#480 Dan Abrahams, EPL Sport Psychologist, on Developing a Mental Playbook for Performing Under Pressure

This episode is brought to you by Zone 14 Coaching, a company built by coaches for coaches. If you have ever ended a practice session thinking, "Did that practice really hit the mark? You're going to love what they have created." Now we know that self-awareness is a message that all of our coaches and all of our guests talk about all the time. Well Zone 14's next-gen journals for coaches and players help you plan every practice, reflect on what work and track progress all season long. Built on intentional coaching and backed by neuroscience, they bring structure and purpose to your training. Visit zone14coaching.com and use Code Champions 20 for 20% off your order. If you want to outfit your whole team or club and improve consistency across all coaches, you can get in touch with Zone 14 via their website, zone14coaching.com to discuss bulk discounts. Welcome to the Wave Champions Podcast. I'm your host, Jon O'Sullivan. Every week we connect you with the top minds in the world of sports, coaching, leadership and building the championship programs so you can take your athletes and your teams to the next level. Hey everyone, welcome to the Wave Champions Podcast. This week it's Jon. I'm here with Jerry and we're both here with our good friend, Dan, Abraham's. So excited to have Dan back on the podcast to talk about his brand new book, "Complete, Developing a Mental Playbook for Performance Under Pressure in Sport." His book is really good, everyone. I just got to say, you know, Dan's older books did really well. Lots of athletes, lots of coaches, used them. But this book is awesome. For those who don't know, Dan's a sport and performance psychologist. He's a former professional golfer and I spent the last two decades working with some of the best sports competitors in the world, consulting for Aston Martin F1, lead psychologist for England, golf and England, rugby. He's worked with six different premier league teams and in the U.S. work with professional sports teams and is currently a consultant psychologist for Angel City and NWSL. He's written, like I said, four previous bestselling books, including Soccer Tough, which is best known one. And he has a podcast called "The Sports Psych Show," which is one of the leading sports psychology podcasts in the world. You can connect with him, DanAbraham's.com at DanAbraham77 on those platforms and also just look them up on LinkedIn as well. So in this conversation, we break down his book and we talk about the mental skills and game face and focus and all these sort of things that he talks about, how he's worked with some of these top performers and top performing teams to really get the mindset correct, to get the mental game correct so that you can perform on a physical level. Get the emotional piece correct so it can perform on a physical level. This is a wonderful conversation. And like I said, I can't recommend the book enough. I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. But yeah, I think you're really going to enjoy this. I think you're going to want to take some notes because it'll set you up if you get this book for implementing a little bit of mental training for your team and for your athletes and for your players. Before we dive in, want to give a shout out to our sponsor, Zone 14 coaching, gave a little ad for them before. But journaling is a big part of what Dan talks about and how important it is to really get clear on what's working and what's not working and how you're feeling because that's how you're going to function. And Zone 14 coaching provides journals for coaches and for athletes so that they can get really clear on why was today a good day and why was, you know, yesterday not such a good day. So you can repeat more of those good days, all right. Thanks to Sprocket Sports, our long time sponsor. If you need a player registration platform, team communication tool, beautiful front end website and all that stuff, developed by people who are still in the game, who ran sports clubs, who truly get your daily needs. Check them out, sprocket sports.com/ctg. We just heard about them on the way champions podcast, okay. And finally, please go down in the show notes here. We're getting ready to release our brand new book, Captain the Athletes Guide to being an exceptional team leader. It's in the final stages of design right now. And if you want to get on that early bird list for bulk orders, there's a little Google link in there that you can just put your name and email and you'll be the first to know when it comes out. This is the book that so many coaches, so many athletic directors have been waiting for. Where have all the leaders gone? Well, as Shane Badiay wrote for us in his testimonial for the book, leadership is a skill and it's something that needs to be developed and intentionally taught. And we want to help you do that. So go down to that link below, get your name on the list and get ready because this book is hopefully going to be out near the end of May or early June and it's going to be a doozy. All right. So for now, enough for me. Get ready. Get set. Danny Abrahams. How can we develop a mental playbook for performance under pressure? Enjoy everybody. Dan, welcome back to the way champions Jerry and I are so excited to have you on my friend. It's been a few years, John, but I'm delighted, honored, excited to be back and interviewed by both of you as well, very intimidating. I'm using all of my techniques on myself right now to get through this. We're waiting for you to write a new book, man. I mean, but I have sent you the odd LinkedIn message. You're like, we need to chat again. We need to get you back on the podcast because I so enjoy your LinkedIn posts and you really just take this deep dive into these sports situations. And so when I heard you were going to, you had this new book coming out. I'm like, oh, great. Because really what you're just saying to us is you just spent the last decade or so field testing a ton of stuff. That's a really good way to put it. Yeah. And you are right. You have very generously invited me on quite a few times over the last few years and I've kind of not pushed back but kind of said, I've got something, something in the pipeline that say, if you can be patient with me. So it's great to be back on. And yeah, my last book was released around about a decade ago. I wrote four in four years. So I was on a roll. But I really got to a point where it was like, I need to get out there and to use your term, which I think is absolutely spot on. I wanted to feel tests and my days. And I've had the pleasure of working with six Premier League clubs and probably in that time and England rugby. I was just coming to the end of England goal for decade ago. So that was still involved. After Martin Formula One, finaled with Anna Slott. So I've had all these wonderful experiences where I've been able to field test these ideas build on them and yeah, tweak them where appropriate. And now I've managed to write the book and it's about to get out there. Well, Jerry's a prolific writer. Jerry, I just think of Dan saying that and you spent decades field testing ideas. Yeah, yeah, I was trying to understand what Dan was saying and I really get it. I actually did the field testing before the writing like a lot, like 45 years worth of marinating my soul in this work. And to John's point, yeah, like since covert, I've written, well, since 2020, I think I've written in published nine books. That's the very definition of prolific. If we looked prolific up in the dictionary, I think there's a picture of you there, Jerry. And I've had the pleasure of hosting you, Jerry, for and yourself, John, but a couple of times with relation to some of those books and I'm just listening to 45 years of field test. I mean, I'm in my infancy, you know, it's I'm still in diapers basically. I'm sitting with two youngsters, right? Now and and I love it because I'm learning from you guys other things I need to know. But I didn't realize why I could write that much in that short period of time and the reason was it was all in there bubbling over and and and and and percolating and for years. And then I was able to do it. And I'm not like John and you, you know, I could speak for John traveling all the time. He's on a plane going