Welcome to the Empirical Cycling Podcast. I'm your host, Kolie Moore. Thank you, everybody, for listening. And if you are new here, please consider subscribing to the podcast if you like what you're hearing. And if you are a returning listener, we thank you so much for coming back. And if you want to support the podcast, because we are and always will be completely ad-free, you can always let people know that you like the podcast. Word of mouth is always great, sharing on a forum, especially if we're touching on something somebody's discussing. That always helps, especially if you think we've made a couple of good points. We appreciate all of that so much. And again, that's really the best thing you can do. Do to Support the Podcast. And also, because we are, we usually ask for donations, but we are going to ask you all to donate to Hurricane Helene Relief to the end of the year instead. 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This one, we got a couple good Instagram questions, so if you really want to give us a follow over there, please do so. And today, we have a pretty good episode. I really enjoyed it. Of course, I always say that, because I... I think I pick interesting guests. I hope everybody agrees. But today we are talking performance psychology. So we are talking to, well, everybody here, if you're listening and you've been a listener to the podcast, you know Patrick Smith. And this is a friend of Patrick Smith. And he has actually already come to one of our empirical cycling coach meetings. And he has discussed performance psychology with our coaches. and we are, I, you know, I thought it would be great to have him on today and so One of the first things that we kind of talk about is, you know, we talk about his history, we talk about his story, what got him into performance psychology, but also we kind of discuss like old school versus new school performance psych methods. We walked through a bunch of skills today. So this is a very practically oriented episode. And so I think that it's going to be very, very useful for a lot of folks, especially who are wondering, like, what is the state of modern performance psychology? actually a really useful conversation and I've already started noticing myself changing my language when I'm talking to my clients. And so I hope that it's useful for everybody else too because we discuss some really interesting things like what does it mean to be rigidly flexible? We also discuss confidence versus competence and we talk about mental focus and we talk about some really, really good listener questions. And yeah, I also need to apologize ahead of time because Somehow my settings on my microphone got really messed up right before this recording. So I've cleaned up my microphone sound quality as much as I can. It's just not going to sound amazing. So I apologize for that. But it does happen once in a while in this business. So yeah, hopefully, well, I don't talk that much. I'm looking at the audio files right now. And yeah, our guest talks quite a lot. So I think everybody will be. totally fine. My apologies again ahead of time for my audio quality. But anyway, without further ado, this is Billy Ryan from Aware Performance. Why don't we start with how we got connected? Because we got connected through Patrick Smith, who has been on the podcast several times. And both you and Patrick have actually attended our coaches meeting to talk about performance psychology. And I thought that that was really cool. All of our coaches thought that that was really cool too. So that's how we met. But I want to hear about your personal background. Like how did Billy get to where you are now? Yeah. Yeah. Well, first, thanks for having me. And yeah, that connection with Patrick has been awesome. My team at Aware Performance Group, I try to get people that are opposite to me. And him and I couldn't be any further different, but that's why I brought him on. So shout out, Patrick. But yeah, my journey, growing up, I played a bunch of different sports. Football, Basketball, Baseball And then once I got to about 13, 14, football kind of took over and I played that all the way through high school and was decent enough and thought I had some skills and didn't really know what the heck what like recruiting was or what that process looked like and my parents were just supportive but didn't really know like kind of how that worked so I ended up walking on at a school called Charleston Southern to play football. and then had some early success and that was cool and then we had some coaching changes and that experience was just not the best. It was driven by a lot of anxiousness that I had no idea that I was experiencing. Looking back, it took me about maybe about eight years to realize that while I was playing and practicing and even outside of playing and practicing that I was having panic attacks. So, you know, when people, like, how could you not know you're having a panic attack? Well, I had no clue. I just thought I was weird. And so that was my experience for four years. And some voice in me was signaling, like, hey, maybe this shouldn't have, like, sucked this much. Like, this, I feel like this didn't need to be that bad. And at the time, I had zero psychological skills, like nothing. I had no idea on any of that stuff. So then I got my degree in sports psychology. and was loved grad school. It was excellent. But some of the content was a bit old school. You might hear me refer to that a few times, which trained up standard psychological skills training. So that stuff like self-talk, energy management, goal setting, confidence building, some of the main things that you hear a lot that are trained. And that never really stuck with me. So then luckily, when I took another job in working for the military. I met Dr. Emily Leeming, who was trained up in Steve Hayes' lab, who is the creator of Acceptance Commitment Therapy. I used it as a training methodology, and thankfully, very luckily, got to be trained up by her. And then fast forward through that whole experience, and now I'm here with Aware Performance Group, the company that I run, and we have a team of six people that work with all athletes across all different contexts. experience in football kind of motivated me to learn more about this and then finally having learned some things about ACT was able to give me some answers that thankfully I've been able to build upon personally and then of course professionally. So what sports and professions do you personally work with and what about the others in your group? So like what's the typical stakes for the people that you're working with? Sure, sure. Yeah, so I'll start off with some of our teams. So we have people that are working with Navy Special Warfare, people that are in corporate spaces. Obviously, we have Patrick working with mostly endurance athletes. And then we have a coach. He's a golf coach, so he doesn't do tons of mental performance stuff anymore. And then myself and Trevor Jones do a ton of work, mostly with professional golf and college golf. So I have athletes, you know, I have soccer players, basketball players, and football players, but mostly golf. You know, psychology is huge in golf and people are obsessed with thoughts and feelings. So sometimes there's some cool work to be done in that space. But yeah, so the stakes for my clients are very high. The clientele that I work with a lot now are in the qualifying stages of gaining like PGA Tour and Corn Fairy Status, which those are the people that you see on TV, but about 99% of pros aren't on TV and they're grinding out qualifying rounds and what's referred to as mini-tour tournaments where no one's watching and you get paid like three grand if you win. It's not a lot, but yeah, a lot of these people, they're like two good rounds away from having a chance to make. a ton of money and gain status. And so that's like that almost every week. So there's a lot of downs, very few ups in the developmental pro golf world. So that's kind of like the main group right now. And thankfully, some of those clients have been gaining more status and being able to get a bit more security financially and professionally to get some starts that are a bit more predictable. So that's kind of the main group right now. And then, of course, the college golfers too, which that's... Probably, you know, I really enjoy working with college players, especially kind of contacting some of my experience when I played and kind of seeing that show up with, you know, just other sports too and just doing my best to have people kind of own and appreciate what they're experiencing while still also trying to get better. So that's kind of the main focus for now, which I love golf. I play a ton of golf. So that works out just great. Cool. The semi-pro golfers that you're working with actually sound a lot like UCI kind of continental level, where it's like a mid-level team and you're always maybe one or two good results away from like getting a kind of world tour big money contract. So, and also lots of downs, very few ups. That also sounds a lot like cycling. Sounds very much like us. Yeah, it's a grind. And I think that's why like with With the approach that I use, yes, it's important to be able to access all your skills when you play and focus and, you know, know when to attack certain targets or know when to push yourself. That's all great. But if that is taking up, like, all of your life, It's going to be really hard to like take chances and risks and really show up naturally. So the approach that I take also, you know, I'm not just looking at this person as a performer. I'm looking at them as a whole person and we're using like other parts of their life to help feed into some of the flexibility required to try really hard at things that have a high risk to them. So yeah, to those groups of people that are kind of grinding out those, you know, that developmental. Process. That's not easy. And I hear it and respect the grind for those doing that out there. Yeah. So tell me about the system, the ACT system. What was it? Acceptance Commitment Therapy, right? Yep. Yep. And thankfully, it's been approved as a training methodology too, which is the way in which I use it. So much more coaching these skills. But ACT is just a form of psychotherapy, just like CBT. Just a little bit newer. And it's an extension of CBT. with much more of a focus on behavior and less mentalistic stuff. So what I mean by mentalistic would be like, you know, changing thoughts and emotions so that you can then do a behavior that you'd like. And that's more like CBT? Correct, yeah. CBT is much more about changing thoughts and emotions so that you can get a behavior that you would like. So that'd be referred to as something that's a bit more mechanistic. Right, and CBT stands for, hold on, let me see if I get this. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy? Correct. Okay. Yep. Yep. So it's a bit ironic that it's cognitive behavioral therapy, but a lot of the focus gets ended up, you end up playing these games in your head a bit more, which is why ACT kind of showed up because they started noticing in their research that some of these long-term outcomes just aren't standing. They're not holding across the test of time. So then ACT showed up back in the 80s. I'm thankful for all those people that have done all the hard work to get to where we are now where there's thousands of randomly controlled clinical trials looking at the reliability, validity of these processes. So rather than trying to change thoughts and emotions, ACT has much more of an emphasis on noticing. thoughts and emotions and changing our relationship to them rather than changing the thoughts and emotions themselves. Because if changing thoughts and emotions worked, then we would just do that and we'd all be happy all the time. You know, you can notice a shift in emotions in the way that you think for sure, but that direct control over them has... it just fails over and over even in like research studies and things like that so I want to dig into the research studies for a minute actually if you don't mind because I'm fascinated by this because to me psychology is it's a very kind of protean mutable kind of amorphous thing and I probably as a like a wet bench scientist that's how I was trained anyway I am confused about how you quantify that kind of stuff into rigorous studies. So how does that process work? And what were the kind of outcomes that people were looking for back in the 80s before ACT showed up where it was like, this is not what we're looking for? Yep. Yep. So I am about as applied as it gets, but I do know a few key studies. So I'll reference one study in particular that was done with kids. And it was about telling yourself affirmations. So they had a group of kids that one group was told to use these affirmations, one group wasn't. So they had researchers watch the group that was using affirmations. And then what they failed to realize, though, was that they didn't have anybody watch the ones that didn't use affirmations. So that group did worse. The group that used affirmations did better. ACT researchers were like, hold up, let's try to replicate this. And what they did, they did the same thing, but this time, no one was watching either group. Both groups stayed the same. So this is kind of what we look at, this much more contextual approach. Like these other things around us matter. It's not a thought, emotion equals performance. It's like, the best example I like to use, and we'll use a bike for this example, very fitting. Like a mechanistic psychology looks at the parts and the pieces of the bike. So, you know, let's say you get a flat tire and then you're working on fixing it. The CBT practitioner was like, let's fix this tire so then we can start rolling and getting on track. And let's say you pump the tire, you fix it, and then it's still not going. And it's like, hmm, what other piece could be wrong here? So then they start exploring, like, maybe it's the pedal and the way the pedal goes, and you're still not going anywhere. The contextual... Psychologist or Practitioner, much more of my approach is I'm looking at other factors and I'm looking at that and saying like, oh, they're in mud. Of course it's not going to go anywhere. You're stuck in mud, right? This much more like robust like approach, right? Like, you know, if you get poor sleep and your psychologist that you're working with doesn't ask you those sort of questions every now and then and you're becoming more