Championing Mental Performance: Inside the Mind of the Toronto Raptors' Dr Alex Auerbach

Welcome to the Bullish Drive Podcast where we explore the realms of faith, mental performance and personal testimonies through conversations with high level performers. Join us as we extract valuable insights from their experiences to supercharge your pursuit of peak performance. This is the Bullish Drive Podcast. Welcome to another episode of the Bullish Drive Podcast and I'm James Driessen, your mental performance coach and today I'm thrilled to have Dr. Dr. Alex Auerbach, the esteemed mental performance consultant for the Toronto Raptors, joining us today on the show and this episode peers into the realm of mental fortitude and its profound impact on athletes performance. Here at Bullish Drive, we recognize the long history of balancing your mental space with the tasks at hand. Biblically speaking, verses have been written down long before the title of mental performance coach or mental health professional ever existed, specifically in the realms of anxiety. Matthew chapter six gives plenty of examples of how to remain grounded and in the present negative self talk is countered by numerous narration of God's identity for us as Christians. For example, when you feel tired and exhausted, God reminds us that he will give us rest. You feel imposter syndrome and God asks us in Genesis who told you? Even if you don't believe in the Bible, the historical longevity of the text gives us insight to the importance of managing our mental health even in ancient times.

I think one of the most profound.

Examples for me when I read it was how when we are anxious to go to God in prayer and most importantly thanksgiving and A study in 2006 discovered the feeling of anxiety and gratitude originate from the same part of our brain and cannot exist at the same time. And as a historical document, the Bible time and time again supports modern day practices.

So to get rid of anxiety, show.

Some gratitude since your brain can't do both at the same time and you see the evolution of mental performance Coaching in professional sports has been a fascinating journey, gradually gaining recognition and significance over the years and early on, the focus within the sporting world was predominantly on physical training and skill development. However, as the understanding of the mind's impact on athletic performance grew, mental performance coaches emerged to bridge the gap between physical prowess and mental fortitude. Athletes from various disciplines have played a crucial role in shedding light on the significance of mental health in sports. Their openness in discussing their mental health struggles has helped break the stigma and encouraged a more comprehensive approach to athlete well being. Notable figures like Michael Phelps, one of the most decorated Olympians, has been candid about his battles with depression and the importance of seeking help. Simone Biles, a World renowned gymnast publicly addressed the immense pressure and the mental.

Health challenges she faced during the Tokyo.

Olympics, highlighting the critical need for prioritizing mental well being in high stakes competitions. NBA stars such as DeMar DeRozan and Kevin Love have openly spoken about their mental health struggles, contributing to the long ongoing conversation about the importance of mental wellness in professional basketball and sports in general. Their courage in sharing personal experiences has catalyzed a significant shift in the sports world's approach to mental health, prompting teams and leagues to invest in mental performance coaches and prioritize mental health resources for athletes. This increased attention to mental health and sports has led to a greater understanding of the role of mental performance coaches play in supporting athletes. These coaches, like Dr. Alex Auerbach, work not only on improving performance, but also on fostering resilience, coping strategies, focus and emotional regulation. Their impact extends far beyond the courts and fields, emphasizing the holistic development and well being of athletes and ultimately developing lifelong skills. And as a result, mental performance coaching has become an integral part of an athlete's training regimen. It's now widely acknowledged that mental strength and emotional well being are just as crucial as physical abilities for achieving peak performance in sports. This acknowledgment has initiated a pivotal shift in how athletes, teams and sporting organizations approach overall player development, leading to a more comprehensive and supportive environment for athletes. In this episode, Dr. Auerbach shares his insights on the challenges of working with professional champion basketball players, shedding a light on the nuances of mental performance across different sports. He'll delve into the specific skills and techniques he employs to assist athletes in optimizing their mental game. Additionally, we'll explore the crucial role of finding the right mental performance coach tailored to individual needs and aspirations. So I'm incredibly excited and blessed to have Dr. Alex Oyerbakh on the Bullish Drive podcast today. Alex, I appreciate your willingness to come on today.

Welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be spending this, this time with you. I started my career actually as a football coach, so I began my whole journey coaching the technical, tactical side of sporting. And after a few years I found that what I really gravitated toward and where I felt I was most energized was in my work, one on one with athletes, on stuff happening off the field, you know, dealing with like partner issues or choosing a major or moving, you know, like real life stuff. And I was just like, man, I wonder what it would look like to spend more of my time doing that. And so yeah, I went through A little period of soul searching and ultimately went to a career counselor who was like, dude, you know, this sports psychology thing, it's. It's a real thing. I'm like, oh, interesting. So I started to explore a little bit. I was really fortunate to get introduced to a sports psychologist at the University of Arizona, where I did my undergrad, who kind of showed me the potential paths. And then when I got my PhD in counseling psychology, ended up actually going back to Arizona to take over the mental health and mental performance services there, and then joined the Toronto Raptors around 11 days before the season shut down in March 2020. So it's been a bit of a winding road to get here, but super fun. I mean, I love helping people figure out how to perform their best, achieve their full potential, live full and meaningful lives. And I get to do that on a regular basis with some of the best athletes in the world.

Yeah, yeah. So you started in football and then you moved over to basketball. Does that translate really well? Those two sports, especially with the mental skills side, how does that translate over?

Yeah, the games are different, right? So the skills are a bit different. Basketball, I think, is a little bit more fluid of a game in the sense that, like, there's not as much stop and start and there's a lot of stuff that happens that's kind of freelance or off script or, you know, quickly changes. And basket football, excuse me, is a pretty scripted sport, so the skills are a little bit different. But ultimately, you know, the much of the mental skills kind of cut across sports. It's just time and context and place where you'd use them. So it's been an interesting ride to learn, to learn basketball. I mean, there's some actually some fundamental kind of like concepts of sport that overlap. Right. Both of them are around manipulating space and moving a ball to one specific part of a. Of a destination. So there are some parallels too, but it's definitely. It's a different world for sure.

Oh, how has it been integrating yourself into the coaching team with basketball because it is his mental skills fairly new addition to the professional sports teams or has it been something that's been around for a while?

You know, I mean, the real history of mental skills goes back, I mean, decades and decades really to baseball. I mean, baseball has been, I think, at the forefront of mental skills innovation and mental training in pro sports for a while, but basketball has not been too far off. I mean, there have been people around in and around basketball for 20, 30 years. It's just now starting to become a Bit more solidified into, you know, a full time role with real responsibilities and not just pop in and pop out. So with the coaching staff, I mean, it's been, it's been interesting. I think having a background as a coach does give me a bit more empathy to what that experience is like and I think lend some credibility in a way that maybe other sports psychologists don't have. So that's been, been interesting. But ultimately, you know, coaches are pretty similar kind of across sports. Right. They want to develop talent, they want to coach, they want to teach, they want to help people be their best and they love the game that they're a part of. And so as long as you kind of understand those fundamentals, it's, it's pretty easy to get moving with them.

Yeah, yeah. Now you have your PhD. Are all mental performance coaches doctors or are there some that aren't doctors?

Yeah, you can get your certified mental performance consultant certificate without getting your PhD. You can do it if you're a master's level clinician or practitioner. So it's its own certification through the association of Applied Sports Psychology. I would say in pro sports now most of us are probably PhD, but there are a handful that are, that are not.

Okay, okay, that's good. So what, what, how is mental skills then specifically tied within the game? You mentioned just come some of the external things athletes are dealing with. So now if we bring it into the game, what does that look like for an athlete? How do you work with individuals and a team in developing that mental skills side of it in general?

