EP #131: The Power of Positivity & Mental Resilience: Lessons from Competitive Athletics with Rick Macci, Professional Tennis Coach & Dr. Niva Jerath, Board-Certified Doctor in Neuromuscular Medicine

Welcome back to another episode of Every Day in Dorfins, a mental health podcast focused on the importance of finding joy and happiness in daily living. I'm your host, Stella Staphanopoulos, and this week I am so excited to have two really amazing guests on the show. Dr. Niva Giroth and Rick Macy were the co-authors of Billion Dollar Mind, a book all about cultivating mental resilience and the power of positive thinking. Dr. Niva is board certified in neurology, neuromuscular medicine, and electrodiagnostic medicine. Her patient care led her to become the director of neuromuscular medicine in Orlando, where her program has gained national recognition from a variety of organizations in the medical field. And Dr. Niva met Rick Macy through their shared love for tennis, as she was an undefeated tennis player in the Southern Tennis Association. And Rick Macy, for those of you who may not know, is a legendary tennis coach who's transformed the careers of numerous athletes, including Venus and Serena Williams. And although I'm no tennis athlete, it is pretty cool to have had the opportunity to speak to someone who was an integral mentor and coach to some of the best tennis players in the world. Rick was actually depicted in the film King Richard, which is about Venus and Serena Williams story becoming pro tennis athletes. It was truly an honor to get to sit down with both Dr. Niva and Rick Macy for this interview. And in this interview, we actually got to talk about Billion Dollar Mind, the inspiration behind the book, and some of the key lessons that they share on cultivating mental strength, resilience, lessons from being on the court, lessons from competitive athletics, and how sports can actually train your mind, and how when you learn how to harness the power of your mind, you can create magic in your day to day life. I'll let them share those secrets, but for those who are tuning in, there's a lot to get out of this episode, so very excited for you all to listen, and make sure to grab your own copy of Billion Dollar Mind, so you can learn even more and dive even deeper through their book. Before we get into this episode, reminder to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever listening platform you prefer. You can follow Everyday Endorphins on Instagram, TikTok to stay up to date with podcast episodes, events, and more. And if you want to follow more of my stream of consciousness and get a little glimpse into the things that bring me Endorphins enjoy, make sure to subscribe to my newsletter, which is on Substack. It's just Everyday Endorphins, and you can learn a little bit more about me, what's bringing me joy, and any of my thoughts around happiness, health, and well-being. Alright, let's get into it. Thank you so much for coming on to Everyday Endorphins. It is so great to have you here. It's great to be here. Thank you for having us. Yeah, it would be a lot of fun. I'm really, you know, fascinated by your individual stories and how the two of you met. And when we got to chat about a month or so ago, it was really exciting for me to learn about your book, Billion Dollar Mind, which I had the chance to read. And I loved it because I love learning about all things resilience and mindset and lessons we can learn from sports. So there's a lot we're going to dive into today. Before we start talking about Billion Dollar Mind, I want to backtrack a little bit and have the each of you share a little bit about yourselves, your backgrounds, and how the two of you met. You're sure. It's my turn, it's my turn. Her, sir, her, sir. I would say, yes, I grew up in Georgia, which was a very nice, you know, I grew up a very, very conservative family, very hard working, and played tennis and studied as a child. And I kept growing and competing in tennis. And I remember, I know it's lucky. I don't know how we didn't have the internet back then. There were no iPhone, there was no internet, and there was no Google fighting means. So I remember when I think I played Rick's student, that one, if whatever reason I had gotten a letter from him, that for his academy to come check it out. And I never forget the moment. I still remember the day when I got this letter. I was like, wow, there's a tennis academy. And this I saw Rick's face. I'm like, wow, I told my mom, and man, I said, let's go here. You know, I want to check it out because I really didn't have a very coach at that time. And my mom was healthy. Me and I would study it on my own study tennis. And then I'll never forget. When I met Rick, you're just so incredibly positive. And just so motivated. And one of the things, there's just so many fun stories. I could tell you the one thing that was just so fascinating about Rick was that only coach I've ever met that's still on the courts, was raining, still on the courts, and training kids at like Sunday afternoon. And it's like, you know, six or seven PM. I have not seen one coach. I haven't seen one person. He's so dedicated. I was just like, it was, it's a rate. It's raining. There's not one person who would not, everyone have an excuse to go home and do something else because there's, there's raining, it's Sunday. There was nothing with that like, I was like, enchanted. I was like, where is he now? He's like, you know, training another student. He was there the earliest and always there the latest and just kind of motivated phenomenal, phenomenal experience. That's why I'm with him. And then over the years, I kind of moved closer and closer to him and he was, he's out here in Vokha and I else would have moved to Orlando. But then what come just Academy, bring my kids sometimes. And I saw these amazing quotes. Incredible. I mean, cool. They were just like motivated. They