to the East Coast of Europe or something. I get the pleasure of being here and choosing and picking where I want to go. And I don't go to many places because it's not worth it, you know. So I'm sitting home and what do I do with my time? I write. And so it's it's not a big accomplishment. It's like people eat every day. So I write every day, right? But Jerry, Jerry, so you've worked with some amazing, some amazing teams and amazing players and you know, being able to utilize modern technology now and get on those jump on those zooms and have these kind of conversations. you've had it again just leaning on some of the conversations I've had you with you. I'm just in awe of the work that you've produced over the years and you've been inspiring us all to be the very best that we can be. So the very fact that you've written nine books in six years, I mean I've done one. Yes, get in. I'll make behind you. So I'm going to try and push on and write nine in the next six years and I'll be just behind you. When the star is aligned, you can't fight it. I'm sure. Yeah, I think when the universe gives you an idea, you got to run with it or the universe will take it away and give it to someone else. So Dan, because you've been on before and you know, for people who don't know, Dan was an aspiring professional golfer for many years. So I know you're watching the Masters this past weekend and Rory Mackle, Rory wins his second. But I don't know if you saw he was wearing a whoop band. Have you seen this? So it was measuring and he made it public his heart rate and stuff. So 72nd whole of the Masters on the tee, Rory, who's resting heart weight is in the 40s was at 135. Right on the tee with the two two stroke lead slices it into the woods. Right. We've all been there. Second shot, he's down at like 120. Gets it, you know, hits it close to the green, gets on and he's down by 100 at the putt and then he's at 150 when he's celebrating. And what fascinating data, right, that competing is not about not being scared or having fear or stress or nervous. It's about the ability to take action in those moments no matter what you're feeling. And that's kind of what you're all new books about, isn't it? In a nutshell, I suppose, yeah, the capacity to compete. I mean, I did watch the Masters from from from the one to dusk here in the UK or it's on in the evening here. And I watch every year and I'm fascinated. As you said, I grew up. I was inspired to strive to become a professional by watching the Masters. I think so many of us who became pros were inspired by the Masters. There's a couple of interests. I mean, that's absolutely fascinating that data in and of itself. But there's a couple of really interesting things that came out for me. I mean, I'm a couple of years older than Justin Rose, but I played amateur golf at the same time as him. And I never had the honor of playing with him as an amateur, but I played behind him in a few tournaments. So our piles of cross frequently and the interesting thing about Justin and I do hope he won't mind me saying this because I'm sure he listens to this all the time, John, but by his own admission, by his own admission, he failed to commit on a few shots, especially on the 10th and the 11th hole when he hit a couple of push shots, which is classic, not committing to a shot. And I find it amazing how somebody who is prolifically good on the pressure and there's one multiple times around the world. One of the best players in in the world actually just in that context in that tournament found himself in the lead. And although he kind of said, well, I didn't really look at the scoreboards, I think he probably had an inkling he was in the lead. And actually, it's a constant slightly to the pressure. I went bogie bogie and and drop down the field. The other interesting, a dynamic other than the data points you gave me about Rory there was just the fact that Rory was on Saturday on his C game. It was one of those days where he probably couldn't feel his swing. And again, having come from a golf background and I've been a PGA coach, so I know the technical side of the game. And I know what it's like, I certainly know what it's like to not be able to feel your swing. That was me as a pro golfer. And he just "Okay, there you go." So we all know what that feels like. And so for him to really battle on the Saturday and even the Sunday, because he definitely didn't have his A game on the Sunday. To battle through, I just added an extra dimension to his self-wiculation, his self-control under that pressure on the Sunday. When he essentially had his B B minus C game on, which I just think is unbelievable golf from him. A sign of his ability, but his capacity to really engage in self-control under pressure. So I thought there was some really interesting dynamics coming out of that master's from a psych perspective. Golf is such a fascinating sport because it's you. It's the golf course. There's not a team meet to rely on or cover for your mistake or, yeah, blame your caddy, but no one really cares. So it's just such a fascinating just ability to I got to step up. And we had a guy on this podcast a couple of years ago, Michael Murphy wrote a wonderful book called Golf in the Kingdom. And he said, "Golf is what happens between the shots." That's what golf is. And that you're so little time actually hitting the shots. It's what you're doing. Where's your mind going? How you're staying focused. Going. And I think one of the interesting things, and I don't want to get too far off the topic, but as people have analyzed Rory and this new generation of golfers, how important it is in that round. They're eating food, they're getting nutrition, they're fueling their brain instead of letting it get exhausted as well. And this is something that as sport coaches, our players go in at half time and they need to fuel, but we probably should have a bar or something as well so that we're coaching our best in those moments. And I'm a little bit off topic, but it just I find it just it's really fascinating to watch golf because it's the epitome of having to be completely calm, not calm, but having to act when you're not calm at all. You've got to be, I mean, to use a term I use all the time and I've written a chapter about this in my new book, "Complete", but I also wrote a chapter about this with relevance to golf, my golf, my golf tough that I wrote a decade ago. You've got to be in your game face. You've got to be either find as a game face as your competitive persona. It's the specific persona that you want to demonstrate to yourself and potentially to others in the moment. You've got to be, do, act, embody and act, who you need to be. And that might be calm, but also it might be up, it might be positive, it might be dominant and relentless. And I always reflect back on my own golf career when I was very much and I'm going to use some more terms here that I know John, you know that I talk about all the time such as squishing and sands being an acronym for automatic negative thoughts. And my brain when I walked onto the first tier as a pro golfer, I practiced eight hours a day and yet I still walked onto the first tier with an ant farm floating through my mind right. Everybody's swing was better than mine. The course was tough, the weather was awful, even probably when it was sunny. And I really needed to walk on that first tier in my game face. And a game face the way I create it with this mental technique is a couple of action based words and potentially a model player. And if I could get in a time machine, given a time turn or getting in a time machine, go back, I would walk onto that first tier and I would be dominant aggressive woods, woods is entitled with some. We're not talking about the woods, probably off the course right now, but woods are at his very best as a competitor dominant and aggressive because even though we might not see aggression as something that is synonymous with golf, I needed to be a bit more assertive and aggressive within myself in order to, well, let's use that word again, assert myself on the first tier. And dominant to hold myself dominant to walk dominant, to walk onto the green, you know, with a downhill left to right tricky part to walk on that in a dominant fashion. I believe every player, every competitor needs their own game face no matter their sports in order to optimize