The Uncomfortable Truth About Excellence: Why Tension Is Necessary For Growth- Alex Auerbach

It often feels like anything that we want to achieve that's exceptional is a tension between virtues. So working hard, rest, right? How do we adequately work hard and rest and then do the millions of other things that needs to happen in order to achieve something exceptional?

Man, Just jumping in with the heavy hitters, man, I love it. I love where your head's at. I mean, it's interesting. I think the tension is probably valuable, right? In that it sort of is a signal that there's like stuff you need to pay attention to. So I think it's starting from a place of curiosity about why that tension exists in the first place. I think can be a big unlock for thinking about making the most of action in service of these virtues, right? The virtues are sort of a compass, a guiding framework for decisions and ultimately for behavior. But there's not like a right or wrong, good or bad, or one better than the other, right? So what makes them useful is understanding when to prioritize which virtue and detention is sort of a sign that there's maybe some conflict or there's. There's a virtue that needs some attending. So I think from stepping back and sort of looking at it from that framework, I think makes it a little easier to navigate some of those things. Because it's not really a work hard or rest. It's a work hard and rest, right? And being strategic about understanding when each one is required, right? They're like, I think of, you know, guys like you, right? Pro athletes where it's like, you might wake up on a Saturday, your game day Sunday, you wake up on a Saturday, you might feel great, you know, and so your head might be like, man, I could just totally crush a workout right now. Like, okay, but is that what's best for your performance tomorrow, right? Is rest better for your performance tomorrow? Or NBA guys, like we have guys showing up at 3am in the gym. It's like, okay, you're working hard, but is that what's best for your performance long term? Right? So thinking through at each choice point, really what virtue or value would best serve you, I think is kind of the key to making the most of those things over the long term. And then really it's the integration is the source of the excellence, right? So honoring and respecting that both values are important, that both virtues matter is what actually leads you to making the decisions that lead to the long term success over time. If you over index too heavy on one or the other, you're probably never going to make it.

Where do you find the best way to Measure what you need the most in a moment.

Honestly, I think people are pretty intuitive. Just as a virtue of self awareness. I think the most important thing you can cultivate is a little bit of a sense of your own goals, needs, values, drivers. So you can listen to that in the moment. But then I think I would use your own body is information, right? So you use like a really simple metaphor for a minute. Imagine strength training, right? Like maybe you go, you know, I did this CrossFit open workout this morning. I can already feel it in my shoulders, right? So like, should pay attention to that. I probably shouldn't hit shoulders tomorrow, you know, like should be thoughtful about that. And so I think it's little things like that, right? Like being aware of what you have been through, what you're going through, what's important to you right now, how you're feeling. You know, those bits of data are really, really important. Obviously you can then use things like wearables or other devices, right, to like get a sense of readiness. But I think ultimately like the best source of data is just trying to listen to yourself and understand yourself as best you can.

At what point you, you bring up wearing like wearables, like my whoop, I'm wearing right now. At what point is focusing too much on analytics over complicating what it's actually supposed to do, which is to provide you like, data on whether or not you should be doing something or not. But sometimes if I look too much at my sleep and I'm like, I'm never sleeping, I'm never sleeping, I'm never sleeping, it's going to make my sleep worse.

Yeah. I mean, speaking of tension, right? So there's a balance of course, to walk there. And you know, I mean there's, there's some data even that suggests that like if you have sleep issues, you shouldn't use a wearable, you know, because it does create some of this anxiety you're describing. I mean, again, I think it's kind of like the way I think about it is the way sports teams use analytics models, right? These models are here to inform and provide meaningful prediction or insight about what could happen. But they're not here to decide for you. So, you know, use, use the data as just another piece of information, but don't let that be the only thing that you use to make a decision. And you know, if you look at kind of championship level teams to zoom out to a slightly more, more macro level. Not going to name any team names here on the podcast, but there are definitely Teams in the NBA, for example, where you understand and, you know, like these teams draft based on the analytics, right? They're not really looking at character, who this person is, how hard they work, what they value, what they think about. Right. They're looking at the numbers and the metrics, and those teams can fare decently well, but those are not the teams that have won the championship in the last several years. And then you've got kind of the other side of the spectrum, where, yes, there's a heavy analytics, you know, component, but there's also a people component, a goodness of fit component of thinking about leadership, who's the coach. And so you can see how, like, having a little bit above and beyond just the data can often make you a bit more accurate in going after what it is that you are trying to pursue.

Speaking of like, building a roster leadership, how do you balance the different types of personalities? And one is one personality too much where you need to kind of counterbalance it.