irritable, more tired, your thoughts are becoming quote-unquote more negative. It's like, of course. Of course they are. That makes sense. But if you just zoom in on this like mechanistic, I fix this part, then I get this part. That's just not how we work. Like we are so much more complex than that. Just to like put in an affirmation in the morning and then all the wheels start turning. Maybe sometimes, but I'm not going to put my, I'm not going to go all in on that approach. That's kind of how I kind of look at that difference where it's much more contextual. Yeah, that's just, and I think people really appreciate that when you consider other parts of their experience rather than just, you know, a thought or emotion that showed up that day. Yeah, well, I mean, that's the way that we coach because we know that physiologically all those stressors, things that are going to cause you to change your dietary habits or change your training habits or impact recovery or sleep or anything like that, they have a massive impact on your physical performance. Guess it kind of makes sense that the same thing would happen with your mental performance. Exactly. It's another metaphor I like to use to describe this difference would be like, you know, if you were to go to the physio with like maybe a knot in your shoulder or, you know, kind of tight there, of course, they're going to like massage that and kind of check that out. But they're also going to see like, let's see, like, is their chest tightness? Is the back a little weak? How's the posterior chain moving? They're going to consider all these factors. And that's an approach that has just been missed in psychology as it's been developed. It's like this full contextual approach has been kind of missed because thoughts and emotions, they seem to be the problem because we can access them so easily, but they're simply not. Are you going to tell me when you go for a ride, a day in which you're very connected with the people that you care about? doesn't impact the quality of that ride. It certainly will. And having the skills to notice when these different factors that are important to you influence your performance, that's some serious flexibility. And knowing, just as an example, if relationships are kind of shaky, then you might kind of catch that it might be a bit more difficult to stay really focused on what you're trying to do because these other parts of your life are... just a little bit different than they might typically be. So these things are all very important to performance, which is why we don't need to get sucked into only thoughts and emotions. You know, it's building the relationship to those thoughts and emotions is much more of a skill, which I'm excited to kind of dive into with some, you know, very application-based things that, you know, your listeners can actually do to help build that relationship. Yeah, I'm actually really curious about this too because this is kind of my default because I'm just kind of a robot in general where I'll have a thought or emotion and I'll be like, oh, that's curious. And I'm just going to leave it there. It's very infrequent that they really catch up with me. So maybe I'm not like the perfect test group for this or maybe I am. I have no idea. But it's fascinating to me. that you can kind of have this meta relationship with your thoughts and emotions as opposed to just kind of just taking them to the face and like just being a direct channel for them to the outside world. Yep. And I think one thing that I want to make very clear is you don't need to know what act is to do some of the things that act targets. Right? So you saying like thoughts, emotions show up and you kind of like, oh, that's kind of interesting. Kind of curious about that. Love that. Sure. It's great. Like if that gives you the flexibility you need to notice your thinking and then still do what you actually want to physically do, great. I'll take that all day. I'm much more concerned about the function of behavior. So like what does that behavior yield to you? You know, like when you push down on the pedal, what does that get? Right? It gets rotation or, you know, I don't know fancy words about cycling. But, you know, it gets the freaking tires moving, right? And if you do that faster, then those tires are going to move a little bit quicker too. And so that's kind of what we're like. I just want to make that very clear. It's like if people listening are like, oh yeah, I kind of do this already. It's like, great. Yeah. And now if we know when, how often, when do certain thoughts show up that will, words we can use to kind of hook your attention. And I'm sure there's tons with cycling, especially when pain shows up. A lot of thoughts can show up very, very close to us and kind of pull our attention away, especially if we start kind of battling with those. Because if we're having a game inside of our heads, it's also really hard to show up and play the game that we're there to actually play. So this kind of, you know, a lot of these old school approaches kind of keep us a bit more in our head. And my goal with all my clients is to get you more back in your game. Whatever that looks like could be different for everybody. Yeah. And especially in road racing where, you know, a criteria of something short, something, you know, 40, 60 minutes, a little longer sometimes. but they're usually pretty intense and they are a lot, it's like a chess match and I think that because physically one of the things that I'm always trying to do is physically prepare people well enough that they can actually not be suffering to the point where they can actually have the mental capacity to consider the race itself. To think about where are the strong people? Who are the strong teams? What's my ideal strategy? Or what's the list of my ideal strategies? Do I want a bun sprint? Or can I do a breakaway? Et cetera, et cetera. And so that's the kind of game aspect of cycling. And in road races, which could be several hours, I mean, there are long stretches of absolutely nothing. And one of the things that... our coaches find is that people tend to check out a lot during a long race. And so it's difficult to kind of keep your focus for that long too. So I assume that that's the kind of stuff that sounds familiar to a lot of other sports and even military applications. Yeah. And just to go with that example, you know, like sometimes You know, during those long periods, if your attention doesn't need to be placed on directly what's in front of you and what you're doing, like if it's just kind of like a thing that doesn't require a lot of mental energy, quote unquote checking out could be the move. That could be the thing to get you the flexibility that you need to really like get it back into gear when it's time for those parts of the race that are a bit tougher. So that's where it's like there's no move that you can't make to yield more flexibility in what you're trying to do. When you look at it from the point of like, is this working for me or not? That's the first question I ask all my clients when they ask for, you know, to work on some things. They say, what have you tried so far? They name a few things and I say, how's that working? If it's working, great. Why would I change that? But if they say, sometimes yes, sometimes no, I don't want to bank on that going into a meaningful performance. So then we build some of those skills that can kind of last even when thoughts and emotions get loud and uncomfortable, which, you know. Having done little cycling, but some, that burn is something that's hard to get used to. And if you have thoughts and emotions that show up very loud about how bad this is and how long it's going to last and how can I get out of this, and your only answer is to run away from that discomfort, it's going to be really hard to get better at being uncomfortable. Actually, let's dig into that a little more because one of the things that I have always been fascinated by is what's the difference between a physical capacity limiter versus what's a mental limiter that's limiting your physical capacity? Because in cycling, a lot of people, I mean, I'm sure this is like this in a lot of sports and a lot of things where people are highly, highly motivated and just inherently seem to be able to push through a lot of pain. to begin with because it's kind of like a prerequisite for the sport and to get anywhere. You've got to get used to that kind of thing. On the other hand, where do you find people can start to differentiate like this is a mental limitation versus this is probably a physical limitation? Yeah, really good question. With physical limitations, you get some pretty at least if we're talking about the population that consistently push themselves because you're used to what those consequences are, it will become pretty obvious with all the things that you all measure that you're kind of at that capacity based on a few metrics, which is great. Now, like you said, psychologically, it's a lot harder. A story that comes to mind is this friend of mine who can lift. It's ridiculous. I mean, the dude's like 10% body fat and can squat like 550 pounds, deadlift 600 pounds. I mean, he is just a phenom and he's a tough guy. And I say, okay, tough guy, tell me like one embarrassing thing about yourself. He's like, no way, I'm not doing that. And it's like, those are some answers. Those are some like indicators, you know, like that, that capacity isn't built there yet. Like willing to feel like embarrassed. Like, that capacity isn't built there. And I'd be interested to see, you know, how many less risks are taken because of that. So there's all these, like, you know, we hear all the time, you have to be confident, you have to think positive, you have to feel good. Yes, if you have no capacity on what to do when that stuff isn't there. Right? Like, if you don't have the skills, of course, you have to feel that way and think super happy and feel great. If you don't have those skills, 100% you need that. But I feel like that's a bit of a very weak approach to developing psychology, you know, like if someone showed up to lift a bunch of weights and they could only do, you know, the bar, then we wouldn't just be like, well, it looks like that's all you got, right? We would see like, how would you respond under different types of stress? And can we build skills to do things differently in that situation? So that's kind of the angle there with, you know, When thoughts get really loud, if you don't have the skills to work with that stuff and how to get your attention on what actually matters, then those would be some kind of like indicators to like lower capacity, which doesn't equal bad. It's just kind of where that is at. So I kind of treat thoughts and emotions as like the weights of performance. I like that. So it might be really hard one day when your mind is loud telling you you're not going to hit your goals. This is a waste of a training day. I'm too tired. That ride is going to feel heavier. And same thing with emotions. Emotions can feel even heavier for that day. But that doesn't equal bad. To keep going with that gym metaphor, if you went to the gym and you have a heavy squat to do you're not going to do that squat the exact same as you would just the bar and that's where the flexibility shows up with how am I going to still do what I want to do even when thoughts and emotions are very heavy on my back and if every time you reach for certainty or reassure yourself or slow it down then you're not going to get good at doing the thing you want to do while it's heavy. So I think the culture is very much like, yeah, it was a great day. It felt good all day. It was super confident. That's easy. That's like when you go to the gym and you decide to just do like an active recovery day. It's lighter. It doesn't mean it's better. So that discrepancy, I get that across with all my clients to show like, yeah, like feeling disappointed and having thoughts that like aren't the, that aren't. that don't have your back, it's going to be harder that day. It doesn't mean that it's bad. And that's where we have skills that we can build to work with those heavier days. So what would be a skill that somebody could use? Because actually, it's funny because I hear this a lot from cyclists who are notoriously, for the most part, rather slim, not a lot of muscle-bound cyclists out there. and the a lot of the time they actually feel embarrassed about going to the gym they're like what if everybody's looking at me I'm only gonna be squatting the bar or you know I don't I don't know how to squat properly so I'm gonna be kind of doing and I mean I I had I had one of those thoughts the first time I went into the gym because I hadn't I had hardly been into the gym since I was like 18 and I did that for martial arts like a couple times and so I was like You know what? I'm just going to go and do it. And if I look stupid, hopefully somebody comes up and helps me, you know? And actually they did, which was really cool. But I mean, I always tell people, nobody's actually looking at you. So you can be embarrassed, but just go do it and look around. Everybody's looking at their phones. They're not looking at you. So anyway, that's what I tell people. But what would be like an actual proper way to tell people like, This is how to deal with those kinds of thoughts. Yeah. Well, one, as a meathead that goes to the gym a lot, like I love seeing people in the gym just trying stuff. So, yeah, I'm with you on that. You know, if I see someone that's new, I'm like, hell yeah, that's great. Like, why would you not love that? You know, I think a lot of that might be some bro culture, but it's very supportive, you know. True, yeah. But to use just like a classic example, you know. You know, let's say, and this can be done with really any type of thought that shows up, but let's just say it's something about like how your performance might go. So that could be going to the gym to work out or going on a ride or a competition. And maybe it's something along the lines of like, you're not ready for this, right? Which is a thought that could be very believable, especially if your training wasn't up to your standard. So you're about to do the thing and you have a thought that shows up, you're not ready for this. You know, well, the natural response would be to start trying to prove that wrong, right? Of course, why would we not want to do that, right? And then it's like, well, I am because I did all these training things. And then