their ability to be the best individual they can be and the best team mate they can be if we are talking about team sports. Just one brief interesting dynamic with golf. You see, I agree with you John, obviously in team sports, you could potentially have the luxury to hide, right? If perhaps you're not having a great game or you're not feeling it, although so many video cameras around, even at the amateur level might find you out. But the interesting thing is golf itself paced the border stationery which could can make it harder, you're on your own. These things lend to people saying how psychologically difficult golf is and I don't deny that at the same time I would always argue as a pro golfer, whatever toy I had qualified for and they were never the big one, but whatever toy I had qualified for, I could pay my entrance fee and go and play and I didn't have to whilst I couldn't rely on anybody else, I didn't have to help anybody else. And so the psychosocial aspect in golf is just about me. And if anything that can in a way make it easier as well. In a team sport I might have to be a hard I do have to be a great teammate. I potentially have to be a good leader. You know, I have to establish relationships in golf. You don't give a damn if anybody likes you or not, you know, but you know, in team sports, you have to have that. So this is really interesting dynamism between the individual sports and team sports. So I don't think I'm always obvious from a psychological perspective. Jerry, Jerry, yeah, so you said what stands in the way, Dan, of being that aggressive fighter warrior as you approach the first tee. What is that about? I mean, why not be aggressive? Like what's in the way? Myself. I was and that's very much such a great question, isn't it? And I would, and again, I talk him in my new book, "Complete about so many, so many several emotional states that I think underpin that lack of aggression or assertiveness. And we can go on to talk about those in more detail. But for me, it was performance anxiety. I was working so hard at my game. And yet I suffered from real strong, anxious, and again, let's use this term, automatic negative thought. And I'm a big believer. And look, if I may, I'll bring this on to compete this new book I've got out whereby I open this book by saying, it is critical. If you want to be a great competitor, it is critical to be able to take control and take charge of yourself in your given competitive environment. It's word control, I think, is imperative. However, through the book, I also talk about the dynamic of the brain and the complexity of the games that we're playing, but especially the dynamic of the human being, human beings are bio-psychosocial creatures. And we experience our thoughts, we experience our emotions, we experience our feelings, we don't do anxiety on purpose. Yeah, there are 8 billion people on planet Earth. And I think we can safely say that are some fairly different geopolitical things going on right now in the world. But you can also argue that one thing that all 8 billion of us have in common, and I'm pushing aside anybody with anybody, any kind of neurological disorders here. But we can pretty safely assert that all 8 billion of us have thoughts and emotions feelings. That's how we function as human beings. If you strip psychology back, we think we are moat and we feel. And these thoughts, emotions, feelings happen to us. Now, when you go into a competitive environment, the way I explain this is in the book is when you go into a competitive environment. There's high importance, it's important to us. We want to do well. Well, when into my golfing or another playing golf tours, I was flat to your all time, well, once you did do well. It was a big part of my identity, I'm a professional golfer, I want to make lots of money here, I want to be successful. It's really important to me. And there's high uncertainty. There's a great deal of uncertainty. So we've got this equation. High importance, high uncertainty. And that high importance and high uncertainty can ramp up, turn up the volume of ant-automatic negative thoughts, emotions, feelings. I'm cheating a little bit with the acronym on bolting on emotions and physics. So again, let's come back to the human being. As human beings we experience thoughts, emotions, feelings under pressure in tournament play. In competition, we can tend to have more automatic negative thoughts, emotions, feelings. And combined was we don't necessarily know how to find our best mindset. So on the one hand, being a human being, we got something pulling us down to a low performance mindset, a poor mindset. And we don't necessarily know how to find our best mindset, what I call your high-performance mindset in the book. And so that's how I set up the book. I set up the book by saying this is exciting, this is exciting. I'm going to teach you how to take control and take charge of yourself when you walk into your competitive environment, whatever that environment is. We're going to explore what you've got to do to help you find your high-performance mindset. We're going to help you to squash your answer, automatic negative thoughts, emotions, to help you rise up from a low-performance mindset or LPM for sure, up into your high-performance mindset. We are going to help you become an outstanding competitor. Yeah, well, you know, John, you've told me this, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. That's a Mike Tyson quote. Great floss for that guy. Right? He's brilliant. He's a play-doh for sure. But we get punched in the face sometimes because the other person comes out and the other person is being their best aggressive self as well. What do you think about that? Well, I'll pick up on that and so that's a third dynamic actually. So thank you for that, Jerry. So on the one hand, you know, there's three things that play here. We don't necessarily know how to find our high-performance mindset. So I'm trying to teach people in this book. We don't necessarily know how to squash our ants from any sort of internal anxieties, frustrations, angers that we might experience, okay, or complacency or despondency. And equally as you're alluding to their Jerry, when mistakes are made or when the opposition are playing really well, when tough moments strike, we don't necessarily know how to play through those tough moments. And retain this high-performance mindset. So I speak, absolutely 100%. We need to have mental techniques in order to be mentally skillful in those tough moments. That's absolutely critical. You have to push past that, you know, when you get proverbially punched in the face, I go again, I go again, I go again, I go again, I go again, I stand my high-performance, no matter what, nothing as I say to my client or whatever, nothing and no one. Nothing and no one takes you away from your HPM, your high-performance mindset. And that's how I set out the book. We can dive into this now, I'm sure, John. Yeah, I mean, I think everything you say is so important. This idea of game-face, which you've talked about for years, people understand this because I'll ask an athlete on one of the teams I'm working with, when you're at your best, what do you like? This is your thing, and then who's a player that you admire? They know the answer. I had a kid the other day say, free, I play free and I am in fierce and I'm like Van Dyke, right? He's a center back, like, amen. That's when you, you know, so people know when they're at their best and Jerry says all the time feelings equal function. And I feel that way, I perform my best. And like again, you start the book on, your whole golf career was about focusing on things that were out of your control, like the opponent, like the golf course, like the weather, like, you know, my clubs that don't work, right? Versus versus, you know, this whole high performance mindset is, all I do is focus on what I control. And when I focus on those things, I'm going to feel far more confident. And I'll never feel confident if my mind is on all the things that I have nothing to do with, correct? 