This might be a controversial opinion, Colin, but I think the reality is most teams, I don't think, care that much about personality stuff. When the talent is good enough, you know, people are willing to kind of tolerate most anything for a really, really good player. And again, I won't name any names, but you can probably think of countless popular examples right now across leagues where the right amount of talent overcomes pretty much anything else that people find outrageous. Because there's something there that you're trying to kind of tap into. And it's basically like, let's just kind of hold on and ride this as long as we can, and hopefully we don't get burned too much on the way down kind of mentality. But I think. I think that's a reality, you know. So where I think the personality starts to matter more is kind of in like the 90th and below percentile of player. Right. Or maybe it's 95th percentile below percentile, where, you know, there is a little bit of wiggle room, but you still really care about how this person shows up, you know, no. No kind of criminal activity or whatever it might be. Right. And I think for those folks, what you're really trying to find is, is less like, is there a right personality and more like, is this personality good for us? What are we getting with this person? And do they fit with the larger group that we have here? I mean, in sports, like, aside from what's happening in the wnba, with some expansion right now, you very rarely get to really build a team from scratch, right? So a Lot of what you have to do when you're thinking about integrating people is balance what this person could bring with what already exists and understand do they complement or do they enhance or do they hinder the group that's already there? I definitely think the best teams are thinking about that, but I think a lot of what they're thinking about is making sure that bringing this person in doesn't like, totally derail what we've got going versus this person's a real kind of culture enhancer in the way that we might think is maybe most important.

Can you change personality?

Depends on who you ask. Depends on what scientist you, what scientists you ask. I think you can change behavior. I'm not sure you can change kind of the more ingrained patterns that people tend to have across spaces in their life without really deliberate and intentional work. Like, people just have a predisposition to showing up in specific ways that I think is most likely going to kind of carry them. But you can definitely change some of the behavior.

What is something tangible that you can do to start changing someone's behavior in the right way? Particularly if they're someone who's a little harder to reach or they're more, you know, reluctant to. To take advice or coaching? How do you begin to pull those people in the right direction?

Yeah, I mean, it's. It's hard. It depends on the person. Right. But I think a few things are really important. So the, the first is aligning the change with some kind of incentive or reward, right? So people have to understand the benefits of making the change. You know? You know, this, like, change is hard, change is scary. So people are not going to be super excited about making changes if they don't understand what's in it for them. So regardless of how hard they are to reach or how easy they are to reach, you first have to kind of establish that this is what's in it for you if you make this change. And this is why this change is important. The second thing is I think you need to give people small but significant steps they can take to make progress in that direction, and you need to reinforce that progress as they go. So a lot of times when people think about making behavior change, what they think about is sort of all or nothing, right? Like, he either does the thing or doesn't do the thing, or she makes a change or she doesn't. So it's not that simple. Right. Like, people are going to hit obstacles if they start changing. They might have, you know, new thoughts or new internal dialogue that interferes or they might feel something new that's uncomfortable that they have to navigate. So, like, people need other skills or resources to sort of deal with change effectively. And so the small steps with reinforcement makes it a little bit easier to kind of juggle some of that. And then third, I think you need real feedback, right? Coaching or some feedback from your environment that tells you whether or not the change is working in the direction that you want and how to keep kind of iterating there. There's obviously other things you can do. You know, you can provide some education about the change. You can, you know, use external or internal incentives to sort of promote it. But I think those kind of three things are at the core.

One thing I notice is, you know, particularly with draft prep season for the NFL, is some guys who have like a natural level of talent that others do not, but they really struggle with the awareness piece and the actual tangible hard work it requires. The intentionality in the weight room, the intentionality in position drills, and they kind of just nonchalant go through it in the amount of times that you'll try and correct it and give a speech even. So it's like a team, right? A team environment where it's like you will go on and on as if you're talking to all 50, but you're really talking to one person. And then there's times where you separate that one person, try to have a conversation with them, and it just feels like sometimes nothing gets through. Are some people just not reachable?

My short answer is no, but I think oftentimes people are pretty afraid to be direct when they would need to be. And so it's not necessarily that people are unreachable. It's that the tools that we're using to reach them aren't working. I mean, I can think you've been on big teams. I can certainly think of teams I've been a part of where, you know, coach gets up and gives this big speech about effort and practice. And he's, you know, to your point, he's talking to like the three guys that are having a water bottle fight on the sideline during, during team period, you know, and it's like, well, if those three guys are the issue, like, don't give us a lecture about energy and effort when the rest of the group is like grinding, like, just talk to those three guys about not doing that thing, right? And so. And then of course, you know, oftentimes those three guys are not the people that are like, oh, he's talking about me. You Know, like if they had level of awareness, they wouldn't be over there having a water bottle fight. So, you know, I think, I think you've got to figure out like different mediums, right? Different mediums for, for the same message. Whether it's, you know, film review, whether it's one on one conversation, whether it's using an assistant coach or a teammate or a captain. Right. There's lots of ways, but I don't think there's anyone that's unreachable. I think it's more a matter of not reaching them effectively with the strategies you've tried yet.

Do you think there's value in using the negativity of a situation to drive behavior? For example, hey, in three weeks, if you don't do well on your pro day, you're not going to be a football player anymore, right? Like, is there value in that?

I think so. I mean, you've known me long enough now to know some of my philosophy. But like, look, I think people should be made aware of what the real consequences are of their existence and behavior. If you don't tell someone that there's a risk that they're getting cut, they don't really know. And then when they get cut, they're going to be surprised. And so that's maybe not the best way to handle it overall anyway. No one should be surprised by a bit of feedback like that they're getting. They should be told along the way. So I think it makes sense to let people know what's really at stake. Yes, that might increase pressure, might increase perceived anxiety, but again, that information is useful, right? If you're anxious about the possibility of being cut, you can use that energy to help you work a little bit harder, perform a little bit better, grind a little bit more, rest a little harder, whatever it is that you might need to do. But if you don't have that information, you're not going to change anything. So I think you should give people that data to make an informed decision to the best of your ability.

