Marketing is hard. But I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Lib Sin ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one. Across thousands of shows to reach your target audience and their favorite podcasts with Lib Sin ads. Go to LibSyn ads.com. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N. Ads.com today. The mental side of any sport is behavior. It's not about necessarily being positive or always feeling good. But it's about how quickly can you emotionally recover. Professional athletes do get burned out and they lose their enthusiasm. That part is one of the biggest roadblocks is you don't feel like yourself. You're not playing like yourself. Joining us today is Dr. Alicia Nasser, a mental performance coach helping NHL ATP and PGA athletes compete at the highest level. What behavior do you think is the most important for elite athletes for high performance? I would say self-awareness and then you know competitiveness and a deep love for the game. What are some of the biggest roadblocks that you have seen working with athletes? The lack of consistency really can infiltrate a pro athletes career. There is so much like social media and other distractions. How do you see that this affects athletes? I think that it just requires the ability to disconnect from it and not prioritize it at all. How do you see behavioral science evolving within sport going forward? AI, data analytics and everything that's coming. AI is great but it doesn't beat the human one-on-one experience. This guy is the limit in terms of optimizing an athlete's performance. What behavioral science can do? Dr. Alicia Nasser, welcome to the sports management podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to this. Me too. It's great to have you on the show. You are a mental performance coach, founder and director of the Nasser Institute for Behavioral Sport Psychology, board certified behavior analyst and probably many more things as well. Can you give a brief introduction about yourself and what do you do? Yes, I work with professional athletes on the mental side of the game. As a behaviorist within the domain of psychology, the specialty of the area that I have studied and I researched in is more of the behaviorist. From the mental side of the game, it has a lot to do with obviously the mental side. As a behaviorist, I look at that as a behavior. I help athletes optimize their performance through the mental and the outward behavioral that we can observe and see. The mental obviously we can't see. I worked for over 10 plus years before I work with professional athletes. I worked in neurodevelopmental disabilities. Then it was during COVID when I made the switch over to professional athletes. It was never planned. It fell into my lap. I started working with NHL players and I still do and now I'm slowly expanding into other sports. Professional tennis players on the ATP tours and PGA golfers and a couple of clients in MLB. It's really about helping them feel their best, perform their best and becoming champions in whatever sport it is that they play and being able to perform at the highest level. As we know, professional sport is very competitive. A lot of topics that we will dig into in this discussion. Let's jump right in and you mentioned you work a lot with behavior. It's an interesting question because ideally I would give you one. I would say this is the one behavior that's the most important. But I think the one behavior that's most important is contingent upon or depends upon the person. It depends upon the sport that they play. I really can't give you one that is this is the end all be all. However, I do think that if I had to give you one which I will, I think I would say self-awareness. Because in order to change behavior, you can't. It's interesting. One would say you can't change a behavior unless you're aware of it. However, B.F. Skinner, who's like the godfather of the field that I study applied behavior analysis, radical behaviorism, he actually showed that you don't have to be fully aware of a behavior to change it. So I would say. And that takes a very skilled clinician though to know what they're doing. So if I have to give you one, I'll say self-awareness, but just keep in mind that there's some caveats. But I think that self-awareness and for professional athletes, you have to have. I think it's very hard to compete at the highest level if you don't have a level of competitiveness or a level of coming back to the love of the game. I don't think that you always have to love the game. I think there's a lot of times that professional athletes do get burned out and they lose their enthusiasm. But I think that love of the game then it leads to behaviors that lead to competitiveness and to discipline and to mental toughness and to rigor and grit and all these other words. That we hear in sport. So I would say self-awareness and then competitiveness and a deep love for the game. Whatever sport it is. Interesting. And you mentioned it might depend on the sport. And you work mostly with eye-shockey players. That's a contact sport. It's a team sport, a fast sport. If you have tennis, of course, also a fast sport, but that's an individual sport and not a contact sport. And you have different challenges in both. So how are you working differently if you're working with an eye-shockey player versus a Chinese player? Well, it's exactly that. You really highlighted all of the variables that make each sport different. And as a behaviorist, I was trained and did so much work academically and clinically on understanding how the slightest variables change the implementation of a strategy or the implementation of. A tool that you're going to give to a client to optimize the performance. So to your point, contact sports. We have to take into consideration the physicality. Tennis players are not contacting unless they're falling or the ball is like flying at them in some way. There is very little contact where unlike with hockey players, they're running into the boards. They're running other guys into the boards. There's just contact all over the place. And so you have to take in these variables because