100%. And I think the, what I tried to do with this book is add an extra dynamic here, whereby, so let's go back to high performance mindset and low performance mindset. And I actually include average performance mindset. I mean, how I lay this out, you know, moving into sort of a chapter, one after introduction, as I introduced the reader to my, what I call my elite competitor model, okay, fancy name, but basically what it is is, it introduces the reader to two scales. And there's a left hand scale, which is essentially your performance scale from one to ten, which is that classic, you know, how did you perform? Well, I performed A, that's ten, or I performed at six out of ten, or four out of ten. So I think, you know, we all know that exists. And maybe competitors don't necessarily articulate eating in that precise way, but they do become obsessed by performance and they try to force performance. Got to perform, got to win, got to win, got to win, got to perform, got to perform, got to perform. That old adage that I know you guys will talk about all the time as being, you know, that to a, to a high degree out of your control and the mistake is to try to force that. Well, I'm the person who comes along just like YouTube Gents and say, well, there's another scale going on every single second out there. And that's a mindset scale. And it's this mindset scale for me that is absolutely critical. And so in chapter one of the book I'm saying, look, there's a performance scale and there's a mindset scale and I'm going to help you become more sophisticated, okay, around your mindset scale. I'm going to help you become passionate about this mindset scale. And this is where I come back to HPM and LPM. So at the top of that mindset scale, I define this high performance mindset. In the middle of that average performance mindset and the bottom low performance mindset. So again, what we're doing is we're starting to label what we want here. And labeling is quite a powerful thing because if we go into an organisation like I work for two years at Firenord, a football club in the Dutch era, Divisi, and I just so happen to be blessed to work with a pretty good coach. A guy called Anna Slot, who ended up at Liverpool, who's, you know, having some challenging times at Liverpool Football Club at the moment. But it was wonderful to work with him. And he really loved this because, you know, his opening gambit to me back in September 2022 was down. We've got a great team. I think we can win the Dutch Airy Divisi Championship with this team. I think we can break the IACS PSV stranglehold. I think we can have a good run at the Europa League, okay? So win in Europe, but I need my players to be mentally used to the word mentally, tarful, mentally strong. You know, I want the players to be as good mentally for 95, 100 minutes out there. And I introduced him to these two scales. This elite competitor model. And he really liked it because he said, yet we can really emphasise HPM, high performance mindset in every activity, in every session, every single day and really drive it. And that's what we did. We ended up beating IACS away from home for the first time in 17 years. I'm not going to, for one second suggest it was only because we worked on HPM, but it was a contributing factor. Now what I do in the book, and this can help you load up some questions here, I'm sure, is I was thinking, where do I want to take this? And I decided I wanted to do the deep dive here. Because I know a lot of people listening in would be saying, and I had this question, I was on another podcast earlier today and they said, well, that's all very nice then, but what do you mean by mindset? What is that? And so I'm defining mindset as three skills, three mental skills. Okay, I'm going out on a limb here. I'm being potentially quite brave. And I'm suggesting in this book that there are everything loads onto these three skills in action. And the quality of the execution of these three skills determine where you are on that mindset scale, which then heavily influences where you are on the performance scale that all links in. Now, these three skills, I think are undeniable. And I would say that they, and my claim is they are essentially first principles here. Attention, intensity and intent, briefly, attention. Okay, a focus of attention. Pretty obvious, I know. I think that's the number one mental skill in a high performance mindset. You are focused and connected to the game. You are focused and connected to teammates, ball, space, opposition. You are scanning and searching for the cues in the environment that are appearing and disappearing that inform your next best action. In a low performance mindset, your attention, you are distracted and disconnected. Essentially, your attention turns inwards away from the cues and clues that are going on in the performance environment. Intensity, and by intensity, I'm actually talking about a mental intensity as a partner to physical intensity, but mental intensity is a close cousin to attention. And this is very much the engagement piece. We want to be able to have a duration of attention and direct our attention, but the intensity piece is that depth of attention. Are we alert and ready? Are we alert to see the opportunity and exploit the opportunity? Are we ready to see the danger and deal with the danger? See the responsibilities and execute the responsibilities. Alertness and readiness. And then finally, attention, intensity, intent. I think this is a fascinating word in sport. I don't think we talk about this enough. By intent, I'm talking about a mind-body state that influences the style in which you execute your actions. Athletes execute actions in their high performance mindset with a high intent where you are energy forward, you are purposeful, you are proactive with your attitude and you are executing actions positively. In a low performance mindset where you have a low intent, you are energy back rather than energy forward. And I think these are the biggest killers in sport where you are hesitant, inhibited and passive, hesitancy, inhibition and passiveness. And so, attention, intensity, intent are a constant cycle underpinning actions, technical, physical actions, the execution of these that is influencing performance. And then for the remainder of the book, I'm introducing the reader to tools and techniques that they can use to play and compete with a high attention, an optimal intensity, a high intent, a high performance mindset. How have I played it out? I mean, you could lay those out as almost playing to win versus playing not to lose. Right? We see examples of this every day a team takes a lead and then they sit back and start playing not to lose or, you know, and I think it's just such a fascinating thing. And you can see in a sport like soccer with 11 players on the field, you can feel a different energy, you can feel a different competitive drive versus that team that's on the front foot, that's aggressive, that's taking chances and things like that. And, you know, and it's where I think, you know, a club like a Barcelona that's really committed to playing a certain way is saying, we're going to play this way and we may lose, but we're going to play this way. Good luck and if you beat us fair, fair play, right? And they had an amazing game last night against Athletico and fell short and of course there's controversy and red cards and all sorts of weird things, but like, but they're like, we're going to go for it. And whatever happens happens and what a, I just think it's a more fun way to play as an athlete as well versus like protect passive. Don't get embarrassed. There's so many rich, there are things that you said there and I'm actually working with an NWSL, a National Women's Soccer League team over in the States at the moment. So I'm blessed to come over the Atlantic quite a few times a year at the moment and what you've just said is precisely the philosophy that we've adopted, which is, look, we don't know if we're going to win on the scoreboard and we accept, especially in the NWSL where the teams are fairly, you know, they're fairly even. We accept, we may not win on the scoreboard, but we refuse to lose on attention. We refuse to lose on intensity. We refuse to lose on intent. That's where we are going to obsess is a strong word, but we are going to obsess these every activity and every session every day. We're going to be passionate about this as individuals and as teammates, our leaders are going to drive this, our coaches are going to drive in. We're going to be all in on this. It doesn't mean that we are definitely going to win. It doesn't mean we're going to get that