What frameworks would you suggest to use that anxiety energy into a positive manner?

I think the most important thing you can do is learn to, I guess two things. First is recognize that all emotion at its core is information, right? So we've got, as a society, we get sort of really wrapped up in this, like positive versus negative emotion, right? It's like I want to feel good, I want to be happy, I should feel content, I want to be at peace, I don't want any stress. And like, look, that's Nice. Like, it'd be great to have a world where we had all peace and no stress. Like, I'm here for it, but that's just not the world that we live in. So that doesn't make emotions that aren't those things bad. And so I think that that first step is sort of recognizing this anxiety, that sadness, that fear, whatever. That's data for you about the environment that you're in and the situation that you're in. And you should try to extract whatever you can from that information to inform whatever your next decision is. Right. So maybe that anxiety is a sign that you really care, or that fear is a sign that you haven't trained hard enough or you're not ready in the way that you need to be. Right. Or that sadness is a sign you need to connect with more people or maybe rest a little bit more so you're not burnt out. Right. The second thing is to play with the way that you frame the emotion in your head to make it work for you. So the best example I can give of this, and I know you've heard me talk about this in the past, is the kind of stress is enhancing mindset. Right. If you call nervousness excitement, it works much better for you, even though the underlying physiology is the same. Right. If you see stress not as a problem, but as something that helps you, you're going to tap into the benefits of that stress in ways that you won't if you're trying to just get rid of it as quickly as possible. So you've got to kind of take steps internally to sort of change the way that you think about what's going on. And I think it starts with recognizing, again, this. This is just data. What I'm feeling right now is just information about my experience. And then I can kind of choose how to categorize that experience in a way that works for me.

Is there any, like, questions that you can ask yourself when you're doing that internal reflection on the information that it's giving you so that when it comes time to reframing, hey, nervousness as excitement, it's as simple as just, like, speaking it as opposed to saying it but not really believing it?

Yeah, I mean, like anything, it takes practice, right? So I think the first thing you can do is just get the reps in, you know, like, practice seeing it that way. Practice reminding yourself. I'm excited. You're going to catch yourself in your default mode a bunch. Right. So the more that you can, like, well, no. Okay, maybe this is a Nervousness, Maybe I am excited. Oh, I can see why I care about that. Right. Or maybe there is an opportunity here. Like, the more you can rep it out, I think the better it will be and the more natural will become. But honestly, I think the easiest question to ask yourself is just what is this trying to tell me right now? Forget like, how do I get rid of this as quickly as possible? Which is the default question most people ask themselves, right? Like, what is the information here? What can I learn from what I'm feeling right now? And try to slow down a little bit and answer that question. And if you can answer that question, then that'll be a really meaningful step in the right direction to sort of like, getting that good data out of it and also make it easier to do some of the reframing of the next part.

How do you use this when it comes to pressure? We're talking about, like, legitimate pressure. Like, hey, this 40, my career depends on it. Like, how do you recognize the concept of pressure but not put too much into the, you know, emotional attachment to the outcome?

Yeah, I mean, I hear those as kind of two different questions, right? So one is, how do you deal with the pressure? And the second is like, how do you not put too much into the. The outcome? So the deal with the pressure, I mean, very tactically, we know there's kind of three steps you can take when you're under pressure to improve your performance. The first is to have a really clear goal in mind. So if we're taking a guy who's running a 40, it's like, what's the time you need to get? And like, let's. Let's crystallize that in our mind and then let's break that down into the steps we need to take, right? So maybe it's fast off the line or it's a quick jump or whatever it is that you kind of trained for. Like, you want to focus your attention on not on the pressure, Right. But on executing that goal to the best of your ability. The second thing you want to do is see that pressure as an opportunity. Right. This is a chance to show what I'm made of. This is a chance to demonstrate my signature strengths. This is what I've been training for. I'm excited. All this kind of self talk that supports this idea that this is an opportunity. And then third is you're going to consciously increase your effort. And you've heard these stories of people who, you know, lift cars off infants, Right. Like, a lot of this comes from this sort of idea that humans really do have an untapped sort of energy store that if they really push themselves, that they can access. There's some interesting data that shows that our brain starts to send signals about pain when we're running, for example, at as early as maybe 30% of our capacity, right? So like at 30% in your brain starts to be like, you're working kind of hard. Like, are you sure you want to work this hard? It might be better if you just slowed down. Like, you don't have to run, you know, don't have to run so hard, right? And your brain's doing what it's designed to do. It's designed to preserve your energy and keep you alive. But it's not really that useful at 30% of your capacity, right? Like, you got a long way to go before you're really tapped out. And so this kind of conscious increasing of effort allows you to sort of push past that point. And again, if you take the distance runner, let's say, right, you're running a marathon, well, 30% of your marathon, you're at what, like five miles or something like that, Maybe a little bit more. Your legs start to feel a little bit heavy. But then if you keep running and you sort of like wait it out, you find kind of that runner's high and it starts to not feel so bad and things keep moving on. And that's just purely a function of putting the effort in beyond kind of what you felt was possible. And so the same thing applies kind of in the 40 time, right? You don't need to run a marathon to access this. It's like, okay, I'm going to like choose to give 100% and like really give 100% here. Um, not gonna hold back. I'm not gonna be worried about the outcome which we talk about next. I think I'm just gonna give that kind of full effort. So that's kind of what I would suggest for dealing with the pressure. Cause I think those three steps, there's good data to back that up, but it's also like an easy formula to apply. Look, when it comes to dealing with the outcome, like, it's hard because the outcomes do matter. Like I, I know everyone loves to talk about the process and I think that's great. And there is a ton of merit to being process driven, right? And process focused. Like that's the only thing you can control that's, it's a much healthier way to approach high performance. But we kind of have over indexed on this idea that like, the outcomes don't really matter if you just love the journey. And like, that's just not true. Like, the outcomes do matter. I don't know any significant thing that happens in life where the outcome doesn't matter. Like, it does matter. But that doesn't mean that you have to define your value as a person by the outcome you achieve. And I think that's really the key, right, Is like, you can work really hard for something, you can want something really badly and not get it. And that doesn't mean that you're not worthy. Those two things can be true. And so you have to kind of work hard to recognize that what you achieve or don't achieve doesn't determine your overall value as a person and whether or not you're worthy of some of the basic human needs. We all have love, connection, companionship, whatever. And I think if you can get to that point where you can say, look, this really matters to me and I'd love to win, but if I don't win, I'm going to be okay, that's a pretty good outlook to have.