another part of your mind says, well, you're not because you didn't do that one that you needed to do to build up this thing. And then we can kind of get in this tug of war with our own thoughts. And so what we can kind of think about there is like, let's say that you have like this big thought monster on one side of a pit. and you on the other and you all are in this battle, this tug of war with you're not ready for this and no matter how hard you pull it seems that you're this these thoughts keep coming back with more evidence as to why you're not ready and then you're in your head like putting on your race shoes and kind of getting ready for what you're trying to do and you're still in this tug of war back and forth back and forth and it's like how the heck am I ever going to win this thing? Well, you're not going to win that battle. because your mind is always going to have another thought ready as to why you're not ready to do this or whatever that might be. So it's like, well, what the heck can I do to not fall into that pit? Like there's other things to do and you're holding this rope in both of your hands back and forth. Can't find enough evidence to say why I can do this thing. I wonder what you think, you know, other options could be, you know, that could show up there. And as you're kind of listening, like, yeah, I wonder what your mind kind of gives you as some answers. But one answer that you could do with all these other things that are, you know, need to be done around you and you're in this tug of war is you have the option to let go of the rope. Like it's actually a thing that you're allowed to do. And you can use that metaphor and you can literally watch that rope fall and hit the ground. And what you're doing there is you're choosing to not fight with yourself. Right? Is this a time to, you know, actually do something? Sure, then maybe there's something to do about that. If this is just one of those thoughts that shows up just to kind of knock you down a little bit, you're not required to argue with that, right? Your thoughts are not you. You have the awareness to notice when thoughts show up. And if a thought shows up that is not helpful, you're not required to fight with it. But that's our natural tendency. So that's why there's so many tricks and tips on how to get rid of negative thoughts, how to crush your automatic negative thinking. That just puts you more in your head. because then you're still in this tug of war. But what I'm kind of suggesting, and this is a classic act example, is that you do have the option to drop the rope. And what you're signaling to yourself there is, I don't need to have the perfect thoughts to do what I want to do. and the tricky part about this though is that the second you drop the rope you could be right back in that battle again this is a hard one to do requires some reps but man the freedom that you start to get when you know that your mind can kind of give you whatever it wants and you have the move to be like oh I don't have to fight with this unhelpful thought right now like this is not a thing I have to do that gives you some freedom to then that actually builds capacity builds mental capacity to have whatever thought show up and know that I have this move that I can make now When we change the context, add more pressure, that move can disappear, which I've been working on this stuff personally for like seven years, and that happens to me all the time. You know, change the context, maybe it's a thing you're doing for the first time. These skills aren't as accessible to know like, oh, I'm just thinking and I can choose what to do with this. But that's a great place to start, you know, on working with how can we use our mind to our advantage instead of getting this tug of war that just pulls our attention inward. Interesting, yeah. I never would have thought of that, actually, because I wrote a couple things down that I want you to dig into. Your thoughts are not you. Tell me more about that one, because that caught my ear. Yeah, because if they were, then we wouldn't have really any – the ability to notice them wouldn't be very helpful. We would just do what we think all the time. So I think when people – You know, we, you can think about yourself as a container and you can fill a bunch of stuff in that container. Those can be thoughts, emotions, experiences, memories, sensations, but you have the capacity to notice those things and contain those things. Now, when we become just our thoughts and emotions, that's when we can feel like really small and like, and feel like we don't have many choices because that container that, that, that's That thing that you've built up over time to handle life gets shrunk down to just a thought or an emotion. So like, I'm a failure could show up. And I'm sure, I mean, I've been there a million times. And when that shows up strong enough in something that you care enough about, that's what you feel like you are. Right? It's in the language. Like, I am a failure. Now, a way to look at that in a... in a way that's a little bit different, you know, and this is a thing that the audience can do as well, is, right, we have, like, you know, we all have, like, things that we like to do, and maybe they're, like, different parts of us, right, like, you have your podcast, and you have family, and you have coaching, right, there's all these little eyes, right, like, these little things that make up you. And one thing that I have my clients do is like I try to come up with as many of those as possible. Like what are all these areas? What are all these parts of you? And you write down a bunch of little I's kind of on a paper, I, I, I, for all these different contexts. And then after that, once we get, you know, a certain amount, then we draw a much bigger I that contains all of those. That is what you are. That's what you have, that capacity to contain all these different things that you do and have different thoughts and emotions about. Bigger Sense of Self is kind of what we're targeting. And as we build that, whoa, cool things start happening. I have some cool data on that too from just some work with some past clients. But once you kind of contact that much bigger version of like yourself, that it's not just these experiences and thoughts and emotions, the ability to take risks, the ability to pursue things passionately and hold them lightly, all these things start increasing. So that's kind of what I mean by You know, you're not what you do and you're not what you think, you're not what you feel, but you have the ability to be aware of all those things and then guess what? Still choose what you want to do. Like actions are the greatest currency of change, not thoughts or emotions. So if we can kind of get out of our own way a little bit and kind of have that flexibility on when to pay attention to certain thoughts and emotions that are helpful, great, let's do that. That's a much better angle than trying to find the perfect one for that day that helps me do my best. Sure, sometimes that can work. That's all fine and good, but if we're looking for long-term, consistent, validated change, that's where we target these processes in psychology that we know exist. And that's kind of what the tug-of-war thing, that's targeting a nerdy process that exists in ACT. We're targeting very specific things, and we don't need to go through all that because it's not very... You know, relevant. But we're targeting things that actually we can measure. And we can see if they're changing and moving in a direction that keeps us more flexible in what we're trying to do. That's fascinating. So it's like the consequences of what we're trying to do leads us to the things that we, I guess the old school method would try to instill as a Direct, like let's make you more confident by telling you, having you tell yourself that you're more confident, but instead you build that confidence by almost ignoring it. You know, I would almost say you're doing it with. So the term confidence, the Latin roots of that, con and then fides, which is with faith. So it's not a I need this thing gone. It's I can do this with. Like there's in golf, just use a golf example, you know, there's guys that play like weekend, they refer to them as like weekend warriors that would go out and play, you know, and they have some drinks and they're super confident. And when my clients bring up confidence, you know, I'll say like, okay, is that what you want? Like you want to be the drunk guy shooting like 95 on a Saturday? Because he's so confident. Look at that. Is that good or bad? It's really bad. And it's like, he's like, oh man, I don't think I want that. I'm like, oh, so you just, you actually want competence. Like you actually just want to really do well and your thoughts and emotions show up and we confuse wanting to feel good with wanting to do good. So confidence is a classic thing that's talked about a lot and I get it. Who doesn't want to feel good? Like who doesn't want the lightweights that day? Like, and I'm not saying don't, don't, when it shows up, don't, you know, It's cool. We can use it just like how we can use stress, anxiousness, fear. We can use all of that stuff rather than clinging to it. It's awkward to cling to things. Like an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend, that's weird to be the clingy one afterwards. We don't want that. Yet in sports, it's so emphasized to cling to these positive emotions. We don't have to do that. That's fine. I bet you if you looked back through your own history and looked at hard things that you've done. also didn't have to be accompanied with warm and fuzzy feelings in your tummy. Like, not everything that we do has to feel good that makes us better, right? It's like, you cannot want to do the race. You cannot want to do the training thing. You can do it. It's like, that's building some skills right there. Yeah. Very few people, there are some people out there who like VO2 max intervals, but, or you probably know them better as just regular HIIT training. Gotcha. But there are some people out there who like it, but most people are like, oh God, I got to do this. But especially after they've been through a few rounds of it, they know they're going to come out the other side. Okay, this is going to be great. And so that's where a phrase that I love that's always stuck with me. The actions of confidence come first, the feelings come second. Sorry, one more time. The actions of confidence come first, the feelings come second. Oh, so you do the thing as if you were confident about it, and then eventually as you accumulate the evidence that it works, you do become confident about it. Sure, yeah. I'm kind of like radical. I'm a bit of a hard-o in this space. I'm like, do it with courage first. Let's see how that works out. And then if that turns into confidence, sure, fine. You know, as we get feedback on things that we can do easier, of course, we're going to feel better about it. But let's practice doing it with maybe some courage first, see how that goes. And then if confidence shows up, you know, kind of greases the wheel a little bit. Like confidence is like a performance lubricant. You know, it makes things feel a little bit easier and that's fine. But if you can only play when you're confident, you don't get to play a lot. That's a fun phrase. Confidence is a performance lubricant. Yeah, it's like the alcohol of performing, you know. That was the first phrase I thought. Yeah, social lubricant. Exactly. And so I'm not denying the positive effects, but we can't chase it and cling to it. We don't get it. Yeah. That's not how it works. And if you get it every time, what you're doing is not hard enough. And I also find that very smart people are also, they also tend to get into those loops of like, I can come up with any, I can kind of argue any logical thing that you say to me about how I'm good. I'm going to come back at you with something very clever about how I'm not good at this. And so anybody listening, if you do that to yourself, congratulations on being very smart and also using it to, how would you, how would you, what would you say somebody's doing to themselves when they, when they do that? You know, this is so funny because I do some work with fighter pilots and they're like, you know, in the culture, it's taught to be like very humble and stuff. And I totally get that. But the only problem with that is as you're learning, if you're ignoring the things that you're really good at, then like there's a chance that you could stop being good at those things so like oftentimes like my meetings with fighter pilots I'd be like dude just tell me what you did well like I don't it's not to like brag like this is just objectively speaking I want to know like things that you did well because then we learn how to like learn to learn from things that we're doing well that's really cool and if you're like kind of denying like oh I'm not good at any of that stuff well that's also I would guess there's some emotion showing up that maybe it feels a bit uncomfortable to get compliments. So then we bail out of that because of the emotion itself instead of like the things we actually learned from that. And that's actually a thing that ended up happening a lot in these schools is that these pilots would be really good to start out at certain things. And then a few months later, those things all of a sudden aren't as good because we just ignored them because it was like good things. But, you know, there's still a lot to learn from that space. I did want to reference one thing that you said earlier. I don't even know if you knew that you said it, but it was actually a really good philosophical question about thoughts and emotions being consequences. You use it at the start of a question. How many times do we not do something because we think we're going to feel a certain way about it? Or we won't take the risk because of how we might feel afterwards. Oh, like if you might be embarrassed or something. Exactly. Exactly. And like we're letting like a future expectation of an emotional experience stop us from doing something now. Now that can be very helpful if there's fear or like high anxiousness about something. Like maybe it's good to kind of be like, yeah, should I do this? Should I not do this? Like if it's illegal, like stealing a stop sign or something like that? Yeah. Those signals are very useful. Like those indicators are very helpful. But when it stops you from doing things that you value and care about, that's where, as we're kind of referencing that like emotional capacity to feel that uncomfortable stuff and still try hard at something, that is a different type of skill. So, you know, another thing that kind of that mechanistic assumption about our own psychology makes is that uncomfortable emotions bad. And that's just not the case. Uncomfortable emotions are a chance to do the rep. If you do a lot of reps while feeling very emotionally uncomfortable about something, guess who you get better at? Being emotionally uncomfortable. You don't get better at being comfortable. You get better at being uncomfortable. That's the whole point. Every podcast I've ever done, I'm like, this is a very high chance of embarrassment because I haven't vetted it with anybody. It's going to go very badly. Occasionally, that's definitely happened. I'm just like, well, all right. I'm eating crow tonight. That's all that happens. I'll apologize in the next one. Right, right. It just kind of goes to this cultural idea that feeling bad is bad and that's just not the case. The angle I take with my clients is let's work on feeling good and that's capital feeling, not capital good. Feeling is a thing we can get better at. The outcome of a feeling that shows up, we can't get better at that. We can't. somehow jump to happiness and make it go up. Like, you know, you can do things that could maybe make you happy, but like, you can't jump to the other side of that emotion and change it. That's not a thing that we can do, but what we can do is get better at feeling that stuff. And so there's, you know, just like an example of, just use a personal example of something that I've, a skill that I'm glad I've kind of developed over time would be just like, Checking in like with your senses. Like that really like kind of slows things down. Oh, you've had me do this one before. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's like that, that kind of, um, that, that ability to let yourself attend to what's actually around you, that you're kind of signaling to yourself like, yeah, this is kind of our space and where, where we're at. So for instance, and I'll use a very personal example here before my, before my wedding. I got married about two months ago. Congratulations. I didn't know that. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. But we did first look before the ceremony and everything. So we get our pictures and we don't want to, you know, have our guests wait like 45 minutes and we just disappear and take pictures. So we wouldn't do it before. And so I'm facing like the other direction. Right. And I'm like. One, that's just kind of scary in itself, like facing away from the stuff that's happening. You're like, what's happening? What could be going on? And I felt like an extreme sense of like disorientation. And I was like, okay, could I have tried to make myself feel better? Could I have tried to like change all these thoughts? Yeah, but then I miss out on kind of what's happening. So that's where you have a chance to feel better is one recognizing that in that moment for me, like this disorientation is not a threat. This is kind of the cost of entry when you're doing things that are really important. And then that's kind of where I kind of contacted my senses and just named the sense that I'm using. So it's on mic and I can't wait to hear it on the mic or video because I probably look like a psycho. But I'm just facing a direction and I'm just naming senses. So we have our typical, you know, seeing, hearing, smelling. So I'm saying a lot of hearing when I notice I'm hearing, saying a lot of seeing. But there's also two other senses that we don't treat as senses. and that's thinking and feeling. When you're thinking, you're sensing thoughts. When you're feeling, you're sensing emotions. And so I also named a lot of thinking and feeling. And as you kind of do that, you're like, wow, I'm noticing myself in this process of sensing. That's a lot different than, oh God, I don't feel good. I'm nervous. I hope this goes well. What am I going to do? Right? Like that just slows things down and you kind of respect your own experience a bit more that way by paying attention. And so that's just like an example that I... that I love and I do that every day like just through little things to get better at kind of feeling stuff as it shows up and kind of getting that groundedness that sometimes we need before important performances and even during important performances that sense of being grounded back to what actually matters and what you're trying to do. Yeah, I mean that sounds a lot like race nerfs. And I'm sure that that happens. I mean, I'm sure that happens before any kind of important thing is, you know, kind of the disorientation, did you call it? But I think most people think of it as butterflies. And I actually heard somebody, probably somebody on Instagram, I don't know if this carries any water or not, but he was saying that the things that are... The symptoms of nerves overlap to a very large degree with the symptoms of excitement. And he was saying that if you ask somebody at the Olympics, how are you feeling before this race? A lot of them will say, I'm excited. But if you ask somebody like an amateur before their first race or something like that, it'd be like, how are you? And be like, I'm nervous when it's the same thing. And I think that Patrick has alluded to that. a lot of the time where before he was playing paintball, he would have to lie down. He was so nauseous. And then he said after he got a chance to start putting all this into practice, he said it actually became a really, really powerful thing. All those nerves, which sounds to me like they became excitement and like, I'm ready to do this kind of thing. Yeah. And I think what's so cool about that is what's actually happening there is The experience is staying the same. The emotion is staying the same. But what's changing? The relationship to that. That's what's so cool is we can develop that. So when you're checking in with Olympians, they have the same feeling, but that relationship has changed over time. And that's a big difference between amateurs and professionals. A big difference is the professional has maybe spent time working with those nerves. and then over time they're like wait these feelings are the same but this doesn't like equal I'm gonna do bad like this is my body like revving up and that's that's fine too to look at it that way but that process at the more you do the thing that process will eventually start shifting to like oh yeah like these are feelings and they might not feel super great but I don't I'm not so sure that this is just like feeling weird equals bad it's like hmm Maybe there's some things that I really value that I want to kind of show up and do today. And the idea of that not happening makes me nervous. It's fine. Sure. Great. Let's see how it goes. And that goes to show why it's so important to not battle your own experience the whole time. Because then you can never build that relationship to those nerves. Like you're just like, I can't have these. These are bad. I got to be confident. Think positive. It's like we never actually get to feel. what our body is just signaling to us like very naturally. You know, our emotions are our oldest form of intelligence. Like before we could think, we felt. And that helped us out a lot, right? Like the cavemen who got the signal of move towards instead of get the hell out of there when the threat showed up, their genes didn't make it. So what are we now? What did we end up with? All these humans, seven, eight billion of us, we're all terrified and scared. Are we up to eight? Oh my God. I don't know what it is. It was a lot. But we're all scared. And that's the point. Because if we weren't, we wouldn't have made it this far. So we're kind of working with some very old hardware. And I think respecting that and listening to those signals gets you much more in contact with you rather than what you should be doing in that moment where emotions show up. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of evidence of... organisms that hardly have a nervous system having that move towards move away behavior for things that affect their survival like food or noxious things if they've got sensors for it even if they don't even have like a nervous system or any kind of way to sense pain necessarily they recognize okay this is good this is bad and so I mean that's how deep it goes I mean there's I'm going to probably speak out of turn, but I'm assuming that even like bacteria could, the colonies of bacteria could do similar things. It does. Yep. Protozoa have away and towards and away behaviors. You know, they're not thinking what they're doing, but you know, it's happening. There's threat and there's food. Move away, move towards. And those, it's very helpful, but where it gets dangerous is where the threat becomes how we feel. So then we move away from that. And that's where, you know, the more you avoid those signals that your body's giving you, whether it be emotionally or just experientially, you will get a lot older, but you will not get wiser over time. So kind of listening to what your body's telling you, and this is why these, it takes skills to do this. You know, I don't remember in high school getting taught how to feel emotions or what to do with difficult thoughts. Can you imagine that class? Yeah, I had to learn about freaking economics that I'm never going to use ever in my life. Like I would much rather use like, oh, like I can be angry and I don't have to punch a wall. Like I can actually like, like feel this and like learn about it. Huh, that's different. And trust me, I got the scars to prove it of that being my response. And so like a lot of teenage boys do. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I broke my hand and when I was 13 punching a door, you know, it started early, you know, there was like, this is not, um, this isn't just, uh, an example, you know, this is like. This is my life. Anger is a thing that I still work with today, and it never improved until I learned about ACT. Because I was always like, angry, react immediately. That's all I knew. That was my skill. That's not much of a skill. No, it's not. But over time, it's like, oh, hello. I can actually catch it. You referenced like, oh, this is interesting, the level of anger that's showing up right now. This is a little bit different than maybe what I would expect. That is like so much more skillful than just being like the automatic response. So, you know, building these skills, like you just get a much bigger capacity to do what you'd like to do while feeling and think in ways that, you know, who knows what's going to show up that day. You know, like some days you just wake up pissed off. It's like, is your whole day done for or do you have the skills on how to like still stay focused on what matters that day? So, yeah, all fun stuff. And in fact, when you do wake up, Pissed off and grumpy because you are five weeks on a diet like I am. The things that you have to do anyway are actually the things that are helping you away from like, okay, I can still be a little hungry between meals, but I can still go do the stuff that interests me. And I can do it with enough energy and I also can recognize I probably need a nap or I need a little, I need to move my next meal time up or something like that. So yeah, it's But actually, I'm curious, what can, so like, let's say you do your race and you're like, I'm nervous because I don't think it's going to go well. And now it doesn't go well. Where does somebody go? Because I'm sure that they might be like, well. I recognized I had this spiral of negative emotions and I dropped the rope and I went to the race and look, it went just as badly as I thought it would. Ha! I'm sure this happened a lot. Yeah, love that. So that's where I know on that coach's workshop we did, you all were naming like all sorts of physical indicators that I knew nothing about but that are very important to how you perform. What was the volume one? The big one? Oh, I forget. The one that a lot of people are obsessed with, a certain number. Oh, yeah, they're obsessed with hours training per week or kilojoules expended or something like that. On any ride, I've had one or two clients who just want to spend 1,000 kilojoules every ride, even if it's completely counter to the purpose of that ride. Yep, yep, yep. So these kind of show up as indicators. Just like thoughts and emotions are indicators, kind of like with a car dashboard. Once you have your car long enough, you know which indicators are just kind of like, oh, that doesn't mean much. For me, as the temperature's changing, whenever it shifts from like- Yeah, pressure light. Exactly. When that indicator first showed up, I was like, oh shit, now I have to go and fill up my tires. I'm going to get a flat tire. This is not good. I'm getting anxious. It's scaring me. And then now it's like, oh, it's on. Yeah, that always comes on this time. of your same thing with thoughts and emotions like is this one of those indicators just like hey man don't mess up or is this one of those indicators like no you like legit haven't trained enough like and and that's the thing to pay attention to too like I don't want people like the the idea here isn't that like any any thought that shows up that we don't like is false that's not the case it's just is it workable or not like is it workable to be like this race is not is it gonna go really poorly Like if you can find a way to make that workable somehow, sweet. But that's where I'm looking at much more like, you know, can we find space and workability with this stuff? So, you know, if your body and mind is signaling you, you're not ready for this race and it's three weeks out, cool. Are there things that you're not doing that we should be doing? If not, okay, that's just your mind giving shit as it normally does. And is it a minute before the race? Okay, well, that's the workability of that thought is very small at this point. You know, like what can we do about that now? Not a ton. So it's like, but your mind's going to want to really argue with that. And that's where kind of like, you know, dropping the rope stuff can show up. But that's where we're just looking at the workability of that thought. And our thoughts can be indicators. And just like how our emotions can be indicators. Sometimes those indicators mean nothing. Sometimes they mean everything. Building the flexibility on knowing which ones to work