right scoreboard all the time. Maybe we will, okay, but we probably won't we accept that, but what we refuse to accept is to not play with mental skill. That's what if we're going to be angry with ourselves, we are, we're going to be angry with ourselves there if we drop down to LPM, we have to compete in HPM. Sorry. Give me so much food for thought here. This is astounding. Let me just throw out some thoughts here. First of all, number one, I really want to know, come back at some point, maybe define what competing is. How do I know when I go to a lacrosse pitch or soccer pitch and I look at the team? How do I know they're competing? The Latin word for competition translated means to seek together and you don't have to seek together with your opponent, but you can seek together with each other. An example is, let me just go one step further. One of the teams I'm working with right now is Navy lacrosse. Maybe I shouldn't be wearing this here. One of the teams I'm working with is Cindy Timschill at Navy lacrosse, women. We had a session the other night and they were playing Army. Anyone that's anybody in sports knows that when you're playing Army and you're a Navy, that's like the biggest game of the year. It's the national championship for them. We had a session and we talked about this seeking together and how we're going to seek together. What we came up with is really interesting. And Invictus spiritus means the undefeated spirit. And I said to them, they can defeat you on the scoreboard. You can't control that. But can we go out on that field and control and make sure that they don't defeat your spirit? Okay, one step further now. So what does that mean? So they're all saying, yeah, yeah, you know, we're not going to let them beat our spirit. Well, what is that spirit? The spirit is not what you do. We all know how to do lacrosse. We all know how to do whatever we're doing. We know how to do it. But psychologically and philosophically, your spirit is who you are. So if they can go out and be, be navy, not beat army, be, what does that mean? And we came up with like four or five items, which, which I said to them, if, if you're going to be this way, they cannot defeat your spirit. So you won't lose. And so that those five items were be brave, be strong. And we define what brave meant and what strong meant be tough, be the hardest working team on the field and be caring and giving to each other. They went out and they destroyed army the next day. They crushed them. They, they scored 11 straight goals unanswered. And you know, I really think there's something to all that and I really do think that we seek together our greatness. Like if I'm going to, if I'm going to play golf against you, yeah, this takes a high and all of that, but really, I'm going to watch you and I'm going to see what I need to do to be my better self. What, what do I need to do? How do I need to be as navy did and, and to seek together our greatness when, when we focus on not doing and we focus on being, we don't feel as much tension. We don't get tight and we don't get tentative. When we focus in on controlling what we can, I can control how I'm being right now. I'm being passionate. I'm being demonstrative, waving my hands. You know, I'm like, I'm really into this. That's how I'm being. You can't take that away from me. Now, I, I, I, I, I, yeah, sorry, sorry. Big punch. No, go right ahead. I just went a bunch of stuff there. I love it. And I love the way that you've helped that team lay down, you know, to use some psychological jargon here's a shared mental model. You're, you're helping them. That's what we do, right? We're facilitators. We facilitate a framework that we can together live by. Train by learn by engage by compete by and that that's just just wonderful listening to what you're saying there. You're helping them define what their brand, what their version of what it is to, to, to compete is. And there's so many different flavors of this. And I think this is the wonderful thing about the profession that we're all in. And we do it in slightly different flavors. And, you know, from, from organization to organization, I'll do it in slightly different flavors, just as I'm sure both of you do. You don't do the same thing every time. So, you know, at this NWSL team at the moment, I have introduced high performance mindset, low performance mindset and attention, intensity and intent. And to speak to what you're saying there, Joe, together, okay, we filled in some more detail what this looked like for us and we are all in on supporting each other to do that. Now if I was to go back to the case study working two years at, at, at Fion, or in the Dutch era, to Vizzi with Anastas, one of the first things that we did is we got the players in the room. And we lent on memory, we talked about us at our best to be able to define high performance mindset. I still use that language. And so, and the players broke that down into three action-based words. Those three words, if I can recall correctly, were brave, dominant and relentless. Brave, dominant and relentless. They padded brave, dominant and relentless out with a few behaviors. I don't think you want to take to make too many because then it gets lost amidst the noise. There's too much. But brave, dominant and relentless. And so much of those two seasons I was with them became about HPM, brave, dominant, relentless. And the beauty of that was just bringing these players back. This team back to, who do we want to be? We want to be brave, dominant, relentless. Here's the behaviors related that we do this every day, every week. And it's that, to speak to what you're saying there, Jerry, and emphasising, it's that togetherness of the framework, working together to help each other be there. And I think that is a great definition of what it is to be a great competitors within a team. It's having that framework, it's working on it together. And irrespective of the score, irrespective of where we are in the league, irrespective of what's going on around us and the challenges that confront us because there's going to be plenty of challenges. We stick to that framework, no matter what, and we help each other to do that. We speak in slightly different tones, but we really do draw from the same palette, if you like. Can I just throw in a quick thing because I think it's really important. This is one of the first things Jerry said to me when he said, "Okay, I have these coaches, they want me to work with their teams. I'd like to pass them on to you." He said, "The coach has to be bought in." Arnyslott can't say, "Hey, Dan, make my team mentally tough, and I'm going to keep doing the same stuff that I've always doing, and if they're not mentally tough, that's your fault." Like, a coach has to create the environment for mental toughness. A coach, you know, you have to, then Arnyslott has to say, "Yeah, I want my team to be brave, dominant, relentless." Well, he or she has to create an environment where that's allowed to happen. I can't be brave if I'm not allowed to make a mistake. I can't be relentless if I get screamed at for missing a shot. I can't be dominant if I press and they beat the press. Whatever that is, because we have so many coaches listening to this, it's like you create the environment where this high performance mindset is allowed to happen. You can bring in Dan, you can bring in Jerry, you can bring in John. If you don't create that environment, there's nothing we're going to do that's going to fix that. Agree? Disagree. Completely agree. And I've been in those environments where you're banging your head against a brick wall. In essence, it's siloing psychology. You know, it really is. It's the older school approach, if you like, or the older school coaching view of psychology, which is down the hallway, second on the left, go see the cycle and have a conversation. And it's all healthy. Yeah, it's disembodied. You know, it's not embedded. The words I'm thinking are the importance of being embedded, embodied, enacted. You know, it's, hey, John, it's that classic ecological stuff, right? We're all in on this. And over the years, I've worked with the nut teams and had those situations where you're trying your best to do great work. And I say to coaches, now, look, help me be great. You know, I work damn hard and I'm, I'm a geek with this stuff. I think about this stuff 