This is a slide show from a talk I gave recently at the Art & Science of Health Promotion.
It loads a bit slowly, so have a cup of tea or do some mindful breathing 🙂 after opening the file here: Mindfulness, Health, & Performance
This is a slide show from a talk I gave recently at the Art & Science of Health Promotion.
It loads a bit slowly, so have a cup of tea or do some mindful breathing 🙂 after opening the file here: Mindfulness, Health, & Performance
Sunday at the Masters has always been a tradition in our family. Back in Conroe, Texas, my parents, brothers, and I would watch — pulling for Jack Nicklaus or whomever was our favorite at the time.
I still remember, 30 years ago this week, the amazing Sunday that Nicklaus put together. He shot a final round 65 (–7), with a back nine of 30 (–6), for a total score of 279 (–9).
At age 46, he became the oldest winner of the Masters. He was a few years younger than my dad — and everyone thought that my father looked like Jack. That was a great day.
In the last decade, I’ve lost my mom, dad, and my younger brother Bill. Watching the Masters on Sunday helps me feel closer to them (and to my two living brothers who live in different states).
This past Sunday looked to be another terrific day. It appeared that Jordan Spieth would win the Masters for the second year in a row. (He had an amazing year in 2015, winning two of the four majors, and getting second and fourth in the other two.) As I watched the front nine, I saw Spieth close with four birdies and make the turn to the back nine in a solid position to win, up five on his nearest competitor.
Then, the wheels began to come off. Spieth bogeyed #10 & #11, coming to the short par 3 #12 with the famous Rae’s Creek flowing in front of the green. You can watch what happened next here:
While Spieth had a disastrous quadruple bogey on the 12th, Danny Willett played an excellent final round and was crowned the Masters Champion.
It was hard to watch Spieth’s breakdown. And we shouldn’t take away from what Willett did to win. He played excellent golf.
But for sport psychology, it is worth watching the post-match interview with Spieth. He explains what happened to him — mentally, tactically, physically — as he began to play the back nine.
Spieth looked at the leaderboard and changed his decision-making and shot-making strategies. He began to protect a lead, by playing more conservatively. This led to a change in his swing speed, particularly on the 12th, where he was not committed fully to each shot.
Spieth admitted that he decided to play it safe, and the safe play choked him.
“I knew par was good enough and maybe that’s what hurt me … just wasn’t quite aggressive,” Spieth said.
“I said, ‘Buddy, it looks like we’re collapsing,’ ” said Jordan Spieth.
What can we learn from this day? Clearly, it is important to continue to play with confidence and “with what got you there.” I talk about this a lot with teams and individuals with whom I work. Don’t begin changing things for “the big game” or the “big moments” in a competition. You will feel more nervous, for sure, but that is all the more reason to stay with the aggressive mentality. I like to remind athletes that you can mentally be the pursuer and not the pursued, no matter what the game situation.
A little trick that I’ve been using with some of my athletes is to have them wear a green band (or draw a green dot on their hand) — signifying “all in.” It reminds the athlete(s) to stay in the moment, commit to the action, and not change the decision-making process to play more conservatively.
Easier said than done… but it is something Spieth will learn and grow from. He has some more exciting Masters Sundays ahead of him, I’m sure.
Thirty years ago, the first empirical test of a mindfulness-based intervention for athletes was published by Jon Kabat-Zinn and his colleagues. The researchers found that, following mindfulness training, a group of college rowers performed well above their coach’s expectations (based on experience level and physical ability). A second group (Olympic rowers, several of whom won medals) reported feeling that the mindfulness training (MT) had helped their performance. After this first study, there was a dearth of studies on mindfulness training in sports. But there has been a recent resurgence with most studies showing that MT is impacting athletes in positive ways (e.g., less stress, increased ability to focus, etc.).
The idea is that rather than trying to control internal phenomena (thoughts/images), it may be more beneficial for athletes to develop skills in present-moment awareness and acceptance. As Kabat-Zinn suggests, one is trying to pay attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.
Most of the athletes I work with don’t have much trouble with the first component (purposeful attention), but struggle more with staying in the present moment, nonjudgmentally. Given that this is so hard for many of us, it makes sense to train the mind to be better at this.
What we are really talking about is improving self-regulation (in this case, of attention) in order to facilitate optimal performance or even the highly sought-after flow state. Most of this training mirrors a well-established protocol called Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) which has been modified for work with athletes and teams.
