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Gaining The Mental Edge
25 Plays3 years ago
How do you improve mental performance in sports and the performing arts? Is mental performance and mental illness along the same spectrum? How do you stay healthy in the face of failure and rejection? We talk to a doctor and a performer to find out how. Listen to Yasi and Steven talk with Dr. Stephen Gonzales of the Association of Applied Sports Psychology (AASP) and Brooke DeRosa, film composer and singer with the L.A. Opera.
Learn more at the AASP conference October 6-9, 2021 at https://www.appliedsportpsych.org
For more information about the Athletes and the Arts coalition, go to https://www.athletesandthearts.com
About our guests:
Stephen Gonzales, PhD, CMPC: Dr Gonzales is the scientific program division head at AASP and CMPC is the Assistant Athletic Director for Leadership and Mental Performance at Dartmouth College, where he works with 35 NCAA Division I athletic programs competing in the Ivy League. Dr. Gonzalez has extensive experience working with elite athletes, military populations, and with performers, including concert symphony musicians. Dr. Gonzalez received his PhD at the University of Utah, and was an NCAA Division I runner at the University of Pittsburgh. He plays piano and is a huge fan of his dad's hometown band, Flood City Brass in Johnstown, PA.
https://www.stephen-gonzalez.com
Brooke DeRosa: Originally from New York, Brooke deRosa has performed opera and musical theater nationally and internationally. She currently resides in Los Angeles, having performed locally with LA Opera, Long Beach Opera, Pacific Opera Project, The Pacific Symphony, Redlands Symphony and the San Bernardino Symphony Orchestra. Most recently she originated the role of "Nicely" in a new musical entitled "Witch's Night Out" which was workshopped for Stephen Schwartz as part of the ASCAP/Dreamworks Musical Theater Workshop at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts.
Brooke has been a featured vocal soloist on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, on the Jimmy Kimmel stage, albums with Ghostface Killah and Snoop Dogg, and the scores of Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Luke Cage and A Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix.
In addition to performing she is also a composer. Her first opera “The Monkey’s Paw” premiered with Pacific Opera Project in 2017. Her musical "Gunfight at the Not-So-OK Saloon" premiered in 2019 as part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival and won "The Pick of the Fringe", "The Encore Producer's Award" and "The John Raitt Award for Best Music and Lyrics." She has composed film scores for over twenty feature films.
Instagram: @brookederosa
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Transcript
Introduction to Athletes in the Arts
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome to the Athletes in the Arts podcast hosted by Stephen Karaginas and Yasi Ansari.
00:00:20
Speaker
Hello again, everyone. This is the Athletes in the Arts podcast. Along with Yasir Ansari, I'm Stephen Karaginas. It's so great to have you with us today. Thank you for listening in. So don't forget that if you like our show and want to support the performing arts, please click subscribe from wherever you get your podcasts and each new episode will be delivered to you automatically.
Overview of Athletes in the Arts
00:00:40
Speaker
We are brought to you by Athletes in the Arts, a coalition of 20 different sports medicine and performing arts medicine organizations across North America. If you want more information on Athletes in the Arts, go to athletesandthearts.com and you can access research, news, one pages, and many more resources on performing arts medicine.
Focus on Mental Performance in Sports and Arts
00:00:59
Speaker
So our show today is going to focus on mental performance. This has been a hot topic now for many years in sports, but the field of sports psychology hasn't really been around that long. The Association for Applied Sports Psychology or AASP was only founded in 1986.
00:01:15
Speaker
But although the field is relatively new, the idea of improving performance mentally is not. We always talk about someone getting in the zone or being in a flow state or being locked in, those kind of phrases. So how do you get there? Like how do you improve the mental aspect of performance both in the arts and in sports while handling all the failures that come with it?
Guest Introductions: Dr. Gonzalez and Brooke DeRosa
00:01:40
Speaker
Well, our guests today are experts in this field, one from the doctor and athlete side, and one from the performer side. So our doctor is Dr. Steven Gonzalez, who is a scientific program division head at Association for Applied Sports Psychology, and also assistant athletic director for leadership and mental performance at Dartmouth College.
00:02:00
Speaker
Our performer is Brooke DeRosa, who sings opera with the LA Opera and has sung on Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel with Snoop Dogg and Ghostface Killah, has been a film composer for well over a decade, scoring over 20 features and shorts. She's also been a professional DJ and played in several rock bands. So, Stephen, let's start with you. Tell us a little bit about your background. Yeah, so my name's Dr. Steven Gonzales. I'm a certified mental performance consultant or CMPC.
00:02:27
Speaker
My role is currently I work full time at Dartmouth College in the athletics department. So I'm the assistant athletics director for leadership and mental performance. So I have two kind of rules to my job. One is I handle a lot of the leadership development for our student athletes and our team captains. And then I also then provide mental performance consultations for individuals and teams and our coaches.
Importance of Mental Skills in Sports
00:02:52
Speaker
And so what that entails is working on how do we help people develop the mental skills necessary to meet the demands that are placed upon them in competition, but also how do we allow those to actually be learning points beyond the playing fields and into the classroom and life. And so working in the Ivy League, it's something that we're very proud of is making sure that athletics are a component of the academic experience.
00:03:21
Speaker
And so we take a lot of pride in making sure that, hey, we make sure that sport, yeah, we want to compete for championships, but we also want sport to be a really great learning experience. And so part of my job is to ensure that, hey, we're developing the skills necessary that athletics should give people so that they can become really great leaders and citizens beyond their time at Dartmouth College.
00:03:45
Speaker
So when you talk about the performance part of athletics at your program, how does your relationship with athletes work? Do they come seek you out when there's a problem? Is it a mandatory aspect of their training to work with you? How does all that work? Yeah. So it's really interesting because more often than not, when there's a problem, that's when people are knocking on the door and you kind of want to treat it. I mean, you know, we use this term mental strength.
00:04:11
Speaker
Uh, or people use the term mental strength or mental toughness or, you know, resilience now gets thrown in. But, you know, really when we think about strength training, just in general, if we're going to look at a strength and conditioning coach, for example, nobody that nobody's going to start weightlifting in the middle of a season. I mean, you, you build that in and you do it consistently and mental skills are meant to be treated the same way. Uh, so I, I, so we, I spent a lot of time with our coaches and with our teams.
00:04:40
Speaker
preaching, we have to do the work ahead of time so that we have skills in place that we can reinforce and work with and tinker with as we compete throughout a season and get to. So it's almost like periodization. I mean, we're trying to purposefully schedule different types of talks, skills, and sessions in a very deliberate manner in order to help people have the capacity to meet the demands that are placed upon them in competition.
00:05:09
Speaker
Um, it's not a mandatory component. Uh, more teams are bought in than others. Um, individuals are more bought into others, but, uh, it's one of those things where I'm doing some work in the office and I like to think I do some of my best work
Dr. Gonzalez's Approach to Mental Performance
00:05:24
Speaker
out of the office. So going to practices, keeping an eye on certain people, taking notes, watching body language and interactions and being able to have those conversations with athletes or the coaching staff. Hey, this is what I'm noticing. What are you seeing?
