Performance Mindset and Development for High-Achieving Leaders with Dr. Alex Auerbach

Foreign. Welcome back to the Muscle Intelligence podcast. I'm your host, Ben Pakolski. Today I'm rocking my sweet brand new acquisition.com hat from my buddy Alex Hermosi just launched an incredible new book. If you're a business owner, absolutely suggest his book $100 million leads. If you haven't read $100 million offers, both these books are just non negotiable. This has absolutely nothing to do with the podcast today, but I thought I'd give a little shout out to Alex because he's truly making an impact not only on my life, but in the lives of millions of people around the world in understanding business and providing free business education to everyone. And I think it's worthwhile. Check it out. He's got a great podcast called the Game. Today's podcast is a deep dive into performance psychology. You know that as a previous professional athlete, I have quite a lot of insight into performance psychology. Not because of anything. Well, I studied it a lot for sure, but I think the greatest opportunity that existed for me was really pushing the limits of what my brain thought I was capable of and not taking no for an answer and the obsessive persistence that went into becoming a professional athlete, professional bodybuilder, ultimately making to the top of the sport. I would say the psychological aspect is certainly most more important than the physical one. And in the world we live in, you know, we're so focused on the physical and so many people fall short of the goals not because of their the absence of capability or limited capability, but instead just the absence of mental fortitude. So I invited Dr. Alex Auerbach on the podcast today. He's a performance psychologist currently working as an executive in professional sports. He's worked with the best athletes in the world from the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball and Olympians, as well as high performance in other domains like the military, 500, Fortune 500 companies and other venture backed startups. He's currently the director of wellness and Development for the Toronto Raptors. I didn't even get to do this in person, although I should have because I'm in Toronto right now. Dr. Auerbach's area of expertise include obviously wellness, mental well being, high performance psychology, performing under pressure, leadership, mindset training, systems optimization and organizational development. He is a stud. I enjoyed the conversation. People who truly get it are not always easy to come by. And so when a gentleman like this comes on the podcast to give us some unique insights, I very, very much appreciate a few things. We talked about the five factors of performance and two Key paths to success. Success. The importance of self regulation for physiology, psychology, emotions and more. The growth, mindset and the power of feedback. Feedback. Oh my gosh. I think about this a lot. I actually talk to my coaches about it a lot. A life that is unexamined, ultimately one that you don't reflect on on a consistent basis, ultimately prevents you from progressing. Right? And so feedback, in my opinion is, you know, either I'm making good progress or I'm not making good progress in any area of life. And sometimes pain is feedback and sometimes sadness is feedback. Sometimes emotions are. Often our emotions are feedback or circumstances are feedback. But people don't always think of it like that. So if you're someone who's growth minded, you realize that everything in life is just feedback. You get punched in the face, just feedback. Right. Do it better next time. That's obviously a metaphor. Hopefully you're not getting punched in the face unless that's your job. Ladies and gents, you're gonna love this podcast with Dr. Alex Auerbach. Today's podcast is brought to you by me and the team at Muscle Intelligence. If you are a man or woman actually over the age of 25, in this case, we are doing a muscle camp. So what muscle camps are is really diving into everything you need to optimize your physical body. And my goal or my gift to you is to be able to leave there understanding your body at a whole new level. Not only understanding it intellectually, but ultimately applying it and embodying it. And I think there's a single massive takeaway that I can part you with. And this sometimes goes kind of over people's heads. But simply the ability to improve the depth of connection to your body will change the trajectory of results for life. And so if we think of right now you're on some specific trajectory, maybe a high upward trajectory, maybe a relatively low upward trajectory, maybe parallel or horizontal trajectory, right? You know, maybe you're not ascending, maybe you're descending in some way physically. And so my goal is to give you some lever or some tool that ultimately puts you on a better trajectory, a higher trajectory to faster results, ultimately where you want to be. And now that may be a different lever for me than it is for you, but ultimately my zone of genius is finding that lever. And, and to be honest, I realize it's a small number of things, right? So if you guys have known what I currently do in my business, people come to me and like, hey man, what should I be doing? And it's, it's seldom the Same thing for everyone. But it's often a very small, narrow number of things and we just hope you, we just help you one understand them intellectually and then to put them into practice. That's really the goal of Muscle Camp, which is being held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the third weekend in September. So you've got a few weeks now when this podcast comes out, and if this podcast is already aired by the time where the. The camp has already gone past by the time you listen to this podcast, head over to muscleintelligence.com camp and check out future dates because we have a lot of future dates coming up. Prior to Covid, I was on the road a lot teaching this camp. And, you know, every single person that leaves, you know, with the exception of literally one in the last eight years said it was life changing. And that one said, yeah, I was terrible and I didn't get enough attention. And so we've since changed it. Right. I keep a very limited number of people relative to the number of coaches, a very exclusive offer. And it's not ridiculously priced, it's definitely fairly priced. And every single person that comes so far, it's always my goal is to make sure you get enough individual attention and you get the action items you need to leave to be successful. So shout out to Muscle Intelligence, head over to muscleintelligence.com camp C A M P and ultimately register now. And if we don't have any space left, then look for the next camp near you. And to be honest, guys, we're not gonna be doing these all over the world because one of the things people often say is, hey, can you come to my city? I'm like, no, you can't. Like, if you really care about your results, you really care about your progress, I'll put a plan. Let's do this together. We're an incredible facility here at Pure Muscle and Fitness. Don't waste time. Let's do it. Special shout out to our sponsor for today's podcast, Natural Stacks. Naturalstacks.com/muscle to get you 15% off their incredible products. And I've told you before, and you've probably heard me talk about why I've actually used Natural Stacks for God, it'd be 10 years almost now. Once I read the book the Edge Effect by Eric Bergman, I started to understand neurotransmitters and the neurotransmitter approach to brain optimization. So we have dopamine brain food, and we have acetylcholine brain food and have serotonin precursors. And they have GABA precursors. And all these things have a very specific effect on how we feel day to day, minute to minute. And once I learned how to manipulate my dopamine with these literal ingredients that they use here in their, their products, my performance went up in all areas of life. And then when I realized that I could, I could influence my serotonin and my gaba, my sleep just went through the roof. And so I specifically use their products on a regular basis because I don't like these catch all nootropic products that are just like, hey, we're gonna throw everything in there. Because everyone's brain is different and every time of the day is a different time. Right? Is a different, has different requirements. So for me, I want to be able to choose how much dopamine precursor I get and how much acetylcholine precursor I get, because taking a lot of it is not a good idea or at least not frequently. Right? So some of these kind of catch all nootropics products just throw the kitchen sink in there. And I'm just not a fan, so I don't use them. But I do use natural stacks naturalstacks.com muscle or you can just go to naturalstax.com use the code muscle15 at checkout to get 15% off. Ladies, gents, listen all the way in. Hopefully I'll see you at muscle camp. And if you have any questions for me, you can head into the Muscle Intelligence Facebook group where we're sending all of our free information, all of our videos, all of our free assets are going in that group. We're going to be doing some really interesting stuff coming in the future. Actually, I've been recording so much information it kind of makes my head hurt. You guys know I'm writing certification, really studying the mechanisms of muscle building, the mechanisms of fat loss and mechanisms and metabolic optimization and so much more. So I can understand more effectively for me and for you and ultimately everyone out there who wants to live their greatest life in bond love. Enjoy the podcast with Alex Parbeck. Mindset is the black box, right? And there's some people out there who are quantifying high performance mindsets, who are ultimately objectifying the subjective. And when, when a high performance athlete, like the people you work with and people I work with, are succeeding or not succeeding, we know that the mind seems to lead the way or. Yeah. In either direction. Right. Whether it be positive or negative, and people who are truly crushing it are doing something unique and doing something worth talking about or worth exploring. And there's so far in my journey, again, I haven't, I haven't explored too many people in this space, but there's, there's not a lot of people that have, that have come to the table with like an understanding of, hey, this is the difference between someone that succeeds and fails or, and, or maybe and this is how to do it. Because, like, I know for myself, my whole journey as a professional bodybuilder was just nut your way through it, shut up and work harder, keep going. And I was very blessed to have a very resilient mind and a very resilient body because of a lot of adversity as a kid. But not everyone is given that. And sometimes we want to give people, like the question is, should we be giving our kids adversity and, and having them overcome hard things or just developing, you know, the, the resilience and growth mindset. There's so much everything to me, for me comes back to kids because I have children and they're the most important thing in my life. But yeah, I'd love to have you talk about just kind of how you, maybe you can start about how you got into performance mindset, coaching and then how you look at it. So when someone comes into your world, you know, how are you assessing somebody?