One thing I really struggle with personally is when I reach an achievement, right? Because I agree outcomes do matter, but it's not enough. I want to achieve more. And once I achieve that goal, then I want to achieve more. And it's some ways it's great because it pushes me, it moves me. I do a lot of really cool things, but in the same breath, sometimes it can be exhausting, like, lacking that, you know, full fulfillment piece of it. And I talk with a lot of athletes who are like this, where it's like, yeah, hey, you know, have a great pro day. Okay, well, now it's, hey, now I gotta get to camp. And then it's like, okay, now I get to camp. Now it's like, okay, now I gotta make the roster. And you just keep pushing and pushing and pushing and it's, it's great because you achieve a lot. But then it's like at some point you, like, look back and you're like, I need to take like a breath.

And it's.

Where do you begin to kind of deal with that in a healthy way?

So what you're describing is called the hedonic treadmill. And it's this idea that as you achieve more, you just kind of move the goalposts. And usually we associate that with what we just talked about, right? Like really connecting your value and your sense of self efficacy or self esteem to what you've accomplished. And where it gets sticky is like, you know, to use your NFL example, right, there's always people that are ahead of you. You know, there's always a player that makes more money than you or a guy who had a better career than you, right? So, like moving the goalpost continuously and using that as your benchmark for your value, you're always going to be a bit disappointed, right? You're never going to find that kind of like inner peace or satisfaction you'd be looking for because you can just look to the next milestone. And even you can play this out in the most extreme examples, right? Like, even if you're the best quarterback of all time, like someone's going to come after you and probably break your records, right? There's a. The owner is always going to have more money than you. You know, like, there's lots of ways to slice it. The other way we think about well being is. So this is kind of hedonic well being. The other way we think about it is what's called eudaimonic well being. And this is really the idea that you sort of. You fall in love with your purpose and you're sort of a person driven by values. You're driven by kind of an internal compass. And how you measure your success is really based on how well. Did I become the best version of myself today, right? Did I do what I said was most important to me today? Did I live my values today in a way that represent me becoming the kind of person that I want to be? And what we find is that people who approach life that way, one, tend to have, ironically, more success, right? Because if you're sort of pushing yourself to become the best version of yourself, you're probably going to achieve a few things along the way in your chosen field. And two, they feel better about it, but it just requires getting real clarity on your values and understanding what it is that matters most to you. It requires consistently aligning your actions and goals with those values. So the system kind of works in harmony. You're not saying that you value one thing, but your goals or your actions reflect valuing something else. And then, you know, speaking of being conscious, right, we have to sort of like recognize when we're doing the thing where we move the goalposts, right? You know, and not getting so hung up on that as the definition of success, but a little bit more, you know, present with the idea that aligning with your values is going to lead to what it is that's really most important to you.

How do you compare that to, like the obsessive mindset like, which one wins in the long term and where do trade offs begin?

Well, so I'll reposition you a little bit, right. But you're kind of, you're barking up the same tree here. So then there's this other line of research which is really closely connected here, is basically obsessive versus harmonious passion, right? So obsessive passion comes from this place of like, you almost feel compelled to do it because it feels like it's the only way that you're going to add value or be experienced positively in the world. Harmonious passion is like, you're doing this because you intrinsically care about it and it's exciting to you, right? And so, but both, both can sort of manifest as obsessional behavior, right? So like both, both people, you know, you, let's say you have a harmonious passion and I have obsessive passion. We might still both be in the gym at the same time, right? Or on the practice field at the same time. But we might be doing it for very different reasons. And so, you know, it's the underlying sort of source of fuel that becomes the thing that determines like, whether or not you're going to sustain or how we're going to when adversity hits or the other things that are sort of inevitable in performance. Right. Like, it's fine for both of us to stay after practice, but if, you know, I fold at the first sign of failure and you keep going because you just love the game, like that's going to make a big difference in our long term outcomes. So I'm not, I'm cool with people being obsessed. I think being obsessed is a good thing as long as it's in a, in a healthy way and it's something that you genuinely are invested in. You know, if you're obsessed just because you feel like you should be, right, or someone told you you were going to be an NFL player, someone told you, you know, if you just obsess enough, you're gonna, you're gonna make it to the league. Like, that's probably not good enough to sustain you over the long term.