Here are a few tips gathered from a post Christine Yu wrote last year:
1. Mindful Breathing
Take a few minutes a day (in the morning or before you engage in an athletic event or exercise) to pay attention to your breath, which can bring on a calm and clear state of mind (via the parasympathetic nervous system). Physiologically, this can help to regulate your breathing if it becomes shallow. Sit comfortably, close your eyes, and start to deepen your breath. Inhale fully and exhale completely. Focus on your breath entering and exiting your body. Start with five minutes and you can build up from there. When your mind wanders, gently bring it back to the breath.
2. Body Scan
Practice a body scan to help release tension, quiet the mind, and bring awareness to your body in a systematic way. Lie down on your back with your palms facing up and legs relaxed. Close your eyes. Start with your toes and notice how they feel. Are they tense? Are they warm or cold? Focus your attention here for a few breaths before moving on to the sole of your foot. Repeat the process as you travel from your foot to your ankle, calf, knee and thigh. Continue to move up your hips, lower back, stomach, chest, shoulders, arms, hands, neck and head — maintaining your focus on each body part and any sensations there. Breathe into any areas that are holding stress and try to release it. As you engage in this practice regularly, you will become more highly attuned to what’s happening in your body. You can spend 10 minutes or longer doing a body scan.
3. Internal and External Messages
Pay attention to your internal dialogue as well as the stories you tell your family and friends, which can reflect and shape your mental state more than you might think. That means no more, “I can’t run that far,” or “I hope I don’t miss the goal.” Notice your thoughts and emotions, but don’t judge them or become attached to them. It’s okay to notice that the feelings are there, but don’t take that emotion with you into the next shot or next play. Instead, let the thoughts and emotions go quickly and speak in terms of what you want to achieve in this moment.
Finally, for a comprehensive academic review of this topic, check out this chapter (Mindfulness in Sports Performance) that was published last year in a massive tome called The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Mindfulness.
The End of the Tour profiles the five-day relationship/interview that Rolling Stone writer David Lipsky (played by Jesse Eisenberg) had with the prodigiously talented novelist, David Foster Wallace (played by Jason Segel). I recently heard an interview that Terry Gross conducted with Wallace in 1997. The interview was replayed on NPR in conjunction with the release of the movie.
During the Fresh Air interview, there is a great exchange between Gross and Wallace, who was a talented tennis player in his youth about how he let his mental chatter get in the way.
GROSS: Now did all your self-consciousness interfere with your performance on the court?
WALLACE: This is a marvelous set of – well, of course. I mean, this is one of the great mysteries about athletes and why I think they appear dumb to some of us, is that they seem to have this ability to turn off – I don’t know how many of your listeners have this part in their brain – but “what if I double fault on this point?” Or “what if I miss this free throw?” Or “what if I don’t get this strike with the entire bowling team [watching]? ” The professional athletes and great athletes, at first I thought it was that that stuff doesn’t occur to them. But, you know, when I hung out with the pro tennis player for the tennis essay, it occurred to me that it’s more like they have some sort of muscle that can cut that kind of thinking off….
GROSS: Did you have that ability to turn it off?
WALLACE: No. And that is – I was a middlingly-talented athlete but my big problem, and the coach told me at age 13: “Kid, you got a bad head.” And what he meant was I would choke. I would begin thinking about, oh no, what if this happens and then I would say well, shut up, don’t think about it. And then I would say to myself, but how can I not think about it if I’m not thinking about it. And meanwhile, you know, I’m standing, drooling, on the baseline going through this whole not very interesting game of mental ping-pong while the other guy is briskly going about the business of winning the match.
They have some sort of muscle that can cut that kind of thinking off.
It’s not that elite athletes don’t have doubts or get distracted. But it is true that the better ones can stop the negative self-talk and the ongoing chatter that interferes with smooth performance.
When athletes (or anyone trying to perform at a high level) let the inner critic question the ongoing performance, the dreaded “choke” can occur. Going blank during a test, missing a wide-open layup, missing the goal completely on a penalty kick… These occur much more frequently when the brain gets overloaded with doubt and anxiety.
Sian Beilock, a cognitive scientist at the University of Chicago, has spent much of her career studying this phenomenon. Her book “Choke” is an excellent read on the subject. A 2012 NOVA piece profiling Beilock and her research is well worth watching. Her research has found that when performers are experiencing stress, there is increased neural activity between the emotional centers of the brain (e.g., the amygdala) and the pre-frontal cortex. This crosstalk interferes with the individual’s ability to perform smoothly and without critical self-talk.
