Win Cycle: The Mental Game with Jeff Troesch — 35 Years of Elite Performance Lessons for Leaders
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Welcome to the Win Cycle Podcast! On this episode, IRONMAN Master Coach Matt Dixon hosts Jeff Troesch, a renowned sports mental coach with nearly 40 years of experience, on the Purple Patch Podcast. Troesch discusses the integration of mental performance in sports and life, emphasizing the importance of adaptability, resilience, and commitment. He highlights the connection between physical and mental performance, using examples from various sports. Troesch also introduces his new book, "One Day Better," which distills his insights into practical tools for enhancing mental performance. Key takeaways include the importance of self-awareness, sensory awareness, and the distinction between commitment and trust.
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Episode Timecodes:
Episode Timecodes:
00-:55 Episode Promo
1:25-2:55 Episode Intro
3:10-end Meat & Potatoes
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Transcription
Matt Dixon 00:00
Today, folks, we dig into the mental game with renowned sports mental coach Jeff Trosh. This is a great episode today, and actually, it highlights a big part of what coaching is about. It's not about just getting a plan that fits your life, that's just a baseline expectation. Really, what it is, is about establishing a sounding board and a smart person with wisdom partnering with you to get the most out of yourself, and a big part of it is making the decisions, helping you retain perspective, guiding you through the ups, downs, the setbacks, the cul-de-sacs, and everything on your way to accomplishing your goals. If you'd like to have a discussion about any of our coaching programs, feel free to reach out to us. A complimentary coaching strategy call, it's info@purplepatchfitness.com We have a host of programs, and we'd love you to become a part of the team. All right, let's get on with the show. I'm Matt Dixon, and welcome to the Purple Patch Podcast. The mission of Purplepatch is to empower and educate every human being to reach their athletic potential through the lens of athletic potential. You reach your human potential. The purpose of this podcast is to help time-starved people everywhere integrate sport into life. Matt, and welcome to the Purple Patch Podcast, as ever. Your host, Matt Dixon, and today it's a great one. We've got a special one today. We are digging in with Jeff Trosh. Now, we've had Jeff on the Purple Patch Podcast before, and so I'm excited to welcome him back. He has got nearly 40 years as a mental performance specialist. Who's he worked with? Well, it's probably easier for me to highlight who he hasn't worked with. Here's the list of some of the teams and specialists that he's worked with. He's had quarterbacks in the NFL, star players in the NBA, the Major League, NHL, Olympic sports, endurance sports, including multiple professional triathletes and some Purple Patch Pros, the IMG Academy, the PGA, LPGA, and of course, UCLA, Stanford, Cal, up and down the coast of California. He's based in California, of course. He is, by any standard, one of the most respected voices in mental performance globally. And today we're going to dig into part one. What we thought we'd do is divide two episodes out. The first, we're going to talk about how sports mental performance directly correlates to performance across all aspects of life, including business and leadership. In part two, we're going to dig into athletics, and so, without further ado, I bring you the conversation with Jeff Trosh. It's all in today's meat and potatoes. Alright, it is the meat and potatoes, and I get to welcome back. I don't get to say that too often, but welcome back, Jeff Trosh. Thanks for being on the show.
Jeff Troesch 03:11
Thanks for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to return.
Matt Dixon 03:14
It's, it's gonna be a fun one. We're gonna, we're gonna go for the what the, what the pro athletes used to call the Dirty Dixon double, and that was when I used to get them to race back to back weekends, which was actually more common than you might anticipate, but we're going to do that. We're going to this is part one in today's show, and we're going to focus on a little bit more around performance, the lessons of all of your work in sports performance, transferring it across broader life and business, but before we get in, I like to do this with with every guest that we have on the show. I want to give us a little bit of background, and I think for you first, just give a really brief grounding of where you grew up and family life and everything like that, and where you're based now, and then also just go into how you got into mental performance coaching.
Jeff Troesch 04:07
Sure, for me to do that briefly is going to be a challenge, but I'll try to make that work. So, grew up in Florida until 14 years old, after my parents divorced, mother remarried, and we moved to Seattle, Washington, which was a massive cultural shift. I was in the Pacific Northwest for quite a long time, and my wife and I married, had our daughter, and moved back to Florida, where I was involved in helping start the IMG Academy's mental conditioning program back in the day, in the mid 90s, and then in 2000 we moved to California, which is where I'm speaking to you from right now, San Luis Obispo, California, and the inspiration for mental coaching is frankly a really long story, but the shorter versions of it, one, my own failed attempts at being a quality athlete. Meat-based and just inhibitions around competitive anxiety and a lot of self-consciousness, and some of the, some of the mental constructs that you know, I would have coaches tell me, you know, you need to relax and give them the, like, the no shit, but how do I do that sort of a thing, and the combination of that, when I was young, along with out of undergraduate school, I had the good fortune of being hired right out of undergrad school in an NBA franchise. I was media relations director for what was an NBA franchise at the time, the Seattle Supersonics. Oh yeah, so I worked with, traveled with the team for four years, and found in that, in that timeframe that I was being utilized by the players, this is in the early 1980s being utilized by the player as a sounding board. I had no, I was just a guy around their age, I had no training, I had no skill set, I was just somebody who listened well, and it became apparent to me that there might be an opportunity to connect with athletes in a fashion where I could be helpful in that sort of domain, so back to graduate school and got degrees in counseling, psych, and education, and hope that I could earn a living at that, because at the time I don't know how many people were doing mental performance in sport, but I guarantee it wasn't, it wasn't triple figures, you know, probably 5070, 80 people doing this in the mid 1980s at least in the United States.