were so positive, so encouraging. And I said one day, I think I said it five years ago, I said, I'm going to write a book with these quotes. And I did, I didn't realize it come true. You managed to do it. You did. You wrote that book and there's so many motivational quotes. I mean, the influx of positivity and the messaging around the importance of cultivating a positive mindset is so clear in that book. So it's amazing to see how years later you were able to do it. It's incredible. And I even when I came, I came one time for a photo shoot last year to thank Rick for all he taught me when I was a kid and all his positivity and to strength and all his encouragement in guidance in tennis. And I came back and I kind of under my breath at the end of the photo shoot said, yeah, I have a book in mind. I just never did anybody maximize opportunities like that. Like three weeks or two to three weeks later, he sent me a text message at work saying, how's the book coming? Oh my god. Wow. I never expected anybody to follow up on something like that. And it was the best experience in my life since then. So let me, yeah, let me, let me back the truck up here a little bit. I actually taught her and her twin sister, you know, back in the day, they come to academy. They both went to Harvard. Okay. So all these years later, you'll probably see collaborate on a book and we're going to do many more. My story's a little bit different. I've been on a tennis court since age 22. I actually grew up. I didn't pick up a racket to I was 12 years old. I taught myself. This is crazy. I taught myself how to play by 18 years old. I was a number one junior in Ohio Valley without a lesson. And here I am all these years later. And I teach four lessons in a body United States, seven days a week, 50 hours. I still have the same passion. I did when I really got into this at 22 bid fortunate to kind of put up the dump together and build some of the strongest minds besides tennis game. People want to win grand slams many national titles. But I think the most important thing is the passion that I still have to do it. And I love it just as much today as I did back then. So it's been amazing ride and just keeps getting better. And now we're going to do a few more books and the best is yet to come. Yeah, that's so exciting. And you know, how do you keep that passion alive? I think that's a very rare experience to have for someone to fully love what they do and stay so committed to it. It's very hard to keep that same spirit there in present. So how do you do it? Well, I've always been wired that way. That's the mindset. I always felt like if you're not getting better, you're getting worse. And I prefer better, you know, and I've kind of trained my mind ever since I was younger, you know, not make excuses and always try to be the best I can be. And I look at things to a different lens. I tell people all the time what you may see is different than Rick may see, you know, and that applies not just me coaching and teaching on more life coach than really a tennis coach. You know, but I've kind of trained myself to be like that and you know, I just fell in love with the game and I think any coach or mentor or teacher, if you love helping others more than yourself, good things are going to be cooking in the oven. You know, so I've just always been that way. And I still like just love to help others. My living room is the tennis court. I love being on the tennis court just helping anybody. And someone just asked me, well, they've asked me all the time, like who's my favorite student, you know, of all time and people think it's going to be Venus or Serena or Capriotti or Rodic or Mosquina or Pierce or Sharepova or Kennen or Casper Roots dad or all these people that I've taught and it's really used on the other side of the net that hour, that minute, that second. It doesn't matter where they are and I think when you feel that way and you have that pride, you just fall in love with the game and the patient just keeps growing. - I love that. That's a really beautiful message. And it's really amazing that Dr. Niva, you also have this background and experience as a pro tennis player. And then also moving into a medical background and being a doctor, talking about these subjects around resilience and having a strong mindset and the importance of positivity. You bring a really unique perspective, also being an athlete as well. So I wanna transition a little bit into speaking more about the inspiration for billion dollar mind. And I know there's many books to come down the line, but let's talk a little bit about what that initial thought was. What was the spark that the two of you had for wanting to write this book that really is kind of like, you know, a way to bring together lessons on resilience from both of your perspectives. I think that's a great question because there's so many different seeds. We know that tennis players, professional athletes can't be number one or achieve great heights without a strong mind. And that's a given. That's standard. We know that we know athletics need strong minds. And I myself studied it when I was a kid. I realized that the trigger for this book specifically was when I was struggling in life. Like things were not going the way they should. There was maybe a tragedy outside. There was a family event and there was a lot of negativity in the family or something going on at work. And I was reaching a low in my performance. And I realized at that moment, I was like, what is this? Why isn't that when I am at a low, right? It's probably my environment that's creating these negative thoughts inside me. And I'm now performing poorly. But if all of a sudden when I change my mind, I distracted, I talk to people. All of this, I was biking one day and I was talked to a couple. And I hope the Sunday became happy. And I realized my mind was so fickle. And I saw my friends, I graduated from