Yeah, man, there's so, so much to unpack here and I'm glad to be doing it with you. And I'm fascinated by your world too. I mean, you know, I have, I got into weightlifting and like, not, I wouldn't say never competitively training, but just got super interested in it in my kind of mid teens and actually my middle brother got like really, really into bodybuilding. So it's just like a world from the outside looking that I think has some pretty elite competitors and requires a really different way of thinking about training. And like, there's a meticulousness to it that I think is pretty remarkable. That's like on par with some of the other elite spaces in the world. So I'm looking forward to learning some from you too as we go today to give a really quick version of my background. So I started my career as a college football coach and that was kind of my dream. And so I did that for a few years, kind of bounced around, started as an undergrad assistant, worked my way up to a full time assistant coach and just kind of burned out. And in that process was really searching for like, what is it that I want to spend my time doing? And found that what I loved was always the relationships with the players. It was the little things like thinking about what major should you study, or how do you manage this relationship challenge that you have, or how do we keep you out of trouble and in the classroom kind of thing. And I was searching for, like, where can I find more of that? And I landed it in psychology. And then I was lucky enough to have someone along the way who was like, hey, you should really think about sports psychology. Like, that's a. That's a whole thing. I was like, that's sports psychology. I've never heard of that. You know, and then got into it a little bit more. I had a mentor, showed me a couple paths, and then ended up getting my PhD in counseling psychology. That kind of a double major, basically, in performance psych. And then ultimately, you know, the rest is history, as they say, became the performance psychologist here in Toronto. But I think as I've thought about my own journey, like, a lot of it starts kind of before that. Like, I was never the most gifted athlete, but I made some pretty competitive teams as a kid. I think in large part because of my brain, because I could see the field differently or make decisions differently or learn things differently. It was a little bit easier, I think, for me to execute, and it made up for some of the skill deficit I had. I wasn't the fastest kid. I couldn't run the farthest. I didn't have the best stamina. But I could do things. I grew up playing a lot of soccer. I could do things in the middle of the field or at the front of the field that other people just couldn't do. And then that sort of turned into, like, this whole fascination now I have with everything, peak performance. And so, yeah, to get to your question now, when I think about evaluating or assessing, you know, there are a few things you look for. So one of the things you mentioned is kind of like difficult upbringings or adversity or trauma. There's a line of research called Talent Needs Trauma. And it's just this idea that, like, there is some need for adversity and repeatedly overcoming adversity for people to really make it to the highest level. I'm not convinced that it needs to be capital T trauma. It might just be little challenges along the way, but building that resilience and building really your adaptive capacity to deal with stress, I think is a critical part. And we've seen it time and again in professional sports where someone has the roads paved to them and they get here. And we don't do anything like that for you anymore, right? No, One's rolling out the red carpet when you're a rookie, like, you gotta earn it. There is a little bit of a learning curve there for guys that haven't had that adversity in the past. So I can't say I look for that necessarily in terms of selecting talent, but I'm definitely thinking about that and assessing for that. When someone comes into my office, like, what is your capacity to deal with this? And then beyond that, I'm kind of looking at a few factors. So one is the environment that you put yourself in. You know, the environment has a huge impact on your overall performance, on your behavior. Some studies show that it's like up to 70%. The English Institute of Sport did a study that showed about 70% of your behavior is influenced totally by your environment. And it makes sense, it's kind of intuitive, right? But the rest of performance is really hard if your environment's crap. So environment is the people who are around you, the places you go, who's kind of in your circle, the way that they support you. All those stuff to me, or all those things to me are sort of environmental, social influences.

The second fact challenge you, right? The way that they, the way that they challenge you and the way that you receive those challenges, I think would be a big. I know for me that was a big thing for sure.

Yeah. I mean, I'm kind of looking at three dimensions all based on self determination theory. So the first is, do these people support your autonomy? Right? Do they encourage you to make independent choices? Do they allow you to experiment? Are they thinking about what you might need to do to grow and develop on your own? Right. And this gets back to the sort of like the, you know, helicopter parent or the Zamboni parent, right? The people who paved the way. Like ultimately it undermines autonomy, right? What you're teaching someone to do is not make decisions. And you know, at some point, like the training wheels have to come off and someone's going to have to make real choices about how they train, the way that they show up professionally, how they prepare for an NBA game. And that can be facilitated by being in an autonomy supportive environment, right? Giving people choice, giving people control, and then sort of guiding, right? Like, and you mentioned your kids and I have a 9 month old, so I'm like quickly learning here. Thank you. That's been awesome. You know, like you kind of have to guide, right? But you can't decide. And I think if you can find people in the environment who are doing that, that can really empower someone to Kind of take ownership of their own behavior, their own. So that's one element, and what I mean by that is people who are encouraging your growth and development, not people who are cutting you down, not people who are telling you everything that's wrong with you, but people who are really thinking about your own growth and development. Which doesn't mean we ignore the bad stuff, right? Like they can give you critical feedback, they can give you honest feedback about where they need to improve, you need to improve. But ultimately they're really thinking about how do they build you up, how do they help you understand as a performer what unique skills that you have that you can leverage that facilitate peak performance. And then the third element of the environment I'm looking for is kind of what the psychologists would call relatedness. But it's this idea that we're connected, that we matter to each other, that we're part of something bigger than ourselves. And so you're always skeptical, like in the NBA for example, of people who come in whose, let's say, parents are making all the decisions and kind of controlling them, or they're doing it because they're kind of being cajoled into something, but they don't really love the game. You're looking for that really supportive, encouraging, connected environment because that brings out the best people. It doesn't mean you can't get there if you don't have some of these factors. But I think you're exactly right that kind of like you need a little challenge, you need a little encouragement, you need a little support, you need to be challenged to take ownership. And that can really push you to the next level.