In this episode is brought to you by All Black Everything Performance Energy Drink, the official energy drink of the Athletic Fortitude podcast available in Walmart, Meijer and select GNC franchise MC locations. So when it comes to that adversity piece like you just talked to.

What.

Is like, is there a healthy amount of time, like when something hits and you're just like, you feel it, right? And you're like, this sucks and all the negative thoughts, all the frustration that you failed is hitting you. Is there like an appropriate amount of time for you to recognize that type of pain and emotion before taking action to get out of it? Or is it simply the healthiest way is to minimize the gap between thoughts and actions of getting out of it.

There's no like, right time, you know, so the people I've seen have the most success with this are kind of like the Nick Sabins of the world where they have the 24 hour rule. Good, good and bad. I think coming up with a framework for yourself, I think can be probably the most important thing you can do. And everyone's a little different, you know, so like, when something bad happens to me, I usually say, like, if it still bothers me after a day, then I'll like, probably do something about it. If I make it a day and it like no longer bothers me or it's like not that big of a deal, then I'm just gonna like, move on, you know, and it gives me sort of a way to give myself permission to feel whatever I'm feeling and not feel the need to like, overreact or overdo it. You know, we've all. I mean, this is not a perfectly true scientific concept, but we've all heard of, you know, people acting out of emotion, right? You shouldn't make a big decision when you're. When you're in the midd of something emotional. And the reality is like, we all make decisions with emotion present all the time. You can't shut your emotion off. But when you're feeling really intensely, sometimes action can get you out and sometimes action can dig you deeper. And so I think the real answer is really, how much time do you need to make a decision that most reflects the kind of person that you want to be? And how much time requires for you to get like, enough distance from whatever that adversity is so that you can see it, you know, and if you take like a sports example, right. People talk a lot about learning from failure. I know we've talked about this on your podcast. Like, the reality is you don't do it super well in the heat of the moment. Right? So trying to just fix it right away, like, you might get lucky and you might fix it, but you might not. You know, you might say something that makes it worse or do something that makes it worse. Right. And so just being thoughtful about that and having a framework, I think is probably the most important thing you could do. But I don't think there's A right or wrong answer. I suppose there's probably like a too long to wait, you know, like if you just let yourself go on for weeks, that's probably not right. But I don't know that the right answer is 10 minutes either, you know.

Have you found a personality trait that can be developed that equates really well to overcoming adversity or to being a really resilient person in general?

The concept that kind of first comes to mind is grit, right? So this idea of passion and perseverance for long term goals. There's a pretty healthy scientific debate about whether or not grit is real or whether or not it's just conscientiousness, which is actually like a big five personality trait kind of manifesting. And conscientiousness is really like the tendency to be dutiful, purposeful, controlled in the way that you approach what it is you're doing. So I think that's probably like the true personality structure that'd be most important for responding well to kind of adversity. And then I think you can think about sort of mental skills or mental states that would contribute to that, right? So if you've got someone who's maybe more like, quote unquote, mentally tough, right. Or who understands how to deploy specific mental skills, you might get a different response to adversity. But I think a lot of that comes from that conscientiousness in the first place.

I think about. You just talked about it briefly there, but in my own career where somewhere I was naturally really resilient, was like playing with injury. Like, I mean, I play with broken bones, torn ligaments, like didn't matter, like really hard to get me off the field, even though I missed a lot of games because there were some. I just, I couldn't play with a torn acl, but somewhere where I struggled as an athlete. And I know there's a lot of athletes like this where play snowball, right? Good and bad. I make a good play, it turns into five. I make a bad play, it turns into five, Right. And how do you transition the resilience in one area of your life to another? Relatively, I want to say seamlessly, but I understand, you know, things require work, but it's, how do I. How am I naturally resilient in one area, not in another? And how do I transition that?

Man, you're bringing all the hard questions. I guess my first thought is I would really dive into what is it that allowed you to be so resilient like that in one context, and what's missing from the other that you could try to mimic. So my hypothesis would be you really cared about football for lots of reasons. One was probably like you just really like the game. One was like your teammates. One was the monetary upside for participating. One was pride or ego. You know, lots of reasons to be persistent. And my hunch is that some of those things are probably missing in other areas. You know, maybe you don't care about it as much. The monetary upside isn't as high. The teammates aren't around. Right. And so those external things, those things going on in our environment, they play a huge part in the way that we think, feel and behave. So I think the first thing I would do is try to construct my environment to mimic the parts of the sport environment that most encouraged whatever behavior it is I wanted to see. So if that's, you know, you were able to push through things or you just worked harder, like really dial into, what is it about that that allowed that to happen? And then how do you replicate that somewhere else so that it's not like a thing missing from you? Right. It's like something you build into the system around you to sort of sustain. That's. That's probably how I would tackle that.