Importantly, Beilock and others have shown that we can learn to quiet the negative self-talk through regular mental practice. Beilock offers an interesting strategy based on some research she conducted with students getting ready to take the pressure-packed end-of-grade test. She had some write about the stress and how they were feeling for 10 minutes before the test. The other group (the control subjects) sat quietly. The group that did the writing scored in the B+ range compared to the controls who scored in the B- range. Those in the writing group seemed to benefit from processing the emotion ahead of time, perhaps turning down the amygdala’s power to disrupt the performance during the actual test.
Beilock also suggests that we learn how to shift our awareness from our self to the activity. In a 2012 interview in Smithsonian magazine, Beilock’s research on this topic is described in more depth.
Skilled athletes use streamlined brain circuitry that largely bypasses the prefrontal cortex, the seat of awareness. When outside stresses shift attention, “the prefrontal cortex stops working the way it should,” she says. “We focus on aspects of what we are doing that should be out of consciousness.”
Beilock recommends distracting the mind with meaningless details, like the dimples on a golf ball, or speeding up movements so the brain doesn’t have time to overthink. Under lab testing, golfers who moved more quickly improved their performance by a third.
These strategies have a lot of implications for athletes and others striving to reach excellence. Stay tuned for other strategies (e.g., staying in the present moment) to help turn down the volume on the inner critic.
Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction. – William James (1907)
Last Sunday, 26.7 million viewers were awestruck by the soccer played by the U.S. against Japan in the women’s World Cup Final. The U.S. team came out with intensity, confidence, and execution that resulted in four goals in the first 17 minutes. The team played as a cohesive unit allowing all of the players to thrive. (And while I now turn to one particular player, it should be obvious that none of the individual highlights are possible without the support of the team.) Three of the first four goals came from Carli Lloyd in the 3rd, 5th, and 16th minute. Lloyd was magnificent: aggressive, assured, strong — a finisher. Her play during the entire tournament was outstanding and built on successes from the previous two Olympic Games. But success at this level didn’t come easily to Lloyd. It never does, for any athlete, but Lloyd’s trajectory is particularly interesting and instructive.
Twelve years ago, during her college playing days, Lloyd was cut from the U.S. under-21 team. She was told by the coach (Chris Petrucelli) that while she was talented, there were too many holes in her game for her to make the team at that point. In a great article by Jeff Carlisle, Lloyd admits that being cut was devastating to her. And instead of fighting, she felt more like giving up. In fact, Carlisle writes, Lloyd told her parents that she was going to finish her final year at Rutgers, quit soccer, and get a job.
And, in fact, this could have happened. It does with many players who simply decide that the work is too hard and not worth it. Which is okay… unless you really want to see how far you can go.
Luckily, Carli’s dad decided to try one more avenue. He asked youth coach James Galanis whether he would be willing to train Carli. Galanis, who specializes in player development, agreed. When he first met with Lloyd, Galanis saw a player who was unfit, uncommitted, and not mentally tough. It seemed to Galanis that Lloyd was full of excuses, anxieties, and poor training habits. But he saw potential. And so he asked her how good she wanted to be. How far did she want to go?
This is the crucial question before we start any mental or physical training. How good can you be? How far do you want to go? If the motivation is there, then it’s a matter of developing the right habits. Too often, people believe that “grit” (passion and perseverance for long-term goals) is mostly a matter of personality. I argue that it is mostly a matter of habit: what you say to yourself, what you do on a daily basis….
Lloyd answered Galanis that, yes, she would put soccer first and do the things that he asked to restructure her game. What followed was years of retraining — physically, nutritionally, mentally, tactically — to help Lloyd develop into a national caliber (then world caliber) player.
She’s done some things over the course of the last 12 years that not many athletes would do, from sacrifices in her personal life to changes in her eating and sleeping habits, and never switched it off. She put in the work and I was happy to see her rewarded on the biggest stage in the biggest possible way. ~ James Galanis, NYPost (July 6, 2015)
Galanis adds that “as [Carli’s] getting older, she’s understanding the game more and her tactical awareness has evolved. She keeps getting stronger physically and she’s only stronger mentally. She’s still got a lot of years left in her.”