Matt Dixon 06:28
Yeah,
Jeff Troesch 06:29
and from that point forward, it sprung, you know, it springboard from there, and here I am, 40 years later.
Matt Dixon 06:35
It's amazing. So, two things on that straight away. First, what were your sports growing up through interest?
Jeff Troesch 06:42
I was, I was a, I was a football, baseball guy. Okay, baseball was my primary sport. Yeah,
Matt Dixon 06:47
okay. And it just parts because you've been, you've been doing this for 40 years now, it's extended across a huge swath of sports for people. I mentioned this in the in the introduction, but it really has across both individual sports and team sports, and you just mentioned the NBA, the NFL, the PGA. I mean, these are, you know, a really wide range. You must have, like, that lived through so many chapters of mental sports coaching, and I remember growing up, it was very much poo-pooed. It was a sign of weak, for sure, as an absolute sign of weakness. And now, similar to an endurance athlete integrating strength training, where it's an absolute waste of time, no way. And now there isn't one that wouldn't integrate it. So I just love a quick synopsis of that reflection on this journey. Oh goodness,
Jeff Troesch 07:46
goodness, we could take the entire podcast talking about that, because yeah, going from to your point and echoing what you're saying, when I first came into the industry, it was it was seen as voodoo and absolute like a crock, and that was true for a lot of athletes and sports organizations, however, there were there were people who were forward thinking who it was, it was sort of feast or famine, they either wanted nothing to do, they being athletes or sports organizations wanted nothing to do with this sort of thing, or they were desperate for it, because they recognized the value and potential in it, and frankly, that's partly why I was so, so fortunate at such a young age, and with so little experience, to be plugged in to the highest echelons of sport, right out of the gate, like, you know, it, looking back, I didn't know what the hell I was doing for the first several years of what I was doing, I mean, I had some sense of it, but I was certainly learning along the way, like we all do when we get early on in our coaching careers, but I was learning alongside literally number one in the world in multiple sports, and you know, gold medalists, and you know, federations that were, they were driving athletes to national teams, and and so I got, I got to rub elbows with and learn in real time alongside the athletes who were getting it done back in the day, and the evolution from that to to now, where you know there are so many people doing mental training, and so many athletes who are receptive to it, and certainly there are still some who, you know, there's still some endurance athletes who poo poo strength training, you know, they're still sort of stuck in the ages, and that's, you know, that's fine, that's their prerogative. Similarly, for mental training, some people still don't get it. They see it more from a some people are averse to therapy or therapeutic intervention, and I think sometimes people miss mistaken what a performance psychology expert can do relative to a therapeutic intervention, but I think for people who get it, the athletes who get it? The organizations who get it, it's become massively more accepted, and you know the numbers of people who are doing it at the highest levels, and even at, you know, at the at the foundational levels with junior athletes and youth sport athletes, is it's been a phenomenal, phenomenal run for over the 40 years watching the evolution.
Matt Dixon 09:57
Can you, and I'm going to throw into the. Last little bit, I didn't prepare for this at all, but what would be now in today's environment across sports? What would be, for lack of a better phrase, the elevator pitch of what your work does for an athlete, for someone, because we're going to extend beyond athletics today. So, but what is it? What does it provide in the realm of performance
Jeff Troesch 10:22
in the realm of performance, I see myself, and I speak to what I do as a strength and conditioning coach, just like what one does in the gym, where one gets exposed to concepts and strategies that can help them build strength that then sustain themselves under duress or in challenging environments. I see myself as somebody who helps people build strengths and strategies and skill sets that have direct application into their training environment and into their competitive environment. So that's my, that's my elevator pitch, you know. Can it's a little nebulous and a little diffuse, but in the end I like to see it as skill building, I like to see it as strength building, I like to see it as application oriented, and I also really emphasize, as we might find over the course of this podcast, I really emphasize that customization, because I really believe in the unique, unique qualities of every human, and I do not believe that there is a, there is one right way to do mental training. I believe there is an effective way for everyone to find out for him or herself, and I feel like that's my job, is to work alongside the athlete to help them uncover and discover what works best for them.
Matt Dixon 11:38
Yeah, and I guess the key headline news of what you just said there is, like almost anything, this is the mental game is trainable, and it's not something that quite often we are as human beings lead ourselves to believe they're just confident, they're able to form under pressure, they're just sort of gifted that, and as we know, talent, physical talent, is not a great predictor of ultimately high performance in any arena, and and so this is very trainable, very actionable for everyone listening. You've got your new book, it's just out, it's a terrific read, it's called One day better, and quite often practitioners, coaches tend to write books relatively early in their career as a tool. Meatways of business development. I'd love your insights, your catalysts. What urged you to want to write a book now 40 years into this journey?