it impacts the emotionality of an athlete. Right? And so there's like if I have a puck flying at my face, that can elicit fear. And for some of the NHL players, when it's their first, second, third year even in the game in the NHL, it does take an exposure to that repeated stimulus to be able to continue performing. Despite some of these variables that might elicit fear or worry or anxiety or anxiousness. And so I think thinking about then to your point as well about the team sport versus an individual sport for tennis players and golfers. They're like figure skaters thinking about Mulan coming up in the Olympics. There are. there's no one else to blame. Right? If something doesn't go the way that you want it to go. Then requires you to be able to step back and not. how do you self-assess and self-correct without self-shaming in an individual sport? Right? And then also there are behaviors that you have to look at within team sports of, well on the ice is the athlete if the player is open, is he calling for the puck? Like this is a behavior and that behavior of calling for the puck can as a byproduct have an impact on the mental aspect of the game because I see a lot of players who will get frustrated, but I'm like, are you calling for the puck? So the calling for the puck then leads to frustration, which is another behavior, an emotional behavior and all of these things are connected. So, you know, it really requires an analysis of each specific athlete, the individual and then the variables and the environment that are influencing the performance or lack thereof. And so I think this is something that I stress all the time is, and this is why sometimes on podcaster interviews it can be tough because it's like, I can't give you one answer. And I sort of like kind of, I hate to give one answer because I don't think that would be doing due diligence to the complexity of professional sport. And I think if you're doing a good job as a mental performance coach or as a sports psychologist, you are really assessing in a very detailed way. And that's what I love to do and I find that it's the most effective with my clients. Now understand, and of course it's more than just one factor or something as you said, it might be a chain of different things and interesting with the team versus individual sport. I know Joe Rogan, he is a lot of into the martial arts and he said that when he grew up, he preferred to do individual sports because then he felt like then maybe someone else on his team will have a bad game at that inference him and he wanted to have all the control. Oh, so it's like a control element to it. Yeah, so for him, then he was like, okay, if I lost, I know it's on me and if I won, it was on me. And then he didn't have to rely on someone else. Yeah, it's interesting, right? Because then it's like, okay, well, to what extent then is control healthy or to what extent is control? It what what extent does it impose on someone's mental well being or to what extent does it help in their competitiveness and their ability to be you know, from.
at the high level. So it is interesting. I mean, I couldn't imagine taking like a Novak joke of his, for example, and putting him on like a football team. I got a European soccer team, right? I don't see. I think when you are the star of the show, but not just the star of the show, but you're the conductor conducting the orchestra, is very difficult. I wonder what that would be like. It's very interesting. It's a thought experiment of how frustrated would one of those individual athletes become if they had to then play on a team sport, not for fun, but in a competitive way. That's a very interesting thought. Yeah. I think it was Roger Federer talking about, if you're talking about an individual sport and the mental aspect of that, that he, I don't remember if it was like 46 or 48 percent of the points he has lost in his career, but he has won something like 80 percent of the games. Yes. That how do you overcome, like when you're losing a point, losing a game to continue to win the set and win the match? Yeah. He mentioned that if we're talking about the same thing, I believe it was during a commencement ceremony speech when he had mentioned he's actually, I don't know the quote exactly, but to your point, like he's actually lost more individual points than he has won them. But to that point, I think from a mental standpoint, what that is is what we choose to focus on and give attention to. If you really look at how many points did he win to his point, he didn't. Again, I don't remember the quote exactly, but it's like he lost more than he actually won in some respects, but you have to step away and sort of zoom out. I like to use this iPhone analogy of the camera zooming in and zooming out on certain things in the mind. And if you zoom out on that and you look at that as an athlete, it takes a little bit of weight off of yourself to be like, okay, I'm actually performing better than I think I am mentally. It's interesting. Definitely. And Jokovic said something also that he didn't like when people said that you shouldn't be upset or something like that for when he was, for him, it was more like if he got upset, he got upset. And then he got over it and moved on. Yes. You know what? It's so funny. You say that because that's probably one of the things I stress the most, but it's one of my favorite quotes of his when he did, he said, I don't believe in being positive all of the time. It's not realistic. And it's true. He's absolutely right. It's not realistic. And I do think that I do think that before social media and like content creation really exploded. I think that there was this old school mentality and psychology where it was about like, let's fix things or let's try to be positive all of the time. And I think now the, I think culturally, I don't know, I'm just kind of my own observation is that people are more understanding that you it's not about necessarily being positive or always feeling good, right? It's about being able to tolerate and withstand negative emotions. And or if we even want to call them negative emotions, but being able to tolerate and withstand difficulty and adversity and how one is feeling internally. And so that's what no back was talking about in that interview. And I really loved it because I think more people need to hear that that it's not about being positive all the time. It's unrealistic, but it's about how quickly can you emotionally recover? Yeah. We mentioned before we recorded that we both work with Isochi and I work on the equipment part and you work more on the behavioral mental part. But working close with them, there is a lot of superstitions. I take my left chin pad before my right. I need to tape my stick, retap it every period and so on and so forth. Yes. Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? Does it matter? I don't think it matters. I think it only matters to a point. I think it only matters to a point where it interferes with an athlete's well-being. Now, I think it does matter if I've had players before where they're like during warmups, I did not feel my best because I put my left pad on before my right. Or I had to I taped my stick with a different tape because the tape that we typically use wasn't in the locker room or things like that. And they become like distraught over it. That signals, okay, something is there and they need maybe more support and being able to adapt and being emotionally flexible. But in the superstition and superstition, right? It's superstitions are just behavior. There's actually a whole chapter in BF Skinner's books that he's written about superstitious behavior and really what superstition behavior is and especially in sport. It's just behavior that has been followed by a consequence that was basically in favor of what the athlete wanted. Then what happens though, if like for example, Rafael and the doll and the way that he would always line up his water bottles, let's say if one day he lines them up but he doesn't win that match, it kind of proves that superstitious behavior. It doesn't withstand, right? The test of time. But it's interesting. Humans will really cling on to anything that they think will help them and they just still do it anyway. But I mean, I see it more so with goalies. I do see it a lot more with NHL players than I do other sports, which is interesting. But it is what it is. I don't pay too much attention to it unless I find that it's emotionally interfering with the well-being of a client. You mentioned goalies and I'm from Sweden. So naturally Henry Lankwist comes up and I saw a video with him that he's warm up routine on ice and it was side by side video and it was year support and it was identical. Dental, exactly the same, isn't very wild. Yeah. So my question there is like on the one hand, if you're seeing it as something positive, maybe it's that when you're having this routine, it triggers like game time, perhaps. Yeah. But what happens if something interferes with that routine and you cannot do it? Yeah, well, that's the point is how much, yeah, then you are assessing, well, how are you going to perform if you cannot engage in that behavior that's part of the routine. But to your point about the fact that they were identical many years apart, that also speaks to repetition and to discipline and those are really important attributes or behaviors that professional athletes have to have is you have to be able to repeat something over and over again the same exact way for a long period of time to master a behavior. So I mean, it just highlights why he was one of the best goalies in the NHL and Buster and Buster Est. That too. Yeah. To any chair players, they will have good times and bad times and they will score a lot one season and nothing the others. Then again, I'm Swedish and like Elias Pedersen comes to mind. He's like last season wasn't his best before that he was just killing it in the NHL. If you're having a player that is underperforming, how are you working with him or her? What are you assessing? How does that look like for someone who doesn't know what you do? Yeah. Well, the first thing is to assess and say like well, to your point Elias Pedersen did really well the season prior last season. I mean, I think also to part of the assessment is taking into consideration the variables of the Vancouver Connux last season was a rough one for them in all different ways, right? There are a lot of things going on. You don't know necessarily if any of that impacts directly his performance, but they are variables in the environment and the environment shapes our behavior. So part of the assessment process is first figuring out asking a player and sometimes they don't even know the answer to this question, but it's to say, you know, what are the biggest barriers that you feel like are blocking you to perform your best? A lot of times they may know, a lot of times they may not know and then part of my job is to help them get to find the answer. And so we'll dilute that and really break it down and try to come up with get to the root of what are the barriers that you're facing and then from there based on what they need in a sense of urgency if it's in the middle of the season, then going about tackling, okay, what's the barrier that's the lowest hanging fruit, right? Like the quickest point of entry in terms of how do we just get a hold of this that way we can get you some point production even if it's more assist not necessarily goals or even if you just have more shots on that and maybe not necessarily goals, at least you're shooting the puck more and not hesitating. So from that assessment piece, then it's about implementation and prescribing them certain strategies. Again, context, specific person specific, right? Yes, of course, of course. What are some of the biggest road blocks that you have seen working with athletes? Yeah, I think the first couple of years into professional sport, it's an emphasis on how things were or how they used to be able to perform or how they got themselves to where they are now. And then when they when they have a, how shall I say this, when they get to a point where it gets a bit rocky and it's there's a bit of turbulence, it can be very jarring for an athlete and that that part is one of the biggest road blocks is