Managing Stress & the Direct Impact on Success

In this episode we talk about the three types of stress and how the ability to process them effectively directly correlates to the amount of success you will have in sports, relationships and life.

ryan@successbeyondgameday.com

www.successbeyondgameday.com

[00:05] Ryan: Welcome to shift happens athlete mindset hacks, where we talk everything mindset development, taking lessons from college and pro athletes, the coaches, the teams that we get to work alongside. I'm Ryan Schachner. This is Cheney Robinson. And today we're talking about how stress affects our performance on the field, on the court, in the race, in athletics. Jamie, this was an interesting one. Right. Because I think a lot of times people go to the, you know, the deep breathing, the, you know, visualization, and while those have, they play a role. You know, a lot of that is pre event, and stress affects us throughout the whole event and different types of stress. And, you know, so there's a lot more layers to it than just the simple, hey, take a deep breath and go get them, champ.

[01:08] Cheney: Right. Well, and I think stress, I'm going to assume stress is synonymous with pressure, right. So let's say we're at the end of the game, you know, and I've got to hit two free throws. There's a lot of stress in that. We need one to tie it up and I need one to win the game, you know, and that's where, as the article was talking about you, we tighten up. Right. There's so many times you tighten up in, in your respective sport, whether it's my, my grip on the baseball bat is tightened up. Cause I need to get a hit. I'm gonna drive the run in or I've pulled the string on the free throw and, and it's, I've shot it short or I've missed the two footer to win a golf tournament because the stress of, hey, this is a big deal, the pressure of it, right. So there's, there's, it's very important what, what we're talking about. But a lot of, like you said, is stuff that you're doing pregame. Right. And I'm old high school basketball coach used to tell us the night before game, he was like, visualize the game. You know, running out of the locker room, going through warm ups, all the different steps of the game. Visualize yourself doing that and going through it and being successful.

[02:22] Ryan: And I know that stuff works, right? The greats do that. But that to me is a band aid on what is a larger issue. And if you want to fix anything permanently, then you need to fix it at the foundation. And which is why we, you know, when we measure stress, we measure those three different components of it because they impact us differently. And I'd agree. I think this is referring to performance, which is what we measure. You know, the locker room, the workplace type stress that you're feeling and how does that then impact performance? But what are you experiencing inside that locker room? Did you, are you the rookie that's now getting to start for the first time? Is there a battle between you and a veteran for the starting spot? Are you not getting mentored? Do you feel like the coach or the GM? You know, you have a contract hold out or you're not getting playing time that you deserve? There's all different aspects to the stress that happens inside just that one area that we measure. And how do you process that and how do you view it and put different sorts of methods in place so that you can operate at your peak performance. That's really where we need to get to with this visualization can be a piece of it. Right. Breathing deep can be a piece of it, but again, that's a band aid. On the larger issue, you could have stress in your personal life that's going on where your girlfriend or boyfriend broke up with you, something's going on with your immediate family, a parent is sick. That sort of stress can also impact performance.

[04:19] Cheney: Absolutely.

[04:20] Ryan: And then just general stress. Right. You watch the news and you're stressed about, you know, different things that are happening or, you know, it could be anything in those three categories, but how you process it is going to be a little bit different depending on where it's coming from.

[04:42] Cheney: Well, and that's, you talked about the foundation, and we've got to have the mechanisms in place to handle the personal stress because that's going to impact all facets of life. Right. It's just, that's an inevitability. It will. Where if we've got, if we've got a good foundation handling stress personally, then if something negatively happens professionally, we can handle it. We can still, it's not going to affect everything personally where conversely, something personal is going to impact everything personal, professional, all of it. So it's having those mechanisms in place, and we're not really taught that. Right. It's not a, you know, a lot of times, you know, you talk, we, before we started recording today, it was used the word compartmentalize, and there's, there's some value in that, too, but it's sooner or later you got to unpack that and you got to, you got to work through it. Right.

[05:42] Ryan: You've got to be able to process.

[05:44] Cheney: That's right. You got to be able to process it. And so many times you talk about a lot of scenarios of being in the locker room. These athletes kind of isolate themselves or put themselves out on an island. And it's not necessarily woe was me, but you know, how. Why is this happening to me, right? Why can I not get this done? Why can I not get that starting position or beat out the veteran? Or why are the negotiations stalling? And I think a lot of that comes back to is communications, right? It's just being able to communicate, hey, here's the true, authentic self. This is what I'm looking for. This is what I need. And then finding that win win solution.

[06:31] Ryan: One of the things that I believe, and we are told adds the most value is before you can deal with the stress, you have to know how you deal with those three different types of stress. Because we work with college and pro athletes that can deal with personal stress extremely well, but inside the locker room, the work stress, not well at all, and then stress in general, anything outside the locker room or the workplace and the family, they're fine with. And so it's recognizing, if you're that athlete or that coach or that GM, if something's not happening performance wise, physically, on the field or on the court, what is the likely scenario? And if you can go to a specific stress area to identify, all right, what are the issues happening in this athlete's life that could be impacting in this one stress measurement, then that's the place to start. Right. It's having the clues to start looking when the performance isn't like you want it and athletes aren't. We're always performance focused. We're going to do our best to compartmentalize. We're going to be closed off. We're not going to tell people our feelings because we admit feelings. That's weakness. And, you know, that's how we were all brought up. But this is where you elevate from a coaching standpoint or a GM standpoint. The best of that world is being able to identify what areas my players or my key players or what areas do they tend to struggle with and then recognizing when performance is starting to decline. Hey, this is my go to because I have the clues, I have the data that gives me a path to start to operate on.