00:05:38
Speaker
and having just a really nice setup within the system because you don't want to be this person that just kind of is in an office, kind of away from everything. You really want to make sure that you're meeting people where they are and making sure that you're doing everything you possibly can to provide the best help and the best professional service that you possibly can. So that's kind of what it looks like for me.
00:06:07
Speaker
team meeting room, doing a presentation on the fields, watching games and practices. And I'm sometimes having those individual meetings in my office. Well, that sounds like a pretty good job for you, considering that you have college sports background yourself, correct? Correct. Yeah. So I was a division one cross country and track and field runner. So I, I'm very fortunate. I feel that
00:06:31
Speaker
I got into this field because I read a book when I was in high school called Running Within, which was an incredible book that really opened me up to how to calm my nerves, imagery and visualization, et cetera. And it was really great to take those skills and see how it made me from a really good freshman high school runner to an all state competitor and eventually became an NCAA distance runner.
00:07:00
Speaker
And so I use those same skills when I was competing to try to maximize my performance. What was cool was I was doing the most running I've ever done in my life. Um, yet sometimes it's still not good enough. And it's like, wow, I'm training more. What is missing here? Well, let's seek out the nutritionist and let's figure out, can I feel a little bit better? Am I sleeping enough? Am I recovering? All of those things, but also the mental side of things. So had a huge, huge appreciation for.
00:07:29
Speaker
you know, this is this is what it takes to compete at a high level and I wanted to be a part of it. So what were some of those skill sets that you learned from either your personal experience or the book? And how are you implementing that right now with the teams that you work with in the student athletes? Yeah, you know, my experience is is
00:07:49
Speaker
is sometimes applicable to others. I think when a student athlete sits with you and they know that you have a background that relates to them, they do appreciate that from a rapport. So it's almost like a catalyst to help me have a better relationship with the student athletes. But yeah, personally, I mean, the things that I know that have worked for me that I see working for
Techniques for Stress Management
00:08:10
Speaker
others is first and foremost, really becoming aware of how important breathing is and how
00:08:17
Speaker
important it is for knowing that you can really take control over how your body is responding to a particular situation. And so if you're getting really worked up before a race or really worked up before you take a free throw or something, how are you utilizing your breathing and your ability to really pump the brakes on the nervous system
00:08:43
Speaker
to get yourself to a place where now I can perform and I'm not allowing circumstance to dictate what I do, I'm in a good spot right now. I've kind of achieved like a homeostasis, so to speak, of high performance. Having a routine that isn't a superstition, but that is physically serving a purpose of activating my body so that it feels ready. Mentally, I'm getting to a point of focus and in a nice state of,
00:09:10
Speaker
Kind of controlled nervousness. I always feel like you have to have a little bit of that. It's like a fuel injection, I think, or injection on the starting line. Being able to visualize properly and use imagery. So really paying attention to, all right, where are the spots on this course that are going to give me trouble? Where are the hills? Where do I want to make my move?
00:09:32
Speaker
first time I ever ran Boston Marathon, I was not ready for Wellesley College and how loud it was at mile 13 there. Was not ready for it. You could hear, you can hear Wellesley College like a mile and a half away and I'm like, what's that noise? And it was like Greek mythology. You see, you know, these, these runners get sucked into the sirens of the sound and the, you know, I'm single kiss me signs and stuff. And you see people
00:09:55
Speaker
Just get really hyped up and it's crazy, but then it drains you. Next thing you know, you're climbing hills in Newton. Being able to run it again and visualize, okay, this is what that course looks like. This is what the energy feels like. This is how you need to manage yourself. This is where you're going to make your move. This is the pacing that you should be hitting. Really being able to see yourself, not just be successful, but
00:10:21
Speaker
see those obstacles or those pressure points and be able to work with them. And just really having a sense of how to talk to myself and understanding the importance of self-talk. And I always tell the student athletes, there's a reason why we test a placebo in pharmaceutical research. It's because self-belief that you've taken something that's going to make you better accounts for sometimes up to 30%
00:10:51
Speaker
of it.
00:11:10
Speaker
Um, if we can be positive, great, but really understanding that, Hey, you're thinking really drives actions, not what happens to you. And let's make sure we understand how that works. Those were some really big things for me that I learned early on, um, as a competitor, but things that are scientifically backed that I think some people are naturally figuring out and doing on their own. And sometimes all I'm doing is just validating and saying, Hey, it does work. And this is why. And they're like, okay, cool. You know, so it's really neat to.
00:11:38
Speaker
work with athletes and see what their experiences are with some of those skills. Now that was running. Other sports require concentration focus. Um, yeah, there's a little bit of that in running, but when it comes to a tennis player or a golfer needing to, you know,
00:11:56
Speaker
be able to read an angle of a racket or read a green or something and having the ability to really narrow their visual field and stuff. Those are skills that I didn't necessarily need to utilize as a runner, but things that I absolutely will use with various athletes and performers.
00:12:13
Speaker
Well, it sounds like a lot of the experiences you're discussing are also similar to those of our next guest in the performing arts. So Brooke, your musical experience spans from rock bands to DJing, film composing, and to opera. So share with us a little bit about how you got started in opera.
Brooke DeRosa's Journey in Opera
00:12:28
Speaker
How did you get started on this career path?
00:12:30
Speaker
Well, one usually doesn't, one's parents usually do, in my case. But I had wanted to sing like Ariel because I had just seen The Little Mermaid. And I asked my parents for voice lessons. I had already been taking years of piano lessons. And they said, you know, absolutely. My parents were great that way. My mother found a teacher for me who
00:12:55
Speaker
basically said she would teach me but I have to learn opera first because once you learn that that kind of technique you can apply it to anything which I do agree with and now looking back I'm very happy but for a while I was definitely that that nerdy kid. So is opera singing considered nerdy? I think opera is pretty cool. When you're about 14 it is.
00:13:19
Speaker
All right. Then from there, you started singing and taking classes and everything. How do you work up to joining the LA Opera? Right. Well, I did a lot of performing in general. I did plays with no music, and then I did musical theater, and then I went into opera professionally really later in my career, I think, than most other people.
00:13:44
Speaker
I just went in and auditioned for one of their calls. It was really as simple as that. And they were looking for people to do kind of like an opera for kids show. So I think I was good at that because I'm kind of like I try to be silly and funny with it instead of like very presentational. And that's how I started working with LA Opera. Great company.