Harvard. They're writing books and achieving so much. Why am I not there? What is wrong? And I realized it was my own thoughts. I was stopping myself. So that's when I decided to really study the mind. I'd already been studying it. But write this book for a moon else. Because in that moment, I realized if I stopped a certain thinking pattern, a certain loop, I could get myself out of that sadness, out of the negativity. And I could start performing better. And it was within a day. As soon as I realized it the next day, my performance at work, my performance at home, so excellent. And I even worked hard to find the right people in my life. So it all just started. It was a domino effect. It started with the right thoughts, with being positive, getting out of old thinking habits, and then taking away the fear, contacting right. Because for someone like me who was so sheltered when I was young, it was so hard for me to talk to people and communicate as it would be for anybody else. So just a text to be a long time. I remember I was like, I hope he doesn't say no to the photoshoot. I hope he doesn't say no. I was expecting no to the book. I didn't expect any of this to come out. So a lot of it came from thoughts. And that's what the book is about. Our thoughts are the stepping stone for our next level of life, for success, for our happiness, our joy, we got to figure those out. We got to figure out the computer programming. And so that moment that I realized it, I was like, I'm going to write something about this. Yeah, I love that. I mean, you speak about how thoughts are the currency of our dreams. And I think you just perfectly articulated the meaning behind that. And I want to talk a little bit more about the neuroscience perspective of how our thoughts impact our well-being and our reality. But going back to really the trigger point for wanting to start writing this book, you would mention that you were struggling with your performance and your negative thoughts were kind of permeating across all aspects of your life. And Rick, earlier you had talked about how you consider yourself also to be kind of like a life coach. And so when you're having athletes that are struggling on the court, and their thoughts are just really getting them down and it's affecting their performance, how do you properly coach them to give them the courage to get back up on their feet, to help them kind of reverse those negative thought patterns and inspire them to start thinking better thoughts. That's really the wild card. If you want to be the best, you can be in anything. You control the situation. You don't let it control you. And it's all perspective. And this is what I actually help people, even though we're the worldwide leader in biomechanics, my partner, Dr. Brian Gordon, we've done all this research on biomechanics, the right way to hit the best possible way, the optimal way to hit a tennis ball. It's just a motivation and the mind stuff that I do with people to look at things and how to manage stress, how to flip it in your mind, how to take a negative and turn into positive. So when we talk about the game of tennis, okay, well any sport, but tennis, 'cause it's individual. Very different, tennis sport. You got 20 seconds to flip it in your mind, like it happened 20 years ago, and having the ability to remember, to forget, is the most important thing, not only in sports, but in life, 'cause that can stick to you like Velcro. And so if people just love to compete and they love the competition, they're gonna handle the pressure in general, a little better, but I just tell them one thing. If you're not gonna listen to me, or try to listen to me, why don't you imitate the down? Or better, or Joker being, or Ega. Look how they handle things when they make a mistake. Right there is your roadmap, your blueprint. Follow that. There it is, it's video, live, imitate that. You don't have to go to sports psychologists. There's no focus, focus, voodoo stuff. Look how they handle it. They made a mistake. They're feeling the same way you do, 'cause we're all humans. We have that emotion go through our body. How are we gonna respond to that? And I try to present it many different ways, 'cause every kid's a little different in the way I try to present it. But I try to also tell them, look at greatness. You wanna get near greatness? Copy that. You wanna get smarter, we're on smarter people. And so that's what I kinda play all the time. And I see kids do the same ritual as a lot of the top pros, even putting their tongue in their cheek, spinning their racket, pumping their racket, a little hoppin' a skip and a jump and a shake and a big, and they get distracted. And I always tell all the parents and kids this, how's come you respond to a mistake differently when you're playing doubles than singles? It's almost like you got a therapist on the core. You miss a shot, you get a high-fi, a hug, a kiss, you know, 'cause they distract you from that feeling of failure. And that's really what separates greatness. In all sports, can you handle pressure and say, calm, 'cause it's such a fine line at the highest level? There's better athletes than Joke of it in some of these guys, but they don't have grand slams. You know, it's a game of inches from one ear to another. And so this is what I work on so much with everybody. And the sooner they buy in and they start doing this, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, they get a new habit, a new routine, and then mentally, they become a machine. I love that. It's really a testament to building that mental strength. And you've made so many good points in your response. Let me see if I can catch all of them. So the first thing that came to mind was this idea of just faking it 'til you make it, right? Like imitating what the great people are doing, that your mentors are doing, and just copy that. And the more you get into that habit, in ritual and practice, the