The Mindset Coach Academy

How to Play Without a Scoreboard

The hardest part of real life is not having a scoreboard. 

This truth hits athletes hard. Because unlike in sports, in the REAL world, feedback isn’t always at your fingertips. It’s sort of like playing a game and not knowing until you’re winning or losing until the buzzer.

Whether you’re starting a business and trying to get your first client, starting a new workout plan, interviewing for a new job, or throwing yourself into the dating game, you often don’t know how close you are to success until it happens. 

And, truth be told, so many people quit right before that big reward hits. 

Putting yourself out there and really hustling toward your goal is hard. And when all you hear is crickets, it’s just human nature to want to pull back or retreat altogether.

Today’s extended episode will give you real-life, actionable tips to help you keep going and see the path forward… even when you don’t have a scoreboard. 

 

Listen to the full episode for:

• The role of community in achieving your goals

• How your brain sabotages your success

• How to measure intangible metrics

• 3 Tricks to keep you motivated when you hear crickets

• An inside look at our 2022 MCA Launch

 

1 Million To-Do’s

When we have a to-do list that goes on for miles, most of us freeze in place. Like a deer in headlights, unable to make progress or prioritize.

In today's Mental Monday, Lindsey offers her tried-and-true mindset tips to shake out of analysis paralysis and take action.

Subscribe to The Mindset Coach Academy Podcast to get notified when a new episode drops. You'll get Mental Monday mini-episodes at the top of the week and bi-monthly episodes, featuring more in-depth mindset coaching and guest interviews!

The Other Side of Fear

It's Mental Monday! And today is all about the controversial belief that fear isn't always a bad thing.

Lindsey teaches about the science of fear and offers a few questions you can ask to help you discern between fear that limits you from your potential and fear that protects you from real harm.

Guest Interview: Stacy Dales

Our very special guest today is Stacy Dales!

Stacy has an impressive sports resume, playing for the Canadian National Team in the Olympics and earning All-American status at Oklahoma. Collecting all the awards along the way, she was drafted 3rd into the WNBA and went on to expand her repertoire as a reporter for ESPN. This all-around powerhouse is currently killing it as a reporter for the NFL network.

In addition to her iconic career in sports, Stacy leads with humor and kindness (I’ll give her a pass for a little game-time trash-talk). Although we met as opponents, I have always looked up to Stacy. She’s had her eye on the prize since I’ve known her and bleeds integrity into everything she does, making her an inspiration to myself and so many others. As a prominent sports reporter, this woman is paving the way for future generations of female game players and reporters, and I truly can’t think of a better role model. 

From start to finish, Stacy’s interview is full of tough-love nuggets of wisdom, honest reflections, and refreshing humility. To have the opportunity to turn the tables on an expert interviewer and put her in the hot seat was an absolute pleasure.

You can follow Stacy on IG @stacydales and watch her kick butt as a reporter for the NFL Network! 

Here’s a glance at this episode:

[0:28] Lindsey introduces Stacy Dales, former Olympian and current sideline reporter for the NFL

[6:04] “I believe that champions are made when nobody’s watching” and “confidence comes from demonstrated ability”. Stacy shares what both of these phrases mean to her and how her mindset training as an athlete informs her career today. 

[8:18] Stacy describes how she’s learned to embrace fear and shares her process for preparing her mind for high-pressure assignments.

[11:30] What’s an NFL reporter’s mental training routine like? From physical workouts, to memory hacks, and an intricate storytelling ritual, Stacy lets us in on her secrets to success.

[14:25] We all self-sabotage. It’s human nature. But once you have awareness around all the ways you self-sabotage, you reclaim your power. 

[16:30] You can both expect greatness and expect that failure will happen. Learning to live with human imperfections and high expectations isn’t always easy, but learning to see your imperfections with grace can fuel greatness. 

[20:25] Stacy makes a case for simplicity; i.e. creating guidelines and routines that reflect your natural strengths and support the success you want to see in your life. 

[22:53] What are the most joyful moments of Stacy’s job? Her vulnerable answer includes the very real responsibility of telling other people’s stories and the pride she feels for being a woman in sports today.

[25:40] Lindsey and Stacy chat about kindness, putting in the work, and always delivering early. And wrap up their episode by discussing Stacy’s next steps in work and life and the importance of self-grace.

Outrunning Failure

Do you believe that you can outrun failure?

While Lindsey is a firm believer in learning from others' mistakes, and avoiding unnecessary failure, she reminds her students that failure is inevitable and anyone who takes risks will, at some point in their career, experience failure.

Lindsey examines the difference between outrunning failure, expecting failure, and the false expectation you will never fail.

Emotions Shape Our Experience

"Emotions shape, they don't just describe"

In today's Mental Monday, Lindsey challenges you to think about the language you're using to describe the world around you and how your words shape your experience.

This episode is a firm reminder that your experience is never objective, and that can be a good thing!

Borrowing the above quote from Brene Brown, Lindsey will teach you to reclaim your story with the simple practice of reframing the way you talk about it.

Why You Need a Coach

ANNOUNCEMENT: The Mindset Coach Academy Applications Open Feb 16th! Here’s the link to learn more and apply: https://www.positiveperformancetraining.com/MCACertification

As high performers, many of us fool ourselves into thinking we can achieve our goals just by gritting our teeth and getting to work. We like hard work, It makes us feel like we’re earning our success. But that ‘no pain, no gain’ mentality often causes us to make things much harder than they need to be.

We overestimate the importance of hard work, and we underestimate the cost of figuring out the ‘how’. 

It’s like showing up to the gym without a planned workout. We spend half our time wasting valuable energy just trying to figure out what to do. 

