A terrific conversation on the podcast this week as Slappin' Glass sits down with the Pittsburgh Pirates Director of Learning | Mental Performance, Bernie Holliday! In this insightful discussion the trio explore the areas of "ETA's, the Training vs. Trusting Mindset in performance, the benefits of anxiety and other strong emotions, and much more more.
To join coaches and championship winning staffs from the NBA to High School from over 60 different countries taking advantage of an SG Plus membership, visit HERE!
A terrific conversation on the podcast this week as Slappin' Glass sits down with the Pittsburgh Pirates Director of Learning | Mental Performance, Bernie Holliday! In this insightful discussion the trio explore the areas of "ETA's, the Training vs. Trusting Mindset in performance, the benefits of anxiety and other strong emotions, and much more more.
To join coaches and championship winning staffs from the NBA to High School from over 60 different countries taking advantage of an SG Plus membership, visit HERE!
The body is energizing us to do things, the stress is mobilizing us to do things. These are really, really important feelings. We've been taught and we've been socialized to be afraid of them. We've been socialized to think that I'm not prepared because I wouldn't feel this, I'm not tough enough because I wouldn't feel this. I can't possibly perform well with sweaty palms and a racing heart. And we know that's all bullshit. You know, at the highest levels, every athlete has sweaty palms. Every athlete is trying to sink the game when he free-throw with a racing heart. It's not whether we had those feelings or not. It's how we learned to look at them.
Dan Krikorian:Hi, I'm Dan Krakorian and I'm Patrick Carney, and welcome to Slapping Glass exploring basketball's best ideas, strategies and coaches from around the world. A couple weeks ago, in what will no doubt be one of the most popular episodes of 2024, we welcomed mental skills coordinator for the Pittsburgh Pirates, andy Bass, who multiple times on the episode mentioned his mentor, bernie Holiday. So we just had to get Coach Holiday on to discuss productive versus positive thinking, the benefits of stress, the trusting versus training mindset and much, much more Unique and absolute must the most helpful and highest quality coaching content anywhere. These are some of the comments coaches are using to describe their experience with SG+, from NBA and NCAA championship coaching staffs to all levels of international and high school basketball. Sg+ is designed to help curious coaches discover, explore and understand the what, why and hows of what the best in the world are doing Through our easily searchable 750-plus video archive on SGTV to our live coaches, social Las Vegas. Sg+ is the assistant you would hire if your athletic director didn't already get the stipend to football. For more information, visit slapenglasscom today.
Dan Krikorian:And now, please enjoy our conversation with Bernie Holiday. Bernie, we wanted to start with something that's on the top of your Twitter. I guess it's called X now. The quote is high performance is a paradox that defies common wisdom. Pursue what most avoid letting it happen over making it happen. Trying less over trying more. Not thinking about results generates the best results. Effortless power trumps powerless effort, and play ball don't work ball as.
Bernie Holliday:I was thinking about high performers I've had the chance to learn from, engage with. It truly does seem to be a paradox that's very different than how most normal, ordinary individuals go through their lives. That last part of it is a quote from Willie Stargel where he talks about you know, when you start a baseball game and at the beginning of the game the umpire stands behind home plate and he says play ball. He doesn't say work ball, he says play ball. And even at the highest level there's this idea of play as opposed to it being hard and a grind and a work. And when guys are at their best, they almost talk about a feeling effortless and easy and almost instinctive and automatic, versus trying hard, thinking too much. I'm working too much at that process. So I think that's kind of where that comes from.
Bernie Holliday:I think the second part is really the idea of leaning into hard. You know, when we talk about ordinary perspectives and ordinary approaches, a lot of people like to take the path of least resistance and they like to kind of sit in places where they feel comfortable. And you've probably heard the cliche that peak performance is all about being comfortable, being uncomfortable, and I think that's what we see with the high performers is they lean into this comfort, they seek out this comfort because they know that that's where the growth and the opportunities lie. So it's really kind of going to where most people avoid seeking out things that most people would try to steer clear over, shy from and really kind of exploring that fringe of your comfort zone that scare most people. And I think that's really that paradox is it's almost do an opposite of what the ordinary person might want to do in almost every situation.
Dan Krikorian:Bernie to dive in here, because I love the quote and the response there and I guess the question is going into your process on how you get the athletes, the coaches, everybody that you've worked with, to get to that effortless flow point. It's great, obviously, like that's where you want to get to, but then how you go back and kind of untangle probably a lot of the things that need to be untangled as a performer, as a coach, to hopefully get to that point where this effortlessness can take place.
Bernie Holliday:Some of it is just awareness building. One of the activities that I like to do and I think coaches can do this as well with their players, one on one or as a team is I call it the ETA exercise. And if you think about, eta kind of stands for estimated time of arrival, so if you think about, you know, there's the tip off, there's like 20 minutes until tip off, there's 20 minutes until the first whistle, there's 20 minutes until the first pitch. You have sort of this ETA. So it's easy to remember that way.
Bernie Holliday:But I think about ETA also being sort of the internal ingredients of the mental game. E being sort of the emotions and energy that you bring to a moment. And we all have some level of energy and emotion 24 seven, like the three of us do right now that we have some energy and emotion going through us right now. T are your thoughts, so the internal dialogue we have with ourselves and things that we picture, the images and visualizations that we have, and we're always thinking something. You know 24 seven. And then the A is the attention where have we directed our attention? And you know 24 seven, our attention is always directed someplace. So part of that process is helping players recognize when they're going really good. Where are their internal ETAs I call them the raw ingredients of the mental game and when they're struggling, slumping, or in baseball we call it scuffling, where things aren't going well and things feel a little bit sort of rocky, where have your ETAs gone then? And I think when we talk to players and they start to recognize when I'm going really well, my emotions are confidence, I feel aggressive, I feel assertive, I feel invincible, I feel at ease. When they talk about their thoughts, their thoughts are focused on what they do want to do how can I exploit my opponent? What is my target? What do I want to have happen? And then my attention becomes focused on more like a target and outcome, like across the net, or, in this case, you know, what am I trying to do with the ball? I think when we see players start to scuffle and they answer that question where do your ETAs go?
Bernie Holliday:When you're struggling, slumping and scuffling, it becomes, you know, I become very passive, energy wise and become passive emotions. I become scared, I become timid, I become worried, I become afraid, I become self conscious, I'm worried about what people are thinking about me. Okay Well, where do your thoughts go Well, rather than thinking about what I want to do, I start thinking about what I don't want to do. I start thinking about how to avoid mistakes, I start thinking about how to avoid turnovers, how to avoid missing shots getting fouled out, and I start to think about what I don't want to have happen and how can I minimize or avoid those things. And that's where my thoughts tend to go. And then my attention becomes on more of my body. What do I need to do with my mechanics? What do I need to do with my movements to not have those things happen? So we become very high thought driven, high mechanics driven, mechanically preoccupied.
Bernie Holliday:And that's where I think, with that point it comes back to. We talk about it as sort of being this thinking mindset of overanalyze, overcriticize, overjudge. And most athletes, they get really good because they've been able to their entire junior career, leveraged some level of self criticism, some level of analysis and some level of judgment. That's a good thing because it helps us develop skill. You know, I need to think about what I'm doing and need to judge it as right or wrong, and I need to be critical and try to make it better. So we get to this loop of how do you get good? Will you analyze, criticize and judge what you're doing? So we start to believe that that's the only way.
Bernie Holliday:But I think when we talk to these elite performers, when they're going at their best, and you ask them, what are you thinking of? Well, I'm not really analyzing my mechanics, I'm not really judging the outcomes. I'm able to move past a bad mistake. I'm not overanalyzing things, I'm not overthinking things, not overjudging my performance. I'm just kind of out there, responding, reacting, being instinctive, letting that athletic genius come out. There's not a lot of conscious thought going on. It's very in contrast to what we hear. Athletes have used their entire careers to get good.
Bernie Holliday:So I kind of talk about it as one psychology that brings in skill, which we call the training mindset. And that's where it is a very conscious frontal lobe process where athletes have to think carefully about what they're doing, analyze it as right or wrong, judge it as good or bad and make adjustments. But there's the second mindset that very few athletes ever embrace or invest in, which I call the trusting mindset. And whereas the training mindset brings skill in, the trusting mindset is what lets skill out. It's what unlocks or unleashes skill under high pressure, high stress scenarios, and most athletes have never been in touch with that, who have never learned to flex that muscle.