with. That's where some really cool stuff can start showing up. And that's why it's so useful to pay attention when these aversive and uncomfortable thoughts and emotions show up because then we get to learn how to work with them. Which ones are just kind of BS from the mind, some of that mind chatter, and which ones are actually like, hey, we actually need to make an adjustment here. So when you say attention, the first thing I thought of is the word mindfulness, which I hear a lot about. And I actually don't know shit about what mindfulness actually means. Are they similar? Are they the same thing? Yeah, I would say, you know, I'm so radically applied that sometimes I forget the definition of tools. I just know how they function. I respect that. And I just care so much about functionality. So, like, yes, mindfulness is the nonjudgmental attention to thoughts and emotions that come and go with a sense of curiosity. Sure. Fine. Every time I hear that definition, I'm like, I don't know what that does for me, you know? But really, like, if we're looking at attention, So that's a massive, you know, attention and mindfulness can be used in the same exact way if we're trying to target the same thing, right? So if we're looking at a thing like attention and the ability to move your attention around, that would require a bit of mindfulness and a bit of slowing down because our default network is to just be busy and thinking and doing and going and moving nonstop. And from what you've told me about cyclists, it's just kind of how they prefer it. Give me more training. Let me do it. I don't want to rest. I got to keep going. And there's this other part that's more of this wise mind. And wise mind is where we actually can like notice our surroundings, like things slow down a little bit. Maybe we feel a bit more connected with the people around us. We start noticing a bit more details. That sounds like your attention is on a lot of different things than just bad thought, good thought, emotions. Showing or doing, going, we got to go, we got to keep moving. So there's this kind of difference here. We have this default, very busy mind. Then we have this a little bit of a slower, wiser mind where we can choose to do things that are a bit more values-based, things that mean more to us. And when we're very busy, busy, busy, sometimes we can miss those same indicators that would kind of nudge us to, hey, it's time to like slow it down a little bit. And that doesn't mean I'm going to stop training now. It could just mean whatever slowing down looks like for you that day. And so that's kind of where like with attention, it's like, well, why pay attention? Well, because we have some indicators that are very helpful and also not helpful. And if you don't know the difference between those, then you just, then you kind of run out of that space to choose what you'd actually like to do that day. You know, like I know that, like you say, you give out training plans and things that you're supposed to follow and things like that. If you wake up on a day and you feel great and your training plan is a light day and you do a hard day, you listen to the wrong indicators that day. Just because you felt good doesn't mean that you have to go and then go above and beyond the training protocol. Because from what I know about you and your coaches, these things are designed very on purpose and with detail. So if you're using your emotions to determine how you're going to do each day, even if it's doing more, we're just not... Using our attention in a way that is most helpful, right? Because your attention might get fully focused on, I feel great, I'm going to go super hard today. It's like, yeah, okay, I guess. That's usually the problem that we have in rest weeks. Because like, you know, during training, especially if somebody needs some flexibility in their schedule, like if they're like, if it's like, well, I had an easy day, but tomorrow's going to suck at work. So I did the hard day today and it went well. Like, okay, cool. That's. That's good strategizing. On the other hand, when somebody's supposed to be resting and they start to feel good, then they start hammering and then they get to the point where they're supposed to have good legs, now they're tired from all that hammering, that was definitely counterproductive and that is so, so, so common. Even with coached cyclists, it's less common the longer people get coached. But it's something that a lot of folks do is they'll overextend themselves and use up their good legs when they should be kind of keeping them under museum glass for a couple of days before their event. So that's a perennial issue. But also I think another issue during rest weeks is that people typically spend their time on their bike training. Very time intensive for most people. A lot of people spend a large amount of their free time training and so they don't really have much downtime. And on a rest week, suddenly when you've got downtime, I mean, the dogs come out. I coach myself even quite a few people where the rest week is the hardest week for them, period. Because they're thinking I should be training harder. I should be doing more. Or it's just they get those negative thought spirals where you've got to drop the rope. See, look at me. I'm learning. What you're bringing up here is so – I'm so glad you brought this up because what we're targeting here is something that's called being rigidly flexible. And I have a perfect story for this because before COVID hit, I was training for an ultra. and it was just like a 30, a 30k, um, ultra, or sorry, 50k, um, so 30 miles ish and, uh, running? Yeah, yeah. And, uh, I'd never really done long distance stuff before and this is a while, this is about, yeah, four and a half years ago so I'm still kind of new to training these skills a little bit and, um, You know, of course, I think I have them down. I'm like, man, I got this. I've been doing act for two years. Like, you know, I totally got it. As I'm thinking that stuff, you know, I have a day where like, I kind of noticed my ankle was like kind of hurting a little bit. And I was like, my ankle should not be hurting. Like, this is like, I'm like, my ankle should not be hurting. I have eight miles to do today. And that's what I'm going to do. Right. So I start going, I'm like, my ankle really hurts. Like, dang, this is like kind of hurting. I get done two miles. I'm like, okay, let's be smart. I'll go back to the car. Like, we'll just call it today, you know. And as I'm walking back to the car, I kind of sense this, like, dread. Like, just like, you're not good enough. Like, you're soft. How could you stop? Like, this is the training plan. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Using my ax skills. Okay, sure. I grabbed the car door handle, and I couldn't do it. I could not stop. And I just went back, ran four miles, four more miles, and then limping the whole way. Get back to my car, and I'm like, Cool. Wake up the next day, can't run for another month. So yeah, I can push myself with pain. That's no problem. That's easy. That's not the hard part. The hard part is emotional pain, and that's where we get very rigid. So I can flex all you want with physical pain. Sure, I'll run for another 40 minutes limping and my ankle falling apart, but I will not sit with the feeling of quitting. And that might sound like a hard-o thing. But when it derails your training plan by an entire month, that's not helpful. And so that's kind of where what we're looking at here is high performers can often be very rigidly flexible where they can push themselves through physical pain, no problem. But any bit of emotional stuff that shows up, ooh, get me out of here. And that's where like, you know, real strength that I've seen is like people who are like freaking emotional warriors where they can sit in front of somebody who's suffering and struggling and not budge. and be there for them and not wiggle out of it and not try to get away or change a topic to do something happy. That's some serious strength there. And luckily with ACT and other psychotherapies, of course, but this is just my main framework. With ACT, you can learn how to be flexible in both spaces and listen to your body when it's time and really push it and go hard when it's time. you know like if you're in pain and there's a minute left in a race and you have a chance to win like that's the time where you step on it you go hard I don't care how you're feeling that's where you put all your energy into that into that next minute being very flexible you have pain show up and you still push hard anyway now we also have to be able to do that on the other side of things too it's a little bit less sexy but those long-term results will show up when you listen to you know some of those indicators that we We're Speaking About. So yeah, rigid flexibility. Man, I was a pro with that one for a while, and it sounds like a lot of people kind of in your space are as well. But I would say with that one, maybe that'd be a cool time to kind of ask some questions. And I like to use an acronym called TEAM, which is Treat Emotions as Messengers, where we're not looking at why did this emotion show up? Like, what's the reason why it's here? No, it's just what's the message that it's trying to tell you? So like, you know, as we're sitting on this podcast right now, I can kind of notice like, um, anxiousness, excitement. And it's because I want to, in the message there is like, get your point across, say what you want to say. I'm like, yeah, of course I'm trying, you know, it's like, that's the message behind those emotions that show up. Um, and what do we not do? We don't shoot the messenger, right? So we don't, we don't blame the emotion itself. We just can kind of see like, so, you know, if somebody is on an off week, I would just kind of wonder like, like what's the message behind that? Like anxiousness of wanting to get back on the bike. and can you digest that message because I'd be curious to see like what some of those messages might be and if they're often consistent as well so that's another kind of tool that we can use to really see like okay like what is this indicator actually trying to tell me and like if it's kind of if it shows up in the form of an uncomfortable emotion that's even more reason to kind of pay attention to it and just kind of ask some curious questions like I wonder what you might have to say today because the simple answer for my dread was you're going to feel bad and you're going to feel like you're not good enough and I was not ready to sit with that and then I could barely stand on my ankle afterwards. So, you know, just some skills and flexibility like, yeah, maybe we'll try to listen to some of those messages that show up and see where that takes you. Interesting. I had a thought and it left my head. This is the problem with dieting. How about you just try to cling to it all the time and we'll see where that takes us, see where the quality of the podcast goes. Come on, really try to figure it out. Actually, you want to do some listener questions? Sure, yeah, sounds great. All right. There we go. Okay, now we got a couple. 

Oh, here's one you can really sink your teeth into, I think. How to get back to a positive mindset after a setback like COVID. Okay. Yeah. Well, one, you know, COVID, it was a very complex thing for many people. So I'm going to answer this. I think just in terms of endurance training, it really sets your training back because it's like, I think in my experience, something like strength training is a lot better tolerated while sick and injured not to say that people should go ham in the gym at that point but it's better tolerated when people are coming back and very intense metabolic loads like endurance training and intervals are tend to be very worse much worse tolerated and so I think the one of the things that people tend to freak out about in endurance sport is I lost all my improvements. I was out for, I had COVID really bad for a week and then I had to go easy for another week and then I've just been barely squeaking back and I'm starting to get back to normal and it's been a month. Oh my God, I am so screwed. Sure, yeah, totally hear you. Well, the first thing that kind of comes to my mind is it's not about positive thinking, it's about taking positive action. So whatever that might look like for you. would be, I'd be interested to see what the action would be because it wouldn't make sense to not train for a while, regress, and then have happy thoughts about that. That's not like the natural thing. I would just, you know, from personal experience, of course, client experience as well. So I would kind of, an experiment that I do with my clients is I'll say, Like, let's see what a day would look like if you didn't use what you're thinking as an indicator of how well that day is going or not. Which is weird because it's like, well, then how do I know if it's a good day? It's like, exactly. I don't know. Maybe we can sense some other thing. Who knows? So on days like that, I'd like to see like, or, you know, with that question, I'd like to like throw an experiment out. Like if thoughts weren't feedback on how the day was going, how would you live that day? Like, what would you do that day? Would anything look different than how you're doing it now? And we just get to get some cool feedback from that. And that's where it's like, I'm open to any feedback because at least we're doing something different than trying to think positive. Because like, and this is the thing that I struggle with too, is like, if I'm feeling kind of down for a day or like during a day, my initial response is like, I shouldn't feel this way. And it's like, but I am. and as soon as I kind of let myself feel whatever that is like man I kind of feel like a bit negative my mind's super judgmental today it's like oh okay that is what's happening right now instead of like it shouldn't be like even that just like a little bit of like opening up like I refer to it like a lot of my college players like open door policy with thoughts and emotions like they can come and go as they please like if you're only opening the door for some and then slamming on the others like that's gonna take up a lot of attention so we can really build this like you know Okay, we have like some negative thoughts today or things are kind of getting in the way. Okay, I want to see what that day would look like or that training race or training run, ride, whatever, what that might look like if you weren't