Jeff Troesch 12:40
Yeah, it's an interesting insight. I hadn't really considered what you said. That's true, that most people don't wait till they're, you know, writing into the sunset, and then maybe your memoir, like as if anybody would really care about my life, but, but, but the the real, the real impetus here, I have had, as you might appreciate, given the places, you know where I've been, and the athletes with whom I've interfaced, I've had multiple people approach me across the years about writing a book, and I really had zero interest in writing a book. I didn't, I didn't really understand why I would want to do that, why I wouldn't want to take even a day away from my working with athletes to write a book, but now why I felt like it was potentially a value, and why was it? Why it was a value to me, frankly, was I am nearing the end of my career. I don't know that I will ever really fully retire. I don't intend to, and as long as I can still feel like I'm being helpful, but I will be throttling back a bit, and I think also there have been several colleagues of mine who have passed on, who died over the last at the risk of being morbid, that you know some of what they learned was was not captured and some of what they learned was incredibly valuable, and I guess I started to feel a little bit of my own mortality, and feeling like, hey, you know, I have been there in the trenches. I'm a little bit unusual in what I do for a living, in that there aren't a whole lot of us who, like myself, all I've ever done is like work with athletes and coaches and teams and CEOs and organizations and CFOs and those sorts of things, but largely in the sports arena. Like, I've never written a book, I've never been on a lecture circuit. I know I just like I'm in the, I'm on the boots on the ground with athletes for 40 years, and I've learned a lot from them, and I sort of felt like, boy, it would be unfortunate for the industry if that got lost once I, once I am gone, whether it's through retirement or death or whatever. So I sort of felt like, you know, I really just want to capture this, and I want to have it in a place. My initial thought, honestly, was to create an ebook that I just put online for free, and, and, like, hey, here's what I've learned, you know, hope you like it, or whatever, but I had a publisher approach me, sort of convinced me that they thought it might be something people might actually buy and might find interesting, and my primary interest is to get it out. There I really, really am not driven by like making money on it or any of that. I just want people to read it, and you know, there are 150 concepts in the book that are one to three pages long, so it's sort of a sample plate of a lot of the things that I've learned, hopefully creating contemplation and an awareness around some sub marinas, and I sort of figured there's probably one thing out of 150 that would, with that, someone would find interesting. Yeah, so I thought that I thought there'd be value to pretty much everyone, and I thought it, and I thought it would be a nice way for me to capture some of what I've learned and share it. That was my motivation
Matt Dixon 15:38
to do it, and completely independently, but the editor of my two books was a certain woman, Renee, who is the editor of your books. He had the privilege to work with the mighty Renee, who is just my experience was just absolutely exceptional. I've got so much time. She,
Jeff Troesch 15:54
oh, the same, the same, yeah, in my, in my acknowledgements in my book, that might acknowledge, and I'll say here that there's not a chance I would have written the book without her, yeah, and it certainly wouldn't have been the quality with that, that it is the feedback I get, people are saying so, and I, I would not have finished, I would not have hit the finish line here, I probably would have bounced some at some point through the process, exactly, and I realized,
Matt Dixon 16:18
interestingly, like her role was really a coach to help get the most out of me, and that's amazing. She's an exceptional coach, so have a lot of fondness for her. But let's dig into it. Let's talk about mental performance, and I want to start, actually, somewhere very surprising, probably to most listeners, because I want to begin with the physical side of it, and you know the brain is ultimately a biological organ, it is, we hope, attached to the body, and so therefore it is influenced our cognitive function, exhaustion, energy, etc. on on how we treat our bodies, etc. So, in other words, the mental game, you know, and I don't want to say this in such a definitive way, but, but I will, because I'm a coach. It doesn't exist in isolation, in a vacuum. It sits ultimately on top of our body, and, and it's physical as it goes from there. So, do you think there are times in which what might look like a mental performance challenge is actually a physical foundational challenge, and it goes, and we, you can start in sport and go beyond that. So, what does that look like in reality? I just love your perspective of the connection between the physical and the mental game.
Jeff Troesch 17:32
Yeah, interesting question. I would say undoubtedly there are multiple circumstances in which someone's physical space influences either constructively or or destructively what's happening in terms of brain performance. One of the one of the great challenges that I find myself undertaking with athletes, particularly when I have ongoing contact with them, with with with most of my clients, is the case, you know, there comes a point at which we're together, putting our new noodling together, like, how much of this is really a, you know, skill acquisition issue from a physiological, from a physical perspective, much as a technique issue, how much of it is a tactical or strategic issue from a, from a, from a competitive perspective, you know, and how much of it is just simply, you know, physically somebody is incapable of what the demands of the sport happen to be like, currently, currently incapable, and so it really requires, you know, some sort of physical advancement. So, yeah, no doubt about it. I think I think oftentimes I'll get, particularly when I'm working with this, sort of interestingly, as you're triggering in my brain here, like interesting, when I first encounter junior athletes, like I have parents call me, like, "Well, you work with my kid, will you work with my kid? And oftentimes it's like, "Yeah, my kid, you know, melts under pressure or whatever, and then I'll go watch them do their thing, whether it's tennis or golf or whatever the sport happens to be, and they're just not very good yet, right? And just like they're not very talented, they're not very skilled, they're not very strong, physically strong yet. And then, yet occasionally they have these like one-off spurts of like, frankly, probably more luck than skill, and the parents are like holding on to that, and like, why can't they elicit this regularly as well? Because the kid, you know, the kids barely developed, and physically they're just not yet capable, so I've had some very interesting conversations over my years. You know, one that comes to mind is I'm on the range on a golf course, which is the first time I've ever met this kid, and, and you know, I'm watching this kid hit golf balls, and, and you know, the parents are like, "Yeah, we wanted to be a college, you know, blah blah blah, ninth kid, or whatever. I said, I halted the session. I was supposed to meet with them all day. I halted after an hour. I knew they had limited finances. I said, look, I'm a very expensive commodity. I'm going to stop our session right now. I'm going to really encourage you to take the money that you're going to spend on me for the rest of the day and go find adequate instruction for your, for your son's golf swing, and and go find a physical trend. Trainer to get him more flexible, because right now he is so stiff and his golf swing is so bad that he could be the most mentally sound person on earth, and he's got no chance, right? So, you know, off they went, and you know, didn't see him for two years, long short of the kid actually ended up being out on the tour, which was, was phenomenal, and yeah, amazing, amazing, an amazing story, but it was like, this is not a mental issue, this is a physical issue. So, if that's what you were referring to, there's a specific example of, like, yeah, just not physically ready, not strong enough, and it can be that's not necessarily just a 14 year old, it can be, you know, an adult who's attempting something in their age, you know, an age group, triathlon, triathlete, or whatever, they just not yet fit enough, they're just not yet, you know, physically capable of doing what they might think themselves capable of doing, and sometimes that's a, that's a challenging conversation, but we're trying to get to objectivity and find out what the facts are, so that we can then build off that.