Yeah, I mean, I have my kind of foundational set of mental skills that I believe is really important for people to perform well. So I think about things like self talk, mindfulness, goal setting, emotion regulation, kind of core foundational skills that regardless of what sports you play, really like these are going to be things you need to know how to do. Right. You need to be able to train your mind to be present, you need to talk to yourself in helpful ways. You need to be able to ramp your energy up or ramp down and control sort of where you are and the flow of the game. And so I start a lot of my work teaching some of those fundamentals, kind of the same way we think about teaching sports skills. Right. Like you don't just run on a basketball court and shoot threes like Stephen Curry. Right. Like it takes a little bit of time to build that up. And this, this is no different. Or the weight room kind of. And so I think about building those fundamental skills and we do Some work in groups, we do some work individually. Just kind of depends on what's going to work best for the player and for the situation. And then, you know, there are unique challenges to basketball, I think, and all sports have some parallels, but I think the ones that are most common are, you know, dealing with things like performance anxiety or performance under pressure. Right. Shooting a free throw in front of 20,000 screaming people to win a game is a little stressful. Transitioning into and out of the game, learning how to recover effectively, you know, these things are all really important for performing at your best. And then there's other kind of, I guess foundational or fundamental things that aren't necessarily mental skills, but they're important parts of the mental game to get right. So things like sleep, nutrition, hydration, like these things do impact the way your brain functions. And so, you know, we got to get that stuff nailed down too, to really be the best that we can be.

Yeah. And now you mentioned like playing and performing in front of ton of people, specifically free throws there. There's such a wide range of just levels of controlling that anxiety and management, working with teams. Then how do you deliver, you know, effective strategies to each player to make sure they're performing at their peak when everyone's at different places?

I mean, the beautiful thing about basketball, there's only 16 guys. So at my level, it's not too tough to get to all people individually and kind of figure out everyone has their own pace, they learn their own way, they have their own practices that they're already doing. And so everyone needs different things. And so you, you know, like anything, you build a relationship, you take time to get to know someone. You make small suggestions, you teach in a way that resonates for them. The same way the coaches work with each player individually. You know, I see my role as trying to help people find their own unique way of practicing the skills. I don't have this blanket one size fits all, nor do I think that that would work. And so that's, that's the way I go about kind of slicing my work.

Yeah. Yeah.

So if like you said, there's a much smaller people on basketball than there is with football. You got like all these there. There's so many kids I work with that are in football right now, you know, and they're. They're thinking of moving into the college scene, thinking of moving into the professional scene. Do, do you see a lot of football player when you were working with football, do you see a lot of them individually then? Because there's so many more players there. Like how did you manage?

Yeah, I mean I've had a handful of football players I've worked with individually in the NFL and college level. It is just like any sport. Right. Any sport's got some mental components. It's just the, the way you deliver the skills I think is, is different, but still the skills I think are similar. Right. Like all football players are trying to figure out how to talk to themselves effectively. And I'm sure you've seen that video of Aaron Donald and his pregame self talk. You know, you can see what it looks like at the really elite level. Or you've got, you know, some of the other guys like Dak Prescott talking about meditating and taking care of their mental health. Like it doesn't all have to be in this one on one setting. You can do it in groups. I have done it in groups and I think it works, works fine too. But you know, you'd be looking for teaching the same skills, I think in that sport.

Yeah. And when in professional sports specifically with anxiety and maybe focusing, concentration, you touched on some of the skills that really need to be looked at for those who are wanting to become professionals. If you had to make a list of some of the major things you touch on that you hit that you see with athletes, what do you think that would be? Would it be like focus or just be developing toughness? Is it, you know, visualization skills? What are you seeing in your work right now?

I guess like the four or five buckets I think about a lot are performing under pressure. Leadership, decision making, self regulation and teamwork skills. I think those kind of five probably cover the range of most of what's needed to be a really high level athlete. So if you're thinking about things like performing under pressure, I think about things like learning to control your effort, to direct your attention and focus, learning to set meaningful goals, to be able to identify what you're working toward in a given moment. When I think about leadership, I'm thinking about communication, setting a vision, identifying values, creating belonging. When I think about decision making, I'm thinking about focus, concentration, attention, self reflection, self regulation entails like setting goals, monitoring your progress, reflecting, evaluating and adjusting learning skills like cognitive restructuring or reframing or deep breathing to modulate your own physiology. And then when I think about, I guess kind of teamwork skills, I'm thinking about like some of the same stuff as leadership, but almost like interpersonal skills. Right. Like how do you communicate, how do you express yourself, how do you talk about what you do, how do you share more about who you are? How do you help other people understand you better? And I think if you can do those things, there's a lot of skills underneath there. But if you can do those things, those are a good place to start for. Because becoming a high level performer.