more you'll kind of like instill that into your own response. So it'll become more natural. And something else that really caught my attention to what you said was, you know, this ability to bounce back. So we're all human. We all make mistakes. We all fail. But that's natural. So what's going to differentiate you isn't necessarily the failure because we're all failing. But it's how quick can you get back to that neutral calm state? How quick can you be resilient? How quick can you come back to where you were? And so, you know, I think that's really important to double down on because when we fail or we freak out or we get anxious or we get stressed, it's so easy to go down the negative spiral and it just gets worse. But it's like, okay, how can I pause, take a breath, and become so I can get back into what I have to do? I mean, on a completely different scale, this recording is kind of an example. We had some tech issues earlier. I was a little frazzled, but you were just calm, like a cucumber, you know, sitting there smiling the both of you. And we figured it out and we got the recording to work. And it's like in moments of stress or high pressure or those feelings of anxiety that arise, it's so critical to stay calm, to stay cool and collected. So I think that your response is spot on. And you know, it's fascinating to see how sports can really be representative of these life lessons that we can bring into our day to day. And still, yeah, and I just wanted to emphasize that right side flip it and perspective, those two things are so important. They're really important techniques. If you're like in the wrong state of mind, and I do this now every day since I read this book and I'm so aware of it's kind of flipping things so they're, you have a pause developer. And you're reframing it. So you're looking at, positivity, your start becoming more grateful, then all of a sudden you're able to cope with something that may not be in your best interests or may not be initially seem like a very good thing. So it's very important, that's a really important technique. There's a lot of depth behind that, those words, because it's very important to do. That's how you get back to that resilience. You know, the book obviously talks about a lot of things. Definitely. And I'm glad you brought up this concept of reframing and cognitive reframing. Can you talk a little bit more about what's actually happening in our brains when we take these cognitive reframes? Like, why is it that by cognitive reframing you're actually able to build more resilience? What's actually happening there? I love that question. I was so excited to answer it because now you've got the combination of, you know, using mental strength and the science behind it and some of the foundation of our book. And I was thinking about it because I know you had asked this question, got me to think. So when you have any sort of the techniques in our book, whether it includes reframing, flipping it, positive affirmations, you know, belief in oneself, all of a sudden those are, a lot of them are sensory inputs. Some of them, maybe an action like, you know, you're doing, saying something positive, but a lot of them are sensory. So whatever is going on, it's going into the brain. And once we have that positive input into the brain, now we can have positive output. Okay. So, so if you go like, if the basics of this is like, if I touch my hand, right, and I feel, say something's hot, and my hand feels something really hot burning, I'll move it, right? So sensory goes up to the brain, motor is what makes things happen, right? Same thing with the thoughts. Whatever comes into our head that's positive, we're going to have a motor output that's positive. If we have something negative, we're going to have a motor output that's negative. And so if you have a sad thought, you're kind of depressed, now you're not really doing anything, right? That's a negative feeling, a negative thought, your negative input is going to create a negative output. If you have a positive input, you're going to have a positive output. That's why you want to say things that are positive. You want to think positive. You can get things going. I'll give you an example. I was going with my daughter to the crib in for, you know, vacation. I never forget, whatever reason Delta didn't let us check in, we're like three hours in the line. And by the time I got into the checking and they said, you cannot make the flight and you need to your luggage, you're not going to have to have a luggage checked in and you're going to have to reschedule for another day. I remember that moment. I was like, I got to use the techniques of my book because I got the 25 minutes to make the Orlando airport to get through a security without luggage. I didn't know to do the luggage. I was within five minutes, took that luggage down to a locker. Everything was positive. I can do it. I can do it. I can just sell myself on the plane. And I took the luggage down to a locker, dripping. And so nobody even knew where the lockers were. Through it in a locker. You know, Dini, I'm in time to close the suitcase, is running upstairs, making people cutting lines. And everything was positive. I can do it. I can do it. If you say, I can't do it. All of a sudden, you can't do it. And your body is not going to do it. You're going to miss the flight. So I know my daughter was saying that in the back. We can do it. This is exciting. In 10 minutes from the date, from the time we checked in, we got in. Cutting lines, begging people, crying. Got through a train and got into our flight. That is how positive thinking works. Same thing on the court or on a match. When you have a positive thought, like if you're playing a match, right? And they'll be in your down, five, one. But you think to yourself, I can do it. My opponent is hurting. Or if you say something like, you know, they're going to say something