Original episode & show notes | Raw transcript
This document provides a comprehensive analysis of the core concepts from the Empirical Cycling Podcast episode featuring Dr. Patrick Smith, a professor of psychology at the University of Arizona. The discussion revolves around the principles taught in his “Psychology of Excellence” course, applying them to high-performance contexts in sports and beyond.
The central metaphor used to describe athlete development is that of building a brick house. This analogy emphasizes that the path to excellence is a slow, methodical, and often tedious process, not a series of shortcuts or heroic efforts.
The Bricks: These represent the specific, fundamental, and often repetitive training actions.
Examples include cone drills, long endurance rides, or practicing a specific corner.
Individually, each “brick” is innocuous and may seem mind-numbing. No single brick looks special or transformative on its own.
The Mortar (or Concrete): This is what holds the bricks together to create a strong structure. The mortar represents the essential “soft skills” and support systems.
Examples include getting adequate rest, networking with others, securing commercial support, and developing mental resilience.
Just like concrete requires cement, water, and aggregate in the right proportions, a successful athlete needs a combination of these supporting elements to bind their skills together.
The Key Takeaway: The saying that distills this philosophy is, “Every day we stack bricks and carry water.” Excellence is not achieved through dramatic, isolated events but through the relentless accumulation of small, consistent, and well-supported actions. The goal is to build an athlete as strong and resilient as a “brick shithouse,” capable of withstanding the “storm of competition.”
Dr. Smith’s course, while using sports as a vehicle, is designed to be applicable to any domain where excellent performance is the goal (e.g., a stock trader, a writer, a teacher). It focuses on actionable skills rather than niche theories. The curriculum was designed by asking professionals: “If you could only hire a student who had taken one course in performance psychology, what skills would you want them to have?”
The synthesized goal behaviors for students were:
Mastery of Soft Skills: The ability to navigate professional environments effectively and collaboratively without relying on structural power or authority.
Behavioral Data Observation: The skill of collecting and interpreting scientifically or clinically valid data about behavior to make informed decisions.
Fundamentals of Behavioral Intervention: Understanding the basic principles of how to create and implement strategies to change behavior.
Career Familiarity: Gaining a realistic understanding of the career paths available within and adjacent to sports psychology.
The most critical theme underpinning all other skills is the creation of effective feedback systems.
The Mantra: “What gets measured gets managed.” When we create a system to monitor something important, we become proactive in managing it rather than reactive to problems as they arise.
The Nuance: The saying is often followed by a cynical corporate addendum: “Anything that becomes a KPI becomes useless.” Dr. Smith refines this by stating that this only applies to easily measured, superficial metrics (e.g., Strava segments).
The Solution: The key is to measure what is subjectively meaningful to the individual. If rest is a personal value, measuring its consistency allows you to make actionable decisions to optimize it. This creates a powerful, personalized feedback loop that remains useful.
Practical Application: Kolie Moore provides a direct example by describing how he developed new metrics in WKO5 to measure and manage a specific physiological stressor for his athletes, moving from “shooting in the dark” to precise management.
The discussion explores what a performance psychologist does, particularly in overcoming stigma and functioning as part of a high-performance team.
A significant barrier to performance psychology is the stigma that it is only for those who are “broken” or struggling, similar to how students often view professor’s office hours.
The Strategy: Engineered Social Modeling. To counter this, a psychologist can strategically and ethically model positive interactions.
First, they build a strong, trusting rapport with a well-respected, high-performing member of the team.
Then, with the athlete’s full consent and collaboration, they engage in a public interaction (e.g., in the locker room or on the field).
This models the idea that working with a psychologist is a tool for the best to get even better, not a remedial crutch. It reframes the service as a proactive part of excellence.
The Analogy: A multi-tool like a Swiss Army Knife can do many things, but none of them particularly well. A dedicated tool (a screwdriver, a wrench) is far superior for its specific task.
The Application: A professional who tries to be everything—the coach, the nutritionist, the psychologist, the aerodynamicist—will be mediocre at all of them. An athlete is best served by a team of specialists, where each member is an expert in their domain. This collaborative approach builds a more resilient and higher-performing athlete.
This section delves into the modern, evidence-based approach to dealing with internal experiences like negative thoughts, nerves, and disappointment.
The foundation of this approach is understanding that language is an imprecise tool for describing internal states.
The Concept: We learn to label our private experiences (like indigestion or a specific emotion) through social interaction. Someone observes our external symptoms and gives us the word for it.
The Implication: Because the internal feeling is private and unique to us, the word is only a rough approximation. As Dr. Smith says, “Nobody sees the same color red.”
The Takeaway: The thoughts and labels we apply to our experiences (“I’m a failure,” “I have a negative mindset”) are not objective truths. They are fuzzy, inaccurate linguistic phenomena. Therefore, we should hold them lightly and not treat them as facts.
This leads to a counter-intuitive but powerful way of handling difficult emotions. Instead of trying to eliminate or control them, we should learn to use them.
The Process:
Separate the Words from the Sensation: In an experience like a “negative mindset,” there are two parts: the words/thoughts (e.g., “you failed, you failed”) and the physical/emotional sensation.
Hold the Words Lightly: Recognize the words are just inaccurate noise from your history.
Focus on the Intensity: The strength of the emotional response is the true signal. A strong emotional response (positive or negative) indicates that something you deeply value is at stake.
The Action: Use the intense feeling as a prompt. Ask yourself: “What important value of mine is being highlighted right now?” (e.g., the value of being a competitor, a contributor, a provider). This shifts the focus from fighting the emotion to clarifying what truly matters to you.
The Old Way: Fight or suppress the nerves.
The New Way: Reframe the nerves as a signal of the opportunity’s importance. Your body is telling you, “This matters to you!”
Welcome the feeling as a sign you are in the right place, pursuing something meaningful.
With that acceptance, focus on the immediate next step in your routine: “carry water, stack bricks.” This keeps you present and focused on actionable behaviors instead of being consumed by the “what ifs.”
Habituation is also a powerful tool: purposefully engaging in more races or performance situations makes them feel more routine and less threatening.
Cycling and other sports are full of uncontrollable variables (luck, mechanicals, chaos). To handle the inevitable disappointment:
Clarify Your Values & Process Goals: You cannot control the outcome (winning), but you can control your process. If your core value is “to be a courageous competitor,” you can achieve that even if you get a flat tire. Establish personal process metrics that are independent of the uncontrollable result.
Practice Acceptance: Acknowledge that chaos and factors outside your control are a fundamental part of the experience. Instead of fighting this reality, learn to sit with it and move forward without getting “hooked.”
Develop an Identity Beyond the Role: Your sense of self is more than just “the athlete.” A single bad performance does not challenge your core identity. Cultivating a broader sense of self makes you more resilient to the ups and downs of a specific role.
Use Disappointment as a Signal: Just like nerves, disappointment is a strong emotional signal that something important was on the line. Use that intensity not to beat yourself up, but to reaffirm your commitment to the values that made the event meaningful in the first place.