00:14:07
Speaker
So then you also then go into film composition, like doing movie scores and things. So how do you cross apply your skill set as a performer and musician into writing music for movies? Well, you know, actually, I kind of ended up doing both of these things in parallel and just having them very separate. And it wasn't until like fairly recently that I was able to combine them, but I had always just
00:14:32
Speaker
as if opera isn't nerdy enough. I was the weird kid who listened to nothing but film scores growing up. So I listened to John Williams and James Horner and all of these. And I never really thought about it as a viable career path because, I mean, in the 90s, women weren't doing this. But when I moved out here to LA, I did find some people to get started with. I took classes at UCLA Extension, who has a program in film scoring, and I started doing
00:15:02
Speaker
you know, student films for free and friends films and then just kind of working my way up and getting into it that way. So I've always been a musician and a performer, but I, yeah, you know, it's like the music has always been there, but I just took two really different, but parallel paths.
00:15:27
Speaker
So Brooke, a question that I have is, how do you prepare for the opera, like for performances? Like what does that look like? What do rehearsals look like? What does training look like? How does it work? It's actually extremely demanding. And I had no idea what I was getting in for. Because you're singing in a language that you may not be a native. You usually are not a native speaker. So you have one teacher who you work on with technique.
00:15:56
Speaker
And then you usually have a coach which you work on the opera with because in opera you're expected to actually show up having the complete opera completely memorized. So it's a very rigorous kind of a process and as opposed to musical theater where you're learning the music altogether and you have a longer rehearsal process, you sometimes only have two weeks
00:16:22
Speaker
Um, to do sometimes a three hour opera, learn the entire thing with all the blocking and everything. So it's a very accelerated. Um, it's a very accelerated process and I'm always horribly afraid of getting sick during it. So I think everybody is, and it's just, um, it's very challenging, but awesome. But I imagine the fear of getting a respiratory infection or something or an illness before performance must be pretty high, huh?
00:16:48
Speaker
It's it's horrible. In fact, now that we've been in the COVID era and masks are acceptable, I can't wait to just always wear them anytime I'm performing anywhere for at least two weeks before. Okay, so your pro mask will put you down for that. Okay. So in this past year, how were you able to like practice your skill set? Like were you practicing at home? Like how does one maintain
00:17:13
Speaker
their vocal skills during a time when they're not performing? Well, you know, I think it's pretty much like anything else. You just have to work on it. You can do it yourself. You don't necessarily, when I've been singing for so long, I don't necessarily need to be taking a formal lesson with somebody as long as I'm singing and kind of using the muscles and keeping them warm and keeping them
00:17:41
Speaker
doing all my little fast runs of notes and all those things just to keep it agile, you're going to be fine. And I know a lot of singers haven't and we're all a little bit rusty, definitely. But just, you know, trying to keep up the muscle.
Adapting to the Pandemic in Sports and Arts
00:17:55
Speaker
So Steven, with all the athletes you deal with, how are you able to keep them mentally sharp and focused during the pandemic and all that downtime? Yeah, it was it was really incredible to see. So I'm part of a
00:18:07
Speaker
team known as Dartmouth P Performance or DP2 and we have a very integrated high performance team. So we have a nutritionist, our strength and conditioning coaches, our sports medicine practitioners and athletic trainers. We have academic support embedded within that. So we all work together and what was really cool was
00:18:31
Speaker
Yeah, everybody was sent away and strength and conditioning had to come up with, all right, how do we get people to work out when they're quarantined for two weeks in a dorm room? All right. Well, we got backpacks and books that could be a weight vest. People have towels. We could do towel-resistant pushups and other, like, it was really cool to see the creativity that was brought into helping the athletes train, but it was also a really great opportunity to start to, um, think about, all right, well, what can we do? We can't practice. So let's start to develop some mental reps.
00:19:01
Speaker
So really having imagery, scripts, and built-in time to visualize different plays if that's what your sport entailed, or visualizing different race courses, or just really engaging your mind to prep for, yeah, what is it like? So that when I do get the opportunity to actually do it, I'm staying fresh. So golfers, you know,
00:19:27
Speaker
with putting strokes and swing patterns and things and just making sure that they're retaining what that feels like. And then, yep, now you can be out there and doing it. But I did get the opportunity to spend two years around the United States military as a performance expert. And one of the things that I really appreciate about the United States Army is that they have a ready and resilient approach and they're always ready. They don't, you know, you hope you don't have to be called, but you stay ready.
00:19:55
Speaker
And they're then training for resilience for when they are deployed. How do we, how do we bounce back from situations and persevere? What's really cool about the readiness that I was able to preach to our athletes was this is about professionalism. We have to stay ready. You never know when this is going to end. And at that point, and it's kind of like, we need to make, you know, we need to pride ourselves because there's two ways we can come out of this. If you're one of our better teams, this is a threat.
00:20:24
Speaker
to your, to your rain at the top of the league. Um, if you're one of our teams that are still developing, this is a great opportunity. And if we can come out of this a little bit better, um, by staying ready, um, that enables us. So I would, I actually called upon some people that I knew that served. They talked about, you know, Hey, we, we, we only, we're fortunate. We try to only have away games. We don't have home games, right? Like when it, when it comes to going, uh, downrange and deploying.
00:20:50
Speaker
Um, yeah, we don't need war to validate us as soldiers. That's just what we are. Um, so why does an athlete need competition to validate who they are? Right. So I think, I think it was really interesting to just a lot of people had to really figure out why do I do sports? And if it's just about competing, um, it, it misses the mark, I think for holistic.
00:21:18
Speaker
kind of synergy, so to speak, with why you do what you do and your identity and just what brings you happiness and joy, which I think needs to be a huge component to anybody. I don't care how competitive you are. So during COVID times, because in previous podcasts, we've always asked, what's something that was implemented during COVID with your athletic department that you feel like you're going to keep?
00:21:42
Speaker
incorporating into the athletic program? Is there anything that comes to mind that has helped build resilience and helped support the athletes? I know a lot of athletes during that time were not on campus. Some of them are meeting with their practitioners via Zoom and sometimes even with their strength coaches, their athletic performance coaches via Zoom.
00:22:02
Speaker
And now that they're coming back, it's like more one in person, and they're having that one-on-one care. But I'm just curious to know, like, what kinds of things did you guys implement that you felt like was very successful and you want to continue bringing into your program? Yeah, I think from a, from a community standpoint, one of the things that I'm really proud of that we were able to implement was a program that I called LeaderLab.
00:22:28
Speaker
So we got two individuals from all 35 of our teams. So we had, you know, roughly 70 individuals and we would have a zoom call every other week and we would just talk about just general topics related to leadership and performance. And it gave them the opportunity to continue to network with each other. Cause one of the cool things that we pride ourselves on is we are about the community. I mean,
00:22:52
Speaker
Um, of all the schools, at least in the Ivy league, Dartmouth is a little bit more remote than other places. So, uh, one of the things that is a big selling point for why you should come to Dartmouth is it's absolutely community and you take everybody and put them everywhere. It's no longer, Oh, I go to the dining hall and I see people from all the teams, not just my team. And so I remember asking the athletes, I said, if you think about the interactions you've had pre-COVID, um,
00:23:23
Speaker
What was the amount of time that was spent in just locker rooms, traveling, dining hall, dorm rooms? Like how much of that was just organic, you guys getting together versus coach mandated things, right? And I think it was like 70, 30 or something like that. Maybe it was 80, 20. And I said, what's it like now? And they're like 90, 10, right? Like it's 90% coach driven because we have these mandatory Zoom calls to just check in with each other and
00:23:53
Speaker
And it was just exhausting. So what I wanted everybody to do in leader lab, and I call it a leader lab on purpose because I don't think there was a playbook for how to lead during a pandemic. So I'm like, we just need to learn. So let's talk. What are we going through? How can we help each other out? Are there cool ideas or things that you all are doing on your teams? And it gave people the opportunity to continue to stay connected with everyone. So it's really neat for somebody on the football team to hear that the sailing team is doing this.
