice meditation, how your brain talks to areas, talk to each other, grow more connections, you can. Your brain is pretty plastic, and I think you can learn these things.

What's the challenge you still face today where you choke?

You know, I'm pretty good at speaking on my feet and speaking in front of other people, so I don't really feel the pressure as much there. But there's always situations, maybe where I'm in a meeting where I know someone doesn't agree with me and I have to get them sort of to see my point of view. I find that I have to calm myself down. Like, I want to just talk, but I have to make myself listen. And when I'm feeling stressed, I want to talk. Like, I want to just be in control of the situation. And I find myself really having to guide myself to, like, step back and hear what they say, because oftentimes when we're stressed, we don't listen. Right. And this is true in the medical profession. Doctors have been shown to not listen to each other about communicating information. And it's not even that you don't listen. You don't even know you haven't listened. And a great example that has happened to all of us. Like have you ever been at a party or someone introduces themselves to you and you realize right after you don't remember their name, like right after. And the research shows that it's not because you forgot it, it's that you probably weren't even listening when they said it. Like we never got it in because we are so we are thinking about ourselves. We're focused on ourselves or some other how they were looking at us and we just weren't paying attention.

Yeah, it's the art of paying attention. And listening is a powerful tool. How do we prepare ourselves on a daily basis to listen more, to not stress, not try to be in control. Especially during, I feel like right now with, with everything that's happening in the world, everyone's just yelling at each other for their point of view as opposed to this allowing for conversation to be had. How do we get to a place of society to kind of allow ourselves to listen to each other when we're just like, no, we need to win, we need to be right on either side of any conversation?

Yeah, that's. It's a hard question. Right. And one that we're not doing so well at solving at any place. I mean, I think part of it is figuring out what's the most important thing to get across. Right. I think we often want to just get all this information across. But like what are your three points? Or what's the one most important thing that you don't care about anything else. Right. I talk to students about this. When you give a presentation. Presentation, like people aren't going to remember everything. What do you want them to walk away with? What's the one thing? And if you can focus on that, then it frees up your attention to listen to someone else. Right. Then you're not thinking about all the different things you want to get across. It's just that one thing. And I think it really does come back down to that. Like you don't walk away from any interview remembering everything. You remember a couple take home points and it's liberating to come out thinking, okay, I'm going to give this big presentation. I'm going to try and convince people of X, Y or Z. This is all I really care about. I'm going to interview for a job. I just want them to know this thing.

Yeah. What's something you wish more people knew about this topic that people don't ask you enough about or you don't hear people talking about enough?

I mean, I think the idea that you have to practice figuring out how to listen to people who have opposite views is really important. It's, it's not an easy skill. Like if there is, it doesn't just come to you. Just like pole vaulting, you had to like work on it. Right. And it's hard to have conversations where you feel uncomfortable. We already talked about people not going to pushing to be discomfort in sports. It's true here too. Like it's so much easier to talk to people who agree with you. And that's essentially what happens on social media. Right. We're in this circle of people who agree with what we're saying for the most part. And it's just like echoing and reaffirmed. So how do you go out of your way to find people who don't agree with you to have conversations that are going to make you uncomfortable? And it's actually okay to be uncomfortable. I talk about this all the time at Barnard. I think it's okay to be uncomfortable in the classroom. Like it's okay to be pushed. You know, we don't want hate, we don't want, you know, in that way. We don't want people to be fearful. But being uncomfortable, it makes your ideas better. If you have to argue your point and you have to get it across, it makes whatever you do better. That's what, what academic greatness is about.

What do you see as possible for people in the future if they were able to actually use these tools? You talk about under pressure.

Yeah, I mean I think we're going to continue to push the limits of what humans can do. I mean look at all we're doing in this anxiety provoking time to advance science. Right. We're having difficult conversations about structural racism and class issues that we haven't really confronted in the same way. And it's going to be uncomfortable and not everyone's going to agree. But I think we're also seeing some really fantastic aspects of human nature come out of this along with all the negativity. So I have hope, I have optimism. I think people, a lot of people have gotten used to being uncomfortable just in general. I mean this is something we never would have expected with quarantine and Covid. And I think it's going to allow us to meet challenges in the future. So I'm optimistic in that way.