you don't feel like yourself, you're not playing like yourself, how do we get you back to being yourself? Now also then adapting to a higher level of performance because the variables in which an athlete, let's say was in the minor leagues and baseball or in the AHL and now they're in the NHL or even in the OHL or whatever the case might be or even sometimes European players that I have who come over then and start playing, it's adapting to a different style of play. A lot of it is feeling like yourself, getting the player to feel like the because they play their best, they perform the best when they do feel like themselves. So that's probably one of the first barriers that's the most common. The next one and this is in no order but the next one definitely is consistency. Consistency is the word that gets thrown around a lot and for teams, team sports, individual sports and the lack of consistency really can infiltrate it.
a pro athletes career. And so getting to form with consistency and then a third piece would be under pressure under those big moments, under the moments that matter the most. So handling pressure, handling pressure, performing consistently under pressure and then feeling like themselves and playing like themselves or performing like themselves and whatever support that it is. I think it was Mohammed Ali that was asked sometimes like what's most difficult is it practice, is it fights, whatever. And he said it's like dodging the women, the night clubs and all the noise around. Perhaps that's the same today, but my thinking went more into like there is so much like social media and other distractions. Well, you know, the clients that I work with, they don't necessarily, they're very forthcoming, they're very open, you know, we talk about a lot and a lot, everything is always confidential and there's a lot of information disclosed. And one of the things that I don't hear often, and maybe it's just because I do work with some of the highest of performers that they are so dialed in, that they don't necessarily report that the social media comments or this or that gets to them so much. Sometimes they will, but I don't hear it as frequently as I would think I would hear it if I were an athlete, like sometimes what I'm on social media. And I think to myself, wow, there's just so much out there about each individual player and so much that's untrue and so much that you don't even know if it's true or maybe it's there's partial truth to it. And it's constant. And the irony is, is right now content creation is everything. Novak Jokovic even said it when, you know, the Australian open is going on right now and they were talking about Coco Gauf and how she said that she felt like the players, the women players don't have privacy because she was smashing her racket like in the hallway. And she felt as though it was caught on camera and she felt as though, you know, they don't have privacy and don't quote me on any of this. But Jokovic had mentioned like, yeah, I agree. It's very, very tough. And at the same time, like content creation is everything around players. People want to know everything about their warm-ups, about emotional moments like that, smashing her racket or players, goalie fights, right? We just had a goalie, which everyone was really excited about. We haven't had a goalie fight in a long time. So as I see it, I'm like, wow, it would be very tough to have all of this out there about me if I were an athlete, right? And I think about if I were in their shoes. And I think with the players that, you know, I work with at the highest of levels, their priorities are in order. So they don't give too much attention to it. Or they've been playing and they've been pros for so long that they, I think in your first expose to it, you can really rock your boat a bit. And it can impact how you feel about yourself. And you can be hyper aware of it and hyper vigilant to it. But as your years go on, I think you just kind of learn like it is what it is. But it is something that in terms of athlete mental health, I do feel as though everyone needs to be much more careful about what we're putting out there, how we're talking about athletes and considering their well-being. Because they provide us a form of entertainment. And I think in response to them, yes, they get paid millions of dollars, but they also provide us a form of entertainment. So I think that it just should still remain the level of respect for them always. Definitely. And there is a case in Sweden with an ISOQ team that is underperforming. And, you know, then the players and staff are getting threats. And there are people who are stepped down. And I mean, then, you know, then we are way, way, way out of line. Oh, absolutely. When it comes to anything like that safety, when law enforcement needs to be involved in things like that is a way out of line. It's absurd. And there's no reason for it at all. For sure. You yourself started posting on social media in around 2020. Why did you decide to create a lot of more content yourself? Yeah, I would like 2020 was in COVID happened, right? And everybody was home. And I think that's when a lot of content creators kind of started just going on social media because it was the thing to do. We couldn't do much else. So I started posting in general psychology content that had an behavior analytic twist to it. So a scinerian school of thought. And I did that for a couple of years. And then it quickly turned into being more niche specific with the target audience of the content creation. So then it quickly turned into more sport specific behavioral psychology content. And it was it turned into a wonderful way to connect with people to enter into this world of professional sport that before I was just a fan of sport. I wasn't even a huge huge fan. I loved tennis. Like tennis is actually my first go to in terms of sports that I love. And I'm into in football, Europeans, your football, like the real football, not American football. People are not going to like that. But you know, European soccer. Okay. And so it became a way to connect with people and educate and apply my training and my background to an