00:24:21
Speaker
And, oh, maybe we should try that. Right. And it's really neat to get the different athletes together and kind of maintain that. So that's a program that we're going to continue in person. Um, where yeah, once a month, probably we're going to get together and Hey, you guys are all leaders on your team. This is just an opportunity for us to almost have like a captain's council. We'll give you guys the opportunity to bring about some problems and see if we can solve some of them.
00:24:46
Speaker
Otherwise, uh, here's a couple of things that we can think about in terms of principles of leadership. That was something that, uh, was, was very successful that I feel helped a lot of our, uh, student athletes. So it had a leadership. Flavor to it, but we talked about mental skills. Um, and all right, people are trying meditation now. Okay, cool. What do you guys know about it? Let's let's let's talk about what its utility is and how you should go about doing it. And so it was just nice to just.
00:25:13
Speaker
have everybody kind of getting together and learning from one another. Yeah, I can only imagine. So Brooke, in that same vein, are there any major changes or even minor changes that have been made now in the opera world and performances in general, thanks to COVID? Well, I mean, you know, like we're discussing when it first
00:25:37
Speaker
hit, everybody kind of was just waiting for a while to just see when it's where everything's going to come back. And then when it didn't, everybody started pivoting. And so a lot of stuff is still being done remotely, although it's really difficult with music because we have the latency issue. So you can't actually have people singing together. But you can prerecord things, which is what I've done for some concerts where you had two singers is you can prerecord it and then just show it essentially as a video.
00:26:07
Speaker
I actually think a lot of good things have come out of a lot of bad things. Obviously, we're not all together, we're not performing live and that kind of thing. However, the amount of legwork you can get done via Zoom and not even with people being in different states or countries is incredible. And I think that people have now realized that and how that can sometimes be an advantage. Maybe you don't have to have people
00:26:35
Speaker
together for as long of a period of time as you thought. If somebody is a very busy singer, they can do a lot of stuff via Zoom and then just fly in. There's a lot of different things. In terms of the performance model, we are stuck. Things are opening up now, of course, but you're looking at either live, outdoor, or via Zoom and parts pre-recorded. But we've pivoted.
00:27:03
Speaker
Brooke, what has resilience looked like for you this past year? Oh my. Well, I think everybody's kind of gone through all the stages of grief the same, maybe in slightly different times. But is this even a viable job? It's actually funny because because of the pandemic, I started doing a lot of
00:27:29
Speaker
filming. I got a camera and I started making videos for my YouTube and opera videos and opera music videos and you know musical theater stuff and I've really been working on that and I had no idea how much I would like the medium of film at all. Steve, so yeah I mean I'm already in it but in a very different way but I realized it and actually since I'm a composer and
00:27:59
Speaker
I didn't really mention it, but about four or five years ago, I started writing things for singers, like writing operas and writing musicals. And I was just thinking, because of the pandemic, I've been going, wow, it would be kind of easier to film one of these as a movie, honestly, at this point, than to try and put it up as a live show. It's so incredibly expensive. And it would actually be cheaper than possibly to make a movie and just kind of thinking along these crazy different lines. And so,
00:28:27
Speaker
You know, I'm still definitely performing. It's just in a very different medium in a different way, but I never would have even thought about it if, of course, the pandemic hadn't forced me to pivot. So it's interesting.
00:28:42
Speaker
Do you think that's how you kept your motivation going? Is that how you kept yourself motivated to get back out there? What kept you motivated? Because I can imagine, even with dance, I feel we were talking about this with our previous guests. It was like they had practices via Zoom.
00:29:01
Speaker
and they had to somehow stay motivated, right? Even when I was in my living room looking at dance classes via Zoom, I just kept thinking to myself, oh, I can't wait to go back to the dance studio and be right there with everyone. So that was my motivation. What was yours when it came to music? Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of artists did start banding together and
00:29:28
Speaker
sharing this kind of hope for the future and just honestly I decided that I was going to use the time however long it was to keep working on myself and improving my skills and knowing that at some point everything's going to come back to some sort of normalcy.
00:29:44
Speaker
in which case, you know, you can pick up the things, but a lot of things I'm doing, like live shows, okay, there's like a fundraising element. So I can even think of, oh, what am I gonna do about that? Or yeah, just even making these videos kept me motivated because you're still like releasing content. You're still essentially making something and it's the making something that is what keeps me motivated. Yeah, so Steve, so with this issue of resilience, so if you have an athlete that comes to you,
00:30:11
Speaker
and you peg them as having poor resilience or not being very motivated, how do you discuss this with them?
Motivation and Resilience Strategies
00:30:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's really interesting. The word motivation gets thrown around a lot, and rightfully so, because without motivation, there's no behavior, right? So we have a motivation on one end of a spectrum. We have intrinsic motivation on the other end, where it's like, hey, I'm doing things because
00:30:39
Speaker
I want to experience something. I want to experience stimulation. I want to discover something or have a sense of accomplishment, not to have something per se, but just that sense of accomplishment. And in between we have the extrinsic motivation, which always gets a negative rap sometimes, but the lower forms like fear of punishment, et cetera. Yeah, that, that, that is very temporary. It could be very effective, but it can be very, it's very temporary. But eventually you want to identify with what you're doing and why.
00:31:08
Speaker
But the thing is, is motivation is very much a choice. And so, for example, I have an eight and six year old, and if they're misbehaving, and I'm like, all right, no ice cream, one of them could be like, I hate ice cream, you know, and the other one's like, Oh, my God, what do you need me to do? I'll do it, you know, and so they chose to be motivated by ice cream. I'm using it as a form of reward or punishment. But it's interesting, because they had to make that choice. And so
00:31:36
Speaker
One of my mentors in graduate school would always get like so enraged kind of humorously because sports talk Oh that coach is so motivating and it's like no the coach is not motivating The coach is putting things out there trying to relate with people but you have to internalize it and and see it as such and therefore, you know choose to act then upon it and so yeah, somebody can exert pressure on us to do something and
00:32:05
Speaker
But we choose to allow that to be pressure and to go. And so when it comes to, you know, is something motivating enough or not? Really, we got to look at, okay, what matters to an individual and how are they navigating the situation? And let's look at choice and why somebody chooses to be highly motivated by this or not. And it was interesting to see.