Bernie Holliday:And that's really the opposite. That's the ability to, rather than think about what I'm doing, it's almost about letting it happen Instead of trying to judge what I'm doing. It's almost like accepting what's happening and moving forward. And instead of trying hard, it's about playing hard. There's this sort of element of play and freedom rather than trying and forcing and fighting yourself. And I think athletes never realize that.
Bernie Holliday:There's the second mindset, this trusting mindset. So a lot of what we do with players is help them start to flex that muscle later in their career. You know the training mindset will get you 80% to your potential, but it's actually the one thing that locks up that last 20% and keeps you from reaching that final 20, which is the ability to sort of unlock it and free it up. And that's where you know the words I like to use is conviction, reckless abandon and acceptance. Those are like the three trademarks of the trusting mindset. Can I bring conviction to what I do instead of careful, conscious thought? Can I attack it or approach it with reckless abandon rather than trying to be careful and cautious in how I do it and they can accept the outcome, good or bad, and move on, versus being very self critical and self judgmental about the outcome and getting stuck there.
Patrick Carney:Bernie, a lot of good stuff there. I'd like to go back to the beginning, when you're talking about awareness building and your ETA exercise, and specifically you're talking about the mindset or the thought process of an athlete or a performer, and something in our research we also found was interesting that you've spoke on is differentiating between positive thinking and productive thinking.
Bernie Holliday:I think our field of high performance can kind of get simplified down to oh, you're a positive thinking kind of guy, and I'm the first to say that no, I'm not really a big fan of positive thinking. I'll go with it if an athlete can do it, but I find that too often times it's too far of a gap to bridge. If things aren't going well. It's really hard to be positive about things being bad, things not going as planned, things being full of adversity. Positive is kind of a far stretch for a lot of people. So, borrowing from Russell Wilson, one of the concepts that he really buys into and embraces is this concept called neutral thinking, where I don't have to be positive. Maybe I can be a little bit less negative or non-negative in my thinking, kind of just be more neutral looking at the facts. And how can I respond to the facts? I think human beings were really good at creating these narratives and these stories in our head and we could take the facts which I've missed, my first six shots of the first quarter, and now I can start creating all these narratives. I'm terrible. I don't belong out here. I can't play at this level. Those mechanics are messing up my shot. My coach messed up my shot and now we start creating all these narratives about the fact that the facts are hey, I missed my first five shots, what am I going to do about it? And they recognize that the facts, without the added stories that come with them. That's sort of Russell Wilson's idea of neutral thinking. Let's deal in facts and let's deal in our response to the facts. And that's where I'd rather an athlete focus on productive thoughts rather than positive thoughts. Productive thoughts are more things that move us forward. To me, productive thinking is is yourself talk focused on what's right in front of you and within your control. I think that's a really good place for an athlete to be. Is am I talking to myself about things that are Directly in front of me and within my control? Because I think some of those stories get us too far out in front. Well, if we fall behind and I keep missing shots, we're gonna lose the game. If we lose the game, we're gonna fall back in the conference. If we fall back in the conference, we meant the, the NC2A tournament and Suddenly we're way out ahead of ourselves or we get stuck in the past with our thinking and missing shots. This is like last game. You know I really shot badly. Last game too, and maybe this is a trend and you know what happened. From last game to this game boy, I made those mechanical adjustments, the opposite not working, and suddenly we find ourselves living, you know, two or three or four days behind us, or even two or three or four shots behind us.
Bernie Holliday:So this idea of productive thinking, I think, is can you put your thoughts, can you put yourself talk, can you put your focus on what's right in front of you and within your control, which kind of comes back to the Russell Wilson idea of neutral thinking, which is, what are the facts and what can I do about them? And then to me that's productive. I mean, if you want to beat yourself up while doing that, I'm okay with it. If you want to be negative and frustrated and discouraged while doing that, I'm okay with it. As long as your thoughts are what's right in front of me and within my control, I think we're in a good place. It doesn't have to be butterflies, daisies or rainbows and convincing ourselves that everything's gonna be okay when in fact it's not okay right now.
Dan Krikorian:I love to follow up on the productive thinking versus positive thinking and in the way that you work with athletes and coaches, where stats and analytics and all that stuff comes in at all, whether you don't even bring it up. I mean, it's everywhere and every sport now and the best hitters you know don't get on base seven out of ten times. You know, in basketball, great three-point shooter misses six out of ten. You know their failures everywhere and stats are everywhere and for you is it important to accept it, bring it up, discuss, talk about it, or is it not a part of it at all? I mean, where do you stand with what you do and how you work with athletes on that?
Bernie Holliday:I am a tremendous fan in Acknowledging the truths of the matter and, at the same time, recognizing that we can prevail through those truths. A lot of it is in acknowledging and accepting the harsh realities of what we're facing as elite athletes, and Recognizing our response is what really matters, and how we frame it is what matters. People always say that baseball you know the business that I work in baseball is a game of failure, hitting's game of failure, and I think that phrase and that reframe alone can set people up for additional struggle. It's definitely hard. It's one of the hardest things you could do in baseball and therefore, to me, baseball is a game of adaptation, it's a game of adjustments, and the player that adjusts better and adjust quicker and adjust more consistently is going to have the advantage. So, whereas most people say baseball is a game of failure, I like to think about baseball as a game of adjustment and we're going to adjust to the adversity that the game throws us, and I think that's where you'll tend to see Two different angles that people take. That, I think, gets them into trouble. One is they become overly mired by the realities of the situation, the harsh realities of what they're facing. This is actually called the stockdale paradox, and it's kind of an interesting thing that looks at elite companies and organizations, so what separates them from all the other companies and organizations that fail or fall short. And they were able to sort of Bind this sort of paradox that was called the stockdale paradox, which is, on one hand, it's not about just getting consumed by the harsh realities of what you're facing right now. In sports are really harsh reality, the game is a harsh judge and it doesn't care how you feel. On the other hand, it's not about just this false, naive belief that I'm going to be okay, it's going to be okay, everything's going to be okay. But what this stockdale paradox is is recognizing the harsh realities of what I'm facing and, at the same time, recognizing that I have the capabilities to prevail in the end. And that's really, I think, the beauty of what this high performance mindset Is all about is not going to deny and hide from the harsh realities. We're going to acknowledge them and accept them as a part of this challenge that that we've chosen, and and we know that we've got the capabilities and resources to prevail in the end. Let's talk about how we can do that now. It's not what happens to you. It's how you respond to what happens to you. Let's talk about your response, because what's happening is not a very good thing sometimes in our sport, so we can figure out. This is what's happening. What's our response going to be? That's going to move you closer to your goal.
Bernie Holliday:I used to be really into this idea of sort of micromanaging your inner experiences, where if I'm feeling negative, I need to change that and feel positive. If I'm thinking negative, I need to change that and think positive. If I'm feeling stressed, I need to change that so you can feel relaxed. And I think, as I've gone on this journey in my own career in the last 25 years, I've leaned into this concept called acceptance commitments a lot more, which is, rather than trying to change my inner experiences because they don't feel good or they don't feel right, sort of accept those inner experiences as a part of the high-performance journey and that high performers often have negative thoughts.
Bernie Holliday:High performers often have negative emotions. They often have physiological stressful feelings. This is a part of choosing to be an elite performer and, rather than trying to fight those and might go manage them to a better place, why don't we just accept the practice is what we signed up for, and the commitment piece of that is now. Can we commit back to our goals and our values? What are we trying to accomplish and what's that response that gets us closer? Or what do we value as athletes and as human beings and what's our response that aligns better with our values? Rather than making choices that respond with how we feel, I feel negative, I'm thinking negative, my body feels bad and I'm making the next choice based on how I feel, I would rather than make that next choice based on what do I value and what are my goals.
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Patrick Carney:Going back to the two mindsets the training mindset and the releasing skill mindset, the trusting mindset what kind of environments, as a coach, are you trying to help them build? So one, and maybe there's two separate environments when it comes to you're in this, training Mindset versus the trusting mindset, but in terms of an environment that helps their athletes reach their performance potential.