like, they're more tired than I am. If you flip it, or I'm stronger, then all of a sudden, you have these thoughts. And now you can have more energy. Thoughts will create positive outcomes, physically. And that's a foundation. You've got a thought that's a sensory, right? And then an output is motor. So you're going to have a better, better outcome. And you're going to have more motion. You've got more activity. And it's going to be winning, more, more likely. So that's how that. So kind of put a bow around that. You know, what I tell the parents and the kids all the time, you know, everybody in general, they're kind of aware of what they eat, what they put into their mouth. Okay? Generally speaking. But are you like that? What you hear, what you listen to, what you watch, the people you're around. Okay? What you put in, because everything goes in your subconscious. And it's in there. Okay, that's why we remember things from long ago. And that's what people do not do. Some people like to be around, you know, train wrecks and misery and the negativity in the TV. And you know, they like that stuff. And they're on that merry go round. And then they try to get out and it's hard. You know, and every day, that's why you want to read positive stuff. Look to listen to motivational stuff on YouTube. A read billion dollar mind. It's a game changer. There's 30 hours of private lessons from Rick Macy in this thing. I mean, there's so many things that you become a creature of habit. You know, once you can start going, you kind of become that. But we got it. We're not aware of what we listen to and hear. And parents need to understand that and teach your kids that. You know, because things are just going to happen negatively no matter what. Then it's a matter of how you deal with it. But you do have a choice of what you want to do. Okay? You got to get into that routine. Like I said, then you'll become a machine. Yeah. You have a choice. I think that's incredibly empowering because it's easy to feel like sometimes we don't. But we do because if we can think about how powerful our negative thoughts can be by predicting negative outcomes in our lives, the power of positivity is like tenfold, right? Even better. However, I do want to talk a little bit about toxic positivity because I know that it can be confused with what we're talking about. So can you share what is toxic positivity and how does what we're speaking about around affirmations around cognitive reframing all of that, all these different, you know, techniques to create healthier internal and external ecosystem for ourselves. How is that different from toxic positivity? The reason why I'm laughing is because I can tell you my family has brought this up every day. They read the book. They had to find a criticism for it. It's like positivity because they enjoy the negativity and they enjoy being in that world. And toxic positivity has come up in my world. So basically, it's a term from what I understand from the discussions I've had is that it's being so positive that you don't see the reality. So you're being almost like you're toxic positive and things are going so bad and you're avoiding the reality behind something that's devastating or something that's negative or something that's not successful. And the only way I can rip out all of that because I obviously don't believe it and I agree. I agree. Toxic positivity is like you don't want to be so positive that I'm jumping off a cliff and I'm not going to die. You don't want to be stupid behind it. You don't want to say I'm going to fly. I'm going to fly. Now jumping off a cliff and you're dying. That's not what this is about. This is about reaching our goals and using it to journey. So when toxic positivity people are like, arm is cut off and they think, okay, the arms that it come back or something like that, or now they're losing something very, say it's can be in relationship. So you can have a lot of that. You can, the person start responding but, oh, they will respond. Oh, they love me. There's a lot of toxic positivity there. And what happens is you kind of have to use the feedback you get to navigate your next step. You can't just say, oh, everything is going to be perfect. You have to, I mean, there's going to be situations that are not perfect. And there has to be an awareness that this is not perfect. But in order to respond to such a difficult situation, you can't just keep thinking it's going to be perfect and keep going after you have to adjust your sales. You have to respond to the environment. You have to think through it. I think our book doesn't talk about toxic positivity but it does talk about responding to the environment. We're not talking about ignoring the fact that something is bad is happening. In fact, we even talk about, there's a story where there's someone whose arm gets, I believe it's a shark attack. Very, very famous surfer and her arm gets bitten off. What we talk about is not the fact that she is going to think about an arm and it's going to grow back or something like that or she's going to think that she's going to surf like she used to but what she's going to use is gratitude for everything she does now. And she used that so much gratitude, so much faith in God that she actually got married. She has kids. So she was able to use something to overcome the deficit she had. So that's really what it is. It's not about ignoring the negative. It's about dealing head on, right? And I also have patients who are in wheelchairs that have no arms and legs at all but they're smiling. They think they're beautiful. They act beautiful. I have someone who's married. I have so many people who are not married and they have arms and legs and they're scared to talk to people. So it's really interesting that it's about dealing with the problems rather than avoiding it and then seeing what toxic positivity is like overlooking it. You're not ignoring it but