But the truth is, when you rely on hard work alone without a roadmap, you make every mistake in the book and burn through your initial momentum. You get discouraged and blame yourself when it doesn’t pan out the way you hoped. 

But your work ethic isn’t the problem. The problem is that you haven’t allowed yourself to ask for help. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: Not allowing yourself to get a coach or a guide can be a significant sign that you’re self-sabotaging. 

Taking shortcuts, asking for help, and finding resources to support you does not invalidate your hard work. It doesn’t mean you’re lazy. It means you understand that if you want to achieve big goals, you’re better off doing it with support.

Let someone else provide your roadmap so you can show up and work hard at what matters the most. So you can save time, avoid unnecessary mistakes, and gain confident, momentum, and resilience. 

Break the cycle now, and get yourself a coach!

Listen to the full episode for:

• How (and why) your brain sabotages your success

• 3 Qualities to look for in a coach

• How to use The TEAR Process to get your mind right

• What happens to your brain when you hire a coach

 

Follow What Feels Effortless

Despite what your badass, high-performance brain might want you to think, “effortless” is not a 4-letter word.

In today's Mental Monday, Lindsey talks about the value of approaching change with a positive mindset. She challenges you to do more of what you're good at, and teaches a simple thought exercise that will help.

If you want to make a change in your life, this Mental Monday will help you approach it with a powerful, positive mindset.

Choose The RIGHT Kind of Hard

Today's lesson begins with the question: Where can you save your energy?

High performers and athlete-minded people like you are willing to do the work, whatever it takes, to get where you want to go. But many accept unnecessary difficulty along the way.

In today's episode of The Mindset Coach Academy Podcast, Lindsey challenges you to focus your energy on what matters most as you push yourself toward that next level.

Listen to this Mental Monday episode for real life examples and actionable tips.

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You might have noticed The Inner Game has a new name! Your #1 podcast for all things mindset is now called The Mindset Coach Academy!

And while we have a new name and a new format, we have the same mission: To bring you mindset coaching in an easily accessible format, and to enable you to be your best as athletes, coaches, and high performers; in sports and in life.

So with that, we hope you enjoy this Mental Monday! Check back every Monday for a new episode, and in addition, enjoy our bi-monthly extended episodes, featuring more in-depth mindset coaching and guest interviews!

Guest Interview: Courtney Thompson

When I locked down an interview with Courtney Thompson, I might as well have taken home the gold. 

Not only is Courtney a 2-time Olympic medalist with a professional resume that goes on for miles, Courtney is an advocate for mental training, and credits mindset work for a lot of her success, on and off the court. 

A champion on multiple levels, Courtney is living proof of the power of mental training, and has dedicated her life to giving back to the sports world and making real, meaningful change in her athletes. 

She’s a fountain of wisdom and a total badass. 

In this episode, Courtney talks vulnerably about human things like self-doubt and imperfection, even at the elite level. She talks about how she cultivates confidence and inner wisdom, and shares her experience coaching a new generation of college athletes at Stanford University. She ends the episode with an actionable mental training nugget: The exact mental exercise she practices to help her let go of the uncontrollables. 

It’s not every day you get to be coached by an Olympian. 

Through stories of how she practiced mental training before she even knew what it was, to a comical anecdote about getting the yips in front of her athletes, Courtney is equal parts entertaining and inspirational.

From start to finish, my interview with THE Courtney Thompson was an absolute delight. And I can say with confidence that there’s something in this episode for everyone.

Let’s dive in!

Here’s a glance at this episode:

[0:00] Lindsey introduces her first guest on the podcast, two-time Olympian, Courtney Thompson!

[4:06] When Courtney joined the Olympic team, she was taught, “There are 3 things you can train as a human, your body, your craft, and your mind.” 

[6:50] Although the benefits of mental training reverberate through your whole life, you still have to train and retrain your mind in every context; in and out of sports.

[9:06] Before she learned mental training, Courtney often used daily habits and superstition to try to recreate the mental magic she felt on the days when everything just flowed. 

[13:01] Why responding positively to failure doesn’t make you a worse athlete, it makes you a better one, according to Courtney.

[14:46] Courtney describes her ‘aha moment’ when she decided to change what she was doing and start training her mind.  

[17:51] What’s an Olympian’s mental training routine like? Courtney shares the details; now, and back when she was a competitive athlete. 

[20:09] Courtney shares the very mental training exercise she practiced as a pro athlete to help her let go of the un-controllables before she stepped on the court.

[26:22] Why front-loading mental skills is a game-changer because you can’t always “think your way out of” your fight or flight response. 

[30:09] Courtney shares the way she now approaches in-the-moment mental training as a coach with her athletes.  

[33:43] Lindsey asks, “How do you prepare yourself to be successful?” Courtney responds with a discussion about her relationship with meditation and the inner wisdom it cultivates.

[36:51] Courtney shares the hard-hitting questions she asks her athletes to help them be more aware of their internal thoughts, self-talk, and mindset.

[40:56] We are all in the pursuit of being our best, and mindset work is a continual practice.

Part of being a coach is going through feelings of pressure, failure, resistance, and self-doubt; that part never goes away.

[48:48] Why is it important to be vulnerable as a coach? It takes a lot of confidence to admit that we’re scared, but there’s not an athlete in the world that hasn’t felt that way.

[51:06] Courtney shares the ONE THING she would tell someone who was just starting their mental training journey. 

[54:31] Lindsey and Courtney wrap up the episode by discussing how Courtney hopes to grow her mindset in 2022, including one (semi-surprising) mindfulness practice rooted in buddhism.