As you say so much to unpack. You know, I think of, you know, some of the most high performing guys in the world. This one sentence comes to mind is, you know, is it confidence reads excellence or does excellence breed confidence? And some of the top guys that I, that I speak to, that I work with, it's almost like the confidence came first and then they just believed in themselves and they believed in their capability and they, they, because of that confidence or swagger or egocentricity, you know, that's a, I know that's a loaded. And I generalized a lot there. But I'm curious, in your experience, do you have any thought around, you know, these guys who are really performing at a high level when it comes to their, their belief in themselves? Is it just because they just know they're good or is it do, you know, do they know they're good first so that they become good or do they do so well on the way that their confidence just kind of continues to grow?

I think usually where it starts is someone told them they were really good and then they internalized that, right? Then they're like, yeah, you know what? I actually am really good. I mean, I definitely agree. You've got to have this level of almost delusional self belief to reach the very highest level. Because you're going to go through some really tough crap, right?

Like, you just have to slow you down, you just keep going.

Exactly, yeah. You have to believe that you're going to get there. But the way I see your statement is actually it's kind of like a virtuous cycle, right? If you're confident that's going to enhance your performance, then you're going to perform well. And now all of a sudden you have more reason to be confident. Confident, right. And it just sort of keeps building and building and building. And then that's how I think over time, that kind of like, I think of it as almost like, you know, delusional, but in a positive way, this delusional self belief that, like, I can do anything, I can take anything on. And I think a lot of that by the best performers in the world. I'm sure this is true. In your space, like it's earned, right? Like, you don't come to believe that you can, I don't know, deadlift 500 pounds by just like walking into the gym your first day and being like, yeah, I can deadlift £500. Like, you work your way up there, right? And you have these moments where you kind of break through a plateau and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, I'm way more capable than I thought and then I can take the next leap. And so that's how you see that cycle kind of playing out. And then next thing you know, you have the best in the world on your hands.

Yeah. Interestingly though, like, I know this is sharing my experience. I had no idea that I could be the best. I just knew that I would be. So I didn't have any proof, right? When I was, When I was 16, 17 years old, I was a little skinny twerp. Yeah, man, I know. Like, I saw the Mr. Olympia contest. I was like, that's where I'm going. I'm like, there's nothing that's going to stand in my way. I had no proof that I would get there, but I just had this undying knowing. I was like, I just won't stop until I get there. So I understand that, like, you need some proof, but, like, if you would have saw me at that age, you'd be like, there's. And everyone was like, there's no way. And so it's funny because, like, I.

Didn'T have the genetics.

I didn't, I didn't have the silver spoon and figure it out. So it's. Man, human psychology is so interesting. Yeah. So fascinating. So you mentioned the kind of three areas, and I'm curious what happens when an athlete comes to you who has the talent, but they don't have the supportive environment. So you see, they're capable, they're struggling with the supportive environment, or they don't have someone who's pushing them, or they're intermingled in an environment that isn't accurate for them. And one of my clients that I'm currently working with comes to mind right now, super talented guy, and his environment is crap, but he keeps, he keeps slipping on some things he shouldn't be slipping on and like, big, big deal things. And he doesn't know how to get out. And so I'm curious how you would approach something like. You don't have to use that exact example, but for anyone that comes to mind for you as an athlete, you know how you're, you're super capable, you could be one of the next greats, but you're missing some of these other pieces. How does that, how do you. How would you approach something like that with them?

My first thought is, I try to help them go find it. Right. So it's like, it's not like you couldn't create that environment. I mean, I think we, we tend to think about. I mean, this is like a very typical work example. But follow, follow along for a minute as I take you on my meandering journey to your question here. Like, when people think about going to work, they think that they just enter the building and now they've entered a new environment, as though there's nothing they could do to change it unless they're the CEO or the boss. And that's just not true. Right. Like, and we talk about kids again. Like, kids start shaping their environment from the time that they're born, right? They cry, they see, does mom respond? Does dad respond? If they don't, they do it differently. If mom and dad do respond, they do it the same, right? And so they start to shape the world around them. And so we have a lot more control over who's in our space and who's in our environment and how our environment helps us Then we often choose to acknowledge. And so my thought in this kind of situation would be one, how do we detach you from this old stuff that's pulling you back? Right. And how do we work our way to the point where we can really make that decision? And often it's very, very hard, right? It's very hard to let go of. There's a reason people say, like, old habits die hard, right? It's hard to let go of old relationships and old people and people who have been kind of at one time, maybe in your corner and now aren't in your corner, or the relationship has evolved a lot, or they've just never been good for you, but they played a really significant role. Like, those things can be very, very challenging to move on from. And if you want to achieve your full potential, this might be a change you have to make. And so rather than focus on solely cutting out the bat, I'd be thinking about, okay, how do we build this new space that allows you to dominate, to thrive, to be the best that you can be? And as we do that, it will become clear that you need to let go of some of this stuff, and then we can sort of work on that part together. So that's how I think about managing that kind of situation. But it is a very tricky one.

That makes sense because. And one thing that comes up is, like, I know a lot of people who are exceptional athletes or high performers in any space, and they're loyal. They're very loyal to the people who've brought them there. And sometimes that's a great asset, but sometimes that's the very thing that holds them back. You know, they are loyal to the people that got them there. And they maybe know or don't know or don't want to believe that they need something to change. And you could just see it. And, like, trying to convince somebody of that is sometimes a big challenge.

Yeah. It can be hard to sort of recognize, like, when. When a relationship does run its course, Right. And I think it's. No one likes losing a relationship, right? Because it's always a loss of a little bit of a loss of identity and then also a loss of someone important. But I think this is one of the challenges. It's one of, like, the sacrifices or kind of pieces that you have to go through if you really want to be great at what you do is you do have to. All of this stuff has to be pulling in the right direction for you to have a top 1% outcome when you're looking to.

I Know you say you're, you're approaching the draft right now when you're looking at bringing on a young talent, what types of things are the deal breakers for you or what type of. And you can go with that in either direction, right? Like this is someone we're going to need because I know they're going to be successful. They just have the right mindset. Is that all about the things you're saying, the environment? And conversely, what are the negative things? You're like, hey, this is a deal breaker. This guy's not going to do what.

We need him to do. Yeah, well, so the first part I look for is the environment, but the other sort of three or four categories I think about the second is kind of like foundational well being skills, right? So you can't perform if you're not well. It's like trying to run on a torn acl. It's just not going to happen, right? So you need some basic coping skills, right? Stress management skills, psychological skills, mindset skills of like just again, core kind of ways that you exist that help you sort of maintain your balance in the world, right? And not slip into something where it's hard to pull out of and keep you sort of well. So that's one factor I think about. The second factor is like these optimized mindsets that I've, I've written a little bit about where it's like a growth and a fixed mindset. Stress is enhancing mindset recoveries and investment mindset, like thinking about those things. So those two pieces, the wellness piece and the optimized mindsets piece are also an important part of this equation in addition to the environment. And then the final piece that the data supports is most important is this idea of self regulation. And self regulation broadly is kind of the ability to direct your thinking, feeling and physiology plus direct your learning. And so when I think about kind of the gold standard, what I'm really thinking about is like how good of a self regulator are you, right? Like are you aware of who you are? Are you aware of what your values are? Are you aware of how you feel, what you think, how to change it? Do you know how to optimize your learning? Can you pick out when you've made a mistake, a mistake? Do you know how to refine it? Can you sort of direct yourself essentially, right? Because there's so many hours in the day where like we can't watch you and so we've got to really trust, believe, know, understand that you can do it, right? You can take some of that on. And that you see yourself ultimately as the owner of your own process. Right. Like, as much as we believe in anyone that we draft, you have to want it. Like we can't want it for you. Right. And so I look for some of those things. I wouldn't say I have any like, deal breakers in either direction really. This is, I think, probably more informed by my own ideas. But I think in the right circumstances, you can help almost anyone achieve their potential. I think the real key, maybe the only deal breaker is like, do you actually want to do that? You know, and we've been fortunate in that. And I think this is true of a lot of NBA players. I can't speak for other sports. Like there is a high degree of wanted, you know, and how. And do they know what to do? You know, that all varies. Right. But recognizing that this is an outcome that they're after, I think is really the key step. And I'm sure this is true in any high performance space. Right. If you don't want it, like, no one can make it happen.