that's all what it is. Yeah, that's a really good distinction. I think a lot about this idea of happiness and being happy and trying to be in a positive mindset but also in relation to sadness and feeling anxious and feeling upset because our emotions really exist on expectrum. And as I've continued to build this podcast and get to interview really fascinating people like the both of you, I've been getting to learn how people approach what it means to be happy and their perspective on happiness and how to cultivate joy. And something that I've continued to learn. learn is that happiness really isn't about negating the bad, quote-unquote bad things that happen in life. It's about learning to embrace it and the way in which you approach the negative experiences is what's going to inform whether or not you have more of those negative ones or better ones down the line. And to your point, it's all about that mindset, right? So I'd love to hear from the both of you. Maybe we can start with you first, Rick. How do you define happiness and cultivating joy? Great question. Happiness is what you make it. Fun is what you make it. Happiness can be doing this. I'm happy is can be in popcorn, watch the TV. I don't need other things to make me happy, material things, other things. People say, "Thank God it's Friday. I think God it's every day. You should appreciate what you have, not what you don't have. You got to train yourself because we let the weather affect us. People affect us. Everything affects us. Sure, things might bump up a little bit on the joy meter or the sadness, or all human, but how you deal with it. So you get back to that ideal performance state and don't go off track so much. So happiness to me is, well, first of it's being on a tennis court because I just love to help people. I don't change strokes. I change slides. So I love doing that. So when I'm out there 11 hours, like I have been most of the week, you know, every day, it's not like work. I feel like I'm hardly working because I love it. So I hope that kind of answers the question about happiness because I think it's in the eye to be older. Yeah, I love that. I've been thinking about this question a lot because what I think happiness is, is that it's the bliss point of not wanting anything else. There's so much in foolish, you know, wanting anything else. And our book helps you get there because you have to kind of figure out what it is that you want. See, that's really what I think is really important. Everybody has different things that they want. Everybody has different things that produce adoraphins. So you know, things that give us the joy. Some people like food, some people like exercise, some people like movements, some people like teaching tennis, some people like helping others, some people like caring sickness, you know, or solving a problem. So we have to figure out what we want. And once for at that stage, we're like, okay, really for me, it's like I love love for me. I love that feeling of love. I need that to perform. If I don't have it, I can't. So if I don't have it, we're always kind of the sort of like, grumpy, like, you know, I don't care about fruit. I don't need to eat. I need to go out for dinner. I don't need to go on fancy trips, but I need something. Like my daughter, she needs food. And so everything is with the whole house is food. It's 21/7 cooking. You know, some people like like Rick loves tennis and helping people. So you got to figure out what it is. This book helps you go through the in-depth of your own computer program. You really, really got to figure that out. If you don't spend that time on yourself, then you'll never know you're kind of in this edgy state. Like you don't feel joyful, you don't feel bliss. You kind of wanting something, but you're not there. You never really perform at your highest level. There's something lacking always until you figure out what you really, really want. The deepest level, you can even go many layers. Why do I want, you know, a certain thing or certain emotion? Why and then keep going back and figuring out sometimes it stems from childhood. Sometimes it stems from instinct. The thoughts that you have all the time, 21/7, there's something that you really love to do when no one else is watching. Figuring out that bliss point is going to, is my definition of happiness. Because then all of a sudden you don't even look at your phone. You don't look at Facebook or any of the social media. You don't look at other people. You're just happy with you. That's bliss. That's happiness. Not wanting anything. Let me expand upon it a little bit. I can make a left turn. And this deals more with mental strength. And you know, when you said happiness, most people when they're winning a tennis match or you're winning, you're happy or you're happier. Okay, but the way to get mentally stronger and if you just enjoy the competition, you know, you're competing because you love to and that brings happiness. You just love to compete. You love the battle. And when you're like that, you handle pressure better and you become mentally stronger. Sure, everybody'd rather be up 5/0 than down 5/0, but at the top of the game, they're still enjoying the competition. And it's all about they're happy competing. And that's what really separates people. You see on television than the next and next and next. It's from one ear to another. It's not the destination for the journey. Right? Is it kind of? Yeah, but they love what they do and they make some happy. That's why they play a sport or they're doing that profession. Like you said, I do tennis or you do this or she's doing that. But do you love it so much? You do it better. They love competition. So they handle the mental part better. You know, the ups and downs. I know it kind of went away from the question, but I think it's very important for people to understand at that level. They just love so much to compete and try