That's great. I got a few final questions for you. This one is about thoughts, feelings and self talk. Which one has more power over the body? The way we feel in a moment of like tremor and anxiety and Stress how our thoughts are conditioning our body or what we're saying to ourselves with our self talk, which. And you know, and how do we marry all three in our favor?

So I'm a little biased because I'm a cognitive scientist, so I really study what's going on in the head, right? So I think that's really important. And I will say that the reason I think it's so important is because we can change how our body and those feelings, how we interpret them, Right? And when we change how we interpret them, it affects us in different ways. So if you have sweaty palms and a beating heart and I say, oh my God, that's a sign that you're really, you know, this is going to be tough and you're about to fail, like, you're obviously feeling a lot of pressure. Saying that to you is going to make you more likely to fail. But instead if I say to you, hey, that sweaty palms and beating heart are actually a sign that you're awake and ready to go, do you know that your heart is shunting blood to your brain so you can focus on the right things and get rid of those negative thoughts, then that increase in physiological response is actually going to be a good thing, Right? And so how we feel that beating heart is the same when you're excited and happy as when you're scared. The physiological. The holidays are back at Starbucks. So share the season with a peppermint mocha, Starbucks signature espresso, velvety mocha and cool peppermint notes topped with whipped cream and dark chocolate curls together is the best place to be at Starbucks.

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It's just how you interpret it. And so there's so much power in that. And so reminding yourself, yeah, this sweaty palms and beating part mean I'm ready to go. And I always say, look, if your heart wasn't beating, you'd be dead, right? I mean, you're, you're getting ready for what's so important in what you're doing. It's good. You're amped up. If you weren't amped up, you wouldn't be putting your best foot forward. It matters.

Just saying that, yeah, that's powerful. Now you, you run one of the top 25 liberal arts colleges in the. In the country, I believe. I think you guys are in the top 25 from the latest rankings. I'm sure you're checking that every year. And you have a lot of pressure in different ways from you used to be a professor and now you're running an entire institution, an academic institution with famous alumni who are looking at you and putting pressure on you. How are you able to handle the pressure of the springtime with coronavirus? And can you share a little bit about, you know, how you handle moving forward with the pressures of what people think is right, what's not right to do, whether you guys open or don't open, whatever you guys end up doing.

Yeah. So Barnard is really special. Right. So we're a college focused on empowering women, which I think is so amazing. And we're a small liberal arts college. We're also part of Columbia University. So it's like you get two for the price of one. And one of the things that's so great is that we really have the most amazing women in the world. So last year, we had 9,400 applications for 600 spots, which makes us one of the most selective of any college or university. So we're bringing in amazing women who go on to be amazing alumni and amazing leaders. But with that comes a lot of pressure because there's a lot of different people to please. Right? You have faculty, you have staff, you have parents, you have students. I have 35,000 alums. It's something I've had to get used to as president. I'm not used to having to answer to so many different people.

Everyone's your boss. Every student, every alumni, every.

And when I was a faculty member, I was focusing on my students and my research, writing books. I have an audience. When I was at the University of Chicago, I was executive vice, provost. My audience was the faculty. But now it's everywhere. And what I've learned is you can't please everyone. Right? The idea is you've got to have a compass. It goes back to those three key words or that swing thought. You've got to know where you're going. You listen to information and you can change course, but this idea that you're going to make everyone happy is just not. It's going to lead you down the wrong path.

One of the classes I took that I actually remember in school, in college, because pretty much every class was a means of when just being able to play sports. For me at college, I was that guy. But there was a couple classes That I took in sports marketing, that I remember. And one of them was on developing a leader's compass for yourself. Your own leader's compass. And I hear you talking about moral compass, leaders, compass. What are those three to five values that you really live by as a leader, even if there's criticism and people hate you and are writing long essays about the decisions and. And your ability to think clearly under pressure? What are those priorities for you or that leader's compass for you?