Well, so tell me how you actually identify how it. Whether or not somebody wants it. Because me saying I want it doesn't actually mean that I'm going to do what it's what it, what it takes to do it. Right. That has to be. In my, in my experience, that's something that burns deep inside. That's like no one's. I always say, like, there's not a single person in the world that could have yelled at me enough to make me do what I needed to do in bodybuilding. It had to come out from somewhere just deep inside. And it could be from a wound and it could be from something, but there's literally nothing that anyone outside of me could have ever done to make me go through what I went through. So how do you begin to identify that?

I wish I had the answer to this question because then I would bottle it up and I would sell it like in Vegas or something and have a much different career trajectory than the one I have now. I don't know. I really don't know. I don't know what the best way to identify that is. What I can say is I try to look for signs that there might be obstacles to that. Right. So you look for like almost the barriers, but it's, it's very, very hard. I mean, there's a reason that this, this stuff is so challenging. So I wish, I wish I had the answer. I, I don't think I do quite.

You could make A. You could make a career of studying just that question. Like, you think of, like, a Tom Brady, right?

Yeah.

Like, no one. No one could see what he had inside. But I wonder if you asked him the right questions eventually, if you could be like, yeah, this guy's got it. But then there's also the subjective nature of, like, maybe he doesn't have it physically, maybe he's got it mentally. Like, maybe he's the strongest mental person in the world. He's got it. He's going to do whatever it takes, but his physical body may not hold up or he may get injured, or he may not physically be capable. You know, there's so much, so many potential factors within that. It'd be a really interesting area of exploration, is like, what questions would you have to ask someone who's a very high performer, like a Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, even LeBron, to go, yeah, this is the real deal. Skill set is the real deal. But psychologically, like, you could see this as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we'd probably need more time than the time they give us to get to the answer, but it would be. It would be an interesting exercise.

So what. What comes to mind? I'm putting on the spot. What comes to mind, like, if you had the opportunity to interview the greatest of all time, you had Tom, you had. You had Jordan, you had Kobe, and you could ask them a few questions like, what. What do you think would be the thing that. That would be like, this is it. This is the one thing that I would know. This guy's the real deal, man, that.

You are putting me on the spot. I appreciate this exercise. I'm sure this is going to be wrong, too. I. I'd probably first want to understand, like, what motivates you or what's your why. I know that's kind of like a. It's become a more, like, popularized question now, but I. I do think there is, like, an element to. If you can figure out what the why is, it'll at least point you to the idea, like, whether or not that motivation is sustaining. Right. So if someone's why is like, oh, I just want to make a bunch of money, right. It's like, okay, well, there's a lot of ways to do that. Like, are we clear that that's going to kind of keep you engaged, maybe, Like, I don't know. Right. And so you. I'd maybe start to tease some of that apart and kind of figure out, down that line of questioning, like, what is really engaging you? What motivates you. What do you do when things get. What's your typical response to failure? How do you make sense of failure? I think those would be some things I'd ask. You can ask simple questions like do you hate to lose or love to win more? And that might give you a sense of what keeps people fueled.

What's the answer? I don't know.

I don't know that there is a better answer, but I think it's telling. And you think about the people who love to win. For me, I think about that a little bit more in the concept of approach motivation. You're engaged, you're trying to go after something that's meaningful for you and then if you don't get it, you're more inclined to like get up and try again. Whereas if you have the hate to lose, that's maybe a little bit more avoidance motivation. Right. So if you lose, what happens? Like, are you going to cascade into this sort of behavior where you ultimately don't try as hard because you're trying to save face, or are you going to grip tighter and that's going to maybe cause you to lose some control in like a paradoxical sense? Like there's a lot of ways to kind of make sense of that. But I would be thinking about, really it's about the constellation of all these things together. It's not about one straight line. But how do all. How does your why map on with your hate to lose, love to win, map on with your self regulatory ability, map on with your current skill set. Like all these things have to come together to get to that really special talent. I mean there's a reason we only have whatever, like a handful of people across all sports that we would ever consider throwing in the goat conversation.

Well, and something's come up for me recently quite often is cognitive dissonance, right? So like people are like, yeah, you know, I have what it takes, I'm capable. And you know, it's like you realize that some people are delusional about what they, they're actually capable of. And I had never kind of thought about that until maybe very recently. In the last 18 months. I was, you're sitting listening to people going, I don't think that's accurate what you're telling me. What's coming out of your mouth? I don't think that's accurate. And, and people just like, yeah, that's, you know, I'm like, ah, interesting. Anyways, I don't, I don't want to go down that path. Is there anyone out There right now interviewing the like, people like Jordan and, and Brady and you know, LeBron's and like there's got to be someone getting into the psychology. Like if you, if, if not take the, take the lead, man. We need it. The world needs to understand it.

Yeah, well, you're starting to see some of it. There was a really good book, I think it was written by Jim Gray called Talking to Goats. He's a former broadcaster and he kind of talks a little bit about his experience and you get a glimpse in there. But then you're starting to see some of this stuff really in like the documentaries coming out, right? Like the free solos of the world, the Formula one, the new tennis series, Breakpoint and full swing. Like these things are started Last Dance. Like all these are starting to give you glimpses. But I don't think anyone's been granted access yet to like, here's a handful. You know, there's a series, I think it's on Apple or hbo, one of the two that they all about kind of elite performance and these little clips.

You want a functional mri. Jordan's brain always plays in a game, right? Like, what's happening in that cranium? How do I reproduce it? Yeah. So tell me about self regulation. You kind of, you got to give us a high level overview. But you saying that's the most important aspect. What specifically is it? How do we do it? How do we know someone's got it? Let's go a little bit deeper on that.