Which brings us back to the quote by William James, a founder of American Psychology, at the beginning of this post. We have an ability to “push through the obstruction,” but we often need guidance and support to do so. Lloyd needed Galanis and his coaching skills to help her develop her grit. She put in the hours on the pitch. And she put in her hours for mental training.
Lloyd has repeatedly talked about her mental toughness program. She has learned a disciplined approach to training and how to react better when things go poorly. Prior to her games, she follows a routine to get her to the optimal level of focus and preparedness. This routine includes music, visualization, and meditation.
Several months ago, Lloyd was training alone back home in New Jersey when she allowed herself to fantasize and visualize about the World Cup. This mental rehearsal was particularly optimistic:
“It’s kind of funny,” Lloyd said Sunday night following the U.S.’s 5-2 World Cup victory over Japan. “I’m running and I’m doing sprints and it’s hard, it’s burning, and I just completely zoned out [at the practice in NJ]. I dreamed of and visualized playing in the World Cup final and visualized scoring four goals.
“It sounds pretty funny, but that’s what it’s all about. I think at the end of the day you can be physically strong, you can have all the tools out there, but if your mental state isn’t good enough, you can’t bring yourself to bigger and better things. And for me, I’ve just constantly been visualizing, constantly been growing confidence with each and every game and I was on a mission.” (USA Today, July 6, 2015)
I’ve written about visualization several times in this blog and know that it is crucial to athletes’ success. But what is most important in Lloyd’s story is the lesson that grit and mental toughness can be developed. The fact that passion, persistence, and perseverance are important to achieve excellence should not surprise anyone. But the need for behavior, habit, and support to improve these is too often not emphasized. We tend to see our sports heroes as superhuman — different in some fundamental way. But as we see with Carli Lloyd, she earned her toughness and skills through gritty behavior in the context of support and guidance — a sure recipe for growth with no limits.
William James
Check out this video from Destin Sandlin on his popular YouTube channel, Smarter Every Day. It’s almost eight minutes, but watch it all the way through.
What Sandlin explores is key for improving our performance — in sports and in other areas of our lives. He demonstrates the importance of HABIT and hints at the neuroscience underpinning it.
When Sandlin is first trying to ride the “backwards bike,” he fails because the habit is so firmly established in his brain. The neural pathways, in a sense, are “hard-wired” and difficult to overwrite. The “wiring” (long-term potentiation of synapses) is found throughout the brain, but particularly in the basal ganglia upon which procedural memories (like riding a bike) rely.
So, when we are trying to change a habit, we are trying to rearrange the synaptic potentials throughout the brain. This takes time, effort, and persistence, as Sandlin readily demonstrates in eventually learning to ride the backwards bike.
In a post from 2013, I describe ways to overwrite these old pathways in order to establish new habits, especially through deliberate practice. (The old pathways may not disappear, but they become weaker and slower to be triggered.) It’s worth reexamining those strategies now:
~ Write down your goals
~ Describe the potential roadblocks (and what you’ll do specifically when you encounter them)
~ Increase self-control. (Self-control is best thought of as a limited resource — but one which can be bolstered and expanded.)
~ Monitor yourself.
~ Avoid self-licensing (allowing yourself to back-off or indulge when you have previously acted in accordance with a goal)
~Surf the urge (mindfully riding out temptations to engage in the old behavior, temptations, fatigue, etc.)
The full post is here for you to further explore these habit-changing strategies. And a couple of earlier posts on using deliberate practice effectively are here.
Last month, Coach Mike Krzyzewski reached a milestone, becoming the first coach in men’s Division I basketball to reach 1000 victories.
It didn’t start off too well for Coach K. In his first three years at Duke, Coach K’s record was 38-47, with one post-season appearance at the NIT. In his third year, he had recruited a highly-praised incoming group — Johnny Dawkins, Mark Alarie, Jay Bilas, and David Henderson. But the freshmen and their teammates look a lot of lumps that year, going 3-11 in the ACC. Facing second-seed Virginia (led by Ralph Sampson) in the ACC tournament, the young Blue Devils were blown off the court 109-66.
At an informal post-game dinner, sports information director Johnny Moore raised a glass saying, “Here’s to forgetting tonight.” Krzyzewski told everyone to put down their glasses.
“Here’s to never forgetting tonight,” Krzyzewski admonished.
Many alumni and other big supporters of Duke Athletics were calling for Krzyzewski’s head. They could barely pronounce his name and thought that, despite Bobby Knight’s endorsement, Duke had made the wrong choice back in 1980.