Yeah, I mean, I think some of it always depends on the institution and where you are. Cause you don't lead in a vacuum. Right. When I came in, one of the big things I did in the first year is I went actually and sat in every faculty member's office. So over 250 faculty. And I asked them about what they thought about the institution, what their research was. Cause I wanted to hear from them about what they felt the institution was. I talked to a lot of students, I talked to alums. I learned, Tried to learn a lot. And from there, I think you develop sort of where you think a school should go or an institution should go. But just in doing that, I think that epitomizes something that's so important to me is that I like negative feedback. I mean, I love positive feedback, but I don't want it to be where people aren't giving me feedback. Because I think a leader. We know from the research that diverse teams make better leaders. And being in a room where people can oppose you is so important because it allows you to sort of enhance an argument. Right. So it's this free flow of information. And I think that's so important. So that a lot of what I do, it's not necessarily leading by sort of collective. I don't have to please everyone, but I do like to hear. And negative feedback pushes me. It pushes me to think and reevaluate. I don't always agree with it, and I don't always do what people want me to do, But I hear it and I want to create an environment. And I think this is one of the most important, important thing of leaders for your senior team or your cabinet or your team is creating environment where people feel comfortable pushing back. And that is really a central tenant of how I lead.

Yeah, I think feedback, you know, feedback should be something people really get comfortable with. Even if it's uncomfortable, you should. You should want and demand more feedback from people. It's not always fun. But if you can put the ego aside and say, okay, you know what? Yeah, this is a Good idea. Let's go with this. This, you're going to end up benefiting in the long run with that feedback. So I really agree with you there.

Yeah. And I think that people often think that taking others feedback means you have to accept it.

All right.

And I think that's part of the compass, right? Figuring out what you're going to take and what you don't. And one of my board members once said something to me that really stuck with me. He said, you know, when you get that sinking feeling and you're at the pit of your stomach like listen to it, like if something doesn't feel right, like don't ignore it, it. And that's something else. I at least listen to my gut.

Listen to your gut. Now there's a debate around in the entrepreneurial circles about higher education and about, you know, being in student debt for the rest of your life, spending hundreds of thousands for a four year vacation and all these types of conversations and people saying why not just go find a great mentor on something you want to work out at 18 or 19, work for them for free for two years not being done debt, get hands on training and be, you know, at 21 have something as opposed to at 22 have nothing except for a piece of paper. Now I'm just putting out the obviously and for me the only reason I went to school was to play sports. And I also look back and reflect on my time as very instrumental and educational in my human development and my psychological development, in my social development. And I am falling of all those memories. But I don't use the degree and a lot of the classes that I went to were just a means to be able to get a grade point average high enough to play sports. And I don't use any of those classes per se in my day to day life. What's your thoughts? Obviously you're very biased because you run an institution, but what's your thoughts on the future of education being so expensive, being so high priced, where there's lots of classes that seem unnecessary to the thing that person wants to do in the future? How do you navigate that as a leader, knowing that you're the voice of an institution that is running a business and needs applications and needs students to survive, but also just thinking about the future of learning where now a lot of it is online and I'm sure there's certain online elements that are gonna be happening in the future for all universities and colleges. So do we need to go to dorms? You know, what's your thoughts on all that?

Yeah, it's a really great question and it's something obviously that I've heard. I'll say just specifically about Barnard first and then focus on higher education. So at Barnard we're need blind, which means we don't look at financial need when students come in and we meet full needs. So if a student gets in, we will fund them through financial aid and grants. And at Barnard they come out. Our students graduate those on financial aid with in total about 16,000 in loans. So we use a lot of philanthropy to really push them. It's unique in higher education. We're one of the few schools that are still need blind and that meet full financial need. So I don't think at Barnard it's the same as sort of all of higher education in general. And there's not that many schools that are in that position anymore. So I think it's a really fortunate position to be in. And I spend a lot of time fundraising for the dollars that help make that happen. But it goes to this idea that you can't have good conversations and advance intellectually unless you have people across the economic spectrum in the class classroom, right. If it's only people who have means, you're not hearing from really important swathes of the population. So pushing to the other idea that you come out with just a degree, you know, that's where I'd argue that it's not what you come out with. You're learning to think. You know, that's what we teach. We don't teach people what to think, we teach them how to think. And that sort of thinking is so important. It's not about learning a specific skill in a specific discipline, but it's learning how to problem solve, it's learning how to write, it's learning how to communicate, it's learning about how to take a historical context when you're in a particular situation. And it's why I don't think your major dictates your career path. Right. You can be an English major and end up working at Google or a chemistry major and end up in publishing. Right. It's, it's about getting this broader knowledge across the arts and sciences that I know even if you only paid attention in some of your classes is having an input to impact on you today. And it's hard, it's hard to quantify that. But I will say that it's also, I don't think it's an either or of being in the classroom and being out in the real world. Like, I mean, at Barnard, we're in New York City, so three quarters of our students do internships where they're actually working. And everything from Wall street to nonprofits to government agencies, they're getting experiences that give them that foothold. And I think that's actually a really important part of where higher education needs to go. We need to not have learning confined to the classroom walls.