So I think about it in two parts. So I'll kind of go down both paths. The first is the ability to kind of control and direct your thinking, feeling and physiology. And so that's about skills like mindfulness, breath work, self talk, imagery, visual, you know, visualization, relaxation. There's a whole host of things that go in there, but it's really the ability to like, I don't want to overuse this word, but it's kind of the idea of control your mind, right? Like you're aware of what you need, how to energize yourself, when to calm down, when to ramp up. And you have the skill set to be able to do that at a high level. I think that plays into all sorts of things, right? It plays into things like decision making, emotional control, being fully present, being engaged, committed, disciplined. Like all of that comes down to having that really clear mental model of who you are, what you need, how to get yourself ready, how to prepare, how to stay in it, that I think just without that, you cannot reach the highest Level you can be good, but you can't be at all time great. I don't think without that. So that's one factor. And then the second element is what they call self regulated learning, which is really the ability to set a goal, actively monitor your progress, evaluate and adjust. And what we find is that people who take themselves through this learning loop like this, master skills a bit faster, they work on the hard stuff a little bit more, they train with a little bit different intensity and deliberate as to the way that they operate. And that allows them to essentially compound the growth of that skill over time. And so now you've got the ability to stick in it and do really tough stuff and control your psychology enough to do that, coupled with a real meticulousness in the way that you learn new skills and then over time those things come together in the moment of performance for you to really deliver. All of a sudden you've got a really master, deeply ingrained skill with this incredible psychology that I think is sort of the sweet spot. And some of the early data that we've got on this shows that elite soccer players who are up higher in their self regulation skills make more money, make more national team appearances, which as you know from soccer, like, you know, playing on the national team in soccer, it's like the absolute highest level that you can, can get to. Unlike other sports where maybe like, you know, basketball for example, like the NBA might be considered a little bit higher level than Feeba, like soccer, that, that is the pinnacle, like playing for team Argentina, Brazil, like that, that is a sign that you're one of the best in the world. And this factor separates those guys from the guys who are playing at a level just like the NBA. This elite club level sport, which is pretty cool, something that came up while.

You'Re talking, there is like almost belief in self, but it's also annoying. It's like what, what am I capable of doing physically and what am I capable of doing mentally? Because I think some people have, have, have borders, walls, you know, like I'm not physically capable of that, I'm not mentally capable of that. So the idea of like pushing the physical and mental capability further, right, the psychological capability, like knowing that, you know, thinking of myself, I just knew I was, I was willing to do anything mentally that I needed to do and physically I would do whatever I was capable. Like I was keep pushing and pushing and pushing. I never thought there was, I never thought there was a limit to what I was physically or mentally capable of. And I think like that's a. For what I've experienced probably a pretty strong predictor of, like, if you can get under the hood of somebody and say, like, where is this person's physical and mental capacity? What do they believe they're capable of? And this actually brings me back to the idea of, you know, actually sitting right here beside my desk reading a book. King, warrior, magician, lover. Sorry. It's really about the transition from. From boyhood to manhood into masculinity and talking about the. The idea of, like, how do you. What do you know when you're a man? Like, what. What makes you a man? It's. It's, you know, moving away from the childhood boyhood fears and moving into confidence and knowing and strength. And I'm curious how that ties in to sports, because in sports, the knowing comes from physical capability and a skill. As far as psychological capability, is that something you guys explore at all? Like, yeah, the. The journey from boyhood into masculine energy? Because I think a lot of these athletes are treated like celebrities. From the time they're 12, they get to 21, they're still acting like they're 13 or 12 or 13 years old. And they don't know how to balance checkbook. They don't know how to manage their life. Like, you're saying they don't have these basic life skills. And I could imagine that would really weigh on their psyche unconsciously because they lack the. The confidence to know they can. That's what I was kind of there. Yeah.

I think. I mean, I'm always thinking about that for the players I worked with and even the people I work with kind of outside of sports, like, there's just this. You do kind of have to take stock of, like, where people are developmentally. Do they really understand and grasp, like, one. The responsibility that they have? You know, especially, like, if you think about professional sports, you're kind of representing, in our case, right? You're representing a country, you're representing a team, you're representing an organization. Like, it's a very, very different big responsibility that these young men are taking on, and they really haven't ever had the opportunity to experience that in a real way before. And so I think it's our responsibility to try to help them and coach them and guide them and sort of give them the tools to sort of explore some of that a little bit deeper and make sense of it for themselves. But it's definitely something we think about. And I don't think. Again, I don't think I have the answer to this one. Necessarily. But what I do think about for these guys is things like, how do we help you understand who you are and what you value? How do we help you figure out how to take care of yourself, not just like, your material needs, but your emotional needs, your psychological needs, so that you can be a better team and you can be a better partner, you can be a better person when you leave here. And I think that's one of our responsibilities when we bring you into the organization is to help you whether you retire a Raptor or you leave the Raptors after your first contract or training camp, whatever, right. For whatever reason it might be, hopefully, between when you join and when you left, we helped you make some progress on that part.

How do you do that? So that was what you said, that one of the first things you said was we help you identify your values. How do you. What processes are you using to help and how do you help support people to live inside those values, to first identify them and then live within them? Yeah.

So, I mean, wonderful question. So there's so many ways you can identify values. My favorite way of kind of thinking about values with people is to do some kind of, like, futuristic, reflective exercise. Right. So, you know, if we wanted to do this for you, Ben, it'd be like, you know, imagine your retirement party from coaching or weightlifting. Like, what would you want people to say about you? Not what would they say about you or what would they say about you right now, but what would you like to be said about the kind of person you are, the coach you are, the bodybuilder you are. And from that, you can derive a lot of concepts around values. Right. I was hardworking, I was thoughtful, I was kind, I was caring. I was a good teammate. I was a winner. Right. I was a competitor. And then from there. So, okay, awesome. So we've wrapped up sort of with a bow. Like, what values, concepts, you want to live? What do you need to do today to get closer to that? And how can we turn that into a goal? Right. So what would we be looking for in the next 30 days? What would feel different? What behaviors would you be doing differently? And you might get back things like, I'd be more vocal on the court, or I talk with my partner more, or in the case of someone like you, thinking about weightlifting or bodybuilding, it might be like, I'm showing up consistently and I bring good energy or I'm encouraging of other people in the gym. There's lots of ways to go about living things. There's no one right way but you do have to name it and then frame it in a goal. I think for people to really maximize the utility of the values in that regard.

Do you think there's, there's a place for. So I'm just, I'm putting my, myself in the shoes of an 18 year old athlete comes in and you ask him the question, hey, who do you want to be when you retire? I suspect that an 18 year old athlete's worldview is very limited. Their understanding of what the potential that they could be is very limited. Do you have any ways of exposing young, high performing athletes to a broader worldview, like a broader scope of potential? So when I get to 80 or 60 or whatever, whenever I retire, if I did, or my obituary, what if I'm very limited in what I see as possibilities?

That's a great question too. I mean one, I would say, like you'd be surprised at the number of 18 year olds who actually have a sense of what they want their mark to be on the world. They just may not know how to get there yet. I mean, you mentioned this even about yourself, right? At 16, you knew kind of intuitively that you would be great at something. You weren't sure exactly how you'd get there yet, but you had that vision for yourself. And so I think a lot of 18 and younger people have that vision. Then the question is, okay, well what qualities do you want to exhibit while you're living that vision out? And I think people can generally think about that pretty constructively. But you've got to leave room for the values to evolve, right? Like who I was when I was 21, making decisions very different than who I am at my early 30s now, thinking about a family and all those other things. And so, you know, when you try to encourage or what I try to encourage in those situations, it's really an orientation toward like something bigger than yourself. I think that's like the most important part of that. I think the rest of the worldview, that stuff that's going to come with time with living a little bit more. And I don't, for me personally, like, I don't necessarily believe in speeding up someone else's journey like that. Like I kind of believe in let them go on their own journey and be here to support. And obviously you try to catch people before they fall in potholes or whatever, but assuming there's no potholes, you've got to figure it out and the lessons will be more valuable if you dig into it. And so it's my job to help you start looking and get going. As long as you're on the path and you're making progress, I feel fairly comfortable and confident. And that's true for any high performer. And then as we go, it might turn out that, you know, this other thing is suddenly much more important. Right. Maybe you're now going to have a family and you're going to recalibrate or something happens in your existing family and you need to change your approach. So that's how I think about kind of introducing the bigger stuff. But I am really looking for, I mean, ultimately, I think we all want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. We all want to feel connected to something larger and feel like we made an impact. And so that's what you sort of keep pushing for it until you find it.