Tom Butters, the AD at the time, stuck with the young coach. He believed in Mike Krzyzewski: his approach, his integrity, his commitment to family, and his unwavering approach to developing young men through teaching on and off the court.
In the fall of 1983, I came to a Duke as a freshman. The core group of Alarie, Bilas, Dawkins, and Henderson were joined by my classmate, Tommy Amaker (now head coach at Harvard). When the team arrived at Cameron Indoor Stadium for practice on October 15, there was no fanfare. Duke was not the well-known (and oft-hated) team it is these days. No, the only thing that greeted this team was the scoreboard which was lit up with the ACC tournament score, 109-66, from back in March.
It was clear to the players that Coach K wasn’t about padding egos. He was and has always been about challenging his players to grow.
Those were fun days to be a Cameron Crazy. But the success did not come overnight. The ACC was extremely competitive, and despite Duke’s improvements, they went 7-7 and 8-6 in the league in ’84 & ’85.
The next year, when Dawkins et al. were seniors, the Blue Devils had a tremendous year, eventually losing in the NCAA finals to Louisville, but posting a 37-3 record.
Over the next nine years, Krzyzewski’s teams made the Final Four seven times (in ’86, ’88, ’89, ’90, ’91, ’92, & ’94) — an impressive achievement.
There has been so much written about Coach K and his successes — on the collegiate and Olympic level — but at this recent milestone of 1000 NCAA wins, I want to add a few thoughts. I have had the pleasure of watching Coach K for 30 years and am convinced that it is his ability to look long-term, and yet be in the moment, that is central to his success.
He is so passionate about teaching and about getting his players to compete all the time. Check out this story from an NCAA game in 2011.
Duke was in the middle of a tight NCAA tournament game against Michigan in the round of 32 in 2011, and Krzyzewski decided he needed to send his team a message.
“We weren’t playing well in the second half,” said Todd Zafirovski… “I think he might have been even telling someone, ‘you need to dive on the court.’
“All of the sudden, you see Coach dive on the floor in the middle of a huddle. We’re all crowding around him, he jumps off of his chair and just dives on the floor. Everyone just kind of looked at each other. It’s like, if he’s going to do that, we have to be able to go out there and do that, too.
“He’ll do whatever it takes even at—what is he now, 67 years old? He’ll do whatever it takes.”
And while Duke basketball might have a “system” (man-to-man defense, motion offense with spacing, etc.), it is Coach K’s ability to adjust that has helped him achieve 1000 wins. As an example, Duke played zone defense against Louisville last month, beating them on the road. Coach K doesn’t really “like” to play zone. But he knew something needed be changed, after his team was getting beaten by teams with quicker guards. “Before you’re ever critical, constructively, of your team, I think you have to say, ‘Am I putting my team in the best position to be successful offensively and defensively?’ ” Krzyzewski said. “And I’m constantly working on that.”
This work ethic combined with the ability to adjust and adapt is central to Krzyzewski’s success. It allows him to keep the long-view in mind, but to be fully present for each and every practice and game. And this full presence gives him the opportunity to do what he loves most — connect with his players and motivate them. Coach K gets the final word on this:
I believe that my work is as much about words as it is about basketball. Choosing the right words is no less important to the outcome of a game than choosing the right players and strategies for the court. As a coach, leader and teacher, my primary task is motivation. How do I get a group motivated, not only to be their individual best but also to become better as a team? I have always said that two are better than one, but only if two can act as one (WSJ, 2011).
Earlier this week, my friend Sebastian and I were on a walk in the woods. He’s a huge NBA fan, so we talked a little hoops. I follow college ball more than the pros, but Seb reminded me how fun it is to watch the superstars. This includes the Golden State Warriors, with their top-notch backcourt: Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson (the “Splash Brothers”). Last night, Thompson lived up to the name in perfect form, splashing down shot after shot in a record-setting third quarter. He scored 37 points (breaking the 33-pt record jointly held by George “Iceman” Gervin and Carmelo Anthony). And he did it without missing a shot: 13 attempts, 13 makes (including 9 3-pointers), + 2 free throws. It was an absolute flurry, with all 37 points coming in less than 10 minutes.
Take a look.