Bernie Holliday:This is a hard thing to describe. I'll do my best to kind of talk through it. But I think when you think about a practice environment, a lot of times the way an athlete approaches a practice environment is Strictly in the mindset of I'm going to go into practice, I'm going to try to get better, I'm going to try to acquire skill and bring skill in. And therefore they adopt this, analyze it, criticize it, judge it. Mentality, this work hard, try hard, think about things, perspective. And if you think about going through practice and you spend 100% of your time Analyzing, criticizing a, judging what you're doing and working hard, trying hard and thinking carefully about it, that then becomes the habit. So we unknowingly create this habit of overanalyzing over criticizing and overthinking. And when we get in the games, even though we know in games hey, trust your training, you know, let the practice take over that the athlete out be instinctive, be automatic. We've already developed this habit of overanalyzing over criticizing, over judging, working for a, trying hard and thinking about things. That then becomes a very default under pressure and gains. And when you ask any athlete what do you like when you're at your best? Well, I'm not really thinking about much. Well, what about mechanics. Well, I'm not thinking about mechanics. Well, what are you thinking about? I'm just thinking about a target shooting. I'm just kind of let my eyes play, not my head. We realized that you practice. We create the sort of unintentional habit of analyze, criticize, judge, work hard, try hard, think about things.
Bernie Holliday:So I like athletes not like coaches to spend at least and this would be like a arbitrary number but like 21% of your practice should be engaged in trusting mindset behaviors. How can I encourage aggressiveness? How can I encourage Accepting mistakes and moving on quicker? How can I accept sort of this reckless abandon approach to taking risks and taking chances? How can I play to my strengths more rather than worry about fixing up and shoring of weaknesses? I think the training mindset is about fixing weaknesses, whereas the trusting mindset is about playing to and trusting strengths. So how can we identify strengths and celebrate strengths and play to strengths in practice? And how can I get out of my mechanical Mindset and get more toward a target mindset, an external focus, getting my focus outside of myself and outside of my bodily movements and more toward where is my defender? Where the hoop, where my teammates? What am I trying to do externally with the ball, as opposed to how am I moving my body in my limbs and those mechanical movements within me, and all of those things kind of get us more toward this trusting mindset where we're focused on strengths, we're focused on external targets and we're focused on strategy, not mechanics. We're focused on risks, not mistakes, and and not playing careful.
Bernie Holliday:And I chose 51% because if you do something more than half for the time, or the majority of the time, that becomes your habit.
Bernie Holliday:So 49% of our practices can be focused breaking down and critiquing mistakes, analyzing, criticizing, judging what we're doing, working hard and trying hard to get better and thinking about it.
Bernie Holliday:But we have to have the majority of our practice spent on this pursuit of learning how to release skill, learning how to trust our strength, learning how to celebrate and play into our strengths, learning how to focus externally on targets, learning how to think about strategy, not mechanics, and learning how to move past failure and Mistakes rather than working to correct them. In that moment, just accept, move on, accept, move on. So what next shot? And those are the things I want athletes to practice in practice. Because if we do that, 51% of the time, that now becomes our dominant habit under pressure and we know, under pressure your dominant habits emerge. And if our trusting mindset is something we've practiced the most every day, in practice at least 51% of every practice then that becomes our dominant habit under pressure, and we're in the sort of let it out mode rather than trying to, you know, constrain it inside mode that we all fall into as a trap sometimes.
Dan Krikorian:Bernie, I'd love to follow up with when you're talking about trying to get to that trusting environment versus a training environment 51% of the time how important or your thoughts on a coach Letting the team or the player know what type of I guess Mindset they'd like them to have in that drill. Let me maybe explain further. Like when you're in a training environment, is important for a coach to let the players know yeah, I'm going to stop, we're gonna correct, we're gonna teach in this environment, so the player knows this is coming and then in a trustee one, hey, we're gonna let you play, we're gonna have feedback afterwards, so they know that they can just play and not have a fear of always being stopped. Is it important for the coach to communicate what type of practice they'd like their player to be in at that time? That makes sense.
Bernie Holliday:I think it's a tremendous idea. I'm a big fan of that. I also know that there are some drills that lend themselves more to a training mindset and there are some drills that the athletes have to have the discipline to allow the trusting mindset to prevail. I've worked a lot in beach volleyball with LMU Beach and John Mayer and I think John and a lot of other beach coaches. In beach volleyball they talk about having a lab portion of their practice where it's a lot more small groups, more one-on-one individual coaching and the lab portion is kind of breaking down some aspect of the game and trying to make some adjustments. And then there's more of sort of this freestyle, competitive component of the practice where it's true two-on-two live ball drills, getting a lot of wraps, a lot of game speed, game stress scenarios and you would make the consideration that, okay, yeah, the lab portion is really good for the training mindset where it can be a little bit more thoughtful, analytical, critical, judgmental about what's happening. But then when I get into this sort of live ball game, speed game, stress, scrimmage style scenario, do I as the athlete have the discipline to shift my mindset to? Now, let's play to my strengths, now let's learn to accept and let go of mistakes rather than try to correct them in the moment. Now let's stop focusing on my body movements and my mechanics and let's focus more outward on where am I trying to put the serve in volleyball? Who am I trying to exploit attacking on the other side of the net in volleyball? Where do I want to hit the shot on the other side of the net? And I'm more in this external focus and I think what happens is athletes too often get stuck in the training mindset during the lab portion. Then they carry that training mindset into the live portion and they never get away from the analyzed, criticized, judge and they never flex the other muscles, the conviction, reckless abandoned and acceptance. That's another part of, I think, being a high performer is. You got to be able to bring conviction to those live parts of practice. You got to be able to bring reckless abandoned to your execution when you're playing scrimmage style drills and you'll be able to accept and move on and not get hung up on making mistakes in those live style drills. So I think a coach can help that by creating some structure. This is where we are going to break things down. We're going to be a little bit more training, mindset focused, analyze what's happening. But now I want you to shift your mindset. I want you to shift your focus to external targets, playing with your strengths, letting go of and moving past and accepting mistakes. So what next shot? So what next pitch? And let's practice that now for the next 40 minutes, reinforcing those qualities when she sees them, rather than trying to stop a drill, trying to break down the mechanics hey, I realize you dribbled this way. I realize you hit the serve that way. I realize you pitched the ball this way. We need to pitch it that way instead and making those mechanical adjustments in the scrimmage portion.
Bernie Holliday:Maybe this is something else we go into, but one of the things that's really helped our athletes is a concept that Annika Sorensden talked about. She is the LPGA golfer, best golfer in the history of the LPGA. I think she's the only female golfer that shot a 59 in regulation. And when people asked her what was the thing that made you most successful in your career and in the history of women's golf both her coaches and her in different conferences that I was at when they were the keynote speakers, they said that Annika got really good at this process called ThinkBox, playbox, and when asked about it, well, what's ThinkBox, playbox? And she said well, I kind of break up my shot, every golf shot, there's a ThinkBox mode and then there's a PlayBox mode and in the ThinkBox mode I think about the target, I think about the lie, I think about the wind conditions, I think about the traps and the water hazards and I also have my own thoughts, my doubts, my worries and my insecurities about how I'm swinging the club that day.
Bernie Holliday:But I got to kind of do all that in the ThinkBox and then once I step forward and grab my club and pull it out, now I'm in PlayBox mode.
Bernie Holliday:Now it's see the external target, align, trust and swing. And too many times she described that golfers thinking the ThinkBox and then they end up thinking more in the PlayBox. And for her, having that kind of discipline between the two is really important. And I understand in basketball, because of the fluid nature of it, it's really hard to separate ThinkBox and PlayBox. I think in volleyball and tennis and baseball sports I'm very familiar with it it's a lot easier to say a pitcher, before every pitch he's got five or six seconds in the ThinkBox mode and then when he steps onto the rubber he needs to shift into this PlayBox mode. Pick his external target, trust his training, let it fly with conviction and reckless abandon, then accept whatever follows. Basketball takes a little bit more art to get there, and maybe that's where I think in practice you have drills that are a little bit more aligned to being in the ThinkBox. But then you have other drills, another more live scrimmage style drills or small court drills that are live in play, that lend themselves much more to practicing this PlayBox mode.