Matt Dixon 20:53
Yeah, so the horseshoe attracts, yeah, one, one of where the spirit of my question that I just want to hover on for us for a couple of seconds is in our work with leaders and leadership teams, quite often we work with very busy people that are under huge demands, and they are very, very interested always in, hey, How do I focus, how do I process information, how do I perform under pressure, and one of the catalysts of that is, hey, it starts with the physical, and I don't have time for that, you know, I don't have time to sleep when I'm dead, type thing, and these other habits, like hydration and everything else, and it obviously, from a physiological standpoint, if you are not moving your body, if you are not processing stress, if you're not doing that, it impairs any work that you can have the opportunity to do on the mental game in many ways.
Jeff Troesch 21:44
Totally agree. Yeah, yeah, I think my I've got a million little Jeff phrases right, and that goes with like all in the book, my little quotes, and then more than just a slogan on the T-shirt. It's like there's actionable stuff behind it. For me, it's like, how do you bring your best self to your work environment?
Matt Dixon 22:03
Yeah,
Jeff Troesch 22:03
and your best self is likely somebody who's physically energized and challenged from a physiological perspective, and finding growth in that domain is well rested, as well hydrated, is nutritionally sound, like that's you bringing your best self, which then allows you to build the skills on top of that, but if the foundation of that is not available to us, and you know, I can be the most mentally sound person ever, but if I don't have that foundational stability of the of what you're describing there, the likelihood of that being sustainable in the long term is very low.
Matt Dixon 22:36
Yeah, it's what you took to that challenge here, and this is this is actually where I wanted to go next in the conversation, so thank you. It's fantastic, and give listeners a little bit of context with, again, the work we do at Lisa. I love your perspective on this. One of the things we always talk about when we're working with leaders and leadership teams is firstly, there is a reason that so many executives that have huge demands and responsibilities in work decide to go and take on big challenges outside, so they go and do an Iron Man in my domain, they go and climb Kill a Mangero or Everest, they go and do a big multi-day hike, something that's actually pretty demanding, that on the face of it people would say, how do they have time, and coupled with that, in many ways, there's also an interesting correlation between so many organizations loving to hire ex-athletes that have maybe not got huge domain expertise, but they know that the employer knows they're going to get someone with all of these traits that their journey of sport has fostered, you know, great adaptability and commitment and toughness and grit and probably coachability and all of these things that we talk about now programming and transfers across like the brain, not knowing what context it's in, transfers it across to any arena in life, and so I want to dig in there and talk about challenge as it relates to the brain a little bit, and let's talk about a leader that's already busy under pressure, got to perform at work, already feels like they're stressed, and then they're hearing from a coach like me, "Hey, you should really take on a big challenge in your life. It's really valuable, you know, like something that line scares you a little bit, that maybe stretches you, that forces you into that place of growth. I'd love from yours, as you are, as I like to say, and you probably hate it, a brain mechanic. What is happening in the brain there? Why is that valuable for humans to get out of their comfort zone and grow?
Jeff Troesch 24:51
Yeah, well, literally every one of your questions could take up an entire podcast, so, and it's very.. you've probably already recognized it's hard for me to be brief, so. I will attempt, so you know, we, you know, we're increasing brain volume, we're enhancing memory, we're, you know, we're, we're enhancing our ability to stress regulate, you know, we haven't the immediate cognitive and mood bursts that that flow out of out of physical challenges, I mean, the list is it can go on and on and on about about the immediate benefits from a physiological perspective, and then the crossover into the psychological domain, where those, as you said, those sorts of characteristics, those sorts of underlying, you know, if we have increased, increased mood and cognitive capacity that has obvious transfer into at least the potential in the boardroom, and not just, not just on the bicycle. So I think, in I think in many ways that that pushing the edge, that that really moving out of comfort zone, that that addressing, you know, low-level risk potential to constantly challenge oneself, typically among the characteristics that we find at the highest levels, and in in the academic world, or in the business world, or in the medical world, as well as in the athletic world. The one, the one caveat that I will throw out, because I think, in all fairness, and in all honesty, it's a little bit back to what I said at the very beginning of this, which is every human is unique. I would be personally, I would be, I wouldn't be cautious about saying that a person should do this, because that implies, that implies that that's the right thing for everyone, and I would say that for some people, that they may already be overtaxed in some, in some domains, and then it could be that in that interim space, in that timeframe, it is actually not in their immediate interest to do that, and it may actually be something that puts them over whatever edge that they may be on, but I would say, generally speaking, for nearly everyone, there's there's high benefit in that, and then the timing around that is probably, you know, maybe periodized within whatever's going on in there, and they're, you know, trying to get funded in the next round, or whatever, a person, whatever the next, you know, thing they're doing as a CEO.