Last year, Thompson spoke to Jared Zwerling about how he has developed his skills; they arrived at twelve shooting keys. I want to highlight two habits that Thompson embraces that are central to getting better and becoming more consistent:
1. Start with the same pregame routine.
First, I need to make five shots from five different spots in the mid-range area. Then, I need to make three spot-up three-pointers, three transition three-pointers and one three from five spots around the arc. After that, I do a couple of pin-downs from each side, and then I’ve got to make three in a row from each baseline corner. I start at the top and run to the corner. I’ve got to make six total.
I don’t adjust my routine to the opponent. I try to make the defense adjust to me, rather than adjust to them.
Thompson has worked on getting his routine down to 15-20 minutes. His routine is key to his getting into a “flow state” where he is catching and shooting quickly, taking the thinking out of the process. In last night’s post-game interview, Thompson said “I was just really focused. I was hitting some tough ones. I was in a great flow.” No kidding.
2. Seek opportunities to learn from others.
I’m still open to new ideas. This Team USA experience [2014] has given me a chance to see what everyone does pregame. I saw Derrick Rose closing his eyes and controlling his breathing. He was visualizing the game. It’s been cool to see how he approaches the game and be on the floor with him.
I watch guys like Steph Curry, Reggie Miller and Kyle Korver. All of them are really good at lulling their guys to sleep and then sprinting off a pin-down.
Growing up, I watched Ray Allen, Rip Hamilton and Allan Houston, but there was always something special about Chris Mullin. He wasn’t athletic, but he knew how to get to his spot, and he never let the defense speed him up. He made the game look so simple.
He wasn’t flashy. He just had his compact, smooth jumper, and he was one of the smartest players in the game. To average 25 a game and be slow and not athletic is an unbelievable testament to his skill and his work ethic. When he was with Golden State, he helped me a lot. He told me to get my center of gravity lower to help me explode on my shot.
Dan Coyle writes about the benefits of observation and mimicry in talent development:
We instinctively want talent to be utterly original and one-of-a-kind. But the truth is, developing skill at mimicry opens a useful short-cut, because it allows you to test out proven techniques and add them to your repertoire. It also separates you from your ego, so you can make more reaches and take more risks.
That last sentence is key. Becoming separated from one’s ego is central to performing in the zone — free of the self-talk that can often undermine our efforts. Establish this in your pregame routine too and you will go a long way towards consistently reaching excellence.
Urban Meyer, head football coach at Ohio State, has now won three national championships. (His first two came at the University of Florida.) Those who follow college football closely know Meyer’s reputation as an intense, hard-working leader.
A major strength of Meyer’s is his ability to deeply connect with and motivate his teams. This is fundamental to good coaching and leadership.
What exactly does Meyer do?
~ He emphasizes the “power of the unit” in working with position groups (e.g., receivers, defensive backs). This strategy creates connections among players, which leads to ownership, pride, support, and accountability.
~ Meyer effectively uses simulation. For example, to prep for the recent game against Oregon, he had two scout teams alternating running plays quickly (setting the play clock to 16 seconds, simulating Oregon’s normally-successful quick offense). Most coaches use simulation and scout teams. But doing it frequently and with intensity is key.
~ He uses a variety of motivational techniques (speeches, quotes, music, keeping practices fresh), and tries to tailor them to his individual players. With a large football team, this is especially impressive. For coaches of smaller teams (e.g., basketball), knowing your players well is obvious. Be unafraid to treat players differently, because they are.
~ Probably most important, Meyer helps players recognize that how they think about things that happen in the course of a season is more important than the events themselves. He makes this very simple by borrowing a formula from business psychology:
E is the Event. R is the Response. O is the outcome. Event + Response = Outcome.
On the wristbands which players wear, notice that the “R” is much larger. Meyer correctly emphasizes that it is the reaction/response that really counts (e.g., self-talk, where one looks, body language).
The other side of the wristband reminds the player to take responsibility for the response.
Ohio State had a fair amount of adversity to overcome this season. But that’s not unique to the Buckeyes. All teams have to deal with the unexpected… with adversity… with challenges. Take ownership of the response to adversity. This is central to resilience and to a high functioning team. Teammates believe in themselves, each other, and the system. That allows them to maximize their performance because they are playing from a place of confidence and connection.
Sometime in February of 2010, after a month of almost non-stop rowing, Katie Spotz was exhausted, wondering how she could continue. More than 1500 miles remained in her attempt to become the youngest person to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. How did a young woman of 22 find herself alone in the middle of an ocean? What would she need to do to continue?