Patrick Carney:Bernie, when you notice a player in the trusting mindset but maybe struggling with conviction or not playing with reckless abandon or not accepting, is it more about bringing awareness to that athlete to help them fix one of these parts, or are there certain exercises then that you kind of will break down that specifically focus on hey, why can't we get you to accept, or why can't we get you or she to play with reckless abandon?
Bernie Holliday:If we're trying to do it in the moment and the groundwork hasn't been laid, I think we're kind of at a loss and we just got to let that one play out the way it is. But I think the work can be done on the front end and that's where I think there's a lot of value is can you go into a game and this is something I borrowed from the late great Ken Robiza who if there was a hall of fame for mental performance coaches, ken Robiza would be the first one ducted in there, passed away a few years ago but was a tremendous mentor to a lot of us in the field. He talked a lot about the stoplight theory of high performance. You're in green light mode and in green light mode all systems are go, everything feels good, your game feels aligned. Those ETAs internally I talked about feel like they're all in sync, everything's good. But then at times with his athletes kind of go into this yellow light mode and you think about what is yellow light. When you're driving, you know a lot of people laugh and go. I speed up Other people, I slow down, I'm careful. All yellow light means is be aware, because you got in this transition moment, things are about to get dangerous because of yellow terms to red. Now you might get, you know, t-boned going through the intersection.
Bernie Holliday:So too often times I think athletes in games, when the stress is high, the pressure is high, they go from green light and they flag through their yellows without realizing it. Before you know they find themselves in red light mode. Now the game's sped up on them, things feel fast, they feel like they're a step behind the game. Their ETAs are out of whack, where their emotions are not aligned to where they normally like them to be. Their thoughts are kind of in too far to the future of the past. Their attention is focused on again themselves and their mistakes and trying to fix their mechanics, rather than external target. And they realize, wow, I'm in red light and I have no idea what to do. And if you get an athlete to red light mode you almost have to just write off the day. It's really hard to get back into a green when you find yourself in red light.
Bernie Holliday:So the trick is that awareness piece you talked about. Do I know what situations push me into yellow light mode? And I think the more an athlete up front can recognize. You know, in the past, last season, last month, even last week, these were the situations that kind of threw me into my yellow light mode. It might be a costly turnover in a close game. Now I go from green light to yellow light. Now my emotions kick in, my thoughts start to raise, my attention kind of gets turned inward on me. Maybe it's missing consecutive shots from my favorite spot on the floor. You know I'm normally money right here, but now I've just missed three in a row. And now I go from green light to yellow light. Maybe it's I've got a guy who's playing overly physical and kind of pushing that line between what's appropriate and what's a foul and the rest aren't calling it. Now I'm getting frustrated, pissed off. Now my thoughts are out of alignment.
Bernie Holliday:But what are those yellow lights that kind of get you a little bit off your game? I call it beginning to. What's beginning to speed the game up on you, what's beginning to kind of throw those ETAs out of whack. What's beginning to cause you to fall, step behind the game, what's beginning to make you feel out of control. And if they're really good, they can recognize that now, more in the moment, they know that these are the yellow lights and then, when it happens, boom, I can see it. And then the second part is what do I do about it?
Bernie Holliday:We talk a lot again on the front side about reset routines. You have a reset button or do you have a reset routine in baseball? A lot of the players will talk about looking at that little emblem on their bat between pitches. So they'll step out of the box. Look at the little emblem on their bat that says Louisville Slugger or whatever it is. We'll take a breath and that becomes their reset.
Bernie Holliday:They've recognized I swung at a ball in the dirt. When I swing at a ball in the dirt outside of what I'm looking for, that gets me the yellow light. Now I get frustrated within the ETA bat. Now I step out. My reset is take my breath, look at the logo, reset, step in and go, or recommit, step in and go and again. With basketball being a more fluid nature, it's kind of hard to have a reset on the fly, but maybe it's when there's a stoppage of play. Now I get a little bit more time to get 15 or 20 seconds when that ball is out of bounds or when somebody is going to take a free throw, or I can take this five or 10 second moment to kind of reset myself.
Dan Krikorian:This has been awesome so far. Thanks for all your thoughts there. We want to transition now, reset in a way, to a segment we call start, sub or sit on the show. And so for those maybe listening for the first time, the way this works is we're going to give you three different potential answers around the central topic. Ask you which one of those answers you would start, one you'd sub and one you would sit, and then we'll quickly discuss your answer from there.
Dan Krikorian:And so this first question has to do with and we've touched on it a little bit throughout, but we're going to kind of revisit it here and this is sports skills, success and alignment, and you've used the term before ICE, which is intention, conviction and execution for that alignment. And so we're going to ask you to start, sub or sit intention, conviction and execution. And I want to put the caveat what is most important for you after poor performance or when a player is struggling, to kind of help them get back on track with that successful alignment for their skills. So start, sub or sit those three things in ICE.
Bernie Holliday:Being a mental performance coach, I would probably have to start conviction, sub intention and then sit execution. There's a saying in golf that I've always loved and that's swinging the wrong club with conviction always works better than swinging the right club without. So if you think about the combination of intention and conviction, intention is like I picked the right target, I picked the smart target, I've picked the percentage target. This is the shot that makes the most sense in this scenario. This is the pitch that makes the most sense to throw in the situation. This is the right pitch. This is the right person to serve in this scenario. So that's the intention piece, which matters a ton. But going back to that quote of is it better to swing the right club with doubt or swing the wrong club with conviction? It almost always works better to swing the wrong club with conviction, and my pitchers talk about that too. I could pick the right pitch, but if I throw it with hesitation, or throw it while I'm second guessing, or throw it with a little bit of reluctance, it never goes the way it wants to go and it normally gets hit 400 feet, really far. But oftentimes if I choose the wrong pitch, maybe my catchers telling me to throw a fastball, throw a fastball, throw a fastball. And I'm thinking you know what I really want to throw a curveball right now. I want to throw a curveball and bounce it on the plate, but strategically that's probably not the best. Pitch Catchers probably right the percentage plays probably throw a fastball. Hitter's probably not ready for fastball, so you should probably throw fastballs.
Bernie Holliday:Right, the right intent. He chose the wrong intent. I'm going to throw curveball. He's got so much conviction behind it. He's going to throw that conviction. It's probably going to do a lot of good things and the guy's going to swing it a ball and bounces off the plate, whereas throwing that fastball, which was statistically correct, it was percentage wise, probably the right play, the right intent, I think by not bringing conviction to it you're not going to have that kind of fluidity and freedom in your delivery to get the ball to move the weight.
Bernie Holliday:Normally it moves and it's not going to have the movement and it's going to run right over the plate and get hit really, really hard. So that's where I have conviction above intention and I think if you get the intention and conviction right and it still goes wrong, it was just an execution issue. Maybe you were just a little off balance, or maybe you were just a little bit ahead of yourself in your mechanics, or maybe you fall behind a notch in your mechanics, but that's just a simple, balanced fix, but it wasn't something in terms of your mentality. So, whereas I'm a mental coach, that's kind of how I would prep him out.
Patrick Carney:Bernie on that note. How do you help coaches coach in high performance environments? With all these, with conviction, intention, what are your recommendations or your advice as a coach in game to help your players perform at a high level?
Bernie Holliday:This may not directly address that, but I think it will in an indirect sort of way. We talk a lot about feel good reps and get good reps, and that's where we take away the game speed, we take away the game stress, we take away decision making and we make it nothing more than a repeated physical repetition of a movement. And we do it over and over again to the point where the athlete has a ton of success and they feel really good and they welcome the game, really confident. Then they get their asses kicked because they weren't prepared for the demands of the game. For instance, in baseball we talk a lot about traditional batting practice and they often refer to it as 40, 40, 40 batting practice, which is a 40-year-old man throwing from 40 feet away at 40 miles an hour over the 40% middle of the plate, which never, ever happens in the game. The game is the exact opposite. You're throwing 100 miles an hour to the edges of the plate, the ball is moving all over. But yet athletes don't like that because if they get batting practice that is hard, batting practice that's challenging, it feels bad, they have some failure and they quote unquote don't feel confident. So I've got a colleague that calls it junk food confidence. And I'm looking for these field of reps where it's not like the game. It's overly simplified, it's overly blocked. If you think about block random practice, it's overly blocked, it's overly predictive and all it is is the repetition of a physical movement and that it creates this false sense of confidence and false sense of readiness that gets exploited when the actual game comes because the demands of the game are so different.