area that hadn't really explored professional sport yet. And then I just kind of grew from there and continues to and it's been really wonderful because I think sport. There's a really growing right now as well. Sport has always been growing, but I think in terms of the content creation and meet the aside of it, it seems that there are just all these opportunities blowing up now. Definitely. And with Netflix and everything you have seen, I think that you know, the drive to survive kind of kicks started these behind the scenes in Christ and the mental side of the game is a little bit behind the scenes because that knocks something that you see. So with you giving, you know, your expertise and stories from a little bit behind the scenes, I think that's something that appeals to sport fans a lot. Yeah, you know, it's interesting because I didn't realize that. But then I get a lot of messages of people saying, I've never seen anybody doing what you're doing. Like, yes, there are performance coaches out there. But I think when I have clients, there are many clients that I never post about because confidentiality reasons and NDAs and all that, which of course is number one priority of respecting privacy. But there are many who have been comfortable with it and they're giving me permission and those are the ones where you see like testimonials or maybe we've recorded reels together because they were very much willing to and they found great joy and reinforcement and being able to share their stories as much as they're willing to share. I think the mental side of the game, it's different than showing the the sticks that a player uses, right? Or when Ovechkin scored, you know, B. Gretzky's record, like what stick was he using or what skates was he using? It's different the mental side of the game. But I think that I heard, I don't know if this is true, but I haven't seen all of it yet, but I heard that heated rivalry is maybe the next season of it is going to dive more into the mental side of the game. But again, that's a show so it's not in the same way like a direct performance psychologist, you know, creating content around it. But either way, I think it'll get there. It's it's always been the first taboo area of sport, but I think that we're slowly getting there and that's fine. You know, slow is better than no movement at all in the trajectory of the way that exposure to the mental side of the game at a comfort level of speaking about it. Definitely. I haven't seen heated rivalry yet. I heard so much about it. I haven't seen it yet. No, I just haven't at time. It's that middle of an HL season and I so I haven't had time to watch it. I tried to start watching some of it, but I don't know. I don't have a take on it yet because I haven't seen it. I do know that everyone's talking about it and and that's bringing more awareness to the NHL. I'm curious to know though. This is just the thought I was having if he'll write heated rivalry is bringing more attention to the NHL than for nations did because I felt like for nations brought a lot of attention to the NHL from people who were not necessarily hockey fans prior. But either way, any, you know, attention around sports, any sport where that can be growth is always good. I'll see. We'll touch face when once we both watch it. We'll talk about what we think about it. Yeah, definitely. I feel like it could attract a new type of audience not to make an exact comparison, but the way that when Taylor Swift and football and how they exchange fans, I feel like when you're having something on Netflix, it's more mainstream and it might catch ice that doesn't watch ice hockey generally. Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting to see Netflix sport in general is very interesting now. So it's interesting to see where it'll go and who knows. I think that there is no ceiling to where you know, in terms of content creation and media around sport where it'll go. So you were a gymnast who loves tennis. So how come you're working in ice hockey? Well, I wasn't a good gymnast. I wasn't, I wasn't good. I didn't have potential. I wasn't going to go to the Olympics or anything. I was trained really hard for a very long time. My father was also a gymnast when he was in high school and he was actually, he was, I mean, I don't know a ton, but I do know it. I do know enough to know that he was better than I was. I love tennis. That hockey, it just kind of fell in my lap. I was, I'm born and raised in Michigan. Michigan is a big hockey state. When I was posting content about psychology, I truly think, like, I think this is how we also got connected is the algorithm on Instagram really will feed you.
people who are interested in the same topics, right? Or it does feed you people like the suggestion for you all page, you know, suggested for you accounts. I think that what happened was is just being in Michigan, being around a lot of cities and areas that are hockey heavy. And during the time I was posting, a couple of hockey players had started to follow and mentioned that some of the psychology strategies were helpful for them. And so I decided to be more niche specific of one sport. I initially was going to just start working with a bunch in different sports and create the content so that it generalized to all sports. But I didn't want to do that because also that kind of felt initially overwhelming for me. And I know that to be really great at something, you have to really master and become very detailed in it. So to me, I've I found a great value in becoming very detailed and understanding hockey. You know, I'm from Detroit, so the Red Wings and all that. But I was never a crazy hockey fan. I'm I'm a now a fan just because I appreciate the game from understanding it and working with my clients and seeing what they go through and now knowing the game more, but I didn't know the game before. So I really was like, let me just focus on one sport first, then I'll slowly branch out, but I found great value in just being very sport specific with one sport. Do you feel like the more you know about a sport, the rules and everything around it, that that you can give better advice on