Katie started college in California, but transferred to Warren Wilson College, a four-year liberal arts college near Asheville, North Carolina. As a professor at the college since 1998, I have seen a lot of amazing young people come through with hopes and dreams of changing the world. Katie was one of those students. She majored in business and economics, taking courses across the curriculum that inspired her to make a difference. While studying abroad in Australia, Katie became aware of the crisis facing a billion people on the planet: the lack of access to clean drinking water. She delved into learning more about this problem, eventually connecting with the Blue Planet Network, a global non-profit dedicated to bringing sustainable safe drinking water to people in rural communities around the world.
I interviewed Katie to discuss this ocean-crossing attempt.
In her preparation for the solo crossing, Katie paid as much attention to the mental training as the physical. “Before I even left on my journey,” Katie told me, “I used meditation.”
I know that everyone does their own form of preparation, but for me, I would do these extensive meditation retreats. In endurance events, it’s not a matter of if — it’s when. You will reach those moments where you feel like giving up. And that’s the nature of pushing yourself, truly pushing yourself beyond your limit when reaching those walls.
Without this meditation practice, Katie may well have felt lonelier and more overwhelmed than she did. Katie anticipated correctly what the greatest challenge would be and spent many hours training her mind to cope with the solitude and pain. (Of course, Katie also planned carefully and trained hard physically for the crossing.)
Katie embarked on January 3, 2010, from Dakar, Senegal, on her ocean-crossing attempt. She hoped to reach South America sometime in March or April. Her 19-foot boat was equipped with satellite-based technologies that allowed her to row in an approximately straight line to her destination (French Guiana), to see and be seen by huge freighter ships, and to update her progress via social media. It was also equipped with some more basic technology: oars, which had to be rowed over and over, hours at a time, with little time for rest. Throughout, Katie attempted to sleep in two hour blocks but found this difficult as the swells tossed her vessel about.
For the first several weeks, things went very well and Katie had energy and confidence. Just a few weeks later, halfway across the Atlantic, Katie felt exhausted and overwhelmed, wondering whether she could complete this journey. How would she manage this moment?
I definitely struggled, there’s no doubting that; and each moment was different. Sometimes I would distract myself to get through: I would listen to audiobooks, I would listen to music… Other times I would draw on my meditation practice to get through the pain.
Katie also used a strategy similar to Billy Mills’: breaking down a seemingly impossible goal into manageable chunks: “I wasn’t sure I could row another 1500 miles, but I knew I could row a mile,” Katie explained. “I turned the 1500 miles into fifteen hundred one-mile rows.” Katie’s ability to manage the moment of fear, pain, and fatigue is a lesson in self-control. She didn’t try to manage the whole crossing, but rather confined the coping to specific challenges.
This strategy was also employed by the elite runner, Louis Zamperini, whose story is told in Laura Hillenbrand’s powerful biography Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. Zamperini experienced almost unimaginable pain and suffering after crashing into the Pacific and then being detained in Japanese POW camps. He utilized a day-to-day, and sometimes moment-to-moment, tactic to survive. (Unbroken, the movie, is releasing next month.)
Katie continued to row for the next month until she approached Cayenne, French Guiana. Winds and currents off the coast created huge waves – impossible conditions for her to row through. Her support team radioed Katie and asked if she wanted to be towed in the last few miles. Katie refused saying she wanted the ocean-crossing to be entirely solo. She conferred with the team and set off for a calmer landing area, which was another 400 miles – and eight more days – out of the way. Finally, on March 14, 2010, 70 days after leaving Africa, Katie reached the city of Georgetown, Guyana, becoming the youngest person to successfully row solo across the Atlantic.
It has been almost five years since this historic event; Katie is now working on a book about the crossing. She also recently announced on her blog that she has “started a new adventure to educate, motivate and inspire youth across the country to believe they, too, can do whatever they set their minds to and make a difference for kids around the world in need.” She is partnering with H2O for Life in this important venture.
Katie is an inspiration to people around the world. Not many of us can row across the Atlantic, but she focuses on what we can do:
You may not be wearing a cape and funny suit but whether you know it yet or not, you have superhero capabilities. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. I had a hard time believing this concept until I tested the water, literally.
In 2010 I became the youngest person in the world to row across the Atlantic Ocean solo. No motor, no sails. Just oars…. I never thought I was capable of doing super big adventures but found out what is possible when you set your mind to it. ~Bring out the superhero 10-24-2014