Bernie Holliday:Example in baseball would be there's this tradition that we have at the start of a game when players are getting warmed up. They call it infield, outfield, and it's very orchestrated. You know that the coach is going to hit to the left fielder and the left fielder is going to throw to this base. He's going to hit the second ball to the left fielder, who throws to that base, then he hits to the center fielder, who throws to the first base, then the center fielder again who throws to that second base, then he goes to the right fielder. So, basically, you know when your two hits are coming and you know where you're supposed to throw to. So there's no decision making, there's no stress of throwing to the right or wrong base, there's no pressure to make the right choice. And for the rest of infield outfield, I can go now Because I know the ball is not going to be hit to me because it's going to be hit to the center fielder and then the right fielder, then the third basement, then the shortstop. So it becomes this beautifully orchestrated event that looks really, really sharp Because there's no challenge to it. The player knows when the ball is coming, he knows where to throw it to, there's no panic, there's no stress and it looks great and it does absolutely nothing.
Bernie Holliday:Then there's this other game that will play on the backfields because it looks really sloppy. Nobody wants to do it in front of other people, we don't want to do it in front of the opposing team, we don't want to do it in front of the crowd. It's called 27-outs and if you think about 27-outs in baseball, you need to get three outs over nine innings to earn your 27-outs to win the game. Sort of like a defensive excellence game, but the idea is the coach has the ball at home plate. He's going to hit the ball somewhere in the field. No one knows who's being hit to, so everybody's attending to every hit because it may come to me at any moment. I can't goon out, and when it's hit to me, he's going to call out a scenario Run around first one-out.
Bernie Holliday:So now, if the ball's hit to me, I need to make a decision.
Bernie Holliday:If it's hit to me hard, I'm going to throw it to this base. If it's hit to me soft, I need to throw it to that base. Because here's the scenario Now. There's making decisions every point, or every play, or every hit. There's the attention every hit and I need to make 27 accurate plays in a row as a team. If at any point any of us makes a mistake, we go back to zero. So now there's the pressure element of you know, I get to the 22nd and 23rd outs and I know that if that ball's hit to me, I better be ready. If I overthrow it, our entire team goes back to zero.
Bernie Holliday:Now there's the added stress of you know consequence. So now you've got a game that takes complete concentration. It takes complete decision-making, game-like decision-making. There's game-like stress and our players hate it and our coaches don't want to do it in front of people because it makes the game look sloppy. So it's not a feel-good rep, but it's much more of a get-good rep.
Bernie Holliday:So we've been adjusting, I think as an industry and I think we've been adjusting within it as an organization to have what we call challenge BP. So rather than throw on, you know, 40-mile-hour fastballs right over the heart of the plate to let that hit in our room so that it feel good for the game, we throw off speed in batting practice. Now we throw deliberate balls off the plate so they can practice taking pitches. In batting practice we throw a couple of sliders, throw a couple of curveballs in there so they see off speed because they're going to see off speed in the game. And even though the batting practice is sloppier, they're better prepared for the demands of the game.
Bernie Holliday:And it's a more genuine confidence that I don't want our athletes being focused on, the confidence of I'm confident, I can succeed, and that's junk food confidence, because there's no guarantee of any kind of success in the sport, especially the higher levels you go. I want our guys to be confident in their ability to adapt to whatever the game throws at. So in a roundabout way, it kind of gets at your point of as I'm out with coaches at practice, I'm looking for those things. Am I seeing game speed? Am I seeing game stress? Am I seeing decision-making on the fly? Or am I seeing feel-good reps that are mechanical repetitions of a movement or without any game speed, out of any game stress and without any in-game decision-making? That happens.
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Patrick Carney:Okay, bernie, our last Start Sub Sit for you. I am gonna give you three emotions, and we call this good things and small doses. So of these three emotions, start Sub Sit, the one that you think is in a small dose can be beneficial to high performance. So Start Sub Sit. The first option is anger, the second option is anxiety and the third option is greed.
Bernie Holliday:You start five players on the court. Can I start, start, start. I know I can't, I won't do that, but I would like to if I could, because I think there's benefits with all three. I really do. I'd probably put anxiety as my start. I'd probably put anger as my sub and greed as my sit.
Bernie Holliday:With a caveat I've had a coach, a pitching coordinator actually, who really put this great phrase out in terms of the emotions he wanted to see with his pitchers on the mound at the big leg level and he said give me a player who's mad over sad any day. I'll take mad over sad. I don't want to see if pitchers who's sad. I want to see if pitchers who's mad because he means he's still in the fight, he's still engaged in trying to figure it out and it's not going well and he's rattling his head trying to figure out how can I make this better and this isn't working and I'm pissed off. We'll take that over sad any day. Sad means I'm defeated internally, even if I'm still out there. Externally I can't escape the field or the court, but mentally I've already checked out and I feel defeated and I feel embarrassed. I just wish I could escape. So mad, I think is a good thing.
Bernie Holliday:But if you think about it like a bullseye, and in the heart of the bullseye is this idea of compete I stole this from Jim Lehrer who's worked a lot with ATP tennis players. He's a high performance coach that bullseye, that outer ring, that's farthest from the bullseye. We kind of labeled that tank and that's where the sad zone lives. When athletes become sad they start as a tank or they just kind of go through the motions physically, even though they need to be there. Mentally they've already sort of convinced themselves that they're done. They can't do it. The ring that's just inside from that kind of moves, from sad to the mad ring, we call that the anger ring and that's closer to the bullseye. That's better than being sad. It's better than the tanking is. I want guys still to have anger, to be mad trying to figure it out.
Bernie Holliday:But here's where it gets kind of tricky. The ring that's inward closer to that, the one closest to the bullseye, the compete ring, which is the bullseye in the center, is what we call the choke ring and most people think about choking as the worst thing you can do as sport. They call my God, I'd be terrible to choke. No, choking means number one. You never gave up. So you're not that sad ring. It means you're managing your emotions. So you weren't in that mad ring. You put yourself in a position to succeed. You were able to play yourself in a place where you could have success and the moment got a little bit too big for you. That's all. But you were in control of your emotions. You were in control of your effort. You didn't get mad or sad. You stayed in a place where you gave yourself a chance to succeed and it didn't work out. This time you choked. Who cares? You're that close to competing. So I think reframing it that way, as I think, a really helpful thing for athletes that choking is not a bad thing. Choking means you avoid those outer two rings and you're really close to competing, like you're where you need to be and you put yourself in that situation over and over again. You're going to naturally figure it out and get into the middle of that compete bullseye. Whereas I do think mad is better than sad, though, so I'll take mad because I think we can work our way into the choke and the compete.
Bernie Holliday:Why with the selfish? This is where it's a little bit tricky. I think selfish is a very healthy emotion If you've got the capability to pull it off. If you're my star player and you're my go to guy, I want you to be selfish. If you're my ace and you're my starter on the mound and you're an absolute prick in the clubhouse all day during your start day and you don't want anybody talking to you and you want everybody to leave you alone and you want the music playing your songs and your playlist because you start that day. You're my starter, you're my ace. I want you being selfish. I don't want any of the other 24 guys talking to you that day Leave you alone. This is your clubhouse for this day. Selfishness is good if you're the star player. Selfishness is good if you're the go to guy. Selfishness is good if performance is going to lean on you and you need to do what you need to do to get ready.
Bernie Holliday:Where I think selfishness can get troublesome is if your role doesn't allow for it or your capabilities don't allow for it. I don't want the guy who's a low percentage shooter getting the ball and taking all the selfish shocks when he's the low percentage shooter. I want him to know that and to know my job is to open up somebody, make a good smart pass, create a screen and open up the guy who is the better shooter, kind of recognize. Can I be selfish within my role? Is my role partly a selfish role, or is it a role that requires more strategic, team related play? And then, capability wise, do I have the capabilities and the skills and the tools to pull off selfishness? And if so, I'm okay with you being a little bit more selfish. But ultimately I think that's a trickier not to untangle, so that's why I put it as it.