00:32:29
Speaker
the people that it doesn't matter if you take me out of practice or not and I'm stuck in a dorm room, I'm still motivated to train because I just like moving my body. I like feeling like I've accomplished something and I'm just gonna do it versus the ones that are like, oh my gosh, if I can't be in a weight room, moving all this weight, what's the point? And so, but it's like, but you're still able to do something. So you can frame it any way you want, but it becomes a challenge.
00:32:56
Speaker
On the resilience end of things, what's really interesting is in the responses, the underlying factor is the social aspect. Social relationships are a huge predictor of resilience according to research. We look at individuals and say, you have to be resilient. And that's almost disingenuous in a sense, because I need to have the capacity, but let's face it.
00:33:25
Speaker
We've all relied on someone or some element of support or some service or something in order to sustain us in times of trouble, difficulty, et cetera. And I'll never forget, you know, one of the greatest acts of kindness that was ever bestowed upon me was when I was a graduate student and chipped a tooth.
00:33:51
Speaker
And I had no dental insurance. And the dental clinic at the University of Utah Hospital had a community clinic where they do things for relatively nothing, but very cheaply. And I'm thinking, all right, hopefully I get out of here with $200 or something like that. And I'll never forget, I was making small talk with Dr. Olson was his name. Don't know his first name, but shout out to Dr. Olson. But the guy saw that I was pretty upset.
00:34:21
Speaker
about it and knew my situation. And he basically, when he was done, he said, by the way, I'm telling the ladies up at the front, no charge, appreciate you being here and good luck with everything. And I mean, this is a guy who, I'm a struggling graduate student and did me a solid, did not have to do that, but you can't tell me that that didn't enable me.
00:34:46
Speaker
to then, all right, now I have a little bit of money to handle something that could come my way. And so you don't go looking for it necessarily, but it's just really interesting to see how people can come together and really help and support. So social relationships absolutely sustain our resilience. But when we look at an individual level, though, one of the biggest predictors of how resilient one is going to be is optimism and not, oh, the glass is half full, sunshine and rainbows, blah, blah, blah.
00:35:16
Speaker
It's, no, I can see myself making change now so my future is different. And if you could see that element of, it's not going to change everything immediately, but I can start to make change and I could start to see an opportunity so that my future is different. That idea of optimism right there, big predictor. Reframing a situation, right, is kind of what that is a close cousin of that, but optimism is a big predictor. The second biggest predictor
00:35:45
Speaker
is the tolerance of negative affect. And so in my research, I did a laboratory study where I had athletes come in. I told them that they failed a task, even though there really wasn't a standard to the task. And I wanted to see how they responded. And what's really interesting is we have this mystical idea that, oh, resilience, resilient people need adversity and failure. They don't get stressed out and they just find a way to soldier on. And what the research showed at least from this study was
00:36:13
Speaker
Cortisol levels went up in both resilient and non resilient individuals after failure but what the difference was was Negative affect increased as well because of course you're going to be disappointed You're gonna have negative emotions regarding failure But what's interesting is there is a significant difference in the resilient individuals They manage those negative emotions at a lower level
00:36:38
Speaker
than the ones that weren't. They got much higher as a result. So yeah, you're going to get upset. You're going to get frustrated, but it's more of how much higher levels of negative emotions. So the anger, the frustration, the fear, right? And so resilient individuals feel that, but they feel it at a much lower intensity. And so
00:37:01
Speaker
It's not about eliminating those things. And I think we've oversimplified resilience to this idea of, oh yeah, you know, people just, they brush it off and no, they still feel it. Let's acknowledge that. They just handle it a little bit better and they get to purposeful action a little bit faster than those that aren't necessarily resilient. So it's knowing I have people I can trust, rely on and work with. It's having a couple of skills and yeah, you need to have resources.
00:37:31
Speaker
So it seems like you're saying is that when you see an athlete and we're saying, oh, how resilient they are, what a great comeback that is. It sounds like there's a lot more going out behind the scenes for that athlete with their social networks and their coaches and their support system, helping them to achieve that comeback victory. Yeah, absolutely. And if you see people on your team or in your organization,
00:37:53
Speaker
that go through things and you see them overcome them because they have really great sports medicine. They have a good nutritionist working with them. They got people looking out for their wellbeing and everything. That's just it. If we're gonna put people into a situation where we want their absolute best, we are presenting huge challenges to their being. If we don't provide support, they can't thrive. And so you can't throw people into these high pressure cooker situations and not have a team.
00:38:21
Speaker
and expect that to be a sustainable thing. And so that's an approach that I see a lot of high performance organizations take. And what's cool is it's not just sports. I believe the Berklee School of Music has somebody that does sports psychology or mental performance work. I know Circe Soleil had some people working within their organization. So we're taking a high performance approach to the arts as well, which is really cool.
00:38:49
Speaker
Steven, what do you think for like, let's just, I'm just going to put dancers and musical artists in here. But if they're coming in with injuries, like what kind of advice would you be giving artists who are struggling with an injury? Yeah, there's a big difference between being medically cleared and psychologically ready. Right. And so, yeah, the last time, you know, a ballerina was, you know, on her toes and it broke her navicular bone.
00:39:19
Speaker
Um, that's a very serious injury, very rare, hard bone to break. And, uh, now I need to be able to get back up there and okay. I, the last time I did this, I had a pretty serious injury and now I know I passed my strength test. I could see an X-ray that it's healed. I can have all of this stuff, but I could still have a mental block of what that's like. So, um, when I'm working with, depending on the nature of the injury and how somebody is, um,
00:39:49
Speaker
you do need to get back to a sense of trust and a sense of fluidity to what you're about to do.
Overcoming Mental Blocks and Understanding Mental Health
00:39:58
Speaker
And that's why they always say, in sports, for example, you need to play at 100%. So 100% speed. So if you're a hockey player and you're afraid of getting hurt, you're going to tense up and get rocked. And yeah, you're probably going to end up re-injuring yourself. So I always liken it to those old wind-up toys that you give to kids so they have the key in the back and you just
00:40:18
Speaker
tighten it and tighten it and tighten it. And I'm like, the more you stress and the more fear you have, you don't realize it, but subconsciously you have a lot of stress and fear signals going down from mind to body and it's like you're just tightening and tightening. And so I'll always go up to our athletes sometimes. And if this was a dancer, you know, who was dealing something, I'd go to their back and almost make a, like a pluck noise. And I'm like, pull the key out, stop turning the key. And it's a nice visual. And they're like, okay. And they're like, okay, let's get into some
00:40:45
Speaker
progressive muscle relaxation or some healing imagery or some other things to really start to enable us to have a better sense of ourself, really check in with how something is and start to develop the confidence and trust that I'm ready to perform, I'm ready to return.