Matt Dixon 27:10
Yeah, it's fantastic with them. Is it so correlate to this, and when I think about when I reflect on the highest performers that I've worked with in both professional sport and business leadership. I always identify very common traits that you see, and you know one of them is that most high performers really aim to, and I'll just give you one as a lead, like control the things that they can control, for example. Another one is actually typically, you know, the higher the performer, the more coachable they tend to be, which is counterintuitive for some people. They almost rely on that sounding board, etc. I love your perspective of just throwing out some of these traits that you've worked in so many sports, team sports, individual sports, you've worked with C-suite executives. What are some of the traits that you see are what we're, what you're guiding towards. I want people to be resilient, able to overcome setbacks, whatever they are. What are the sort of family of sweets that are on the top of your head?
Jeff Troesch 28:13
Yeah, you've spoken to a few of them here, because I think they're really salient points. One is adaptability, you know, somebody who's willing to flex off of some preconceived notion of how things should be or ought to be, but instead, you know, live in the real world, and now, how do we pivot or adapt to whatever is, you know, obviously things like being very resilient, persevering under the in the face of adversity, you know, people who are willing to look at adversity as an opportunity to be challenged and find a solution rather than be be thrown off course, literally or figuratively. I would say, you know, the ability to foster and and really deeply explore from a place of curiosity, you know, you said a moment ago some are more coachable, and I would agree, like that's the whole notion of, and counterintuitive notion that the more one the people who really have wisdom, not just knowledge, they understand that the more that they know, the less that they actually know, and they become more and more like having a beginner's mindset of like, tell me more, like the best coaches that I've been around in multiple domains, as an example, one one particular coach who was a very high notoriety coach, one of the, you know, has worked with multiple people who've gotten to number one in the world in this particular domain the first time, as maybe second, third session, or meeting that I was sat in as a part of the team around the athletes, this coach was asking questions of an intern who had just finished her undergrad degree. This coach had been coaching for 30 years, perhaps, and this is a long time ago now. I don't, I think he's no longer alive, but I. Um, the coach was genuinely interested and really curious about, like, what does this.. what is this 22 year old young woman? What is she observing? What does she see? So, the fact that he was that curious, coming from a beginner's mindset, really interested in learning from someone who is clearly less competent relative to his own skill set, but just an openness from a place of curiosity, which again I think the curiosity driving, you know, exploration and ultimately landing in discovery. I feel like that whole domain for the people that I've seen be extraordinarily successful is a super important thing to leverage, so I would say those are among those are among the multiple traits I think are of value
Matt Dixon 30:44
in these. Coming back to the, it's funny, I says before, is I had last year a similar experience and opportunity where I got to spend multiple days actually with one of the top soccer coaches, football coaches in the history of the sport, and so therefore, by definition, one of the top coaches across all sports. This guy is very, very famous, and firstly, in like a deer in headlight, first sort of got to spend time with him, but the conversation, in his thick Scottish accent, was a coach, and he was just asking me and peppering me with questions. You're curious, and how did you do that with the pros? It's an individual sport, and how do you.. and he's still looking to learn. This guy's retired for 15 years or something, but he's still looking to learn. I think that's that's a key trait. And yeah, it was really interesting.
Jeff Troesch 31:34
Yeah, it's an interesting thing in the.. it's in the sport world, it's an interesting thing in the C suite world, because at times I think the pushback on that is that sometimes the coach or the CEO or the athlete are worried about coming across as if they don't know very much, coming across as if they're, you know, they're asking questions because of a lack of competency or confusion on their part, which might show some weakness or something along those lines, and so I think it takes a reasonably secure person to be willing to ask those sorts of questions of people, whether they are supposedly more knowledgeable or less. I think that exposing the vulnerability of, like, hey, I don't know everything, and I want to learn from everyone, that for me, is like it's a, that's a reasonably consistent trait that I see among the better coaches that I am around and the better athletes that I've been around as well.