Patrick Carney:I like to follow up with your start, which is anxiety and how you help the athlete use the anxiety to perform versus you know where the anxiety can cause an athlete to freeze up or not. You know, obviously, in this case, then not perform or maybe even then you get to the choke.
Bernie Holliday:It's my favorite topic and I guess there's sort of a subtle power to why I put that as my start, and most people think that stress and anxiety are negatives and they get a bad rap in society. However, when you think about what is stress, it is the mobilization of your nervous system. So anytime we do something that's physically demanding, emotionally charging, mentally taxing, we need to mobilize energy to accomplish that task. Anytime we're confronted with a threat, like the bear that is hanging out in our alley when we live in Colorado, that's a threat and we need to mobilize energy to attack or accomplish or survive from that threat. Anytime we have a huge goal that takes huge effort and huge aspiration and huge persistence, we need to mobilize energy. So stress and anxiety is the body's process of mobilizing energy. It's a really important and essential thing to performing well. In fact, stress, by introducing stress into the system, creates a hardiness in the stress. A person who avoids stress their entire life, they're not stressed party, they're not stressed capable, they're not stress resilient because they've avoided stress their entire lives. So I think stress is what makes us tough. You got to go through tough, become tough and I think by leaning into a stress and anxiety, as you know what this is toughening me up. This is mobilizing my body to do really great things. It's a different framework on it and when you look at the physical element of it, the nervousness, they talk about nervous symptoms. I call them nervous enhancers. That when we think about our body getting nervous, that's our body going through its nervous systems active warm-up and, just like physically, we go through a muscular active warm-up to get our muscles ready, our body goes through this neurological active warm-up to get our nervous system ready for high levels of performance and the body is energizing us to do things. The stress is mobilizing us to do things. These are really really important feelings.
Bernie Holliday:We've been taught and we've been socialized to be afraid of them. We've been socialized to think that I'm not prepared because I wouldn't feel this, I'm not tough enough because I wouldn't feel this. I can't possibly perform well with sweaty palms and a racing heart and we know that's all bullshit At the highest levels. Every athlete has sweaty palms. Every athlete is trying to sink the game-winning free throw with a racing heart. Every athlete is trying to make the game-winning shot with a dry mouth, with that cotton mouth.
Bernie Holliday:It's not whether we have those feelings or not. It's how we learn to look at them, and there's this tremendous line of research called stress mindset which has shown that stress is actually performance enhancing. It's our mindset about stress that makes it good or bad, and too often times we see stress in a negative way, which is what makes it negative. It causes us to guess our abilities, to question our preparation, to undermine our capabilities. But really, when we can learn to embrace stress for what it is and see it as a natural and helpful part of our process and a mobilizing thing to let us do things that we normally can't do when we feel ordinary? The idea is that you can't be extraordinary if you feel ordinary. We need to feel this higher level of energy and this higher level of neurological activity to know that our body is ready to conquer a bigger challenge. I learned to lean into that and embrace. It is what I teach my athletes Not to make it go away, not to find ways to suppress it.
Dan Krikorian:Going back to the pressure, the stress, and I think you know you've spoken on this before, but you think about the range of emotions that we're talking about right now, that, let's say, even like a coach goes through, a player goes through in the course of a game. There's stress, there's anger, there's sadness, there's happiness, joy, maybe hopefully there's some joy. There's all this stuff and at the end of the game, the end of the night, the need to reset and recover and sort of come back down, to get back to neutral from a performance standpoint, maybe like the intense recovery after an intense performance, like how someone can come back down and get back to neutral so they can go on to the next thing the next day.
Bernie Holliday:Going back to the idea of metaphor again, the nervous system and the human brain love metaphor and they respond really well to metaphor. I think there's a very important process about hanging up the athlete and putting on the person, and that can be done literally. As you know what, as long as I'm stewing, as long as I'm in this sort of enraged moment, as long as I'm in this sort of defeated tears in my eyes moment, as long as I'm in this absolute befuddled, confused moment, I'm going to leave my jersey on, I'm going to leave my shorts on, I'm going to leave my sneakers on and I'm going to sit here for as long as it takes for me to kind of work through that sit in it, be with it. And then I need to at some point, make a commitment. You know what? I now need to shelf this or I need to park this to the side. And that's when I take off the jersey, I take off the shorts, I put on the jeans, I put on the hoodie and I walk out the door. And it's almost like the metaphor of taking off the athlete and putting on the person. There's other ones which is just walking out the clubhouse door. In baseball, we spend 12 hours in the clubhouse and during those 12 hours on the ball player. But then once I decide, I touch that doorknob and I open that door and I step into the parking lot. I have now stepped out of the ball player and I'm stepping into the person. So I think there's a way to kind of create you know we talk a lot about pregame routines.
Bernie Holliday:I think there's tremendous power to having a postgame routine and to be able to be in your feelings while you're having them and to be disciplined enough to kind of stay within the player aspect or the coach aspect of that routine, metaphorically while you're there, but then to be able to say, ok, now I want to make the choice to align with other values in my life, to commit to other things that matter to me in my life my family, my kids or just getting home to work on my schoolwork or whatever it is. I need to commit to these other values. Now I'm going to metaphorically shift, take off the player, put on the person, or exit the clubhouse, exit the ball player, enter the person, and now I'm committing to another set of values. So I think part of it is recognizing that we can create this sort of metaphorical postgame and recognize that I get to come back the next day at 3 o'clock for practice. I just like to put on the player and deal with these feelings again. But can I give myself that moment to connect with the person?
Bernie Holliday:I think what we get into trouble with athletes and coaches is we see ourselves as the basketball player, we see ourselves as the basketball coach and our identity is wrapped up in that. And when we're at home, we're wrapped up in that. When we're in class, we're wrapped up in that. When we're driving back from a bad game, we're wrapped up in that. And I think there's a lot of value to recognizing that I'm the person who plays basketball, I'm the person who coaches basketball. I'm not the basketball coach or the player. That's something I do. That's not who I am.
Bernie Holliday:And to have some value that we've reflected on, clarified as part of our coaching philosophy, what do I value as a human being or as a player? What do I value as human being off the court, outside of the uniform? And that's kind of what we're recommitting to when we hang up the player and put on the person and that player is going to be hanging on your locker the next day waiting for you. You can pick up those frustration pieces the next day. It's not going to go anywhere. You know, as a coach, you're gonna walk into that office and when you open up your playbook or your practice book, you know, and you open up the coach again, that coach frustration for that play is gonna still be there. We're not dismissing it or ignoring it, we are just parking it while we're committing to different values.
Dan Krikorian:Really well said you're off the start, sub or sit hot seat. Thanks for playing that game with us. High performance there from you, for sure, throughout that segment. So thank you, birdie. We got one final question for you before we close the show. Before we do, pat and I really thank you for coming on today. This was awesome. We appreciate your time and all your thoughts, so thank you very much.
Bernie Holliday:Absolutely yes, and a pleasure to be here.
Dan Krikorian:Thank you, bernie. Our last question and we asked all the guests is what's the best investment that you've made in your career?
Bernie Holliday:Between two things. I'll be an overachiever and give you two want to be a quick one, but one will be a little bit more in depth. The first is in my field of high performance. I think every person that's coaching in high performance Should be pursuing high performance outside of their profession. Number one thing I hear from my baseball coaches is Never forget how hard the game is. And the longer they're away from the game as a player, the more they forget how difficult the game truly is If there's like too much distance is passed. So for me, meet a ton athlete, emily, tough, focus, focus your self-talkable right in front of you within your control. It all sounds good, but I forget how difficult that really is for an athlete who's pissed off and frustrated, who's gone through failure and has been in a slump. And now I'm telling the dude this like well, screw you, bernie. You know that's a too way too difficult, but I think if I'm able to pursue some aspect of high performance in my own life when I'm gonna fail a lot, where I'm gonna struggle a lot, I think there's tons of value to that. So I've been a lot of this ultra distance running where you run beyond 26.2 miles, and I do it not because I love it. I do it not because I'm good at it. I do it because I'm bad at and I go to some really dark places and I'm really miserable and I'm lousy. I come in the bottom third every time. But it allows me to practice what I preach, allows me to humbly practice what I preach. So I would say any coach who's coaching take a different sport You've never played. Go be a student. Go take lessons if you've never played. If you're a basketball coach, never play tennis. Go take tennis lessons for a season and Experience what it's like to be a student again and to be coached by somebody else, who may be a good or bad coach, but to have to kind of collaborate with them and figure out how can I be coached. And I think it gives you a ton of empathy and a ton of different strategies on how can I not coach better when I'm in my basketball role, because I've been a student in that tennis role, being coached by a tennis coach for the first time ever, just like I run ultra marathons, because it gives me a chance to practice my mental toughness when I met my weakest moments and that way, when I work with athletes. Again I can empathize more with them. So that's number one. I think number two would be below the radar scene. I think coaches can really value in. It's made a tremendous difference for me as motivational interviewing.