00:41:03
Speaker
I think coming back to the team aspect and the role of the team, I think it's so important. I mean, even in my work with athletes struggling with body image concerns and eating disorders, I have to have a team in place to be able to do my job to the best of my ability. But then we have athletes and potentially their parents who don't necessarily believe in
00:41:26
Speaker
the mental health piece, or they're in denial around that team approach. You know, what do you ever run into that? And what kind of advice do you give the athletes or potentially their families or even coaches? Because not always are all the coaches on board? What kind of advice? Yeah, you know, the so I so if we want to look at mental health as a spectrum, right? So mental health is
00:41:54
Speaker
A huge topic now has always been a big topic, but the really interesting thing around mental health is people hear it and they immediately think mental illness or they think disorder. And if we look at how the American Psychological Association defines mental health, the CDC, the World Health Organization, it is very much a spectrum from illness to thriving in wellness.
00:42:23
Speaker
you can fall anywhere on that spectrum in any context of your life. And it's important to know that you have practitioners that can help you depending on where you fall. So if we're looking at the quote unquote proverbial normal in the middle, um, you know, my role is to try to help people that, uh, become a little bit more super normal. Um, but as a clinical psychologist, which I am not,
00:42:47
Speaker
Um, might be looking at somebody who's battling a true bout of depression or anxiety or substance abuse or a disordered eating, et cetera. And, all right, how do we treat them in a, in a more traditional sense to get back to normal athletes have mental illness and athletes also have performance specific issues that a, a CMPC, a certified mental performance consultant would work with.
00:43:14
Speaker
And so I think it's really important for people to understand that, um, yeah, look, there's this whole adage. You don't have to be sick to get better. Um, and it's okay to not be okay are two very big things that have been thrown out there. And, and, and yeah, if an athlete is, uh, feels like they're not fast enough, um, or if a dancer feels like they're not agile or flexible or not, they, they probably going to go to a trainer.
00:43:39
Speaker
a physical trainer to figure out how to become more flexible, agile, faster, whatever it is. When it comes to the mental side of things, it's like, oh, I'm having confidence issues. I don't want to look weak, so let's not talk about it. Well, no, you absolutely could. But what's really interesting is in the last Olympics, Simone Biles had the twisties, which is a very, when I worked with freestyle aerial skiers in Utah,
00:44:09
Speaker
Um, I, I saw it happen and it's, I mean, it's, it's a legitimate fear inducing. You've lost the ground. You don't know your body in space and it is scary. And immediately, as soon as she pulls out to work on her mental health, which everyone's like, Oh, she's, she's depressed or she, and, and no, after we allow the, the stuff to come out, it's, it's like, no, she, she's legitimately looking out for her health and safety. And, and think about that. This is the best athlete.
00:44:37
Speaker
of all time really in that sport, right? And the best of this generation. And she knows if she's healthy, she wins, yet she's on the sidelines continuing to support her fellow gymnasts and everything. And everybody's making this big idea of is she really the greatest of all time because she's weak, because she couldn't overcome. And it's like, can we just pump the brakes here and just take a look at, all right, first off, we have a really crappy literacy of what mental health is.
00:45:07
Speaker
Just like physical literacy is taught in physical education now. So kids are learning how to actually stay healthy and physically fit for life. That's a great model to look at. Well, how are we looking at our mental health literacy of, all right, what, what does it mean to be depressed? Which yeah, if you miss, um, uh, or if you don't get a job, I expect you to be depressed. That doesn't mean you're clinically depressed. You're going to be down for a day or two.
00:45:34
Speaker
You stay that way, okay, we've got problems. But we have this adversity to, or really this, I don't know, this aversion really, to these are real terms and things that people experience. These are emotional experiences and some last very long and need that attention. And some are just natural experiences along the way. And the more we can understand that and help people better understand
00:46:00
Speaker
their mind and how that contributes to wellness, just like we're looking nutritionally and physically, the better off the populace is going to be, including athletes who are putting themselves in really difficult situations. But yeah, you have to have a mind that is prepared to handle particular things, especially as we push the envelope of how many more flips, twists, tucks can people do as we push the envelope of human capacity.
00:46:27
Speaker
how much further could an athlete run at a particular time with their skeletal structure? What are our limits? And as we go and pursue those, yeah, it's not just about having a body that can handle it. It's also, gosh, how is my mind handling this as well? And that's what we're looking at when we look at the spectrum of mental health. Yeah, we have the traditional sense of people are ill and they need to be treated, but mental health is,
00:46:55
Speaker
more than just that, it's also helping people get to a state of thriving and wellness. And that's where organizations like the American Psychological Association, like Association for Applied Sports Psychology come into play to kind of hopefully continue to educate the populace because sports psychology and mental performance as a field is really not that old. We're looking at formal years of organizations and certification even is less, but
00:47:26
Speaker
We're looking at probably 40 years. So 40 years, not that long, but we understand the growing importance of it, which is exciting, but still young and we have our growing pains, but we're doing what we can, I think, as a field to really try to help anybody that's, whether they're an artist, doctors are using, surgeons in medical schools are using mental performance work. It's really cool to see where this has gone.
00:47:52
Speaker
So it sounds like with athletes at Dartmouth, for instance, the athletes are well taken care of. You have a good support system for them there. But for someone like Brooke, a performer who's going gig to gig and job to job, there's a little less support there.
00:48:06
Speaker
So what kind of support system do you have for when you have a bad performance or you're feeling down after not getting a certain job or a gig? Because for instance, that's one of the things that we use to distinguish performing arts from athletics. Like in baseball, if you miss seven times out of 10 when you're batting, you're still an all-star.
00:48:24
Speaker
And even in gymnastics, you have like two or three chances to do a vault or a floor routine. But in performing arts, you have to nail it every single time you're on stage. And it's important to kept secret that the music industry is not the cuddliest of industries out there. So what's your support system? Like, what are the resources you have to help you? That's a great question. I'm thinking about it. Well, you know what?
00:48:54
Speaker
I think in opera especially, because like I said, you have a compressed rehearsal period usually, you don't have that whole community thing going on because a lot of people you might not have known for that long. So you sort of have to really, there's a lot of onus on yourself to develop these
00:49:17
Speaker
absent of the actual discipline of opera, having this in place, you have to do this with your own family and your own set of friends, essentially. And most of my close friends are not musicians. And I'm sure they're tired of hearing about stuff. I'm sure my husband is tired of hearing about, oh, but that note just at the end, at the end, just that one little section where it faltered, I think he's tired of hearing about it. But yes, back to the resilience discussion,
00:49:48
Speaker
It's absolutely true. You have to have sort of realize you're not just your last performance, whether it's a sport or it's a show or whatever. And to just, I always call it blinders because I have a lot of friends when they, for example, a great thing from the opera world that luckily is getting phased out is when conductors yell at singers. Well, it happens all the time. They will yell at the singers and then expect that the singers can go on and do a wonderful show.