the mental side? Yes, which is why I think I've had such great success with NHL players and the hockey players at all levels is because the more that you know, the more specific and granular you can be in the strategy you're prescribing and how you're tailoring it to each client, it can't hurt, right? It can only better what you're going to support them with. And also they feel more connected to the work and you get more buy and at least I found I've gotten more buy and from them because they see that I can understand the I understand the game at the level that I do. There's I'm always learning every day. I'm watching more games like I watch multiple games at one time. I'm always listening to podcasts afterwards and and watching a lot to learn about the game specifically because I actually don't know everything. But now doing that with other sports too, like I've followed tennis. So I already had a strong foundation in tennis and I also play tennis myself, not well at all, not well, but I can hit the ball. But now even with golf, like getting into the granular of golf and the specifics of the NBA and soccer and all that. So yeah, I mean, it makes sense. Obviously that the more you know the better, but it's interesting to see if it's like a one one thing. Well, you can get by without knowing details. You definitely can. However, how effective will it be? And for a client, like how much bang for their buck are they getting as well? So I've had a lot of I've had a handful of NHL players who've come to me because they've said I've worked with somebody else before who what didn't know the game. And so I really wanted to work with somebody who knew the game. So I do think that that adds a component of value and to just what I'm doing. So yeah, it's nice. I like it. That would be an argument also for not working with too many sports because if you would just start working also with lacrosse and curling and whatever, then there's a lot of more sports on rules you need to learn as well. You have it how cool would that be? If at every year, I make it a point to master one sport after the next. And then 10 years from now, I'm the sports psychologist who's mastered all these stories. It's not going to happen. But yeah, I enjoy an offseason too much to spend time getting to know another sport that much. But you know, I've taken a liking to hockey because of the competitiveness. Like I'm a very competitive person. And I love how fast paste it is. There's some other sports that are just a little too slow paste for me. Now, does that mean I'm not going to work with a player who plays a sport? No, absolutely, I'll still work with them. It's just a matter of I think contriving motivation and joy from the work we do on a daily basis in my career is very important to me. And so I get very fired up and as competitive and as dialed and as the athletes I work with because I love to see them do well and enjoy what they do. And so part of that comes from like knowing the sport and finding joy in the sport myself too. I get it's they're preaching to the choir. Exactly. We have mentioned it here and there how you go into what you do. But I know that you didn't work with sports in the beginning. You said that you were working more with parents and kids and you're having a connection to your brother as well and why you got into this. So can you tell a little bit your backstory and how you started with the clinical side? Yeah. So my brother saw he has autism. He's now 38 but he was diagnosed in 1988 with autism. Actually, he was born in 1988 a couple of years after was diagnosed. And you know, at that time autism was not as prevalent as it is today and people did not know much about it. And so from there I started you know as I grew up having a brother with autism and really took a liking and a love for individuals with special needs. So I started working with individuals and special needs. I first started off in speech language pathology honestly and then I switched to more of the behavioral psychology side. And you know, I worked in some of the most world renowned clinics and settings in hospital settings for neuro developmental disabilities. So being exposed to some of the most complex behaviors. And I do actually think that that really set me up well to work in sport because sport is complex. There's a lot of complexity to it. There's a lot of complexity to the mind and verbal behavior which is thoughts or the things that we're saying. And so being able to go through that training academically and clinically where I was exposed to the most complex behaviors I think really set me up well for sport. And it was maybe about time that I made the transition and the transition like I said happened during COVID. It had been over 10 years that I was working in neuro developmental disabilities. And I was starting to get a little burnt out, you know, working in the medical setting, insurance companies here in the States. It's tough. It's really tough. And so it actually happened at a really great time. And it was a way to just transfer my skills and my training into another area. But yeah, it all started with my brother. Yeah. And I read a quote that you said that watching him navigate the world I wasn't built for him taught me lessons that no book ever could. And I mean, that's an experience and an age that you have in your work now that you have, you know, learned things that you couldn't learn just by reading. Yeah. Absolutely. I think that having firsthand personal experience with something, you can read all the books in the world. You can study as much as you want to study. But having an innate intrinsic connection to human behavior and also human suffering and human development, it doesn't, nothing, you can't put a value on that, right? It's the value is is so high and I don't even know what it would be if you try to quantify it. But it really was about helping him adapt to a world that wasn't built for him. And in a way, sometimes I think that the sport world, a professional sport, it's not a conventional world to live in. And so in the same way again, kind of transferring those skills to helping professional athletes adapt to an