Bernie Holliday:Motivational interviewing is like active listening on steroids I call dynamic listening and really it's listening with the intent To help somebody else make a positive change in their life. So it's active listening with the intent to help somebody change. I think as coaches, that's our goal. We're in the change business. We're trying to help people change lifestyles to play better, to change their physical Routines, to change better, to change their the weight room habits to play better, to a change their on court Responses in their own court tactics and skills to play better. We are in the change business and this idea of motivational interviewing.
Bernie Holliday:It lands on two things. First is the spirit of motivational interviewing Is that the athlete has the capability to change within them. I no longer have to be the importer of knowledge, I no longer have to be the expert. You know we talk about being a sage on the stage or a guide on the side, and I think most times young coaches feel like they need to be the sage on the stage. I need to be in the center of the stage, imparting all of my wisdom onto the athlete who knows nothing. And I think this whole thing with motivational interviewing it puts the athlete in the center of the stage and says you know what, you have the capabilities to solve your own problems, you have the ability to find your own solution. A lot like motor learning Looks at this idea of self-organization. I think motivational interviewing is the change, a version of that, where we believe the athlete has the capability to change and can find their authentic solution for change and as an athlete, we can be a guide on the side and walk along them through that journey, as we have them for four years, or in my case in the minor leagues, for three to four to five years. So that's the spirit of it, is the belief that they are the center of the learning experience, not the coach, and the coach doesn't have to be the importer of knowledge. The coach can be the guide on the side who helps the athlete figure things out, helps the athlete become a better problem-solver, helps the athlete become a solution seeker and to find the solution that works best for that athlete, the skill set of it. They call them oars, oh, a RS. So like rowing an ore, and it's as a coach, rather than telling, can I ask really good, open-ended questions, letting them explore solutions, letting them explore Consequences of different strategies and different approaches? The are Oscar Bay, because I think a is the most powerful.
Bernie Holliday:The R is Refraising or reflecting, whereas you see an athlete going through a tough time to be able to reflect that, hey, I see this is frustrating, let's try to get. Hey, seems like you're upset, what can we do about it? You seem discouraged. How would you like to respond in this situation? So, kind of reflecting back what you're seeing, what you're hearing, so they can hear from a different perspective, or so something I may not have words for. Maybe they take reasonable risks in a key moment of the game and it backfires on them. You're like, hey, no, that was really courageous what you just did there and they go wow, there's a lot I failed, but my coach is holding on courageous. So it's kind of reflecting back what you saw in a moment that allows them to see it differently. The s is summarizing, so at the end, to be able to kind of, you know, take that experience. Say, I just went one-on-one with you for 30 minutes and there's this one-on-one coach player drill and at the end you tell me what do you recall best From this half hour together? Now Let me tell you here's kind of what I took from our half hour together and kind of going through the summary session together, just solidify the learning.
Bernie Holliday:But I think the a of the oars, oa, rs is affirming and that's where it's different than praising. I think a lot of times coaches fall into this praising category. We try to praise our athletes and we start with I statements I'm proud of you for how hard you worked. I'm proud of you for how much effort you gave. I'm proud of you for trying again. I'm proud of you for taking that chance at the end of the game. I'm proud of you for being resilient and standing up to your teammate who was making bad choices in life.
Bernie Holliday:And when the athlete hears I statements followed by a praise, their default is they want more praise. They start seeking more external validation and they try to avoid things that might avoid more validation. So they stop taking chances because they don't want to lose that validation. They start playing it safe because they want to continue to get that validation. They keep looking for external approval. They, they want more of those. I'm proud of you. They're looking for more pride from other people.
Bernie Holliday:The affirming is when you start with the you statements and you just reflect back against, almost like a reflection, but it's reflecting back the quality you saw in them. Okay, you took the game-winning shot when you had an open look, you were courageous. And Now, rather than saying well, coaches, proud of, because I didn't say proud and say I, I said you are courageous. So now they're default responses Wow, I've got some courage in me. I didn't know that. Oh, wow, I've got courage me. That's cool.
Bernie Holliday:Or you know what you know, at the end of the game there's basketballs all over the gym and one freshman goes and starts to shag all the balls and afterwards like hey, you know, you were ambitious, you showed ambition, you showed initiative. Like oh, wow, I've got initiative inside. I've got ambition inside me. Rather than well, I'm proud of you for picking up the balls, I'm proud of you for shagging the balls. Like, wow, coaches, proud of me, how could I get more of that? They get sort of derailed into what we're trying to truly reinforce.
Bernie Holliday:So I think, affirming with you statements, and you were courageous, you were problem solver out there. Man, you were resilient, you kept trying. It is so much better than the I statements. I'm proud of you for giving me effort. I'm proud of you continue to try. I'm proud of you for really working hard and proud of you for being courageous. It's a much more effective way to reinforce the skills and the softer skills that we want, those qualities who want their players? So, oh, a RS a lot of open-ended questions, a lot of affirming, a lot of reflecting back what you're seeing and then a lot of summarizing at the end. But that puts the athlete in the center and you become the guide on the side as a coach.
Dan Krikorian:All right, pat, that was a really enlightening and just fun conversation. Let's just put you on the spot and see how accepting and adaptable of the situation right away. I'll kick it back to you on any first takeaways with that first bucket, which there was a ton in, and what stood out to you?
Patrick Carney:well, first kudos to you because I like Starting with the quote that we pulled off of his Twitter. I thought it was just a good kicking off point for just mental performance and we talked a lot about metaphors. It's just a good way to kind of encapsulate what mental performance was. So I like to start there and I guess the biggest takeaway was when we got into just high performance in the awareness building and he mentioned his ETA exercises and kind of, you know, focusing your emotions, your thoughts, your attention, and From there is when he got into your two types of mindsets the training mindset and the Trusting mindset will leave a lot on the bone right now, but when we got into what it looks like in practice and the three conviction, reckless abandon, acceptance that was a really fun Conversation. I enjoyed and learning about that honestly myself and kind of helping shape how I think about high-performance and training skill versus releasing skill.
Dan Krikorian:Yeah, and I'll maybe like zoom kind of out for a second before we kind of go at a couple of these things here, because one of the things that I think he did really well throughout the entire interview that's really helpful for coaches is all the metaphors, all the ETA's Little stories and bits and pieces of things that he brought up. It's just really helpful because you know, coaches mean you included Probably almost everybody listening to this if you're still are this deep into the podcast. Thanks, by the way. We're not trained on Some of these things, like you don't get a license in Whatever it is you know in the mental performance piece to really understand how all these things connect.
Dan Krikorian:And I think a lot of times what's hard is you get to a place in coaching where you know that a player is struggling, needs some kind of support and Just not knowing what to say, how to frame a conversation, how to have the conversation, how to teach through it.
Dan Krikorian:We're just not all trained on it.
Dan Krikorian:A lot of times the training comes through Years of experience, right, I mean, some of us do get degrees or think about these things a lot, but you're learning on the job and I think, like what he did a good job of, like the ETA, just emotion and thoughts, attention, like a way for a coach Maybe, if you're listening this podcast, to take that and go to a gym and say, okay, now I have a framework of how to have a conversation with the player who's struggling and how to maybe talk to them in a Way that will get them to feel better, help you understand at a higher level and then ultimately coach Better so that they perform better, which is the goal for all of this.