00:50:17
Speaker
not how it works. But luckily for me, since I'm so used to rejection for so long, I just kind of tune it out. And one of my good friends actually, she gets very rattled by this. And I always go blinders remember blinders. So that's essentially how we get through those panicky sort of moments. But honestly,
00:50:42
Speaker
In the last probably four or five years, I did a complete 180. I used to be very much perfectionist, like Natalie Portman in Black Swan. It's like, it was perfect. But it's rarely that, and I don't think anybody has ever come off of a stage or anybody that's an athlete and gone, you know what? There was nothing I would have done differently. I mean, it just doesn't happen. So learning to let a lot of it go,
00:51:10
Speaker
And also I used to just get so worked up before going on stage that I would be shaking. My hands would be, there'd be no blood in them. They'd be cold. And like when you're, I would be physically shaking and then try to, trying to produce the sound out of it. It's just, it's so counterproductive. And at some point I just had to say, you know what? It's going to be what it's going to be. And that's, I can just do the best that I can do in this moment. And that's all I can do. And then just let it go.
00:51:39
Speaker
And believe it or not, once I started doing that, everything just got easier and better. And the performances were even better when I wasn't like holding on so tightly and just try and force it to be perfect. Because of course, when you're breathing, that's just the last thing you want to do. So I think I got off topic there. But does that answer your question? No, I think.
00:52:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think even in the arts, you really have to have thick skin, especially here in Los Angeles. It's like, whether in your music and acting and dance, you got between all the auditions. There's just so many things that can challenge your mental health, in my opinion. Oh, yeah, I mean, yeah, like not getting an audition, being passed over for a role.
00:52:29
Speaker
Mm hmm. Oh, and I've been I've been told horrible things in auditions just awful. You know, well, we I just don't even want to get into it. But yeah, you really have to kind of have a thick skin. And I did spend when I started singing opera, I realized I had in the very beginning when I started and this was probably like 15 years ago,
00:52:53
Speaker
Um, it was very different than it is now. Now kind of being different is a little bit celebrated, but at the time everyone was like, you have to wear nude heels to an audition and you have to wear a jewel tone dress and your hair should be pulled back like Maria Kellis and you have to wear pearls. And if you do not do these things in this order, nobody will take you seriously. And so I was like, Oh my God. And I just thought, okay, anything about me, I'll just erase all of that and I'll just be this. And I, it never got me anywhere. And then once I, one day I remember.
00:53:22
Speaker
I was actually in my LA Opera audition. I had overslept and I didn't wash my hair and I threw on this dress. I hadn't even showered and I just had this massive headache and I said, okay, I'm just gonna go in and do it. And I wasn't even worried at all. I was just going, when can I take a nap? And I got that. And I was like, okay, I obviously have to think about this a lot differently.
00:53:47
Speaker
So yeah, I guess the question is like, so you were just talking about having to let all that go and learning how to do that. We talk about in lectures and magazine articles about how to get to that point. Right. So this question goes to you. So this question is to you. So this question is to both of you. How do we help people get to that point?
00:54:10
Speaker
Well, for me, I know exactly when that point was. I was doing a production of Tales of Hoffman, and I was playing this little doll named Olympia. And it's a very, very hard aria. It's very, very high. It's all these colored tourist sections in Staccati. And everything has to be so precise. And you also have to be dancing and moving. It was just a nightmare. And I had this massive, massive migraine, because I was so worried about it. And it was so bad, I actually had to go off
00:54:40
Speaker
between things and, excuse me, throw up and then go back on and sing and then go off and throw up and then go back on and sing. And I just said, I'm never doing this again. It's not worth my health. I don't care. If I never sing again, if I never perform again, it's not worth this. And then it just, I never went back to that and it all changed and I stopped caring and everything got better and it just,
00:55:07
Speaker
I don't, I can't tell people how to get there, but you'll know. You'll definitely know. And it's just, instead, you know, it's funny because doing, I'm sure you know from dancing, all the auditions, all the years, you're taught you're not good enough. And especially in opera, you're a soprano, you're replaceable. We can find somebody else.
00:55:30
Speaker
So you go, oh, I have to do this and do this. And if I feel this, I have to hide it and I can't ever be weak and I can't ever be sick and I can't ever not be doing 100% at my best all the time. And it's at the expense of self. And so you put yourself last and I thought about it. I thought, why am I doing this to myself? I'm making myself a nervous wreck about something that I sort of honestly, at the end of the day, can't control. If I have hiccups, there's nothing I can do about it, you know, and
00:55:59
Speaker
I thought I'm going to put myself in how I feel in my comfort level first, instead of what everybody else needs. And what's interesting is, I think there's so much power and story in various industries and Brooke, in telling your story. I mean, I think it's important for people to know that, yeah, people experience these things and you do get to a point and
00:56:28
Speaker
I think there's a lot of power in that. I mean, a researcher can say all of these things, and it doesn't really matter. But it's so funny because when I speak to the student athletes at Dartmouth, for example, about something, and then I'll have a professional athlete come in and say the exact same thing, they're like, oh, well, they said this. I'm like, yeah, we've been talking about that for years. But I'm glad you finally listened.
00:56:51
Speaker
But I think there's a power in sharing. And the thing is, we don't do that because we do have our guard up. We are competing with other people for slots and auditions and stuff. And so we don't do that in almost sharing our humanity. But one of the things that I think is important that you mentioned is, I think of finger traps. The harder you work to get out of a finger trap, the worse it gets.
00:57:20
Speaker
But when you ease up and you, you know, you go slowly and kind of methodically, you can get out of it. And sometimes trying too hard is a little bit like that. And, and I, I'd speak to people about that quite often where, you know, look, you have to get to a level where, you know, you're, you're comfortable with what you have and you go with it and, and how you get there though is a little complicated. I think one thing is how do we reinterpret the way that we
Reframing Emotions for Better Performance
00:57:47
Speaker
feel?
00:57:47
Speaker
So when we have quote unquote nerves or anxiety, I always ask people when you're really excited about something, how do you feel? And when you're really nervous or fearful of something, how do you feel? And it's like, Oh, these are very similar symptoms. So where does the line, where's the line drawn between when excitement becomes fear, when fear becomes excitement and it opens them up to, gosh, maybe I do need to kinda cause I, it's really cool when you see an athlete kind of smile before doing something really important. Like.
00:58:16
Speaker
take a penalty kick in soccer or free throw or something that has a consequence. And in this case, it would be auditioning. Just taking a moment and taking a breath and just be like, I am deathly nervous and this is awesome. And it's like, why would you ever say that? But it's, when do you get the chance to do really cool stuff? I always joke with people. I got a cat named Sundance after the film festival.
00:58:42
Speaker
Um, and you know, I got a scooper litter. That's not really exciting. I got to take the trash out. I got to pay taxes. I don't run races anymore. You know, I don't get to do anything fun and exciting. The one thing I get to do that's cool is maybe I get that one look at birdie on like the one round of golf. I get to play every year because I'm a competitive guy and I want to make birdie and it's like, all right, you got to make this, you got to make this putt, you know, and I'll, I'll stand there and I just chuckle at myself and I'm like, you're about to do something kind of important and this is cool. And I have such a better reaction to it.