Yeah, yeah. Now there's, there's also just bringing in the culture and family your, your communities with basketball. That's such a big part of it. Some of them can be positive, some of them can be negative influences as we're seeing with some players right now in the NBA. How do you coach people through that when those communities might have been following them for a long time and survive and help them survive certain situations? What's your approach with that? Like, if there is. Yeah, we'll start there. What's, what's your approach to talking to people about their communities if they're negative influences?

I mean, I think it's important first to start with understanding, like, what the purpose or function of that community has played so far. Right. Like most people don't hang on to things that are harmful to them. It's very rare. And so there's probably some adaptive reason that this is still kind of hanging around. And so it's important to sort of like understand and unpack that a bit. And then it's important to understand and unpack, like, could you meet those needs somewhere else in a healthier way? And I think the third step is figuring out, you know, so much of our performance and our behavior is driven by the environment that we're in. And so these people are creating your environment. And then the real question is like, is it putting you in a position to perform better, to achieve your own goals, to be the best that you can be? If the answer is no, we need to start to think about how do we surround ourselves more with those kind of people and what would it look like to do it that way? And so, you know, it's hard. I think this is a really hard thing to do. It's hard for almost all of us to say no or to cut people off or change relationships that have been significant. And if you want to get to where you want to be. For most high level athletes, sometimes it's just a necessity to do stuff you don't want to do. You know, most people don't want to work as hard as is required to be at this level of sport. But if that's what you want, you're going to have to make some sacrifices.

Yeah. What you're saying Just makes me think of that growth mindset, you know, just being able to flex and move along. Well, could you, could you explain kind of a little bit about that growth mindset, how that does play into the NBA and those high levels where people have to do things like that, where they have to decide and make those decisions to grow and change.

I, I wish I had like a great formula. It's hard, man. It's. It's really hard. I mean, I think a lot of stuff comes down to your values. A lot of stuff comes down to like, who you want to be, what you want to stand for, the quality of career and life you want to have. And so that's how I anchor a lot of those discussions. That's how I think a lot about this stuff. But I, you know, like I said, if I had like a super easy way to do it, I probably would have like bottled it up and written it into a book and sold a million copies by now. But I don't, I don't have that answer. And everyone's, you know, everyone's path and everyone's way that they kind of arrive at a point where they're even comfortable to do that, I think is it happens on its own time. Like, you know, we all kind of see what's required to be an all time great, but not everyone is ready to be there right when they get in the NBA. You know, you. Sometimes it just takes time. So I think it's a bit of balance of like trying to help people figure out who they want to be and what they're working toward and what they want to become, and also allowing that to kind of emerge over time as they spend more time in the space.

Is there a cultural aspect in like the team culture that can play into that growth mindset and encouraging athletes to take care of their mental health and their mental performance?

Yeah, I mean, the more open the team is, right. About all these things, I think the, the better it can be. Right. So, you know, you've seen it in pro sports and elite sport, right? Like Naomi Osaka, Simone Biles, Michael Phelps, DeMar DeRose and Kevin Love, like these people have all come down and talk about mental health and mindset in some way or another. And so the more that it happens, I think the more like culturally accepted it is, the easier it is for people to come and say, hey, I need some help. Which is a reflection of that growth mindset. Right. And the recognition that someone else has something to offer, you know, But I think it can come from the coach. It can come from leadership, it can come from a lot of places. But I think having an open, honest dialogue about those things, I think being encouraging of people talking about those things is really important. And I think understanding and respecting that this is an important part of the game too, is critical. Right? I mean, so much, and there's so many famous sports quotes where you hear like these all time great athletes talk about how important the mental aspect of the game is and we still don't pay it as much attention as we should, you know, and so it's almost like hidden in plain sight sort of thing where we could get, get better. And so a lot of that does hinge on the culture being open and inviting of it and recognizing, yeah, this is part of what it means to be a person. This is part of what it means to be a performer. And we want to help you be the best you can be. This is how we're going to do it.