24/7. My wife despairs, right? And so, and, and, and if I'm going to do that, I, I, I, I'm going to go walk into an environment and say, help me be the best that I can be. But if the coach, if I may say so, because I know there's coaches listening and it, it, it, it, it, what's it might not be impossible? It becomes damn difficult to do great psych work across the organization, across the team. If coaches aren't in and driving it, if they're not again to use my terms, directing attention, driving intensity, drilling intent, all in on HPM or whatever language we lay down. It's, it's another one more thing to say on this is that ultimately and this might sound like an extreme thing to say. But I do think it's an important lens, which is nothing is neutral. Nothing is neutral and again to use my own term. And this is speaking to your point, John, if I bring in HPM and LPM, high performance, mindset and low performance, nothing is neutral. So coach sessions, session design, coach behavior, coach feedback, meetings and so on and so forth. The formal player development programs, the informal conversations. If you are communicating, designing sessions, behaving in a coaching manner that drives players to LPM, they're going to go to LPM. Cohease is neutral and so the most cohesive, the most successful environments are often going to be the ones that are most cohesive or at least as cohesive as we can be. These are complex environments. You're never going to get completely right. I'm not suggesting that. We're human beings, right? We are complex and these are complicated environments. But if we are working linguistically and behaviorally as cohesively as possible, nothing is neutral. [BLANK_AUDIO] didn't work to his HPM and that's critical. Jerry, go ahead. I think, yes, to everything you just said, I don't want to overlook that. You made some amazing points there, Dan. And I love the concept of nothing's neutral. We wouldn't like to talk about your influences, never neutral. So leading into that, co-telling on what John said a few minutes ago, there are coaches there that really don't want me. They don't want you. They don't want you on. And I think the reason they don't, I'm going to make an assumption here, is they don't know what they need. So that comes to the point of not just writing a book about it, but when we're working with a program, the coach says, yeah, I heard you were successful with this team and you have all these victories and you have all these championships. I want you to do that to me. And I say, you know what? I don't say this to them directly, but basically what I have to do, my job is to educate them. They don't even know what they crave. So when I have a team like like Navy, Cindy Timshaw, the Winnie is lacrosse coach of all time, I still need to educate her. And when I educate her what that means is I give her the belief in what I'm going to tell her and I position it so that she can hear the way to deliver that to the team before I even get there. And so that belief becomes a way of her getting in touch with, oh my God, that's what I wanted. Yeah, yeah, that's good. And now she's all excited and she's bought in and she not only believes, but she realizes, I crave this and my team craves it. Then she goes to a team and she talks about those concepts and then I enter. Now the team has been marinated in the coach being excited and enthusiastic about what I'm going to be doing. So I think a lot of our work is not so much with the team and performance and competing as much as setting the environment again, getting back to John's point, you set that environment where people feel safe to fail, to make mistakes, to look silly, to look bad. And that's the safe environment and to show that athletes that you're going to crave what I crave, which is this belief in how we can be as human beings, as you say, biopsychosocial people. I don't know if that's making sense at all, but it makes complete sense. It's education of the coach before the coach even knows what they want. Of course it is. In many respects, I think around the psychological and the psychosocial aspects of human performance, we are sent makers and sent givers. We walk into an environment where we can help people make sense of what they're experiencing from a psychological perspective, using a psychological vocabulary, if you like. But we can also sense give. And that's the point, is you quite rightly said there, Gerrit, at the beginning of what you were saying. That's why in many respects we write books because what we're laying out is, again, I'm going to use this term, this term, a framework. We can listen to coaches and we can reflect back what we hear and help them understand what they want. We can walk into the building, again, listen to coaches and say, I'm listening to you. Here is this set of ideas. What do you like from this? What makes sense to you? What do you want to deliver on? I think there's coaching is such. I've written before. Coaching for me is just about as tough a profession, a hobby as you can choose. I'm sure there's other people in other professions who would protest against that, but it's really tough because you're dealing with human beings. And also because coaches, I mean, when I was a golf coach, a PJ golf coach, I was socialised into golf swing. The tool became the golf swing, you know, and many coaches are socialised into tech tech. Now that's not wrong per se because those are important components. But there are other components. Obviously there's the physical components as well. And there's the psychological and the psycho social aspects. And when you add the bio, it all is thrown into this complex mesh. And so for me, actually coaches need whether it's physical trainers for the physical side, sports scientists, strength and conditioning coaches and people like us who can come in and go, well, psychology is broad and it's deep and it's hard to make sense of, but let's try and do this. And that's what we're doing. Jerry, that's to meet your point. What is the uptake when you walk into a Premier League locker room, an angel city locker room with, you know, oh, there's the psychologist. And what I mean by that is I heard this interview two years ago with Dan Carter, there are all blacks rugby legend. And he said, when I started my career, if you went to the psychologist, people said, what's wrong with you goes when I finish my career. If you weren't going to the psychologist, people said, what's wrong with you? So what do you see at the highest levels of sport, even in F1 in terms of how different athletes coaches use you to help them perform better? Very question, such a hard question to answer. So I mean, you've mentioned angel city, that's the NWSL team I'm working with. And my experience there has been amazing. I mean, you walk into women's sport and there's just women's sport. They welcome you with open arms out. That's my experience. I was curious in my experience as well. I've worked with over 50 college programs through my online academy. That's soccer from Div 1 to Div 3. And I went over to work with Duke Women's soccer team. They got to the final four. They did great again, welcomed with open arms. I find that. Let's take this the right way. But I am because of my experience, if you're asking me this directly and personally, and it's not a general bike sports bike, how many people buy into sports bike? Because now I have 30 years experience, 20 years as a sports bike with a pretty strong CV. And please take that as a boastful comment. But I know I can walk into a room and grab attention because of that experience. And again, please, I'm not trying to be boastful there. But when you build up that experience and both of you have built up that experience and Jerry, you've been doing this for so many years at such a high level. And so when you've built up that kind of CV, you are at a greater advantage of getting buying. And I'm answering you this way because that does matter. Human beings are human beings and leadership is about influence right. And we're leaders of psychology. And if you walk into a room and you've got a strong CV and you can speak in a manner that makes sense to athletes, that's about influence. So you can influence them positively to engage with you. Are they all going to engage with you on an individual level? Again, that comes down to different personality traits in