Love the nuance of your thought process. Speaking along those lines, I told you I've become a mega fan of your Twitter overnight. And you wrote something recently about growth mindset and fixed mindset. Whereas historically, at least myself personally, I'm guilty of, of making it polar. Like it's, it's like you're either this or you're this. And I, I, I also acknowledge that it's situational. Some people can grow, grow growth mind in certain areas and fixed in others. But you actually made it even more nuanced than that. And you suggest that most great athletes are both growth mindset and fixed mindset in the same circumstance. I'd love to have you unpack that for us.

Yeah. So I think big picture, I mean, it's important to write. Where the research started was really on this idea that you could be high or low in both. Right. So they're sort of orthogonal concepts. Right. And it was really based on what was originally called incremental and entity theories of intelligence. Right. It was this idea that, like, intelligence is a fixed thing, there's not much you can do to change it. Or intelligence is an incremental thing and with hard work, effort, and some persistence, you can make it better. And so then Carol Dweck wrote a great book, Growth Mindset and that Mindset. But everyone sort of like locked into the growth mindset and became like sort of catch all, frankly garbage term for like, what people think is the most important way to exist. Right. And then they sort of like morphed it into all these other things. Right. So growth mindset became like, oh, you can always learn from failure, and you're always growing, you're always developing, you're constantly searching for new knowledge, and it's like, well, that's not really what this data shows. And it's also not like you're now attaching all these sort of tangential concepts that don't have any support, right? So, like, we know, for example, it's way harder to learn from failure than we think it is. So people will always say, like, oh, you know, failure is a great learning opportunity. Like, it's not really, it's not really that great of a learning opportunity. It really depends on how you do it and how you process the failure and when you process the failure and with whom. And so it's like you've got to kind of, like, dig into it a little bit. And so that's where I started with this premise was like, what does the real data suggest? And it turns out that, like, in an elite competitive environment, what you really want is a high level of both, right? Because what I want you to believe is you have an immense amount of talent. You have this really important quantity entity that lives within you that allows you to do what you do, right? You have a signature strength, you have incredible physical capacity. You have elite size, speed, talent, whatever. And you believe that with hard work, effort and persistence, you can maximize that, you can get better. And so I say growth mindset with the dash of fix. Mindset is like, look, ultimately, yes, I want you to be a little bit more reliant on things like effort, persistence, resilience, bouncing back. Like, all that is true. And if you have that and no fixed mindset, what you really get is someone who's not confident and just thinks, whatever happens, it's cool as long as I tried hard. And that's. I know this is taboo to say. That is not how the world works, right? Like, and you hear this all the time in sports stuff, right? I'll just trust the process. It's all going to work out. Don't focus on the outcome. Like, I think all that is total bs because in sports, you're measured by a scoreboard and an outcome. No one gets tapped or retained on a job because they trusted the process, right? You only get retained because you won games. And so you've got to recognize that a big part of this world, any world that's high performance, high, high competition, whether it's weightlifting, sales, startups, all these spaces like, talent does matter, ability does matter, the outcome does matter. It can't all just be, oh, it's all okay as long as I try hard. And so I really tried to push into the nuance of, yes, you want both. Like, of course Effort is great. I'm not saying don't try hard. I'm not even saying don't try to learn from failure. Of course you should try. It's just recognize those things are harder than we think they are. And without that ability or the belief in the ability that you have, you're never really going to maximize that effort. Yeah, man, I love it.

Is growth mindset something you could teach? You have somebody that comes in and they have a belief that they're fixed, or maybe they comes to mind. There's a bit of overlap here, but maybe they attach to the identity of like, hey, this is how I am. And I'm curious if you have some strategy or theory or practice around how you could help someone overcome that fixed identity.

The way that we do that in sport is by really targeting our feedback effectively. So you're not going to necessarily erase the fixed part, but if you start to give feedback about what you want people to pay attention to, people will follow that and their mindset will change sort of via influence, right? So, for example, as a coach, you might think about giving feedback about how hard someone's working versus how gifted they are, right? Like, oh, instead of the, hey, you're really talented. Like, we need you out there because you're just the best player. It's like, you're working really hard. We really want to reward that. As a reward, you're going to get to play more, right? So you think about emphasizing things like effort, persistence, hard work. The more you emphasize that and shape that with your language, the more someone is going to come to internalize that. That is like a critical factor to be paying attention attention to. And then you can start to give past some of the feedback. Sort of illustrates how controllable that is, right? So when someone's effort inevitably isn't as good as it always is, right? Like, hey, you know, I noticed that you didn't give as much effort today. Like, what could you do tomorrow to ramp that back up? Right? And you're illustrating through the way that you're talking to somebody just how much control they have really over what we call the growth mindset, right? This idea that I can come in and give good effort and work hard and be persistent. So that's the main way we try to shape it, right? And coaches shape it, parents shape it, peers shape it. Like all of us with what we emphasize helps change someone's mindset. I don't personally want to punish someone who sort of believes like, this is just the way that I am and I Mean punish in like the literal consequences, behaviorist sense. As a psychologist, like I wouldn't personally like double down on, say, no, you shouldn't think that way. Like I think we can find other creative ways to help you come into contact with the limits of that way of thinking. Ultimately for me, it's not really about do or don't think about you are this way. It's about recognizing how that is essentially a self limiting belief, right? Like at some point you're going to come into the edge of what you are and you're going to need to be some other way or be something else. And if you don't believe that that's possible, then we're going to hit the limit of what's fully your potential. And so we can sort of break down that fixed mindset part in the unhelpful places a little bit by just helping you realize the limitations of your own beliefs. But we can really shape the growth mindset with that good feedback.

Are you using any behavioral assessment tools or anything like behavioral or personality assessment tools to identify where these people sit on these spectrums?

I'm not for several reasons. You've touched on it a few times in our conversation. But people are notoriously bad self reporters. So the best way to sort of tease any of this apart is to watch, right? And you know, you see them, I mean, in my world I see them in an environment, a training environment, almost every day from September to April. So you get pretty clear pretty quick, you know, And I mean, you can see it if you watch any professional sporting event, right? You can see how people respond after a missed shot, made shot. What did they do when things get more challenging? How do they answer questions? You know, you're looking for some of those things. But if I just asked you growth mindset or fixed mindset? Most people tell you they have a growth mindset because that's what they think the right answer is.