using what you're thinking as an indicator of how well you were doing. Because I'm sure a lot of people that are listening have experienced maybe races where they feel like it's not going super great. And then when you get back and look at it objectively, maybe it wasn't that bad. So that's kind of where it's like, you know, I want to see like, let me go see what a day looks like when you take positive actions, let the thoughts chatter about, do their thing. It's almost like, and I'd like to use this metaphor too, but like a tandem, like a tandem bicycle, which I know no one's really using those in competition or are they? Are there tandem competition? There are a couple out there. They're great. Okay, okay, cool. But you can almost think about like you're on the front seat doing your thing and on the back seat is your mind. and your mind's like yeah you shouldn't go that way like you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna run out of energy we shouldn't do this shouldn't do that and it's like hmm I don't think that mind is reaching the pedals very much you know it's like do we need to like kind of follow all those directions or can we just keep doing our thing with the mind there without needing to change everything we do based on some thoughts that show up so like your mind's kind of like a passenger along this journey you're taking And do you want that relationship with that passenger to be never hearing it, constantly shutting it down, telling it to think more positive? Or do you want it to be one in which you can listen to when it's helpful and then kind of let it chatter about like some kids arguing in the backseat when it's not helpful? So that's kind of how I kind of look at that with, you know, am I thinking positive this day? It's like, you know, I don't really care. Are you able to do the things you want to do? If so, nice. And what did you do differently that day? Yeah, I would be like, man, my mind is dead weight today. What the hell? Right, exactly. It's like, that's kind of fun. Yes, yes. You know, it's like a, and that's the thing. It's like, you know, another tool that I use too, you know, just like, let's say that we're using that same metaphor, the mind's on the back seat and it's telling you, hey, you've really got to pedal hard. There's this big hill coming up. You can just say, thank you, mind. Like, I got it. Appreciate it. Thanks for the help. Got it. That's a lot different than like, man, I really do. Should I, am I going to be able to do this well enough? It's like a simple thank you mind can go a long way too. Thanking your mind for trying to help you out. That kind of goes back to the first thing I noticed, which is like you're kind of treating it as a separate object. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Like this is the thing. It's like a roommate. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. It's like, ah, this fucking guy again. Yeah. All right. Okay, here's one. Give an example of productive compartmentalization. I don't understand really the context of this question, so maybe you do. Yeah. No, I think I do. So what that could be like, one, there's a big difference between compartmentalizing and avoiding. Avoiding thoughts and emotions makes them like a bigger focus of our attention. So a very simple example, we can think about like, you know, if we're pushing down thoughts and emotions that were, which is funny because pushing down inherently says that they're at the top, which who says thoughts and emotions are at the top? Like, like, that's not like, why do they hold more value all of a sudden? So inherently, this is already tricky. We're already like off to like a, like, we already had to gain ground on this, you know, generally speaking. But let's just say, you know, you're trying to push thoughts and emotions down and get rid of them. it's kind of like the beach ball and water effect where it's like we do it and it's like look the thoughts emotions aren't here they're underwater and as soon as we start trying to do things freely that thing shoots back up and hits us in the face so that's not compartmentalizing that's just avoiding the way I see like you know a healthy example of compartmentalizing would be being like my mind is very loud today and that part of me is being very loud Okay, and what are my skills I can do to work with that? I can thank her for trying to help. I can notice the narratives that it's showing up about how today's going to go. I can, there's so many different skills and abilities that we can do to be like that thing stays the same, but we're not putting our attention on all the time. And that requires some skill. You know, I can drop the rope when it shows up, all these different things. But if you have none of those skills, then we just avoid. And now we're playing a game in our head. We're also trying to, you know. do the thing that we're trying to actually accomplish. So if you're using your skills to get your attention on what's important and you want to call that compartmentalization, go for it. But if we're just actively avoiding, then we're doing two things at once and that's really hard to do. You know, it could work sometimes. Like there's a time and place to avoid emotions. Like EMS workers, right? Like when there's a triage going on. It's not time to be like, I'm really feeling this emotion in my chest and it's spreading to, that's not the time because that's not the helpful thing to do there. It's time to get to work and then, of course, later emotional processing, highly, highly important for people in those spaces of work. Very important because the stuff that they see are, that's traumatic, you know, it's not light stuff. But in that moment, it's not the time to, to. Take on and fully experience all these emotions. Like there's things to do. Now, like I said, like another example of that, you know, could be when like there's something that's really difficult to do and spending time to feel it at this very second is not helpful. You don't have to do that. That's not, that's not required. But if we're actively doing that often, whenever pain shows up, that's just avoidance. Compartmentalizing could much be building that relationship with that part of yourself that day and knowing that it's just not going to maybe be on your side all day and you have the skills on how to work with that. Sounds like that would be a really useful skill for military people and also for people in danger when they're doing what they're doing, like F1 drivers. You know, you lose concentration for half a second, like you can end up in a wall, like poor Colapinto last weekend, who clipped a barrier real quick, and he had a 50G impact on the opposite wall immediately. He's okay. He raced the next day, thankfully. And also, God, what a talent. But like, one of the things that I've learned about F1 drivers, which is one of the things that fascinates me about them, is that they need to be very relaxed. in order to have good reaction times and understand what's going on and stay focused. It's very infrequent that you hear somebody emotional over the radio. And I could imagine that that goes along with anything that's also high stakes where you've got this thing you need to do and you cannot get distracted from it. I think we use sports people's interviews to kind of like... Build Up What Our Psychology Should Be. The only problem with that is they're just speaking from experience, which is like, I love that. But like an F1 driver, any athlete saying, I play better when I'm relaxed, what I think they're actually referring to is they do better when they're attentionally relaxed, when their attention can be on things that matter in a way that isn't gripping onto the outcome so tightly. It's like holding these outcomes lightly and pursuing them passionately. Like that's a different feel. We're not like relaxed like I'm in perfect homeostasis and everything's fine. Like those F1 drivers, I would love to see that they're like, you know, they're biological markers during those races because I bet it doesn't signal sitting on the couch. but attentionally they're managing things that are showing up in a way that's done lightly and they're still able to put their attention on what matters so that can attentionally has that relaxed feel but physiologically I bet you it does not look like that when we actually kind of see what's going on so that's what's kind of cool about you know building these skills is that we can we can feel air quotes relaxed But our bodies could be really ramped up. It's our attention that is kind of in this place of, again, that wise mind place. Things feel a little bit slower because we have this attentional capacity to take on all these different things and distractions and still try our best at the thing that we're doing, not what we're trying to think or feel. Yeah. I remember back in the day, I used to have horrific race nerves because I was always worried about what was going to happen, doing well, et cetera, et cetera. I, I, the days that I raced the best and had the best outcomes were the days that I was the most relaxed about the outcome. Um, I would just show up and be like, this is gonna be cool. And, uh, it's, it's bike racing. So I might end up DFL and that would be okay too, because I know that I did whatever I could leading up and in the race. And if I, some days I just suck and that's, that's just what happens. Yeah, I'm curious as a coach, like does it, or maybe it's, maybe newer cyclist, is there ever conversation about like the grip on the bars? Yeah, is there, does that ever show up like, do you ever notice like newer squeezing hard or too light? Like what's that like? Well, since most of our coaching is remote, there's not a lot of conversations about that, but it is actually a Bit of a trope, that piece of advice of like make sure that your grip is not too tight on the bars or other cues like make sure your face is relaxed and things like that because one of the things that way back in the day before there were power meters and heart rate monitors and all that, they were always concerned about where you spend energy and you don't want to spend energy in a place that you don't need to spend energy. Even to this day, that's probably still good advice that you don't want to spend energy when you don't need to, which is what we call junk miles. Like you're going out and you're riding for not a purpose. You're just making yourself tired and you're not going to train yourself to improve. And some days, if psychologically you need that kind of chill day, I mean, yeah, hell yeah, go take that day. But if you are trying to get faster, I mean, this is also where As coaches, we will ask people, what are your priorities? Where do you feel like the right balance is? And we're going to try to adhere to that balance. And so if people are like, I want to go to this group ride once a week, every week, come hell or high water, we're going to try to make that work. But once in a while, you know, if it's like an off season or a rest week and they still want to go to that ride, it's like, well, this Going there this week is going to conflict with the other value you have of race performances and where it's going to start working against you. And personally, I don't, I'm not a, I'm not a do what I say coach. I will present all the information I think people need and say, this is how I think this is going to affect you. And you make the decision now. Yeah, I think that, I love that term, junk miles. Like, how many junk miles are you spending holding on to outcomes? Like, is that taking up a lot of energy? Like, is that a lot of energy expenditure? And that's where, like, you know, if I was working with a cyclist, it's just kind of like, I like to get into that context, you know, like, a way to kind of check in on that is, you know, before a race, like, and you're really wanting to do well. Like, show me how much you want to, like, how badly you want to do it with the grip on your, on the bar. You show me. As tight as you want to go. Okay. Is that sustainable? You tell me. You know, is that sustainable to do all day? Yeah, for 20 seconds it is, yeah. But all day? I mean, I'm sure people on their first mountain bike race, just like mine, I had, my hands were cramping so badly afterwards. I was death gripping on the bars because I was like, Oh my God, there's so many rocks. Yep, yep, yep. And so how we can turn that into like a thing that you can actually do to help you get better at what you're trying to do is like, oh, you notice thoughts like that kind of thought monster show about really wanting to get this certain finish. And then you also kind of sense like maybe you're gripping hard on the bar. What a cool time to kind of lighten up that pressure. Yeah, so like a physical cue. Right, that's being able to notice thinking when it's not helpful. Ooh, and then a physical metaphor of like, oh, I am kind of squeezing. and even if you aren't you can just still lighten that grip a little bit signaling to yourself yes the outcome is important and also death gripping it right now is not helpful so that's kind of like you know how these that's being flexible it's like wow I really care about this but it's not about caring less it's about caring in a better way in a more helpful way. Oftentimes, it's not what you hold, it's how you hold it. If you're holding that thing like you're about to fall off of a cliff, it's going to be really hard to get your energy on what's important for that day, which is probably a lot of the natural skill that you've built up over months, years of training for a certain race day. Yeah. All right. I really like the next question. I'm curious where you're going to go with this because you work with collegiate athletes as do I. Do you work with anybody under 18? I do rarely on special occasions. Okay, cool. So the question is how to develop performance attitude in youngsters like 14 to 18 as their example, but we could just say juniors. Yes, yes. So this is a huge shout out to the DNAV model. which is a model of a combination of a bunch of different kind of theories and models but mostly with a focus on ACT and evolutionary sciences. So DNAV stands for discoverer, noticer, advisor, and valuer and these are all skills that you can build up as adults but it's designed for kids and adolescents and so you can build up these skills. So discoverer That skill means, you know what it's like when you're a kid and you're trying new things and you're going about and trying to say, what does this