many respects. You know, are they willing to be vulnerable? What is their own definition of bike sports psychology and mental toughness? And is it actually more mentally tough to not talk to somebody? So I don't know if you can ever defeat that and it takes the building of a relationship quite often, not always but quite often to break down some of those barriers. And quite often, again, what's the culture and the environment like of the organization that you're walking into? You know, are they used to an openness to psychological work? That's going to make a difference as well. So these are all kinds of factors are going to mediate. Now if you're talking about across sports, I mean, I just, I just think over the last decade players across sports have just because of it. And I'm talking about the elite level, the professional level here or, you know, even down to the college level because there are so many more high profile sports people, at least talking about mental health and wellbeing, you know, over a decade ago, the MBA and the NFL mandated mental health support. And so subsequently over the years, normalcy has arisen with this and players are talking more about mental health and wellbeing. And so again, it's normalized our profession more and again, you get more buying from that perspective. And so as much buying on the performance psychology piece, I think that's an interesting thing to talk about as well. When you talk about, again, across sports, it varies. I found in Formula One, I was with Aston Martin Formula One for two years. I was principally working with the pit crew to help them be more consistent. with their tie change, but I have worked with Formula One drivers, some very famous ones. And there's nerves there, they're in terms of seeing a psych. It's not normal. I found in Formula One, Sports Psych hasn't hit that hard yet. Golf, it's been normalized for 40 years. You mentioned Michael Murphy there, I mean, he's influenced on Timothy Gaway, who influenced others through the 80s and then Bob Retella through the 90s, normalized completely in golf, out into other sports, Formula One less so. But I do think I was told the other day that the world's top 10 dance players, most of them have sports psychs, which you wouldn't necessarily think would be the case. I just think there is more buy-in now. We've just got to get better and better and better at helping athletes understand that this is about, it's the old adage of the rear stretches and we're not shrinks, essentially. And this is about being passionate to be the best that you can be. And there are great sports psychs out there to aid your mental health and wellbeing as well. So I think it's still a mixed bag, John. And I don't think it's everybody just buys in. But certainly when you walk into the building, you're trying to get everybody on board. And I think working within through the coaches working systemically across clubs and organizations, if nothing else, that's absolutely critical. Jerry, yeah. When I started out with sports psychology, which I don't relate to too much today, I relate more to sports philosophy, a way of thinking about things going forward as a human being, about a human doing. When I started out, it was absolutely god-awful. I mean, to negotiate a contract with somebody or to get paid for what I was doing, as John said, you were crazy to go to a psychologist and now you're crazy if you don't. And so I had a pavor road and it was a long road. And I realized, okay, so this is where the transition comes. I realized that sports psychology wasn't really enough. It wasn't what people really were craving. And I kind of felt that I needed to make that shift from from psychology to philosophy. And what that came down to was a way of dealing with human beings, not human doings. They weren't a bunch of athletes doing soccer. They were a bunch of athletes being who they are human beings. I don't want to go off on a tangent here, but I really do feel strongly that anybody today, if they want to walk into a locker room and they want to have success by success, I mean, getting people on board listening because you have a message and you want people to listen. That's successful. If they listen to you, they're going to take it because if your message is good, they're going to crave it. And so what I find over the all these years is something that I wish I knew when I was like 34 years old. And that is that people all want to feel connected. They want to feel cared for. They want to feel empowered. They want to feel loved. And by love, I don't mean the Kumbaya statement. I'm talking about caring for them as human beings, uh, giving to them being selfless with them and what have you. When I walk into a room, that's my superpower. I connect with people. People feel good. And I don't do one thing psychologically or anything else in terms of performance or competitiveness until I establish that relationship. And you mentioned the word Dan relationship, which I think was brilliant. It's all about relationships. You know, Steve Kerr once said the reason why he won that first world championship was not the game itself, but it was the relationship game. And so I go out of my way. I mean, uh, John knows this about me. I mean, the first thing I want to do is I want to connect with people, whatever that's going to mean, whatever that's going to take for me. I mean, I could look silly. I mean, I'll wear a Superman outfit if that's going to work, you know? I mean, it doesn't matter to me. Uh, but I find that once I make that contact and I, I huddle people up and I get them together and they start to feel my heart and my purpose and my intention. Well, getting what they crave, you know, raise your hand if you don't crave being connected and cared for and loved and empowered. Everyone wants it. So I make that assumption. I walk in and I give that to him. That's what I give them. And then from there, they open their hearts. And when they open their hearts, that's giving me permission to step in. And when I step in, now I can do the cycle mumbo jumbo if I choose to, which I don't, but I can do that. And I can give me anything they want. So it's that opening of their hearts and that's the place you gotta get to and you don't get there by going and say, I'm going to teach you everything you need to know about high level performance. That's not going to work. That's not what they're craving. Anyway, thoughts on that or I might, my thoughts are I love the different flavors by which different people come at this with. I think I don't think there's if you had a hundred sports psychologists in a room, I don't think that anybody would disagree with you. Um, I think there's nuances and complexities in these, these environments and there's nuances and complexities with the job at hand in terms of how long do you get to create those relationships? Do you get into the locker room in the beginning? Do the players allow you in there? And as you said, you know, the more socially flexible and the depth that you become, I mean, it strikes me, Jerry, you're that kind of person anyway. So you don't have to work on that. You know, you're just you when you walk into the change room. I think you're going to say no there. Yes, but no. That's not the, I wasn't, I was born in raising Brooklyn, New York. You don't walk into a room in Brooklyn. In the way I am right now. John knows that for a fact. He's a New Yorker. I learned that and the reason I'm bringing this up and and contradicting that is because I want coaches to know that. Oh, that's Jerry. He can do that. Yeah, that's fine. All well and good for him. I want people to know, no, I learned this. I learned this when I was a sports psychologist, quote, unquote, 45, 50 years ago, I didn't know this and I struggled. And when I got that transformation, when I got the point that I just have to be me, whoever that is and give them what they're craving and deserve and everything turned around. And so what I did was I spent a lot of my time researching people, great leaders, generals, popes, whoever who seemed to have were more effective and those who were more effective had this knack, this, this way of connecting to people and and and you know what? When you know how to do it to your point before it does not take a long time. It does not take a long time. You know, give me a half hour with a group of people. When