Yeah, I have a hard time articulating it because I'm obviously now completely different than I was when I played. And I wish I had, you know, my, my mindset now that I. That I didn't have, you know, 10 years ago or whatever because. And I always have a hard time articulating it. So I asked you the question, see if you could say it better than me. But over time, that same resilience I was able to apply to injuries and playing with injuries, that what I call like that physical mental toughness to, hey, handling some of the little detail failures or the in game failures or whatever it was. For me, it's probably why I talk about a lot is like the identity piece, right. And living out those values and reflecting on them so I could use it to be able to communicate with myself when a failure happened. And it was a weird kind of concept too, because I found myself in any type of competition, really became more obsessed with winning, but having the ability to move on if I lost, like, it didn't have power over me, but like I wanted it more. And I, I just, I struggled to explain it other than that.

Yeah, well, I mean, look, I think some of what you have is like maturity now, right? You have time on your side, you know, Like, I think when I tell.

My wife you said I was mature.

There you go. There you go. She'll love me for it. I think some of it is, like. I think a lot of it is probably that, right? It's like time and distance and ability to sort of reflect and, like, think about what you had or what was missing or how you did those things, and then to form, like, a thoughtful opinion around it. But so much of it, like, when you're in it, man, it's just so hard to see, like, how you're doing it. And it's also, you know, again, to come back to your environment, right? Like football, that's what's encouraged, you know, like, unless you're dead or bleeding out, you know, like, you. You play, right? Like, that's. That's kind of the mentality. And so I think if. If that's what you're around all the time, like, I mean, look at, like, Byron Lefwich, right? Like, this dude broke his leg, gets carried down the field by offensive linemen, wins the game, and it becomes like this hero story. No one's talking about how idiotic it is that this guy stayed out here with a broken leg. Like, all the potential damage that could have been done now, like, obviously, look, I'm super impressed, too, and I think it's amazing. I don't know that I think it's the right decision, but I think it's amazing. So I was like, I think you. I think you just. Some of it comes from the place that you're into where you can't see that, like, some of these things are good for you. Some of them are maybe harmful. It's kind of. It's kind of confusing, but, you know, like, this is how I have to operate if I'm going to survive here.

You said something earlier that I wanted to come back to. When you're talking about, like, acting out of emotion and, like, that's not necessarily scientifically correct. When is there enough evidence for you scientifically to start incorporating something new into. Whether it's your own practice or your work with athletes?

That's a good question. I mean, for me, like, I try to. Most of the things I try to do is look for multiple data points, right? So one scientific study, plus my lived experience, plus some feedback from an athlete, that's three data points. It's probably pretty good, right? Or when I was doing work, you're deeply embedded in a team, right? It'd be like someone brings a complaint forward about Johnny. It's like, okay, well, this is one data point about Johnny. If I hear this data point about Johnny two more times, like, probably good enough to do something. So I kind of approach it pretty similarly, you know, like, you know, if I read it in one paper, cool. If I can find a couple other places that support that idea, like, all right, there's probably something to, like, bring in here. And then I apply it on my own, and I see, like, does this work or not? You know, I'm one of those knuckleheads who sort of, you know, tries to put it all into practice for myself first. Like, try not to ask anyone to do something I wouldn't do myself. And so there has to be enough data to sort of support that for me to feel comfortable going after it. And then I'm going to try it, and I'm like, okay, you know, if it works for me, then I can try to bring it to somebody else kind of thing.

What is something that you see that makes your blood boil because you know it's not scientifically correct?

Man, how much time do we have? So there's a. There's a few of them. The first is learning styles. Learning styles are complete bullshit. I don't know if it's okay to swear on your podcast, so sorry.

Free reign for you, my friend.

Cool, man. Learning styles are complete bullshit. But we've been so indoctrinated into this idea that people are visual learners or auditory learners or kinesthetic learners that, like, we. That myth just persists. And the reality is, like, most people learn really great by experience, so we're all experiential learners, and no learning style touches that. Then the second thing is, like, we're all multimodal learners, which means that you need to see it and hear it and feel it and touch it and all those things for it to really sink in. And third is, you need some reflection. There is no learning without reflection and rest. And so I don't really care what your learning style is, because none of it's talking about this sort of key process that makes for learning actually happening. So that's one thing that I think is sort of an important myth. The second one that drives me nuts is the lizard brain commentary. You know, there's just. There's so much data refuting this idea that we have, like this reptilian part of your brain at the base of your brain called your amygdala that was, you know, evolved at one time period, and the rest of your brain evolved in another time period. It's just like. It's all a load of crap. You have one brain Human brains evolved to be the size that they are in large part because of the social relationships that we had and in large part because we had unique demands for our species. Like we're not the biggest and tallest and fastest and strongest, right? So we had to become the smartest. Like, that's sort of how it works. And the brain evolved the way that it evolved to function that way and promote evolution and survival in that way. It did not evolve from like a reptilian brain. It's just nonsense. So there's, there's a, there's a couple of them for you.

Oh, I've never heard the reptilian one. What, What? Point me to.

I got to.

You're going to have to point me to, to where I can read that after, after this. I'm super curious about the reptilian. Whatever.

Google tripartite brain T R I P A R T I T E Tripartite brain theory and then set your computer on fire from all the trash you just read.

I've seen you talk about self belief a lot. At the end of the day, is there anything more important than preparation that leads to self belief?