One of the things you said earlier was you like to help curate the environment for people. And I'm curious. One thing that comes to mind is I know some people, certainly some athletes, are externally motivated, maybe by the people around them. They want to win, they want to beat them. Some people are internally motivated. They just want to be the best version of themselves. Do you ever curate, whether you have the capacity to curate like workout environments or practice environments to make sure, hey, these guys are paired together because they're going to feed off each other's energy to work, to work better together, say in the gym, whereas these other guys over Here, like, he just wants to be by himself. He does way better when he just has that privacy, that ability to be alone. Do you ever go to that nuance of being able to curate that for people? Because that's really interesting to me. Because I know for me personally, like, I want to beat everybody.

If I'm.

If I'm. If I'm standing in a room with a bunch of guys who are good, I'm going to find a way to beat them. And that would really drive me. Whereas I know other people just want to be left alone.

We don't go to that level, I think, for a few reasons, right? One is like, we're a team. So I think before anything else, right, like, the team has to come before all the individual needs, regardless of what your own needs are. It's really about what team needs. But if I were not in this environment and I was thinking about an environment like yours, or even more individual sports like tennis or golf, I would absolutely be thinking about that in a training environment. Because I think part of training is figuring out how you, like, maximize the value of that. Right. Like so much of training, Unfortunately, I'd be really curious about, like, your experience of this in your space. But in the pro sports space and the college sports space, when I've been around, so much of training is left on the table. Like, there's so much that's just going through the motions. Not super high value, not. Not really all that thought out. It's just kind of like, oh, these are the way we've always done things. We've always done football practice with 27 periods, and they're always this long and they're always this structure and we just repeat the same things every Monday and every Tuesday. And it's like, man, this just is one uninspired. But to probably not maximizing any one individual's ability here. So I would think for sure, in those, those environments, I would be playing with it a bit, a bit more to really get the most out of that. Is that true in your space? Is that a fair assumption?

So I don't know if it's true in bodybuilding space, but it's true, certainly. I mean, it's not in my world, but it's certainly true in pro sports that I've experienced. It's like, if there's a. If there's. There's a strength coach that's been there for 15 to 20 years, it's his way or the highway, right? And even though you realize, like, hey, man, this is like very Outdated and then people are afraid to make changes because there's so much bureaucracy. Yeah, it's so true. And what I'm seeing, I don't know if you're seeing this, teams that actually move away from that are starting to separate themselves from the pack, which is really great to see because I know personally some teams who are actually hiring really, really effective performance coaches or directors of performance and doing an exceptional job in tracking the metrics, the training volume, the playing volume, and making sure people are actually maximizing their physical capability as being measured by certainly point outcome, but certainly also man game injuries, man games missed, which I think are maybe two of the most important metrics when it comes to sports. So, yeah, I think you're right in saying that there's still a huge percentage of the population that's very primitive. But I do see, you know, and I don't know a percentage, but I do see a percentage of them that are going in the right direction.

Yeah, that makes sense to me. I mean, I feel like there's. As the technology advances, as our knowledge and understanding advances, the space is sometimes a little bit slower to keep up. But you're absolutely right. Yeah, I do, I do see a few, few places who are really at the, at the forefront of this and they're using it as competitive advantage. Right. Still taking up space.

And the reality is, as you'll probably also know, there's a very small handful of guys in the world who are experienced enough, capable enough to understand all of the potential influences. Right. You throw somebody in as the director of performance, you got to have a lot of faith in this guy's ability to make really good decisions, not waste time, not waste money on a bunch of stuff that's probably not going to work out anyways. You can't have someone who's like too fast on the technology because you know he's going to waste money on stuff he can't be got. He's too slow on technology because he's going to waste time. There's. I understand the trepidation to make changes because there's a. There's a lot of responsibility going into those people's hands to, you know, because as a performance coach, you got to know everything, man. You know, everything from all angles. You know, again, I'm sure you guys have performance coaches with the Raptors, and I'm sure you're involved in some of those conversations on how to maximize each person's output.

Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right. I mean, we're all thinking about, perform I mean, that's the beauty of the team, right. We're all thinking about performance from our own angle. We come together, and you've got a pretty robust group there. But it has to be that holistic approach that's figuring out where you, I mean, really squeeze out 1% for everything. I mean, that's the difference in a lot of these games.

Yeah. And then making those. Those decisions on, well, which one's most effective for which guy. Right. We only have so much time, you know, like, that's. There's a lot of. There's a lot. There a lot of responsibility for. Sure. You. You said in your Twitter recently, and I loved it, the best coaches in the world have maximum 10 rules. Talk to me about that. And where does that theory come from?

The theory comes from life, right? Like, you know, being around. I mean, I've been around NBA champion head coaches, NFL super bowl winning head coaches, college national champions, time and time again, Olympic gold medalist coaches, like these really, really elite performers, essentially, as coaches. Right. Like, I think of coaches as performers, too. And so I've started to think a bit about, like, what are the things that. That separate them? And this was just sort of a cheeky, maybe example of one of the behaviors that they do, but really at the core of this idea is like, look, they simplify the message. They have a really clear vision, and they're able to sort of craft. Their. Craft the culture to fit what it is that they want in a really simplified way that people can follow. And so what I think is the Beauty of the 10 rules is that it's simple enough that people can grasp it and it doesn't feel overwhelming. It's comprehensive enough when that's done. Right. That it can guide almost all behavior that happens under the roof of a athletic facility or in the context of a program. And it's then digestible and accessible enough to the athletes that they want to internalize and action it. So I've also seen the opposite, right, where coaches have, I mean, handbooks, right? You have 40 pages, 50 pages of rules, what to wear on the bus, what not to wear on the bus, how you do this with your cleats, where you put your helmet, what kind of face paint you could wear, and it's just like this. Over legislation of performance or over legislation of how the culture should be done, just ends up being super restrictive, right? And so I think there's a beauty to this sweet spot. 10 is sort of an arbitrary number. But there's a beauty to this sweet spot where essentially what you've done is give freedom within a structure. And I think what we find is that people who are in that situation where they're given the autonomy to execute, they're given freedom to deliver in a way that allows them to fully express themselves and their strengths. And they know the way they're supposed to do that within the structure is a really good recipe for people performing well. People don't perform well when there's no structure and people don't perform well when there's only one way to do it.

When we, when you think about performance, mindset and maximizing performance, what have we missed so far in a conversation that we shouldn't miss?

I don't know how we would get to it, but you know, I think there's just, there's so much more to this space that's just like bubbling under the surface. And I think one of the places we started was like this idea of a framework. And so I'd love to share what I'm thinking. I don't know that it's right, but I'd love to share what I'm thinking and kind of hear what you have to say about it because I think it could help me get better.

Yeah, I'd love to hear.

So it's still loosely formed, but you sort of heard, you know, some of the factors, right? So the environment, the wellness piece, the optimized mindsets, the self regulation. The other parts of my framework I'm thinking about are practice and preparation. So both psychological and physical practice. I mean, this is something I've played a lot with in the non sports space for performance. But like executives and other leaders where it's like most of those people don't really practice, but if they did, they would be excellent. So that's one. The second is energy management. So your ability to sort of ramp up, ramp down, know when you need to refuel, knowing you have a little bit more to give, understanding the context, figuring out how to increase it. The third is kind of what I would describe as presence. So presence sort of to me encompasses things like focus, attention, but also being fully in the moment. The fourth bucket would be resilience. So the ability to sort of respond to stressors, bounce back and ultimately bounce forward in your performance. So I think the best definition I ever heard of resilience was this idea that resilience is really seeking growth even when the conditions don't support it. And so that's a lot of how I think about resilience a little bit less from that lens of there's always an adversity or a failure, and now you've got to bounce back, but a little bit more. Regardless. There's the. There's these conditions that are maybe not favorable, and you're still seeking to push yourself ahead. So that's kind of my, that's my fourth factor, fourth bucket and then my fifth bucket is this idea of like, psychological flexibility, adaptive capacity, sort of this ability to live according to your values. Right. Pursue, pursue your goals in a meaningful way. Remain open to your experience. Deal with your thinking, feeling and physiology well, and stay present with performance. What do you think?