unconventional life. You know, yeah, there are two different demographics of people and two different forms of complexity and adversity. But I do definitely think that the one, my initial experience, my personal experience to my brother and then that transferring to clinical and academic experience really helped me to have a really strong foundation working with professional athletes. I never would have guessed. I never would have thought. It's it's not something that I ever would have thought, but it really does transfer well. So I'm grateful for that. Have you watched Love on the Spectrum? Everyone always asks me that. I have, I'm not a ton, but I've seen a couple, when it first came out a couple years ago on Netflix, I watched like one or two episodes. It was a little different though from it's tough having a sibling with autism and watching it. I have my own personal views about it. Yeah, that's what I want to ask because it's I feel like the the idea of a show is very risky because it might come across as you're making fun of the people on the show. Yeah. And because you are laughing sometimes, but you're laughing with them, but the fact yeah, it might be seems like you're laughing at them. But I felt like I learned a lot about autism because I knew very little from before. But I that's why I want to ask you since you have such a personal relationship to it, how you felt. Yeah. So again, I haven't I didn't watch all the episodes. I did watch a few and it was a little I think the people who made it were probably well intended. Like I don't think there was a bad intention behind it at all. And if anything, the fact that you're asking me this question, I get asked this question a lot by people just goes to show that it did well for exposing people to autism in a way that they wouldn't have. But to the point, how much autonomy and agency does somebody with autism truly have in that kind of a situation is what I grapple with. It depends on their level of independence, right? And cognitively, their level of understanding of being on a show where millions of people are going to see it. I don't know if we can say with certainty, the level of autonomy and agency they have in making that decision. And then to your point, like about laughing or even laughing with them or laughing because it's quote unquote cute. Well
I don't know. It's just, it's my own personal view of it. I, again, I don't think it was created with ill intention by any means. I think it did more, I think it did a great job in exposing people, but for me, those are my own personal views of it. - I completely understand that. - It's tough, it's tough because they, it's tough because they're so genuine. Individuals of autism are wonderful. They're so genuine and there's no filter and they're very, they're very much themselves when we all need to be a little more like that. So it's a wonderful show for that feel of it, but I just don't know the level of autonomy and agency to feel 100% comfortable with them. - If we're jumping back to Elite Athletes, identity is something that I found very interesting that someone who is an Elite Athlete, they have paid sports their whole life and that has been what they are. They are a hockey player or they are a tennis player. So when that injury comes or the time for retirement, then what are they? Is that something that you're working with? - Yeah, absolutely. When injuries happen, definitely, because what do you do when the thing you can't do anymore is the thing you've always done? So I think that the way that we find the best approach in approaching this situation is to be proactive rather than reactive. So for individuals who are professional athletes, injuries going to happen, it's not a matter of, if it's a matter of when. And so being proactive about how do I, what is your self concept? How do you identify yourself? How do you see yourself? And there's an argument. I hear this back and forth a lot. There's an argument to be said about there should be balance, but then there's an argument where others say, "No way, this is how somebody became the best at what they do "is because they were so dialed in and so obsessed." And I'm not here to say one is better than the other. In fact, I understand the obsessive part of being just so dedicated to something, make somebody great. I do just think having a little bit of cushion to be proactive about identity and self concept. So when the day comes that the athlete is injured, hopefully it's nothing major getting ahead of it before. And I think by getting ahead of it, you soften the blow. I think it'd be difficult either way, but I think you can soften the blow by getting ahead of it. Do you think that like being ahead of it to have maybe a plan because some people go, they become TV analysts, they become a coach, they become a scout. People do all kind of things after their career. Is that something that you also discuss with them? Like post-career stuff? Or are you focusing right here right now? Yeah, not so much right now because all the clients I have are in the depths of their career, right? They're longevity. They have many years ahead of them so long as they stay healthy. So I've had one or two where they were on the verge of retirement. We've discussed that. But also to now with NIL money and the kind of contracts that they have, it is something that I do actually mention because it is part of overall wellbeing is financial literacy and also understanding investments. Like what are you doing with your money? You have millions of dollars in your contract. Like how are you investing it? How are you protecting it? And what types of things they can be doing outside of the sport that they play to maximize their gains financially. So that they don't necessarily have to have a plan B right away. Maybe you take some time off after you retire and then you figure out the best next move for you because I think that rushed feeling of what am I going to do now also can be very jarring. So just having that cushion there with financially so that when they are ready to move forward they can. And talking about the future or looking ahead, how do you see behavioral science