Matt Dixon 32:29
I always say that, and if I stack rank the best and the most successful athletes that I coached across a male and female, they weren't always the most physically gifted, but there is the unifying thread that they were always highly coachable, and in fact demanded coaching. They had, I would say, two things: real sense of ownership of their journey, and a deep sense of purpose. And it was intrinsically driven, for sure. And the second part was to surround themselves with people to help them where they could go, and that was really powerful, but we come back to these traits, some of these traits: adaptability, high resilience, simplification, as much as possible, trying to reduce the clutter and the distractions, and many other things that we could dig into, but all of these things, as we suggested before, are highly coach-born, trainable, and, and we find ourselves as we have this discussion, which I think is why it's so timely that we're having this, is if we look at the landscape of the world, the business world currently, it is an incredibly interesting time, because people in positions of leadership, leading any level of team, of course, you have the C suite, but even down from there are under exactly the same demands and pressures that they've always had. The business environment is more competitive than ever, it's faster moving than ever, and obviously we're in a lot of social, political, economic uncertainty right now, but there is also on top of this very strange environment a tidal wave of change, and we know that change is incredibly difficult, even when it's positive change to handle, to manage, etc. And that's obviously AI-driven change. We're going through a proverbial revolution, industrial, the next industrial revolution in many ways, and so there is, in many terms, and I don't say this lightly, existential threat to some organizations, some leaders of how do I retain control, how do I remain focused, how do I perform under pressure, how do I guide and remain effective despite this extra layer of demands and navigating through change, and so I want to, all of this discussion has been leading to the psychological tools you've spent the last 40 years in a room with the best performers in the planet, NFL. Quarterbacks Olympic athletes, etc. What are some of the tools? If you had to pick two or three, if you said this is it, we're thinking about leaders, physique people in business, two or three of the tools that you think are most applicable and actionable for today's people listening that the best athletes use consistently that could help leaders or high performers outside of sport. What would they be
Jeff Troesch 35:30
okay? Anything else solve the world's existential issues in two and two bullet points. How do we get out of the water? Ready, go. So I mean, I think they, it's going to take me a minute to land for you, so bear with me. I feel like essential foundational are people's awareness of how their thoughts generate an internal environment that is either conducive to success or inhibits success, and so I feel like people having a high awareness of the chatter that gets driven into our brain, you know, my way of saying is like, you know, your heart's pumping blood and your lungs are pumping air, you know, involuntarily, and our brain is pumping thoughts involuntarily, and so a lot of people will be like, you know, have all this weird stuff that pops in my head, and it's not very helpful, and so I feel like one tool that has felt very productive for, and very useful, and very helpful for the coaches and athletes with whom I work is, is for them to be intentional about understanding they don't, they don't control the first thought that comes in their head often, but they're in control of their second thoughts, and they're in control of how do they respond to the first thought, and so you know an actionable item would be to be intentional about paying attention to what those first thoughts are that come in, and then basically it must satisfy two questions to continue to get power, you know, is it true and is it helpful,
Matt Dixon 37:21
interesting. Yeah,
Jeff Troesch 37:22
and if it's not helpful, then let's, let's adjust what we're putting energy towards and what we're thinking about. If it's not true and it's just an opinion, not a fact, then let's get back to being as objective and as neutral and as factual as possible. Like, I, I don't sell, I'm not anti-positive thinking, but I don't sell positive thinking, I sell neutral thinking and objective thinking, and people moving into factual sort of, sort of an intern, an internal environment that is based on facts, so people having a deep understanding of the first thought that they have is not in their control, and that they have the opportunity to address that, that that thinking process in real time, and very, very quickly, so this is a this is a constant resetting that's going on in the minds of athletes and coaches when they become more self-aware, and if what they're thinking is useful, helpful, and it's also factual, then it basically it gets a pass to continue, and we can, we can sort of feed that, but oftentimes what we're, what we're feeding inadvertently are threat potential in things. I mean, you spoke to, like, the threat of AI, right? And so, oftentimes, you know, another of the concepts woven in here is the notion that we all look at things as either an opportunity or a threat. Everything we do is either something that's a challenge opportunity or it's a threat. There's threat potential, and our tendencies, our brains' tendency, is to go to threat potential first, and that's the brain's job, is to be in protect mode, where we're seeking danger, so we keep ourselves alive. You know, just, just from an evolutionary perspective, so you know when a CEO hears about something that may initially feel like, and may actually be in some, in some respects, threatening. Then the challenge becomes, okay, like, how do I get objective? How do I get factual? How do I get solution-oriented? How do I, or information gather, so I can move towards solutions? Because oftentimes what happens is, we just stay in the threat potential, we stay spinning and ruminating, and rumination is not productivity, it's just, it's just, you know, mind clutter. So, helping people guide themselves specifically towards a method that works for them, and I'm putting forward one that works for many, but these sorts of things, where we have clarity about what's happening in real time, in my brain right now, let me shift my attention to things that are more productive, and, and, and then move towards, like, sort of leaning into the challenge rather than backing away from what feels like a threat.
Matt Dixon 39:54
Can you give a sporting, a really simple sporting example of, is it true? Is it productive, like a little scenario of on the golf course, or in a..
Jeff Troesch 40:05
yeah, I'm glad you said that, because I was on the.. I was on a Zoom with a PGA Tour golfer this morning, and you know, missed a three foot putt to make bogey, and the initial reaction coming out of that, I was like, I can't make a putt today, and something's wrong with my putting, something's wrong with my putting, I can't make a putt today, you know, factually inaccurate twice, right? Because there's nothing wrong with your putting, yeah, you did miss that putt. So, so, for me, it's like factually rotating into the facts. The facts are, I missed that putt, the facts are I'm a good putter, I know how to make a three foot putt, that one just didn't happen, and does that, does not mean that I can't make a putt. It does not mean that has anything to do with today. So we're not catastrophizing and making it grander than it is, like we're going to isolate that as a one-off. Yes, not very good, that's true. Again, just fact, I'm not like sugar coating and happy face, right? Since I like, oh yeah, that was awesome, but no, that putt was not very good, or or maybe it was fine, and it bounced on the, on the green, whatever, but the reality is, is like, you know, it's not helpful to tell yourself you suck.