I walk out, there's going to be transformation that takes place. I guarantee it. Why not because I'm smart or brilliant is because I've had this experience and I'm just relating an experience. So we all can a learn what I'm talking about and be we can implement it easily and not worry about the time it things happen almost immediately and it's really interesting to watch that unfold. And I think I love everything that you've said there. I think, you know, for me, it's yes and yes and I love every single second of standing in front of an audience for the first time and helping them get excited about competing in their high performance mindsets, you know, helping them open up images in their mind of what that looks like, what that feels like, what others see when they're in their high performance mindset. I think that's that to me is, you know, I see the look on some players eyes when they actually when you because they're not often asked that when you get them to rehearse that in that in their mind, I don't think that's transactional. I think that's transformational and I'm only sticking to the sporting side of things in that moment. Again, I just think there's so many wonderful flavors by which we can approach this. That's what's exciting to me. I think, I think whether you are a mental performance coach, whether you are a sports coach, whether you are a yoga teacher, it doesn't matter. You have to bring your authentic self, right? That's what people will connect you, right? And I could never be, you know, it would be a waste of time to try to be the second best Dan Abraham's, right? Or the second best Jerry Lynch or like you need to be yourself and what drives you and what you care about and then how you deliver that is very different. You know, Jerry and I do so much stuff together and people are, you know, we're in Yang. We're very different. And some people go, oh, that John guy and some people go, oh, that's Jerry guy. And that's okay, right? We're not supposed to be everything for everyone, but as long as we are the best version of ourself and we can get across to that room, I'm in it for you. I'm here because I believe in you and I want to help you succeed. athletes know if you're there for them or there for you right out right out of the gate and as a coach as a mental performance coach whatever it is they know if you're in it for them or in it for yourself and if you're in it for yourself they'll sniff you out and they'll shut you out immediately if they know you're in it for them they'll at least open the door and consider that they might have something to learn in my experience. Absolutely Dan where we've blown through our hour and then some can you tell people how to get the book and also how to connect with you and I'll just if you can give people your LinkedIn as well because I think you have some of the best LinkedIn posts out there I look forward to them every day so tell people how to connect. Well yeah look and firstly thank you so much for this it's been so awesome as always I love speaking to both of you. The book is out on the fourth of May I mean it is out now you can order it in the UK with free free shipping if you're in the States you might want to wait till the fourth May where you'll be able to get it on the usual platforms like Amazon and you just have to Google the book compete Dan Abraham's and and you'll find so many different platforms to get the book that's out on the fourth of May but you can get it now a few in the UK with a couple of pounds off. In terms of myself Dan Abraham's calm is my website at Dan Abraham's 77 is my main ex-account at Dan Abraham's soccer is my Facebook at Dan Abraham's Sports is my Insta and just at Dan Abraham's is my LinkedIn where as you've mentioned Edge on there are my Rambles on a daily basis and I have a podcast which is half as good as yours but you've both on it me by coming on and that's called the sport site show where we do those deep dives into those psychotopics so I can't thank you both enough for your time. This was this was great and so much more and again the book is compete highly recommended great great tools great ideas great stories so Dan thanks so much again for your time we truly truly appreciate you coming on the way champions. Thank you so much. Wow Jerry that was pretty awesome great conversation we could have done another hour and not even scratch the surface of Dan's new book and I I loved what we talked about sort of but you know there's the there's the tools and the mental skill side and then there's the spiritual side and it all comes together when you're really making a difference. Yeah he really saw he really sees the whole picture he's more thinking sports psychology but he doesn't even realize that he's expanded himself all the way to as he calls the bio psycho social people out there which is all of us and so it's all encompassing his energy is just off the charts though I have forgotten about that I mean he just I mean he's quick fast lovely to listen to I there are certain accents that are just beautiful and and this is one of them that's not that important but it's I could listen to him all day and didn't want to interrupt him at all but he made some amazing amazing points I think the thing that really stood out to me John was his idea of a focus and and and how that came together with with the the mental skill and how that was number one and how that led into the way he said about being aggressive right from the get go I thought that was fascinating and in order to do that of course you need to have that focus before you even show up he was using the the first T as an example but really I have an expression for that and I've used it often that you know I mean that's hard from the start and heart to me is going all out and giving you all and being being the best you can be and that's what he was referring to how to show up and be aggressive right from the get go and and assert yourself and many people wait to see how things evolve and get into the flow well I interpret his approaches being as you be the flow in your sport right from the get go I like I like that and I like this idea of like we rate ourself on our sort of physical performance but then also our mindset our mental performance and that idea of attention and intensity and intent like oftentimes like I'll have the physical performance go but we we can probably map that right if our where were we lacking attention were we lacking in intensity we're lacking this intent and the right focus then yeah it probably affected the physical performance so how can I get that piece right you know just like I might say oh I didn't eat breakfast so I didn't play well there either yeah yeah yeah what one of the things that he really helped me with is define who I am and who you are and who we all are and all our listeners out there we're sense makers we're trying to make sense I mean this is a volatile and certain complex fearful world and a lot does not make sense and and so when we walk into a locker room we walk into a program work with the team or a group of coaches whatever we're doing putting on a conference we have to make sense and making sense means speaking with the people and and engaging them in the conversation and making sense by reaching what they desire what they crave because so much out there does not make sense and I love that idea so I've I've added that to my resume I'm a sense maker yeah I love it that's great well again Danny Abraham's dot com start there the book is complete and connect with Dan everything is all his links and stuff for in the show notes thank you to our sponsors zone 14 coaching sprocket sports thank you to our patron podcast champions thank you to all of you who listen and share and leave us reviews you're the ones who make this all work so we mentioned there again very soon here Jerry and I have a new book coming out called captain the athletes guide being an exceptional team leader and it's it's gonna be a great book for all your team so get ready to grab one of that and get your your team leader is going on a summer read here okay but in the meantime right your influence is never neutral we talked about that on the podcast you will always leave either a positive or negative influence whenever we walk in the room so go out there this week and use your influence for good see you again next week everybody