Yeah.

And that's going to be part of it for sure.

And this is not a knock against Barnard or anything, or saying your school isn't doing a great job. I'm just opening the discussion about higher education in general when it seems so expensive and most colleges have so much debt afterwards.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really important point and it's an issue.

Yeah.

So the question is, how do you think about a structure that. That alleviate some of that debt that essentially help students step into experiences that will put them on the path to an interesting career? And there's a lot of places that are starting to do that.

I mean, and what do you think about. I mean, there's just so many free tools. You know, I see Jordan Peterson uploading all of his lectures for free on psychology. There's sociology professors opening, you know, putting on YouTube all their lectures for free. There's Masterclass now where you can learn from any great individual in the world for 99 bucks a year or whatever. There's teachers teaching for free online. There's Khan University. All these different things. Do people. Are they going to need a physical place to go to and sit in a classroom if half of it's going to be zoom in the future anyway, you know, what do you think? And if you're like saying they should really be integrated more into internships, then why not just be integrated internships and do some zoom calls every now and then to learn and continue to learn how to think, push them back in a healthy conversation.

It's great. First of all, I don't think. I think all these classes online opens up education to people who don't have the opportunity to be in a classroom or to be on campus. And it's not a one size fits all. I certainly would agree with you there. But I think there's something powerful between. A powerful difference between doing an internship. Let's take an example. So let's say you're interested in environmental science and so you intern for a company that has a real mission around climate science. Right. There's a difference between doing the internship at that company and then understanding the history of climate science, understanding some of the science behind what's happened in our world. Understanding how, how you could create circular economies that reuse things. This is what's going to lead to the innovations. It's not just the internship in a vacuum. And I think that's where we see the real creativity and innovation and the pushing of boundaries. And that's where I think education is so important. But it doesn't have to be a one size fits all. I'm totally fine with that. But I will say that everyone talked about, oh, moving to classes online during the pandemic is going to make higher education irrelevant. But you, if, if you ask any college student or any college students, parents, all they want them to do is be back on campus.

That's true. I guess the challenge, when I think back to my college days, which was like 15 years ago now, and I'm getting old, I remember just being like, there's 60, 70% of my classes I didn't need to take because they weren't relevant towards my degree. And so it's just like, why am I having to spend money to get a degree to fit a criteria of what education wants you to do? And maybe it's evolving now where you can take more classes you want, you don't have to take all this biology or these other things that didn't matter towards your degree. But I guess that's the whole point of liberal arts is you're supposed to be diverse and.

But I think it's the responsibility of an educational institution too, to communicate. Like, you should know why the classes you're taking are going to be helpful. And it's a problem if you don't know or don't think about that. And I think that is where there's a responsibility of a faculty and an institution to paint a picture of what that looks, you know. Why, if you're going to be a chemistry major, do you need a philosophy class? Well, I would argue that it's important to know where the science that you're learning comes from, who created it, who developed it, what are the arguments about that? Isn't that going to be important when you step into the pharmaceutical company you're going to run and are thinking about what knowledge to take and listen to and how you combine in unique ways to find a vaccine for Covid? I mean, I would argue that that's going to be imperative. It might not be be right there in that moment, but it's what is going to lead to those discoveries. Yeah, there's something powerful there.