Matt Dixon 41:07
Yeah,
Jeff Troesch 41:07
so that's that's not helpful. And, secondly, I can't make a putt, or something's wrong with my putting, is our opinions and factually inaccurate. So the work then becomes, okay, like, what are you messaging to yourself walking to the next tee box, right, and whether it's messaging that counters that or whether we go into back to your original question about, like, what are the tools. One of the tools I use a lot with athletes is basically a mindfulness exercise around them really increasing sensory awareness, so that we're reducing brainwave traffic through using our senses, so again it depends on the player, like literally have 100 probably more than that, examples of, you know, people will count their steps, or you know, tap a t on their thumb on the way to the next tee box, or sing a song in their mind, or count, you know, one tree, two squirrels, three flags, four people, and they rotate 12345, all the way to the next golf shot, so they're either in vision, they're counting things, they're singing, they're in their, their senses through with their fingers, or what they're feeling with their feet, so sensory awareness, even for the CEO, this earlier than the PGA Tour guy was on with it, with a founder and CEO of a startup, and we were talking about utilizing these exact things, you know, going into a big, a big board meeting, where he's, you know, looking for more funding, or, you know, getting in front of a large group of investors, you know, using sensory exercises to mitigate the high level traffic in the brain wave activity, literally bringing the brain wave activity down. If you, if you look now, it's just amazing, like the technology nowadays. It sounds like that old guy, which I am, but you know, being able to watch people's brainwave activity in real time, when they're using breath, when they're feeling the fingertips on the golf putter grip when they're feeling their feet on the ground and watching how much it reduces high level brain wave activity in the brain, so that we're in a more calm, more alpha like state. It brings a much, much cleaner, quieter brain to the next opportunity for to do what we do, whether it's in the boardroom or on the basketball courts.
Matt Dixon 43:23
Yeah, that, that's that's fascinating. So, that's that's two main tools you had there. The first is the response with the, for lack of a phrase, internal language. The second is actually something that is, you almost provided a playground there for someone to go and experiment with what works for you, because there was some that was more external, yeah, where you're counting squirrels and trees, others where it's very textural, almost your feelings, your top and your tapping, or you're counting, and is that where you're digging into a little bit of the personalization of hang on this much completely, I might say, count the squirrels, and people like just ridiculous. Yeah, it didn't work for
Jeff Troesch 44:04
me. Yeah, so yeah, so I have a couple competitors in Iron Man over in Germany this last week, and, and you know that the two different ways that these two competitors approach what we're talking about, like diametrically opposite of one another, and they have, they have evolved, they have evolved their own system, to you know, for the eight hours they're doing their thing, like what are you doing when the mind wanders to places that are non productive and being in their senses, you know that for each of them they have found their own method to get to a landing place that really the method that really works for them. So again, for me, back to your original question, what does a mental coach do? Like I'm trying to help them build a system in place and habits built that then they can employ those specific strategies when they're in their competitive arena, when they're in a hard training session, whatever, but when they're in competition, when you're going into the boardroom, when you're having that tough conversation with an employee to have specific strategies on how to create an internal environment. That brings you present task-oriented and really locked in on doing your job in the present moment
Matt Dixon 45:06
is terrific. And from one of the things that my final question for you, you've just given two really, really actionable tools, but people need to, if they're going to leverage this to actually have a performance imprint, you need to train it, you need to, you need to. So it's not about waiting until the greatest threat and catastrophe, and said, and now, now I'm going to start counting squirrels, not just rip it into something rememberable. But how do you recommend, like, is this something that you, you're building as a practice every single day, you're trying things once you find the one or two that works, you do almost every day in all these micro stresses or situations, so that when the big things do hit, you're equipped. Is
Jeff Troesch 45:54
that, is that's exactly it, and it's why I entitled my book What I Did. It's about getting one day better, it's not about having going from zero to 100 because, oh, I heard this tip from this guy in a podcast or whatever, and then you know, waiting, you know, and then when the fire breaks out, oh, I can go grab that fire extinguisher, no, it's like it's like smelling smoke every day and figuring out how to manage the smoke in your own way, metaphorically, and dealing with it on the daily, so if we're talking about sensory awareness, as an example, I mean, I have my athletes, when, hey, when you're driving down the road, feel your rear end on the car seat and feel your hands on the steering wheel, and notice what you're hearing, and is there, is there anything that you're smelling? So we're rotating through senses to start to discern, is am I more visually, does it help me like visually to calm things down? Does it help me tactically, you know, kinesthetically, and so on the daily, you know, they're they're literally taking moments to practice being sensory aware, because obviously our senses are being, you know, bombarded and all moments all day all day long, but we were very selective in terms of, you know, unconsciously, subconsciously selective, but being more intentional about what we put our attention on is something that then becomes a tool that can be utilized under, under duress in a competitive situation. And same thing with the internal environment, in terms of what we're thinking. Yeah, this is a, this is an on the daily, you know, homework assignments that I'm driving people towards, in terms of their self-talk, and what sorts of thoughts are they having, and what are their replacement thoughts going to be, and those sorts of things. So, they, they are practicing these things on a consistent enough basis, so that when they are under duress, instead of like the sort of the surprise, oh shit moment, and they don't know what to do, it becomes something like, okay, you know, the brain hates surprises, and the brain hates negative surprises. So, we want, we want to, we want to like have coping strategies that are in place that we practice regularly, so when that happens, obviously we don't prefer that negative thing to happen, but like, okay, I know what to do with that, I've been there, I've been practicing that, here we go, and so all of a sudden you know you flat in a in a triathlon and nobody wants to change their tire, you know, in that situation, but rather than panic mode, it's like, okay, How do you minimize the time frame? How do you, how do you create efficiencies and effectiveness there, and we, you know, that's all through, you know, proper coping mechanisms and training these sorts of things along the way, so we're prepared for darn near anything
Matt Dixon 48:17
that's brilliant. Well, my last question on part one of this episode, and it's always the impossible one to finish with. One day better should book 40 or four decades worth of expertise distilled. It's probably challenging enough to get it into the book, but if you today, as I'm going to put the pressure on you to do to leave our listeners with one concept from the book that you genuinely feel might change how they show up as a leader or a performer across life. What would it be? What would you choose?