More important than preparation? I mean, I think it's probably preparation and experience, I think lead to it, right? So past success and good preparation, I think are probably the key. But I think preparation is. There's not really a replacement for preparation for feeling confident or having self belief in the context of like an upcoming performance. And I think, you know, to break that down a little bit further, like one of the things people sometimes get confused about is like, like, I have a CEO I work with right now, for example, who was basically telling me, he's like, man, I'm great in meetings without any preparation. And I'm like, I don't think that's true. He's like, well, I don't, I don't do any prep. I don't do any preparation anymore. I'm like, well, the thousands of meetings you've had before this meeting were all preparation. Like it was all part of the practice, you know, like, and I would still venture to guess if you spent five minutes before this, like, you'd probably be even better than you were today, you know, and so we, we do that, a little experiment. He's like, yeah, you're right. I was like, there's, there's not really a good replacement for doing that preparation. But I think like the true kind of inner sense of confidence, this self belief, this idea that like, I can do anything that I set my mind to, I think comes from past success and really understanding what it was about those past successes that made that happen for you. I think if you don't grasp that, then it's kind of a fleeting feeling, you know. But if you can really get a handle on your strengths, if you can really get a handle on why you were able to deliver the way that you were, I think you can build this pretty solid sense of I can do challenging things and I can. I can kind of make happen what I need to make happen.

So if you're in one of those situations where it's like losing begets losing, right? You just. You're stuck in that cycle, but you're putting in the work capable of winning. It's just for whatever reason not going your way, you're losing that. That self confidence. When the pressure gets too high for you, what is the first thing you can do to drive that belief that's going to get you over that hump of losing?

Well, so losing is like, it's a temporary thing, right? Even if it's like losing after losing, after losing, like it's still in the grand scheme of your life, it's sort of a small blip, you know what I mean? So I would. Zoom out would be sort of first, right? Like, if you made it to the NFL, it's very low likelihood that you're also on losing teams the entire way there, you know? So it's like you have past successes that you can draw on. They're just not immediately evident right now. So that zooming out is going to let you capture some of that data and those strengths are still inside you, right? There's still things you can do even if you're losing or not getting the outcome that you want. So that'd probably be the first thing I'd suggest. The second thing I'd suggest is to kind of look outside your immediate field of performance, right? And so maybe what you do, like this is something I recommend to honestly everybody. It's like the most powerful thing I ever asked people to do is like email or text the 10 closest people to you and ask them to describe you at a time when they saw you operating at your best. Have them describe what they observed and what strengths they saw you use to make that happen. First of all, you're going to get back like a bunch of really nice things about you, which who doesn't love reading nice things about themselves? But you're also going to discover some pretty cool powers that you have and things that you can sort of rely on in the future, they can drive some of that confidence. So those would be how I would choose to navigate some of those situations. Because the data you're getting from your current environment basically says you have none. Right. If you're losing and losing and losing, like you're getting this signal, you're not, you're not good enough, right. You're not good enough to win. But that's not really true, right? It's true in this, like one moment in time, but it's not even true of you as a person. Right. It's like the whole system, if you're in a team game, it's really, how do we look outside that a little bit to get that information?

So for a reflective process, is there a reflective strategy that you use or implement that has documented success?

Yeah. So there's two kinds of things that I could encourage you to do. The first is like, you've probably heard of like a failure resume or a failure file, right? It's like this was made famous by a professor, I think at Harvard or Yale or Princeton, like one of these high end schools, schools where he basically published like all the experiments that didn't work out and all the things he failed at. Like, I would just do the opposite, right? Create a Google Doc or a note like, here are all the things I've done that are awesome. Here's what I think makes me really special. And I would kind of lean into that the second way you can do that. So I would call that like a confidence file. Right. Or a success file. The second thing you could do is what's called a confidence resume. And you can look back over the course of your career and basically draw a timeline and look at kind of the high points in your life and then ask yourself the same questions. What was going on during this performance that made this so impactful? Right. And performance could be like I proposed to my girlfriend. Performance could be I won a state championship. Performance could be I aced an exam. Like, what are kind of the key highlights of those moments? And then how did you do that? Right. I worked really hard or I prepped well or I expressed myself fully. Right. Like those gives you some insights into the strengths. So those would be probably two reflective exercises I'd. I'd encourage. The other thing you could do, and I've been experimenting with this some, is you can go into ChatGPT and you could journal in chat GPT for like a month about things that are going well for you or reflect on some of these same questions and ask Chat GPT to surface. Back to you, your strengths. I do this a lot with people I work with now. Like, have them journal in Chat GBT for 30 days and then at the end of 30 days, tell ChatGPT to give you some novel insights about yourself. You'll learn some cool stuff. It's pretty wild. So that would be a third way you could try it.

Do you care if you type, write, verbalize, or all the above?

I mean, the data shows handwriting is still probably the best, right? But I don't personally care. Like, I think. I think probably the most important thing is to express it and, like, work with it in your head, right? To like, actually put yourself through the exercise of making sense of this stuff. And then you're just playing with, like, degrees of quality, right? If you type it or you text it or you write it, it's like, yeah, probably be most impactful if you hand write it. You know, there's just some unique stuff that goes on when we handwrite. But, like, I can't read my own handwriting, and so I'm probably going to be better off if I type it. And I think that's okay, too.

I'm curious about your use with AI in the sense of has it changed your perspective on things to implement or things that work?