Dan Krikorian:So I think, just zooming out for a second, for me that was a big takeaway, and I know we've had some other people that are on the podcast that have come out and are coming out that are in this field, and you and I know it's so important because it is really helpful when you get on the practice floor or in a game to think about these things. That was a big takeaway and I'll stop talking and throw it back to you.
Patrick Carney:Building off of that point too, when you mentioned with the ETA and how to talk with players, for me, well, was I opening to or brought awareness to me with practices, when you know we want to obviously find ways for our players to play free and flow?
Patrick Carney:But then he mentioned practice. We're unintentionally, because we stay so long in the training mode and what he kept saying analyze, criticize, judge that we build a bad habit in a sense, that then they take that from the practice into the game and they're not Just reacting to the environment, they're not playing freely, they're still stuck in An analyze, criticize judge and that's then where we don't reach optimized performance. Let's say, and so what he said? We're reframing your practice. That were 51% of your practices on building this trusting mindset and releasing skill, and I know we talked about before coming on like then, maybe the other 49% is where it's, you're in the lab and you're working on training skills. So for me that was a big takeaway too in terms of maybe how I think about practice and looking at practice and building environments that are more conducive to high performance and hopefully having her players reach, you know, quote, unquote this flow state.
Dan Krikorian:To add to your point too, and like what he has said and what I know other coaches we've had on the air and have talked to off the air I've talked about too, is when you're kind of going back and forth, let's say in a practice setting, between this training mindset and then trying to have this trusting mindset, they can coexist. It doesn't mean you just kind of kick back and relax and just have them flow through the practice themselves. But being specific with the way you set things up and I think my follow up was a little bit about the way you design practice and letting them know like we're going to stop, we're going to correct, we're going to teach, we're going to provide feedback, so you're still getting that but then also parts of the practice where you're going to let them play and adapt and flow and figure it out, and maybe the teaching comes after you've, you know, let's say, gone up and down a couple of times and they've kind of worked through whatever issues, and so both of those things can happen together. And it kind of reminded me of a recent conversation. We have Brittany Donaldson, which is Atlanta Hawks assistant. She talked about creating these learning environments where retention can happen, and I think there's just so much good work that's been done about how you can go back and forth and how it's beneficial to players.
Dan Krikorian:And my last point on this is he brought it up over and over again is basketball is unique, though, because it never stops. You can't take a break between pitches or football, take a break and huddle up, and I thought that the whole resetting conversation was really interesting, specifically because of basketball being such a unique sport and the fact that it never stops. And what I also took on that is the importance of when you see teams huddle up together. The five guys huddle on a free throw. Timeouts little times in the game where the really good teams that huddle up together and kind of get everybody on the same page real fast reset If someone's having a hard time. I think it's important too. So, anyway, a lot to throw back at you there, but I thought it was important points that he made on those things.
Patrick Carney:Yes, within the reset conversation too. I liked the importance he placed on having conversations with players, or helping your players understand what, maybe, for lack of better work, triggers them and puts them from a green light to a yellow, which then can lead to a red light. So building like that awareness piece.
Dan Krikorian:Yeah, moving to start subset. I'll start real quick with the ice one that I asked him and the intention, conviction and execution and something that he's talked about and wrote about as well. As far as getting those all in line, I like, too, the conversation.
Patrick Carney:It ended on the spot with how coaches can build high performance environments and all the you know what he's seen. He went and gave great examples with batting practice and the outfield field drill and how you maybe are building some confidence, but it's not going to be any sort of game rep and he gave a ton of just good advice to how coaches can think about building environments to help actually simulate a game. But I wrote down what I liked is that you want to build players who are confident in their ability to adapt was kind of a big takeaway to me and I think that adaptability piece really stood out there with how you can think about framing, building skills and having success.
Dan Krikorian:Yeah, Also, within that, I think he gave the metaphor of you know you'd rather have someone swing the wrong golf club that they're with conviction that they're confident in that they can hit it, rather than the right club but be nervous about or not sure about it.
Patrick Carney:Yeah.
Dan Krikorian:That's why I just putt from the tee all the way down, you know.
Patrick Carney:You're famous for your shutter, that's right, yeah, yeah.
Dan Krikorian:Half chip, half butt. It goes straight.
Patrick Carney:Yeah, 20 to 30 yards at a time you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then Dan will throw it to you for our second start subset. Another one we had a fun time putting together Looking up the seven deadly sins, as we were trying to figure out which emotions to ask him. So I'll let you kick it off with the good things and small doses question.
Dan Krikorian:So one of the things you had brought this start subset to the table as far as and it was a good idea by you as far as with high performance, what of these somewhat emotions that can go either way Kind of reminded me of with coach Scott Waterman, Academy of Art.
Dan Krikorian:We talked about yellow flags with players. That can be good but you need to keep control of, but which of these ultimately can be helpful in small doses. And I think you know we had a fun time, like you mentioned, kind of coming up with which three and we came up with obviously the anger and anxiety and greed, all things that you know we felt like in small doses ourselves, would be beneficial to high performance, and I think he agreed and he wanted to kind of start all of them. But I just really loved the conversation around anxiety and why it can be good, why stress is good, why these things in the small doses and why, when they're put in the right way, can be beneficial for performers. I think it's a good conversation to hear, because you do hear a lot of the negatives of anxiety, which obviously there are, but when it comes to performance, where that maybe gray area, that line is that helps players and coaches perform better because a certain small dose of it is useful.
Patrick Carney:He summed it up and like we all have stress, but building a stress mindset so you can react in a productive manner to stress and be mobilized rather than paralyzed. Yep, I love the bullseye example he gave, or the bullseye metaphor when we were discussing anger, where he talked about the furthest ring out was he called tank, where there's this defeatist, you're sad, you're kind of already over it, and then the next kind of ring or row is the anger being mad, and then what? The bullseye being competing, but with the caveat that right around it is that choke. Yep, I know we always are going to do kind of our misses. Maybe that would have been more a miss of mine to kind of dive deeper into the whole mindset, everything involving choking and why we choke. I think it's a conversation we've been actually after for a while. One day we'll get to.
Dan Krikorian:But I did like the bullseye metaphor and kind of how these things all are interrelated or play a part and how you can view it Just to add to your point quickly, I thought that that whole conversation was really interesting and I liked he mentioned rather have a mad versus sad player and you can still coach that mad player and still work with them, where the sad player obviously more or less kind of given up and harder to reach.
Dan Krikorian:So that was really good and I'll just, I guess, as we keep wrapping this up, you just mentioned a miss there that I think would have been interesting and we are determined and we'll get a good guest on who could talk about choking, so we will do that eventually. And then I guess my miss just to wrap this up too was with his two best investment questions. I thought both were really interesting answers and, honestly, could have followed up on both of those things. You and I talked quickly off air before we hopped on here. Just about the first part of his answer being so great, about becoming a student again and learning a different sport and how he mentions he's not one of the top performers in ultra distance running Ultramarathon wouldn't have been my first choice.
Dan Krikorian:Yeah.
Patrick Carney:Choosing another skill to learn.
Dan Krikorian:Yeah, go to a dark place there after a couple of miles.
Patrick Carney:I would have maybe speed walking, trying to master speed walking.
Dan Krikorian:You and I are more pickle ballers these days now. That's the sport where I wouldn't say mastering, but the other thing that I liked was his ending about the oars and tying back to what I said earlier Another framework to have conversations, and he mentioned just these quicker conversations with players that are really helpful and his recommendation on that going forward has been huge for him within the field.
Patrick Carney:I just want to repeat it because I thought it was a great quote within that motivational interviewing. And the oars is, he said, moving away from being a sage on the stage to a guide on the side. I thought it was another great quote that kind of encapsulated that motivational interviewing.
Dan Krikorian:Yeah, really good stuff. So we appreciate everybody for listening this deep into the podcast. We thank Bernie Holiday for coming on and being so thorough with us and until next time, thanks everybody. A great week coaching.
Patrick Carney:Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please make sure to visit slappingglasscom for more information on the free newsletter, slappingglass plus and much more. Have a great week coaching and we'll see you next time on slappingglass.
Dan Krikorian:Would we have a name yet for this thing? I have like slapping back for slapping glass, slapping glass.
Bernie Holliday:That's kind of funny. I like that. Those are all slapping glass.