Yeah, I think one thing, one thing you also said on your Twitter that shouldn't be overlooked, and I'm sure you've considered this is like tracking and reflection. So, like, I think people who are repeatedly, repeatedly successful either track or certainly reflect. And sometimes it's done dynamically, as you say, it's the idea of presence, but sometimes it's also done kind of retroactively or you're going to go do a debrief. And I think you just wrote about this recently on Twitter as well. It's like, that has to be done. It has to be like, we have to be able to reflect on an honest fashion with ourselves, on how we performed and what could we do better? And not only what could we do better, but what are we going to do to make sure it's better next time? I think that's, that's a hallmark for me of people who succeed as people are just constantly iterating. They're constantly looking for, like you said, the difference between growth and fix or the dynamic between growth and fixed. Is it like, yeah, I know I can be better and I'm going to look for that nuance. I think that's what, what makes set me apart was the level of detail, second to none. Like, and I knew that there was no one that was going to do the level of detail, pay attention to as many details and reflect as often as I did. Just iterate, iterate, iterate. So it's like, just go. I think that's what I think. I know you were strong on that on your, on your Twitter, and that was a really good point.

I like that. I'll have to figure out where I include that, but that's awesome. I appreciate this. This was fun, man.

Yeah, man. Likewise, dude. I'm a nerd for this stuff. What are the three last books that you've read that have made an impact on your two books specific to this space or specific to any Space, actually.

Yeah, sure. So probably the Art of Impossible by Steven Kotler.

I think that's a really good performance.

Book I really, really enjoyed. Free Freely Determined is what it's called by Keenan Sheldon. It's a little bit on the denser side as books go, but if you can get past that, it's a really, really good book on kind of free will, but also just like, all the factors that go into someone living their, like, fully agentic, authentic life. So I really enjoyed that. And then Transcend by Scott Barry Kaufman. Yep. Is another one I've really enjoyed, I would say. I know you asked for three, but I'm going to give you a couple more. Probably. Probably the book that I still like, think about the most, and I'm trying to get deeper into that's probably been the most important psychology book I've read in the last 10 years, was seven and a half lessons about the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett. She's a good friend and just like an absolutely brilliant neuroscientist. But she really changed the way I think about how performance is executed and what really happens when people are playing. You know, so you hear things like read and react, and it's like, no, it's actually like, predict, you know, like, very opposite. Right. And so, like, that's been a real game changer for me. And then the fifth one I'd give you that is it's influencing my work in ways I wouldn't have imagined. And I can't still really figure out how it's doing. This was Noise by Daniel Kahneman and Cass Sunstein. Not really a performance book, really a book about decision making and judgment. But when I think about elite performance, whether it's sports, business, performing arts, a lot of it comes down to things like decision making, performance under pressure and leadership, like these kind of bigger buckets. And so if decision making is one core bucket, I want to get really good at understanding how people make good decisions.

That's a hugely important point. So I was saying to my kids the other day that, you know, if I. One of the. One of the main wishes I have for them is that they make good decisions. And I also said that I tend to explore over the next 10 years. My kids are 9 and 11, over the next 10 years, how to support them in making good decisions. Because as we know, it's probably not the conscious mind that's driving the bus in most cases. So, yeah, I understand. That would be great. So I'll definitely dig into. All Daniel Kahneman stuff is fantastic, but Alex Man, I really appreciate your time. Thank you very much for what you do, man. Hopefully we can do it again. Look forward to connecting in the future.

Anytime. Ben, thanks so much for having me. This was a pleasure.

That's a wrap, ladies and gents. Thank you for being a consistent guest of the Muscle Intelligent, or call it listener of the Muscle Intelligence podcast. You are definitely my guest in being here. And thank you to Alex Auerbach for joining me today to really dive into performance psychology. As I said, I've been a student at performance psychology since I was probably 17 because I really wanted to understand what makes people tick. I still am this constant student of life and I see people who are just crushing it and then I see people who are just sabotaging themselves, just running face first into the wall the same all over and over again. I start to just really wonder and ponder like, what's the difference and what is that key that we can just simply offer to unlock, you know, human potential? And human potential is almost always limited by psychology, right? Certainly there's some physical limitations, I guess, some physical boundaries, we'll say, right. Of the human system because everyone has different capabilities. But I don't think there's very many people on this planet who have exhausted the extent of their physical capabilities. And certainly the reason you're not exhausting the extent of your physical capabilities, all of us, myself included, our psychological limitations, right? So it's either the standard to which you hold yourself, the goals you set, or some limiting belief or what you think you're capable of. And you know, if there's somebody out there running 100 mile marathon, if there's somebody out there squatting a thousand pounds, it doesn't mean you have to do that. It doesn't mean you have to run a hundred mile marathon at once without resting. It doesn't mean you have to squat a thousand pounds or bench press, you know, £700. But if someone can do that much, then you can do a fraction of that, right? And that was literally the message I gave myself around how I became a professional bodybuilder. I saw Marcus Rule, previous professional bodybuilder, sitting with, on a table, with his arms on the table just like I am now. And he was literally resting his chin on his chest and I was like, that's not even human. If that guy can build that much muscle, then I could become a professional bodybuilder even, because I don't think I would need that much. And I did. And that was a big inspiration for me. So hopefully you guys Take inspiration from everything around you and lift everyone else around you up. And let's create a community of leaders in this world. Hopefully men and women that show up at the highest and best for themselves. So you can show up at the highest and best of what matters most to you. For me, it's family. Second, it's my team and then it's my tribe, it's my community. Like people like yourself. So guys, thanks for being here. Sorry for the long intros and outros. Just a little inspired today. And one more time, shout out to my camp awesome intelligence.com camp. You get to interact with me personally. I'm there. I'm teaching it myself. My head coach, Gavin, Tori, who's just a fat loss master, a programming master, and just an amazing overall human. And you guys will know, in my life now, I surround myself with really, really great people and you should too, right? And this is by design, not by accident, right? I choose the people around. I'd rather be by myself than around people that I don't want to be around. And my, my community, my network of coaches is just truly remarkable and I feel blessed to work with them every day. For someone who wants to be coached by me or by my team, you can reach out to us@muscleintelligence.com apply that's a P, P L, Y. And a final shout out to our sponsor, NaturalStacks.com Muscle NaturalStacks.com Muscle use the code Muscle15 at checkout. 15% off. Super high quality supplements that are super high quality standard for testing impurity and every bottle supplements has a QR code where you can see the third party testing results. Their Brain food series is absolutely worth checking out. These are supplements formulated in combination of precursors for your neurotransmitters. As I said, I just love guys. Ladies, thank you. You're awesome. Keep being awesome. Have a wonderful day.

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