to kick your butt. That's a really great point. And it actually brings up something interesting because from what I'm hearing is like they learn to fall in love with the challenge and the challenge isn't going to be happy all the you're not going to be happy all the time when you're challenged because inevitably you're pushing yourself. There's going to be difficulty that you're going to experience. I think that Victor Frankl talks about this really well in his book, Mancered for Meaning. It is through the pursuit of finding meaning through those difficult experiences. So maybe when it's on the court, it's like the consistent challenge of having to prove that I can do it. Even if I'm a pro athlete, it's like every time you show up on the court, you kind of have to humble yourself a little bit. And that's what keeps you great. And I think that's what differentiates great players from really great players or just greatness from extraordinary greatness, right? When you're consistently pushing yourself in that way because happiness can be equated with like complacency too. Kind of what you were both mentioning. I can be happy from sitting and watching TV or I can be happy from this conversation. Like there's degrees of happiness that we can feel. But it's really that like a hum moment or really, you know, the ability to kind of tap into the flow or that sweet spot where you're like, wow, like my cup is really filled up. I think it's from the meaning that comes from some of the difficulty that we experience. You got to make yourself happy. You cannot rely on other things to make you happy. Don't let it control you. You know, you can't, when you're doing that, you're going to be up and down and mentally you're going to get depressed. You'll be all over the map. If you rely on that or others all the time, you know, and you got to train yourself to become like that because at the end of the day, the answer always, always is in the mirror. And not let others control you. You control the narrative. I think that's really, really good advice. What other pieces of advice or rather strategies do the both of you implement to stay mentally strong and also cultivate joy in your lives? Is there like a consistent well-being practice that you do? Maybe it's gratitude journaling or daily affirmations. Like is there something that's like your go-to to kind of keep your mind fit and mentally strong? I probably do a lot of things. First of all, I definitely talk to Rick. He's very positive. So that's a great thing, having a great connection and very, who's more positive than me, just so extraordinarily mentally strong. But I go biking every day and when I bike, I'm always listening to lectures about mental strength. It's my passion. So I always do that. At least even if it's 15, 20 minutes, I'll do that. And so the biking makes me happy and joy every moment of that. I think another thing I actively do is when I'm in the car or downtime, I'll always be watching my thoughts. Any time, my thoughts are deviating to a negative feeling or even the slightest bit of negative, they just get curved right back in. I'm like, that needs to stop. Any negative thought, negative thinking pattern or even a limiting belief that I can't do something. All that stuff has to kind of be trained. And I don't over-consume that food like you, you have a good diet for food, you have to have a good mental diet. And that includes feeding yourself that you have to generate thoughts that are healthy and very positive. So I make an active decision. I watch those thoughts like a hawk. I make sure that they don't deviate. And if there's somebody who's negative or kind of produces negative thoughts, I try to stay away from them or recognize it. I'm almost predicted. I'm like, you're going to see that person. That person's going to say something negative. And when I predict it, I have a shield automatically that that just impacts me. Or I go, okay. And so when I'm in the car, I'm like, I'm alone talking to myself. It's sometimes here something negative coming from within me. It's very common. You do that as humans. And then all of a sudden, we'll stop it. So that actively reading out a negative thought is very helpful. I love that mental diet. Note it. It's a great terminal. But it's a great term. Yeah. I think for anybody listening, I take number one, you got to have a routine. Okay. You have to have a routine. Hopefully it's going to be a positive one. People have routines, but they're maybe not the best ones, but you should try to get into a routine and have structure as much as possible. You know, you can deviate a little bit. Obviously you got to deviate a little bit, but that would be the number one thing that I I would want people to hear from me is once you become, you get so much more done where you're not all over the map, you're not like doing this and doing that, you gotta get into a routine, that's number one. Number two, you should say thank you so much throughout the day, you have no idea. And I mentioned this before, you gotta appreciate what you have instead of what you don't have. People start appreciating more when something tragic happens or whatever. I wish this, I wish that or whatever. You gotta appreciate every day, we're all day to day. Okay, but we don't think anything's ever gonna happen, bad and it does. So that would be, you should be thanking people all the time. You should treat everybody the way that you wanna be treated. You should treat everybody the way you wanna be treated. And that's what I try to do, even though I've been successful and done all these things. And I'm just feet on the ground, answer everybody's email, talk to everybody, autographs, pictures, whatever. And just very down the earth and appreciative of everything instead of taking for granted or you lose sight of where you really came from. This is very important for people to understand, as you become more successful or