Jeff Troesch 48:49
Okay, I think I think one, and it may take a moment to, as usual, it may take a moment for me to flesh it out. The only concept in the book that I write about more than once. I actually write about it in three different places, because I think it has multiple applications, and I spoke to at least three different applications. Is for people to understand the distinction between trust and commitment, and we throw those words out as synonymous, you know, trust your process, trust your training, trust your whatever, or you know, commit to your process, commit to it. I look at them as distinctive, and I think it's an important distinction. And how this plays in the boardroom, it plays in life, it plays in business, it plays in athletics. When you trust something, which is the preferred state, when you trust something, committing to that thing is easy.
Matt Dixon 49:44
Yep,
Jeff Troesch 49:45
because I have some level of belief that it's going to turn out well. The challenge is when you're in a circumstance, which happens all the time in life, in sport, in business, when you're in a situation where you don't trust it. Now, what do you do and. What I try to promote strongly is commitment is more important than trust, that doing the doing the deed independent of trusting that it's going to turn out well, being willing to actually do it to get real data on whether or not you can trust it right is is essential to being a smart risk taker to being someone who's constantly pushing his or her edge, despite not having belief or confidence or trust yet in what I'm doing. Hey, as my coach, is this coach the right coach for me? Is is what they're challenging me to do, or is this is this business strategy the right one? Should I trust doing it? Well, you never really know unless you fully commit to it, and what often happens is, unfortunately, whether it's in business or in life or in sport, that what often happens is that people's lack of trust, they're worrying about it not turning out well, it inhibits full commitment to the process, and in that lack of full commitment to the process, we get, we get data that's unclean. We, so it didn't turn out well. Is that because it's not a good strategy, or is it because you weren't fully committed to it? We don't really have clean data. So, so in the end, I think the one thing that I would want people to take away is even in those many, many moments in business and sport in life where you don't trust something, it requires a leap of faith. It requires courage to fully commit to get enough reps with something to get enough information about whether you can trust it or enough information that it is not an effective strategy, or it is not an effective process, or it is not an effective relationship. So then you can pivot with, with, with intelligence away from that,
Matt Dixon 51:42
yeah, I just happened to write a little piece that was posted on LinkedIn talking about trust emerging from evidence, and so you have to be bullying committed, and and so therefore, and this was the role of a coach, is actually a part of a role of a coach is to set the the athlete up, or whoever I or the coach is guiding with opportunities to build evidence, and that's a catalyst to deepen, deepen the ease of commitment, and of course the bridging of trust. So, 100%
Jeff Troesch 52:16
I'm sorry that I missed that, but it's, it's exactly on the, it's exactly on point with what I'm talking about here. It, it aligns, it aligns nicely. It is an essential element for people to get to the next levels of whatever they're doing. If you want to, if you want to hit the mountain top of whatever you're climbing, it's going to require commitment in times where we don't, where we don't trust it, and being willing to again have the leap of faith to get real evidence and real information that may help us make higher quality decisions going forward. It's
Matt Dixon 52:47
fantastic. Well, outside of the link in the show notes, where can listeners find your book and more about your work?
Jeff Troesch 52:53
Well, you can get it anywhere that you can buy, buy books on the internet, I guess, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, that our publisher, 8020 books.com would they probably love it if people were to choose to buy it there. So those are those are the places to check out the book.
Matt Dixon 53:10
Fantastic. And Jeff, thanks so much. So, so, so insightful. And if you're interested in getting connected with Jeff, just reach out to us at info@purplepatchfitness.com and we connect you with him, but I think that we're going to take a breather, and then we're going to talk about athletes with part two. Sounds good. Thanks for joining us, guys. Thanks so much for joining, and thank you for listening. I hope that you enjoyed the new format. You can never miss an episode by simply subscribing. Head to the Purple Patch channel of YouTube, and you will find it there, and you could subscribe. Of course, I'd like to ask you if you will subscribe. Also, share it with your friends, and it's really helpful if you leave a nice positive review in the comments. Now, any questions that you have, let me know. Feel free to add a comment, and I will try my best to respond and support you on your performance journey, and in fact, as we commence this video podcast experience, if you have any feedback at all, as mentioned earlier in the show, we would love your help in helping us to improve. Simply email us at info@purplepatchfitness.com or leave it in the comments of the show at the Purple Patch page, and we will get you dialed in. We'd love constructive feedback. We are in a growth mindset, as we like to call it, and so feel free to share with your friends, but as I said, let's build this together. Let's make it something special. It's really fun. We're really trying hard to make it a special experience, and we want to welcome you into the Purple Patch community. With that, I hope you have a great week. Stay healthy, have fun, keep smiling, doing whatever you do. Take care.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
mental performance, sports coaching, adaptability, resilience, sensory awareness, commitment vs trust, brain function, physical readiness, leadership traits, coping strategies, mindfulness, performance psychology, athletic potential, personal growth, stress management