evolving within sport going forward where you know, now it's AI, data analytics and everything that's coming. So how do you see this field evolving? Yeah, I think first the exposure piece of what is behavioral science and how can it contribute to optimizing performance? That education, exposure and education piece first needs to happen. And then from there understanding, well here are case scenarios where it's helped before and how we can move forward implementing behavioral science procedures. Because at the end of the day, AI is great and digital, all the stuff is great but it doesn't beat the human one-on-one experience. So I think the exposure and education piece and then the sky is the limit in terms of optimizing an athlete's performance of what behavioral science can do. People have said that you can never run a four-minute mile and then it was done and you can never, this record is never going to be broken and it's just getting better and better and better. Is there a ceiling when it comes to performance? Can you skate any faster? Can you shoot any harder? I mean, that's what I, in my work, I mean with the equipment side, how can you make that happen? But there's also the human aspect of how far can you push yourself mentally and physically? Yeah, absolutely. I don't think that there is a ceiling. I thought that there would be but someone else made a really good point that the way athletes are recovering now because of all of the ice baths, the red light therapy, all of the tools to recover the data and the insights and nutrition and analytics around the physiological elements of a player who knows? It's quite scary to think about how far can it go? And then I also wonder, maybe then we need to change our definition of what an optimal human is. Like this is I'm talking down the line of maybe not too far down the line but maybe changing our definition of what an elite performer is 'cause perhaps it changes as the tools change and the tools evolve. So yeah, I think physiologically the sky's the limit. I worry about the sky being the limit because it's, you know, think about it back in the day when they didn't have any of this and they were maybe trying to see who could move, like when the Greeks were like, who can move a boulder the furthest within a certain amount of time? Like they didn't have a red light therapy, they didn't have ice, you know, cold plunges. Is that the true test of humanity in optimal performance or do we have to redefine what it is now because the tools have changed and the things that we use now are so elite and next level. Who knows? I don't know, I just take one day at a time when it comes to the mind. It's such a fascinating field and so much that probably so much that we don't know also about the brain and the mind. Yeah, I think that we like to think sometimes we do know. And I also worry that with AI maybe we'll stop wondering and I never want to stop wondering. I never want to stop being curious or wonder about the mind and the brain and humans and I worry that with AI can be very easy to, it can be very wonderful 'cause it's a great tool to help us absolutely. And I use AI in certain ways within my business just in terms of systems and helps. But I also think that it can be something that maybe is a deterrent to curiosity. And theoretically, I worry for that because I would never want that. And I also just wonder where it takes us in terms of mental performance and how far we can go. So who knows, we'll see, we'll check back in in the year from now to year so now let's see what's changed. Maybe I won't be here, maybe I'll be replaced with a robot. It won't be me showing up to this, it'll be a robot. I hope not. And I have a star. We'll run this back at some point and then I hope we're in the flesh. Yeah, absolutely. There are a lot of young people listening to this podcast who want to get into the sports industry. And if someone wants to get into the mental and behavioral side of sports, what would be some advice that you have for them? My first piece of advice would be, I don't even know if I'm one to give advice 'cause I'm just still just winging it myself and figuring it out day to day. My first piece of advice would be if they can define a good mentor. That can be very helpful, but at the same time, a lot of people are busy. These days, right, and it can be very difficult to find somebody to learn from. So providing some value in some way and then showing that person how you can be of service or a value to them and try to learn under them. I got to where I am by learning under some of the greatest in my field. Of course, it was through an educational clinical training and requirements, but if anybody's able to find the best to learn under, maybe you have to work for free for a little bit, which I know is not fun. I mean, I did it for a couple of years. And so that would be my first piece of advice is finding a great mentor and then also just taking risks, taking chances. You really just have to go for it. I first got started some initially in these different ways that I mentioned, but also just cold DMing clients and asking them if they'd wanna work with me, showing them how I can provide value. So you really gotta get a little bit more and conventional these days with the way that social media and the world and businesses is going. I like that. I like to learn on a networking question. So who from your network do you think would be a good guest on this show? - Well, that's a good question. Well, I have two. George, who is a golf instructor and he's wonderful, but he also has a background in psychology. He is based out of California. He'd be wonderful because he's just been through, he's so knowledgeable. And then Rob Dembrowski, who works with Hockey players and other athletes, he's a strength and conditioning coach and he has a wealth of experience and he is so well spoken. I think he would be, Rob would be really great. - Yeah, I agree. Sounds like two great guests. - Dr. Alicia Nasser, thank you so much for taking the time to join Sports Management Podcast. - Thank you so much for having me. (upbeat music)
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