Yeah, just kind of normalizing it and showing that everybody, everybody, it's part of everybody's game. So I was talking to somebody about the organizational mental performance coaches and then individual mental performance coaches, kind of that dynamic. Are you seeing pushback since you're affiliated with an organization from athletes, especially with the possibility of getting traded, moving to another team? Do you ever find it difficult to connect with some athletes with that in mind that they might move on and lose you as a support?

Honestly, it hasn't been like a huge barrier in my career. I think that there's a lot of like narrative in the space around what is better or what is worse. And the reality is like, what's better is whatever gets the athlete to the resource that they need. And so for me, like, I don't have to be all things to all people. It's okay if an athlete on the Raptors wants to go work with someone else, like, it's all right, you know, Yeah, I can't be everyone's cup of tea and that's okay. And so I don't know, to me, like, I think this is like a broader philosophical issue in the field of performance consulting. But I think people feel like there's a lot of value judgment on one or the other. And I think the reality is like, some players will feel more comfortable because I'm on the road with them all the time and I see what the game looks like and I'm there in the locker room post game and I know what coach said and so it's a lot easier for me to talk to them about that. And Understand how it impacts them, because I know, and other people will feel like, you know what, this guy's just way too close. And it might be better to have someone who was completely outside the system. But at the end of the day, all my work is confidential. So anything an athlete says to me privately stays privately. And I think that once you do that education and you help them understand and see that that's the case, it stops being a huge issue.

You came in, you said 2020, like when pandemic hit. So that was a year after the Raptors won the championship.

Right.

How is that transition? Did you feel like you had to approach the mental performance a little differently now that they had that under their belt? Was there a confidence shift? Like, what did that look like? Because when working with championship players now in maintaining that high level performance, you.

Know, I really don't know because I didn't have anything to compare it to beforehand. Right. Like, I wasn't there, free championship to see what was different. So I think for me, I have the expectation that these athletes are, you know, highly professional, they're deeply invested in their craft. And I think what it meant is that, you know, beyond anything else, if I was going to have some of their time, I needed to add value. Right. I needed to help show how I could make them better. And so I think that was my main, main focus. I can't say what was different or not. Right. Like, I've heard from people who worked there, oh, this was different, or that was different, but I don't know. And so all I know is what I knew when I showed up, you know, 11 days before the season shut down. But, you know, there is, I think, something that comes with being a part of a championship culture. Right. There are high expectations, you know, that everyone's really high caliber, high quality person and performer. And so it has been, you know, tremendously impactful and really cool for me to get to be involved in that.

Yeah, yeah. And how did you maintain motivation through the bubble? Like when they're playing? Like how?

Like.

Yeah, how do you maintain motivation with that?

Well, I mean, I think we tried to get as creative as we could in the bubble, you know, with social things and keeping people connected and engaged and, you know, trying to find some of the benefits of it too. Right. You got a really kind of condensed time where everyone was all in a shared setting and a experience you're never going to have again. Like, there's. There's parts of that, I think that are kind of meaningful. And so you try to Sort of double down on some of that stuff and find creative ways to minimize some of the herd of being away from families or you know, the uncertainty was obviously a big deal across Covid during that time. Like no one really any of it meant. And so, you know, you just try to find ways to manage that and keep people locked into what they love doing, which is playing.

One thing that I get a lot from parents is how do I support my kids who want to be NBA players? Like these are like 10 and 11 year olds, right? How, what can we tell parents or what would you tell a parent to help them support and build that vision and be prepared that it might just be a season where they want to be an MB player or if it's actually something they're really serious about.