00:59:11
Speaker
because I've reinterpreted the way that I feel. Now, it's a lower stakes thing than, you know, my career is riding on this, but getting people to understand a little bit more about, all right, the way that they feel and why, but understanding that the whole idea of pressure is a privilege because it's cool to get to do something neat, do something with consequence, chase something important that doesn't come all the time. And can we enjoy the process of trying to get there rather than can I get it or not? The other thing is,
00:59:41
Speaker
I have a colleague who always says, you gotta be willing to miss. If you're gonna take this shot, I need to know, are you willing to miss? And when you think about what that means, some people are like, I have to make this shot, right? But okay, yeah, of course we want you to make that shot. And of course it's important to think that. But if you're thinking can't miss, are you really fully committing yourself to just putting your authentic self there and going for it? And the fear of rejection or the fear of missing
01:00:12
Speaker
almost dampens our ability to really bring our true self or our full self. And that becomes really challenging, right? But there's this idea of you got to bring whatever you have on that day and just be proud that you could bring 100% of that. And there's a famous quote that a lot of athletes like to use by Teddy Roosevelt, which is, do what you can with what you have where you are.
01:00:37
Speaker
And it's like this acceptance of, all right, I'm tired, I didn't get to sleep a lot, but I know I have to run this workout or do this practice or whatever it is. And I'm going to bring 100% of what I got today and just be good that I brought 100% of 60% or 100% of 65% or whatever it is.
01:00:57
Speaker
and just know that you're not gonna be perfect, you know, every day. And you're not gonna have, even though we try to strive for that. But those are things that I know that have worked in the past, but while that's cool, there's nothing like sharing a story of, well, you know, if somebody that was more accomplished than you when you were younger shared how they were going about rejection or the fear or the things that they've had to do and everything,
01:01:27
Speaker
So that you realize, wait a minute, everybody goes through this and it's not just me. And then you could start to realize, well, how can I then have better balance or appreciate that? There's so much value in that. And we are so competitive that we don't really collaborate or share. And I do wish that there was more mentoring going on in any realm of performance, whether it's the arts, athletics, et cetera, because
01:01:53
Speaker
I feel like when people work together, you can go and accomplish some really great things. And so there's a lot of power to what you shared. I think that that's uber important to helping people get to a place where, all right, yeah, what does it take to kind of work with that? I think that's awesome.
01:02:11
Speaker
And I think a lot of these things are also life skills. So it takes a while for people to really get to grasp onto this concept. Even in the dance world, I know when I'm counseling dancers, I run into the issue of like, I have to lose all this weight to meet the goals of my choreographer or teacher.
01:02:32
Speaker
or the director of the program or to get this one role in a production. And I have to ask, well, let's talk about what the consequences of that might be, right? What are the consequences of losing weight? Are you going to lose your cycle? Are you going to be at risk of injury? What's going to happen? Is this even natural for your body?
01:02:54
Speaker
And then at one point, some of these dancers have to come to that crossroad of like, is this company the best for me? Is the studio the best for me? The team that I'm working with, are they supportive of my health? Or will there be another team or organization that will respect me for me and my body?
01:03:12
Speaker
and the type of body I come with and my health and all of that. So just some things to think about, I think, even in auditions and programs that you're a part of, in the team environment. And I think, you know, Brooke, sharing your story was very, very important. And I also think, Stephen, the work that you're doing in your organization around, around just having conversations like these and
01:03:37
Speaker
And the importance of having that team structure is vital. And knowing as an athlete, if I were to go into a program and know that I have all the support around me, I'd feel a lot better being part of that team. Yeah, I think there's a lot of value in that. And in saying what you shared too, when I've helped athletes in a variety of different sports prepare for combines for professional drafts,
01:04:06
Speaker
NFL draft or the NHL draft. Everybody's so obsessed with getting to the league or getting to the show that they're not taking a look and say, yeah, look, you're being interviewed, but you're also interviewing the organization as
Building a Supportive Team
01:04:20
Speaker
well. And do you want to be a part of that team? Um, and is that the best fit for you? Or are you just so obsessed with, I just want to get selected. Um, and no, you don't want to, you don't want to get selected to the wrong team. I mean, you, you could, you know, you could find yourself in and out of the league in two years.
01:04:36
Speaker
Versus what if you went third round instead of first round and you landed with the better team that and so it's kind of getting the Getting the emphasis off of that, but you're right. Like we do need to be we want to be so successful We're almost willing to do anything. But at the same time we also got to take a look at their the fit is really important and knowing what you can find out about certain things you may need to give up a little bit and
01:05:04
Speaker
in order to retain or regain that sense of self and that happiness and that acceptance and that just overall sense of balance in life. Gosh, isn't that worth it? That was a really great point as well. Well, it sounds like we need to get these resources into the arts as soon as possible because hearing what Brooke is saying, we can't let her husband become the therapist and the counselor and the trainer and the psychiatrist.
01:05:30
Speaker
But this has been an age old problem with the performing arts, getting the resources to the performers to help them negotiate all these problems that are inherent to their career. So Steven, your organization has a conference coming up that has these kinds of resources, right? When is that conference? So the Association of Applied Sports like Conference will be October 6th through the 9th. We were going to have it in person in Las Vegas. But given the Delta situation,
01:06:00
Speaker
And a lot of our international partners not going to be able to be in attendance. We did pivot to a virtual format, but the virtual format is open to anyone. The cost of the conference as a result is significantly less. And there's a lot of really great on-demand sessions, really great keynotes, and a lot of great workshops and poster presentations
01:06:28
Speaker
that you can access for months that handle a variety of these topics. So if you go to appliedsportspsych.org and look up the conference information, you can register there as a non-member and have access to a lot of really great content. Is this a good place for student athletes and performing artists to go as well on the website for resources on a lot of the things you've discussed today?
01:06:56
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. We have a whole resource center. There's lots of video resources, podcasts that members have appeared on. So I'm sure this might make it. There's a variety of different pages with information for parents, coaches, performers, athletes, et cetera. And you can find a wealth of information there as well as
01:07:23
Speaker
books and other things to look at. Well, we could carry this on all night, but we have to wrap things up to here now. Thank you so much for being here today, Steven and Brooke. Just a wealth of information, some amazing topics we covered today, especially with resiliency and mental illness and mental performance being a spectrum, getting resources to the performing arts, just an amazing amount of information today. So thank you so much for being here and taking time out of your day to be with us.
01:07:52
Speaker
Thank you both. Thanks. Thank you both, or all three of you very much. Brooke, it was really nice to meet you. Oh, nice to meet you, too. And Yasi and Steve, thanks, man. This is really great. So I really appreciate you all. And it's great to be with you again, Yasi. Thanks so much for being here today. Always. Thank you. And that will wrap up our show today. Remember, if you like what you hear on the show, please click Subscribe, and you'll get this podcast delivered to you every time we have a new episode. For Yasi Ansari, this is Stephen Karaginas, and this has been the Athletes in the Arts podcast.