I think for me, the way it's changed is I think of it as more of a companion. I think I once thought of it as an adversary. Oh, man. And that was a lot of the narrative when AI came out. AI is going to replace all human jobs. You see all these posts about AI is better than my therapist. I'm going to be great. I was like, man, maybe this is true. There was even a study that was published that said patients preferred AI bots over doctors. Just as far as, like, compassion and responsiveness. There's one study, I'm sure there have been more, but there was one. So I'm not. I'm not considering it a trend yet, but I think now it's sort of like, as we've seen, that sort of initial burst of joy and excitement and intrigue around AI kind of subside. Now I'm sort of like, this is a way to superpower a lot of what I do. And so you can superpower it by, like, holding people accountable between sessions. You can superpower it by giving them some journaling. You can superpower it by having them generate imagery, scripts or other things for themselves. So it becomes almost like a partner in the coaching process and a place to store some data that's more interactive and More fun than, you know, just writing it to yourself. So I'm kind of, I'm excited about it and I use it pretty often now in the work that I do now.

I've found AI to be an incredible enhancer in many different domains in my life and just in forms of like education. I do think that there's a component to, to having high. I hate saying like eq, right? But being, you know, emotionally intelligent when you connect with people or I do think like AI could replace you. And one thing I always appreciate about having you on in our discussions is like, you make really complex topics seem very easy and applicable. Like you can break it down and just make it like easily accessible. And so I don't think you're going to be replaced by AI anytime soon.

Alex. Thanks, man. I hope not, I hope not. But if it happens, that's okay too. Maybe at that point we'll do away with all money and I can just live my life. I don't have to work anymore. You know, AI will be doing everything we need to do.

Is there something that brings up a.

Point.

About having things to pursue and chase that make us feel a little bit alive? Like if we removed all work, would we be intrinsically more happy or less happy?

It's a hard question to answer, very philosophical. My, my hunch is if we removed all work, we'd probably replace it with some other form of structure and goal directed activity. Like I think, I think people do organize around goals and they do, you know, we're still animals, right? So like at its core we still have a dominance hierarchy. That's why all jealousy and comparison happen. Right. So like those things wouldn't go away just by virtue of like doing away with money or doing away with the economy. Right. You'd still have some of that. I think do think people need a structure. I think people need some structure and some goal, like something they're working for. To feel most alive I think is pretty important. I think without that you'd be kind of bored.

Tell me about your book, Called to Greatness.

Yeah, man, thank you for the opportunity. So I mean, Call to Greatness was really supposed to be the book I wish someone would have given me in graduate school, but nobody could give me because it didn't exist. Right. It was like I was very disenchanted, even though I love my grad school advisor, very disenchanted with a lot of the sports psychology kind of training I got, really until I got to the mba. And a lot of that was just people Applying really basic stuff. Not a deep way of thinking about how do all these things fit together. Some nonsense you could talk about, myths, nonsense about performance and well being are separate. I don't know anybody who gives a shit about what they do that thinks of that, that that's just not. This is not realistic. So I set out to kind of write the book that I wish I had. And what that really broke down to is kind of two parts of the book. The first is about what's called typical performance. It's kind of how you show up on a day to day and work toward self mastery, right? Like how do you get progressively better and build towards sustainable excellence? So I talk about concepts like adaptive capacity, like how do you take on higher, harder challenges. I talk about concepts like self regulation, how do you get really attuned with who you are and what you need so you can become the best version of yourself. And then I break down some other kind of psychological processes like self belief that sort of facilitate the pursuit of this excellence over time. The second part of the book is about what's called maximal performance, which is what you sort of think of in the peakest of performance moments, right? It's like Michael Jordan hitting a game winning shot or game seven in the NBA finals or the super bowl or Michael Phelps swimming. These moments where there's going to be one of them and it's probably going to have an outsized impact on your career or whatever is next. How do you actually perform well in those moments? And so I talk about preparation, which again for me, like when I was in graduate school everyone would talk about preparation, like oh, you set a goal and then you do some imagery. It's like, no, but there's like you have to practice too. And like there's good ways to practice and there's bad ways to practice, you know, and so what, what are those good ways and what are those bad ways? And I talk about that in the book. I talk about resilience, which we've talked about today. Like how do you actually respond to a setback in the moment. I talk about being fully present with performance and how presence really drives getting the most out of yourself in these more difficult moments. And so that's what the second part of the book is about. And the whole book together is designed to sort of give you like a playbook that you could run for yourself, to sort of assess, here's where I'm good, here's where I'm not so good, here's what I need to work on. And move yourself toward a place of more sustainable excellent performance and to be able to get the most out of yourself when it matters most.

Beautiful. Round three in the books. I can't wait to read it. It's on my list of 2025. I have a hundred books to read. It's on there Alex. It's going to be read by me and I can't wait to talk about it more. Can't thank you enough for coming on. If people want to buy the book they want to reach out to you. What's the best way to do so.

You can find me all over the Internet, alexauerback.com, twitter and LinkedIn. AlexauerbackPhD I guess it's text now and the book is sold everywhere, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and from my website. So thanks Colin Beautiful.

Appreciate you man. Listeners, thank you for tuning in. Tune in next week download the podcast subscribe on YouTube five stars only baby.

It.