[08:45] Cheney: Yeah, well, and I think, too, it's getting to that safe zone of being comfortable sharing personal stuff, too. Right? I mean, we. We were talking about a coach that we'd worked with in a club basketball team, and one of the athletes shared some personal information that nobody knew, nobody was aware of. So now his teammates better understand him and where he's coming from, what makes him tick. And who he is and why he is the way he is. Because, again, we go back to experience drives beliefs and beliefs drive behavior. Right. So that's where what we're trying to do again, is, hey, can we break that generational cycle of just because this is where you came from, that doesn't mean that's where you're vetted.

[09:31] Ryan: Exactly. And we will let others experiences impact our beliefs, which then impacts our behavior. And that throws off all your potential, limit yourself and all that kind of stuff then rolls in and is out play when it doesn't have to be, you know, going back to the stress component of it, if I know the areas that I'm either good or bad at handling when it comes to stress, I can then set up, you know, the mechanisms or put the people around me to be able to process it. And I think so many times athletes automatically go to, I've got to lay on the couch and talk to, you know, a psychiatrist or psychologist. And that's not it. You don't need to go to that extreme. There's nothing wrong with it, but you don't have to always go there. It could just be, you know, like, a lot of our athletes still reach out to us before games, and if they're going through something to, hey, this is what's going on. How do I work through it? And it's that voice that's a reminder of, hey, Cheney, this is who you are. This is probably how you're processing this. But here are the other aspects that could be at play here. Do you think some of these other things, you know, inside the locker room might be giving you the perception that this is happening when that's not really happening? You know, let's look at all the other, you know, the higher level, the big picture aspects that could be at play and, you know, that could be what's causing your perception of, you know, this issue. And a lot of times it's just working through that and it doesn't really take all that long. Again, it's not an hour session on the couch, you know, with someone just sitting there listening, going, mm hmm. Right. It's that conversation and somebody that gets who you are that can help put you in that, the right perspective so that you can then go out there and execute and be that best, you know, the physical performance possible.

[11:49] Cheney: Right. Well, and we've talked about Caitlin Clark, too, and just took the emotions at times getting the best of her. And I can't remember if it was last night or maybe two nights ago. One of the most recent games, she had gotten fouled and didn't, didn't get called. And she's kind of hemming and hawing a little bit, but then two or three of her teammates are kind of corralling her and like, hey, hey, we're okay. Just dial it down. You know, come, come down off the ledge a little bit. So she's got that close knit group that are. Then they know and they're helping her be able to realize, all right, big picture here. We need you on the court. You get another technical foul and, you know, you're not only off the court, but you may be suspended for a few games. So that's reeled us in a little bit.

[12:44] Ryan: Yeah, I think there's a trend, too, that develops, right? I mean, if you look at the elite, and I'm not just talking about athletes, you look at the elite GM's, the elite coaches, and you take a coach k, a Dean Smith, a Bill Belichick, you take a Phil Jackson, these coaches that had sustained success, and it's not just them knowing the X's and O's better than the rest of the coaches. Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of times they get credited with, oh, they just know the game better than anybody else and they're this game genius. And that's not it at all. I mean, there's a reason that Phil Jackson won with Jordan, one with Kobe. There's a reason that Belichick went on that run with Brady and was able to bring in these guys that had that reputation of, you know, they're unmanageable. Like a randy moss coming in and all of a sudden he's performing at the level that, you know, he was when he was a rookie. You know, Coach K gets these tough personalities, Dean. You know, these coaches that just sustain, you know, Saban, Kirby smart. They're out there. And it's not that they know their sport better than anybody else. It's that they know their team better than anybody else. They know their players better than the players know themselves. They know what buttons to push. They know how they're processing stress, how to, you know, integrate into their life in order to give them that support that they need so that, you know, they're almost more of a parental type figure, friend, you know, big brother, mentor than they are. Hey, these are the X's and O's, and this is what you need to do better. And one of the things that I think we add the most value in is being able to measure those three specific stress areas but it's not just that. It's the whole 20 different mindset, performance indicators, so that you know who to get on your team, you know, the areas that they're going to thrive in and the areas that they're going to struggle in. And it's having that data so that you can put them in the right position or start to expose them to the things in a slow, methodical manner that they're going to be dealing with as the stage gets bigger. You have the data to be able to do that properly, so you don't have to be that expert. You can rely on people that deal with this so that you get all the glory. Like these. Like these, you know, top level coaches. Great. Talking about stress. Another episode of Shift happens down. I'm Ryan. This is Cheney. And we'll see you next time.