whatever to treat everybody the same. And appreciate every single day. Next thing, you ask kind of about me. I actually sweep the sidewalk, I open up the park every day at five o'clock. At this age, I'm a park ranger. I'm there seven days, I'm a park ranger. It's all my resume, okay? So I actually sweep the sidewalks every day in front of the tennis. And I pick up the garbage and I pick up tennis balls and all that stuff, I could be chirping at other people. Why in this done? Why in that, there's a hundred things that could bother me. Nothing bothers me. Because I've trained myself to handle stuff. And as a result, you're calmer, you're more positive. People feel that energy and I've kind of become like that. And people want their kids around that. People want that type of stuff. So, and one guy did a podcast, he goes, someone asked me, "Why I don't, why I pick up the tennis balls?" After you hit, there's like a thousand tennis balls. And I'm there picking them up with the parent and the kid. I said, "In all my years, they've never jumped back in the basket on their own." So, I mean, I didn't understand the question really. I mean, I look at it as, well, bend over and pick them up. It's good exercise. So, I'm taking a negative and I'm turning a positive, just like picking up the garbage or whatever. It's all perspective. It's how you look at the game of life through a different lens. Okay, so that's kind of what's worked for me. But the key is consistency. You can't do it Monday, Wednesday, Sunday. And if you miss a time, you should feel guilty. And that when you're playing the game within the game, within the game of yourself, a good thing's during the oven, 'cause you're just gonna keep reaching new heights every single day. - Yeah, I mean, I've noticed the times of my life where I feel the most on top of things in my life is when I'm in a very good structure in routine and I'm consistent with it. Because the more consistency you have, the more self-efficacy develops. And you're like, oh, I can keep doing these good habits 'cause I've proven to myself, I can already do it. So, I think that's such a great point. And I used to be a rower in high school. So, it was very disciplined through that sport. And I think that athletics really do teach us these incredible life lessons. So, really fortunate to have the both of you here on the podcast to bring me back to some of my days and athletics, nowhere near a pro level whatsoever. But I do think that-- - You were a rower, now you're in a pro row. - Exactly, you're in a pro row. So, it's all good. - Change shape over time, but we're still here. We're still rowing in some capacity. I love that. As we wrap up today, I think you guys have kind of answered my last question, but something that I ask every guest that comes onto the podcast is, what is something that brings you endorphins? So, what left to hear? What is something that just brings you a little bit of joy every day? I think I mentioned it already. - Oh, okay. - Go ahead. - Yeah, we'll be sure. - No, yeah, you go ahead. - Okay, listen, he's jumped up here. I have four cats, okay, but I have one that I've trained. And it's my best student of all time. It's not Venus, Serena, Capriotti, Roddy, Sherpova, I have a cat that I've literally trained. He's like my shadow. He goes with the everywhere. I gotta stroke him like five times a day, whenever he's around. Okay, he follows me everywhere. I can go a little ball and he can go get it and bring it back to me. Okay, so I don't know. I trained people and animals, some like a versatile guy. So that brings me a lot of joy because I know that this cat is having like probably the best life ever. - Where's Charlie? Where is he? - He's probably waiting on me down there. - Yeah. - His name's not Charlie, it's Charlie. - How is that? - He got up great. - Charlie. - Charlie. - Charlie. - Charlie. - I love that. What about you, Dr. Neva? What brings you into our friends? - I would say I just love moving. I've always moving. I'm always exercising, dancing, running. I've been just out of second where I'm not moving. I love to move. I love to stretch. I love to log biking, as I said. I just love it. I love to lift weights and do things and constantly. If you see me waiting in a new line, while I was doing my abs, I really think so crazy. But I love that feeling of being able to have good body and moving around. I love dancing and music for them. And as I said, I love to spend time with break. It's been a great experience. It just, that's fun being around people who bring out the best of you. - Yeah, absolutely. Well, you guys are the dream team and that's very reflected in your book, which was so great to read and really helped inform this conversation. So I'm glad I got to listen to the audio book. Before we got to sit down today and for everyone listening out there, you can grab a copy of your own on Amazon. I'll hyperlink all the links to the book and to stay connected with Dr. Niva and Rick. So thank you again. It was really wonderful having the both of you on the podcast. And I am so excited to stay in touch and get to release this to my audience. - There we go. - All right. Thank you. (upbeat music) Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Everyday in Dorfins. If you liked what you heard, like, rate, review, subscribe, do all the things. Maybe don't do all the things. Do what feels best for you, but I would welcome all the love and support. So thank you again for tuning in. If you wanna hear more about this topic, reach out to me if you're interested in learning about other types of topics in the health and wellness field or more tips on happiness, reach out to me. I love to hear from all of you. So thank you again for tuning into this episode for being a part of the Everyday in Dorfins community. And don't forget to keep searching for the things in life that bring you in Dorfins. And that make you happy. Until next time.