thing do? And does the sand kind of pour into here? I don't think when they're 20s, they'll try 30s, trying new things still. Yeah, exactly. Right. It's like, and that's why it's like, what a cool skill to make sure you have developed, like still keeping that discoverer part of you active. So there's that part. And then there's noticer, which is just noticing thoughts and emotions as they show up. We think you can get really good at advisor. would be that kind of part of your mind that tells you what to do. Sometimes it's helpful, sometimes it's not. Can you use your notice or skills on when to use that for your benefit? And then V, Valuer, are you able to pursue things that you value even with things that are kind of uncomfortable present? So that DNAV model, the goal of that is to build up flexibility in youngsters and that's what I use with all the adolescents I work with. It gives a very digestible framework and you can say things like, You know, like one of my athletes I work with is a highly competent elite junior golfer. And sometimes our sessions are just me at the range with him. And maybe I kind of catch him kind of getting stuck in some loops of not being able to hit the ball the best way he wants to. And then things start showing up like, oh, you suck. You can't do this. What was that? And I'm fine with a few of those, you know, but when it really starts dominating, I'll ask a question like, hey, who's in control right now? and they're like, ah, advisor and I'm like, good catch, great, what a great catch and now what would you like to do, anything different right now? Leaning on Discover, right? So it's like all these like, that's what I use with youth, very digestible terms and the website's great, just DNAV on Google will get you some results but there's parent guides on how to use this with your kids and that's an excellent resource that is just so useful. Dr. Louise Hayes and... Dr. Joe Sorocci built that. And it's just so cool to see kids learning these skills that, like you said, a lot of adults kind of lose touch with. Yeah, that's really cool because in my capacity, the only things that I've ever really been able to advise people who are growing up is like, look, you're trying to find your place in the world with both identity and agency that's unique and you're going to fuck up sometimes. And that's okay. And as long, well, occasionally you're going to screw yourself up pretty good, but mostly it's not going to be that bad. And as long as you, as long as you know what to do about it, because way early in my carpentry career, when I was like, I think I was on the job for like less than a week, I had a foreman who was like, look, the difference between you and me is I know how to fix my mistakes. And I was like, oh yeah. And ever since then, I know it's not the only definition of a professional, but to me, a professional in a lot of ways is somebody who's made a lot of mistakes and knows how to fix them. And I think that your approach is probably a lot more actionable than mine of just being like, yeah, you're going to screw it up, but you're finding your way through the world. That's cool. So I think I'm going to look up the DNAV because to me, that sounds like... Deoxyribonucleic acid with vanadium in it, but probably not the right way to think about that. Yeah, that might not have the same ring to it with kids. No, not necessarily. They're going to be like, dude, I'm done with chemistry class. I don't want to hear about this anymore. Yeah, yeah. But it is as a coach, you know, as a mental coach, like seeing a kid be like, oh, my advisor is like making me do all these things that I kind of don't really want to do. Oh, maybe like. What's a new thing I'd like to do right now instead of just beating myself up? It's like, that's so cool to see, like a kid do? Like most adults aren't doing that, you know? Like just look on the internet, you know? It's like seeing a kid be able to like slow their own mind down and then choose what they'd like to do instead of like berating themselves or complaining about something that, you know, isn't helping them. That is like just so sick to see. Like when my clients, like I just see them, the skills show up just naturally. It's like, that's a skill. That's capacity building. Is there a place for that? This is just me asking. Is there a place for some dwelling on the negative things? Because in terms of our evolution, we've always had more to lose than we have to gain with good things. It's like if you find extra food supply, okay, cool. Eating Pretty Well. And now you can eat well, like through the next three winters. Okay, awesome. But when the food goes away, like now you've got real big problems. So you've more to lose than to gain. And so it seems like I, back when I was really into evolution, I was reading, because I originally wanted to do evolutionary neuroscience. That was my first love in science. And it's, yeah, it was very, very difficult to read those textbooks. So I'm not sure how much I got from them, but I remember reading something that was like depression and negative thoughts and dwelling on negative outcomes can be a way to learn your lessons. from those things or to prepare for like what's the worst that could happen and being ready in case it does happen. But I think also there's a point where obviously it becomes really detrimental to actually doing anything. So does that hold any water or is there really a balance point there? Well, I love that question because this whole time so far for the last hour and a half, we've been using like quote unquote negative thoughts as the thing to work with. and that's because those are usually the ones that hook us the most. Yeah. Like you're doing so good and you're the best. We tend to not, we don't mind hearing those thoughts when they show up. But I would, let's just, I like to flip the script real quick to show you the same kind of, it's all about like the workability. So it could be like, you know, on a race where you feel great and your mind is like, wow, you're so good at this. Like you're killing everybody. Like, wow, this is amazing. And then you also don't realize at the same time that maybe you're like letting go of the pace a tiny bit because you feel so good. Like that quote unquote positive thought, like they're positive and negative thoughts. It's like nonsense. That's just a way to categorize things that aren't very helpful for us. I always just look at workability. Is this workable for me? So like if I have a, it's super happy, fun thought, and then I'm not doing as well because of that, that's not very workable. So same kind of thing, you know, if there's a thought that maybe doesn't feel as good or sound as nice and we're dwelling on that. and it's not providing any workability then that's not going to help us out too much but if it's something like this turn is coming up and you know your history with these turns like you could really mess this up and it's like okay thank you mind like anything else it's like oh I need to be ready for it okay cool I'll be ready thank you you know so that's kind of how I like to kind of see that it's like workability is the number one measure of, you know, is this, you know, thoughtful or not? It's just, what's the workability there? You know, like, during this... during this hour and a half I've had all sorts of thoughts show up like I'm going to Target later to pick up some stuff I'm kind of hungry like I'm not like it but it's just not workable I just it's whatever you know it just comes in and goes but I love that you asked that question because it really like you know we're obsessed with thinking positive especially in America like just obsessed with it and it's like I get it you know it's cool to be optimistic but like we just don't need it all the time like if it's there sure fine but then if we're also like letting it dictate what we do. The worst, we see those people at parties who are super confident, but they're so dumb. You're like, God, I'm so glad I'm not that person. It's like that, hey, very positive stuff, but it's not yielding anything of utility. Another thing, one little thing for parents, this just kind of popped into my head, but trying to force your kid to think positive. you know feel happy stuff all the time what ends up happening is you end up just like not validating anything they're thinking or feeling after a certain while it's like you know it's like man that that race sucked and the parents like no you did great it's like nope you're just ignoring what your kid said like because you're uncomfortable and now you're not going to sit there with your kid when they feel bad about a race it's like they said what they said and you can work with that now do you just help them feel bad the whole time no of course not but like you know that's just like We're obsessed with this positive negative. This doesn't sound good. I can't have this in my kid. It's like, well, how are they going to get good at feeling bad? It's like, we got to let them. We got to let them, you know, and still support and love, you know, but when mistakes are made for kids, you know, as a parent, your job isn't to scold them, it's to hold them. And that's a real skill to hold your kid through some. you know difficult times and disappointment doesn't mean saying oh you think better about yourself that's not the way it is it's like well that's how they feel right now and you know they're looking to be heard not told to think positive so um as you can tell I've beefed with the uh always be positive things because I don't know about you but that stuff just doesn't um and honestly that's a lot of feedback I get from my athletes with our coaches they're just like they always just tell me to just think positive or feel better it's like I don't want that it's like yeah I'm with you. So let's build the skills and know how to, you know, actually be a person doing hard things. Yeah, I remember one of my first coaches, I think he was reading a book on something. And I remember one day I got a cue on one of my workouts, like, as you hurt, try exchanging your negative thoughts about pain for positive thoughts about hurting other competitors. And I'm like, yeah, but I'm not nearly as fast as them. There's no way I'm going to be actually hurting them. This is dumb. I'm not going to do it. Recently, I've heard the phrase, and I like this one, toxic positivity. I'm sure you've heard that one a lot too. And the amount of annoyance I have for toxic positivity cannot be measured in human units. Likewise. But I also think that it makes me think of another phrase of like, I don't know if this is a real phrase, but it's something like a pessimist is just a disappointed optimist. or something like that. And I don't know. Those are all the thoughts I had. I was hoping there was something to come of them, but maybe there's nothing and we can just move on. Well, there is because you remind me of like just this same kind of thing of like nihilism, like, oh, nothing matters and it's all pointless and everything. That's like what you're saying. That's like a disappointed optimist. Yeah. You know, or sorry, a disappointed pessimist or because you wouldn't be nihilistic. unless there was the idea that things could be better. Well, I don't even necessarily agree that negativity should follow nihilism. Like, nothing matters, so do whatever you want. Sure. I mean, in a way that that's true because, like, you know, if nothing matters, you might as well just be nice to people. Why not? Yeah. And then guess what? Things start to matter. Oh, shit. Fair enough. Touche. Hoisted by my own petard. It's a pretty nice petard, though. Okay, we've got a bunch more. I only want to get to a couple of these. Oh, that one's not on topic at all. Here's an interesting one. When life stressed, should grit be rationed? Hmm. You know, this, um... People love grit. Grit is a subject to what's referred to as the jingle jangle fallacy, which is coming up with another word for something that already exists, which is conscientiousness, the ability to do hard things when you might not feel the best about them. And the other part of conscientiousness is just kind of being orderly and stuff like that. Is it one of those like a couple of big personality traits? Yeah, yeah. So conscientiousness is one of the big five, which, you know, personality can provide a lot of utility here and there. But grit is just like another name for the same thing that's already, we've already known that term. But what I would say is in times where you're kind of feeling, you know, to use that language, less gritty, less determined, the first thing that I always check in on is, are you connected with your people? Like, are you connected with the people that you care about? Because that connection kind of sturdies us a little bit. And you might not think to go there right away, right? Because if you're not feeling good, usually what we do is we end up going internal to problem solve. But what I'd like to see, you know, if you're like a lack of motivation, I don't see that as a lack of motivation. There's a lack of connection to your people and also to the meaning of the thing that you're doing. So that's why, again, don't care about thoughts and feelings and changing them. It's a relationship to that stuff. You know, if low motivation or low grittiness is showing up, that's an indicator to me to see, are you connected with your people? Like, are you texting your people back? Are you leaving people on read because you're not feeling the best? And then are you also connected to like the reasons that you actually really like give a shit about what you're doing? And if you are, and all those things are set, you know, and all those things are good, maybe take a little break. Right? Because burnout's a real thing. But that's just kind of like, you know, when you go through all that, okay, I'm connected with all my people, connected with the meaning of everything I want to do, and I'm still like out of it, and maybe it's like, you know, we can have a flexible move there. So I always check in with that, like, you know, internally connected what matters, externally connected with the people that matter. If that stage is set, usually we can kind of pursue through difficult times. This also makes me think of the energy you have for mental battles. I mean, this just says to me, like, pick your battles wisely. Because, you know, I know a couple people who get worked up about a lot of things. And to me, it seems like they go through phases of being super up in arms about something, and then they're, like, silent for, like... a couple weeks. And I think that they just expended too much energy on that one thing. And so, I mean, that may or may not be the actual case. But I mean, it's sort of like being in a relationship, like picking your battles. Seems like if you're in a relationship with your mind or with work stress or with cycling or whatever, you've got to pick your battles with that too. Right? 