All good questions to think About. Okay, I'm going to ask you the final two questions I ask everyone at the end of my interviews. This one is called the three truths question. So I would like you to imagine for a minute that this is your last day on earth. Many, many years from now. You've accomplished everything. You, you've broken boundaries from higher education, written more books, anything you want to do, you've accomplished and you've lived an amazing life. But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your body of work with you. So all of your written word, audio, video, all your content is with you in the next place you go to. But you have a piece of paper and a pen where you can write down three final lessons that you would share with the world. And this is all we would have to remember you by. Are these kind of three lessons or what I like to call the three truths. What would you say are your three truths?

That's a great question. One I would say is it's really important to be happy. I think we discount, you know, happiness and finding ways to be happy with what we're doing. A second I would focus on, you know, maybe it's related to the first, but having compassion for yourself. So that goes back to all the negative self talk and everything. You know, you've got to work on ways to be compassionate for yourself. And the final one I'd say is that really research shows that you can learn things, you can learn to perform better under pressure. You can learn how to ace that pitch or the test. You're not born one way or another.

Yeah. But you are born with greatness inside of you. Come on. I want to acknowledge you, Sian, for a moment for the work you've done and how you've helped serve so many people in overcoming pressure and overcoming stress, anxiety around life in general. Not alone sports, but using your pain from your sports experience to serve humanity in allowing us to hopefully have some tools to be able to use in moments that are meaningful to us, where we actually rise to the occasion as opposed to buckle under the pressure. So I really acknowledge you for the work, your decades of research and diving into this and continuing to evolve as a human being to serve students in a different way level. You've got a book, a couple of books. One which we've talked about a lot is what the secrets of the brain reveal about getting it right when you have to. You've got another book called how the body knows its Mind. And where can we get your books? Where can we follow you? How can we connect with you and support your mission.

Yeah. Thank you. Well, my books are on Amazon, so you can go take a look. I have a webpage, see onbylock.com that you could go take a look at. And if you Google Barnard, you can find my Instagram and Twitter and everything else that I'm up to. And I have a TED Talk as well that you might be interested in.

What social media are you most active on? Twitter or Instagram?

Twitter and Instagram both. Twitter tends to be more of my science and Instagram. I talk a lot about my life. I talk about being a mom a lot because I think it's really important to show that you're not just one thing. We have multiple selves. So I can be a college president and a scientist and a mom at the same time, so. And I could screw up in all of them and I'll be okay.

Exactly. And you should be screwing up every day in some way. Right? To learn.

When you have a bad day in one, you get to have the victory in the other.

There you go. I love that this is the final question for you. It's called what is your definition of greatness?

Someone who gives it their all all the time.

There you go. Sian, thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me me.

Thank you my friends, so much for listening to this episode. Make sure to click that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts right now so you can be notified every week when we have inspirational messages that come out just like this one. Share this with a friend again. You have the power to transform and change someone's life today by sending this message to one friend, three friends post it in a Facebook group, a WhatsApp group. Post it on social media everywhere. You can change someone's life today by sending this out to people that you know. And make sure to leave us a review. We've got so many 5 star reviews. I love reading all the comments from everyone that listens from around the world. So make sure to leave us a review over on Apple Podcast and text me the word podcast to 614-350-3960 if you want to have inspirational messages from me every single week week, I'm sending you reminders about how you were born for greatness, why you deserve to have great things in your life. So if you need those little pick me ups and those text messages, just text the word podcast to 614-350-3960 right now. And if you scroll down on the podcast description in Apple podcast and any other platform you're listening. You can see links to the other related podcasts just like this one that I think that you'll love. So just scroll down in the description on this episode and you'll see more links and resources just for you. And as always you can check out the full show notes and episodes@lewishouse.com as well. And I want to leave you with this quote from Billie Jean King who says winning comes down to who can execute under pressure. You have the ability to learn this skill. Just as I've overcame different high pressure moments in my life and learned how to breathe and meditate and visualize and self talk during these times and mantras, you have the ability as well. You were born for greatness. You were born to do amazing things. I hope you are reminded of this. I hope you know how much you were loved in this world. And as as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.

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