I mean, I think first and foremost your responsibility as a parent is to foster your kids love and enjoyment of the game. Because ultimately like at this level that's really the only thing that's going to keep you going through. Like not playing for weeks on end, coming back from an injury, dealing with being traded, right. Getting cut, like you have to really want to do it. And so if you want to support your kid, that's the best thing you can be doing, right? So being mindful of when you're undermining their own motivation or being too critical or not paying enough attention to kind of who they are as a person and only focusing on their athletic performance, like these are all things that can be a little bit costly down the line, right? And look like the reality is we think about these things at this level, right? We think about who's been raised well, who has good parents, who has good people, who does love basketball. Like these things are really important. So that's advice number one is to, you know, foster your kids love and enjoyment of the game. Advice number two is to make sure to always leave time to talk about your kids life outside of sports. I mean, I think especially in today's day and age, like a lot of time and attention is paid to extracurricular activities broadly and certainly sports as a mechanism for getting into college and potentially changing the course of the whole family's, you know, life. And, and that's a lot of pressure and responsibility to put on one person and a young person. But it's also honestly, incredibly unlikely, right? Like less than a 1% chance that this is going to happen for you. And so to neglect and ignore all the other parts of your athlete's experience as a person and a kid because you're so Narrowly focused on that, I think is. Is detrimental. And so ask about life outside of sports. Ask them how they want to talk after a win or after a loss. What would be most helpful? Like, you don't have to guess at a lot of this stuff. You can just ask for their input. And then finally, I'd say, like, you know, think about your own beliefs and biases around how this happens. Right? So, like, we hear the stories of Tiger woods, right? Oh, he was handed a golf club at 12 months old, and he was hidden at 200 yards when he was 4. And it's like, oh, okay, then the obvious path to become Tiger woods is to do that. But there's a great book, I'm sure you read it, called Range by David Epstein, that sort of systematically debunks a lot of this stuff and has all these incredible athletes who have gotten there by basically playing a ton of sports and not really specializing and not being so narrowly focused. And so, you know, oftentimes I think parents come to sport with their own idea about how someone gets better. And it's often more time, more effort, more investment. And that's not always the case. And so I think if you can balance those things, you'll be in good shape.

Good.

Yeah. No, I. Yeah, you hit that. You're exactly right. I feel like that's such a hard message sometimes to deliver to parents, you know, because, you know, parents. Parents don't want to be told or made to feel like they're doing something wrong or something that's not right. You know, I love how you, how you worded it. So if, if a child is, or an athlete is looking to connect with a mental performance coach, or a parent wants to get their child connected with a mental performance coach, what. What are some of the key questions they should be asking to make sure that it's a good fit for their, their athlete or themselves?

I think it's like anything that you're buying, right? It's like any service that you're buying. You know, you want to make sure you feel comfortable with the person, that this person communicates confidently about what they do, that you assess their competence, that they understand your specific challenges and what you want to work on. And it's like totally okay to shop around and is encouraged to shop around. Pick the person that makes you feel most comfortable, that you feel like connects best. I mean, the most important thing is that you actually like the consultant that you're working with and you feel like they can help you if you don't have those two things. Everything else is going to be much harder. But I would just say, you know, if there's nothing else that you take away from this conversation, it's, you know, if you're a parent or a kid, like, just remember to have fun. Yeah.

Yeah. That's why we do sports in the first place, right?

100%.

Yeah, man. Well, I appreciate it, Alex. Thank you for being on the show today.

I have a newsletter I write on substack. It's called Perform. I don't have a book yet, but it's coming and you can follow me on social media. Lex Auerbach, Ph.D. thank you so much.

Alex, for hopping on today.

Thanks, James.

You can follow Alex on his social medias and the Toronto Raptors as they play in the NBA. And I appreciate you guys for joining us today on the podcast. And if you are a parent, athlete or coach looking to learn more and connect with a mental performance coach, check us out at www.bullishdrive.com. we will see you next week. And of course, remember, it starts with you and your destiny is waiting. Peace.