100%. Yeah. And that's where this line has saved me so many times. Do you want to be right? Or do you want to better the relationship? That's your decision to make. You know, do you want to be right? Or do you want a better relationship? Yeah. Oftentimes, you could still be right. But is it the time to make that case known? That's helped me out so much because I like being right, but also like my relationships being high quality. So same thing with your mind. You know, do you really want to prove your mind wrong about all these reasons why you could do it? Sure. Is that better in the relationship with that? I don't know. It's up to you. You know, I'm not here to tell you what to do, but that's kind of where I see that. It's like, yeah, you can be right. You'd be right all the time and really lonely. Or you can do things to better the relationship there with your mind and your people. Yeah. Or I think this was Seinfeld's line, never stop apologizing. Which I don't think you necessarily need to do with your mind, but with your partner, that's probably not a bad idea. Yeah, probably not. Yeah. Because who knows what the other person in front of us is thinking and feeling. Yeah. Actually, I have one more thought about talking to people after a race. You were talking about validating what a kid or a teenager is feeling. I think obviously that's hugely important, but also I know a lot of people who get what in the cycling biz we call race brain, where they are so hyped up and so competitive and such a channel to raw emotional, just raw nerves and emotions. that right after a race is the last time you want to be rational to somebody. And it's like if they're upset about a bad race and you walk up to them and say, yeah, you're right, that sucked. I could not imagine a worse thing to do to some people at that moment. So is there harm in leaving it a day or two until somebody kind of calms down a little bit and you can talk to them more rationally? Yeah, I think, you know, when someone, in any case ever, when someone is experiencing high-level emotions, what they want in that situation is to be heard. Even if they don't have contact to that, like even if they're not like, I need someone to hear me right now, when those emotions are strong, if someone is there to be there for you and just hear what you're saying without the urge or without problem solving, that's a great space to help someone experience their emotions in. Like, I don't, and the reason why we jump to problem solving is because not having an answer to something makes us feel uncomfortable. So then we're like, well, yeah, maybe it was this, maybe it was that. And they're like, well, I just suck. That's not the reason. And then you're like, you're giving your problem solving. It's not bad, but that's not the time. So I totally agree. It's like, let's give it a second. Help this person feel. and then you know they could be dead wrong about their metrics in the race like man this stat probably sucked I didn't do this right and you could be sitting there like well that's not true I've seen that many times yeah now's not the time to be like actually that's wrong right it's like they're pissed and just be there for them and hear them what they're trying to say and then later when when the time is set you know you can kind of make fun of them a little bit and be like you know these actually were pretty good today and they're like ah okay I know you know that's a much different story than Don't feel that because I feel uncomfortable. It's actually not that bad. Let's go get ice cream. I've actually had the experience many times where somebody's disappointed in their race and I look at the metrics afterwards and I'm like, well, the reason you felt it was so difficult is because it was actually very, very, very hard. You know, that's what, that's when, you know, I'll be like, look, you can be proud of your performance here because this was like a bunch of PRs or you've never climbed this hill that well or you, you know, you've never survived to the last lap or something like that. And, you know, even though it can be disappointing for somebody who was like, I wanted to have my best day and like you did have your best day and it just wasn't the outcome you wanted. It's difficult to figure that out in the moment when you can't, you know, right after the race in the parking lot, when you're, you can't look at your power file right away. You don't have your, unless you bring your laptop with you, which I do not advise leaving the hot sun in a summer race in your car. But it's one of those things where I think it's a, it's a fun opportunity to be like, like, yeah. The reason it felt hard is because it was hard, but you still performed well, or even the opposite, where it's like, you didn't perform as well as we thought you would, so let's look at what went wrong. I mean, this is where, as coaches, I feel like I'm a decent problem solver, because, I mean, fortunately, there's only a handful of things that could ever be anyway, but nailing that kind of stuff down is, to me at least, a really fun part of the process. Yeah, and so important, and that's like time and place, you know, it's like, stuff that's so important. Man, when emotions are very high and heavy for me, and you try to tell me what to do, not fun things happen in that space. But maybe six hours later, I'm ready for that. So that's just context. Again, context is everything. And also, behavior does not make sense unless we have context and that individual's history. So that could be learning history, life events, right? Like if I have, like let's say there's a part of a track or a part of a trail that has caused someone issues in the past, of course they're going to get anxious about that part of the race because of their history. Somebody else could show up and they have nothing show up about that because they don't have experience with that particular context and a history of maybe not doing well there. So that's why it's so important to be agile with these emotions. and thoughts and stuff as they show up because it will make sense when we kind of look at that history and the context that's showing up. So, you know, if I'm not going to learn well in a context of super high emotion and constant thoughts of failure, that's not the place I'm going to learn great. But a little bit later, because of my history in these other contexts, I can learn great there. Just let me feel my stuff and then I'll be, you know, rational and using the giant part of my brain again. You know, people, people remember people who were there for them when they were struggling and not making sense. Like, people remember that. And so, that's a cool chance, you know, whether you're husband, wife, person that's racing, parent, father, daughter, whatever. You know, you can, having the chance to kind of be that person for somebody is pretty cool without having to jump into problem solving. And of course, great coaches are great problem solvers and there's time and place for that, 100%. Because without that, then we're kind of not getting about the thing we want to do. Just time and place for sure. Yeah, true. So is there anything else that came up that you wanted to dig into a little more that we didn't really get a chance to? I mean, I think we covered a pretty solid deal of it. Again, my goal here was just to get across some of the functionality of ACT and how you can use it very flexibly. Like, yes, there's... a ton more stuff and I deliberately chose not to use nerdy, act-y terms, just how I do with my clients. You know, I think we kind of hit a ton of stuff, you know, that's relevant to people that are doing endurance type things. Yeah, and yeah, I would just say, you know, if you want a model for your mental game, that can be built and act is a great way to build that because you have sensitivity to yourself, context, and also your history of what you've done. So far, and you can build up skills on how to work with that stuff. So that was, you know, that was kind of my, you know, my main, my main goal here without getting like all science-y. I love the science stuff, which is why I had to kind of have that, had that reminder a little bit because I love diving into the super nerdy stuff. But yeah, I would say, you know, if you're out there trying hard at something physical, that you can do that stuff with. Difficult Thoughts and Emotions. And the more you do that while honoring that stuff as it shows up, the better you get at feeling bad. You can get really good when aversive emotions show up. You can get good at that stuff. And there's a reason why elite-level athletes sometimes say they start to crave those emotions because it's another chance to practice those skills. You can never get there if you push them down and avoid them every time. The main message being is, You know, you can pursue these things that you care about while honoring your own experience and holding the outcomes lightly. Like, that can be done. And you can build those skills up through, you know, whether it be, you know, a good ACT practitioner or, you know, doing some self-research or just kind of paying attention to your own experience and what works and what doesn't work. And we can keep what's useful and drop the rest. Yeah, I would imagine there's probably a huge amount of individual variation in this stuff. Exactly. Yep. And I love that so much. Like my metaphors that I use, they start broad and then they get so specific to where if you're listening to the conversation, you have no idea what we're talking about, but my client and me are locked in at a very precise thing that is meaningful to them using their language, their words, and their experience. So that's what's great about ACT is heavy metaphors because the way you connect to a metaphor is authentic to you. So you're getting an experience of... That's very genuine and authentic because you're connecting to this metaphor in a way that is unique to you. And I'm also connecting it in a way that's unique to me. And then we kind of meet in the middle and we can build change that way. So all these processes of change are super like we can adjust them to the individual, which is what I love so much compared to you need more positive self-talk. You need to manage your energy better. You need to set better goals. It's like we're not robots, you know. I don't need to be diagnosed and disordered. We can work on skills that actually can develop and don't have a good, bad, positive, negative to them. Awesome. How can people get in touch with you? Yeah, so awareperformancegroup.com is our website. My Instagram is billyryan__aware. Much more of an emphasis on golf, but the same exact stuff applies, switching it to different contexts. and those are kind of our two main ways to get in contact with me. Me and my colleague Trevor Jones run act-to-sport workshops online. They're five weeks, an hour every week and they're designed for anybody who works with people. So if you work with people and you want to get better at the psychology side of it, highly recommend those. We love doing them. They're originally designed for other mental coaches. What I noticed is that like, Like our last one we did, we had physical therapists, coaches, high school basketball coaches, dietitians, all sorts of people just wanting to learn a bit more about psychology so that it can help them in their practice. And that's what's great about ACT is we're not saying you have to have a master's or PhD in psychology. No, no, no. This is training. You can use this to help the person in front of you. So we run those courses. and I love having a diverse group and our next one actually starts on January 7th and you can also find that on the website but that's the thing that we love to do and the theme to that is live, understand, apply. So we live out the skills, we start to understand them and then we apply them to ourselves and the people that we work with. So that's kind of the, you know, in terms of like ACT training and then of course one-on-one consultation is a thing that still I'm... Doing and, you know, have some space to take on people that way as well. So, yeah, our team is, you know, built to handle any sort of athlete context and find ways to become more psychologically flexible in the pursuit of something that, you know, that client really cares about. Yeah, like your company is actually set up a lot like ours. You've got a lot of coaches. You've got a lot of space for people coming in. You've got a lot of different varied skill sets and experiences. I think that's one of the reasons that I think that you guys and Empirical Cycling have been kind of buddies in some way or another for the last couple of years. So I think this is great. And thanks so much for coming on to the podcast. And I hope people learned a lot. I know I certainly did. And yeah, dude, hopefully people will get in touch because I think that what you guys are doing is potentially incredibly useful. And I may sign up for that course in January myself. Please do. Thank you so much. All right. I want to thank Billy again for coming on to the podcast. I had a great time, and I hope everybody had a great time listening. So if you'd like to get in touch with him, give him a shout on his social media. Go check out their website. I will have all of the links up in the show notes at empiricalcycling.com. So if you want to go check that out, please go give them a follow. They're actually a really great bunch of folks doing really good work, and I appreciate everything they do, even though I am endeavoring to be... Robot. So mostly kidding about that. So yeah, if you want to give us a follow, you can do so at Empirical Cycling on Instagram to ask some listener questions in our future episodes. And you can also shoot me an email at empiricalcycling at gmail.com if you have any coaching or consultation inquiries. And what else we got? Oh, yeah, a nice rating wherever you listen to podcasts goes a long way. Thank you so much for all of those. Also appreciated and sharing the podcast. And with all of that, we will see you all next time.