Most people would go through their whole life with not figuring out what they actually want.

The best psychologist in the world trying to distract us.

We need to have that routine in place.

So you need to design your environment and your accountability loops so all of these things are locked in place outside of the work environment.

You need to be great in that area too, so you can have a sustainable family life and great friendships and relationships.

If they had a growth mindset, they would realize that there's no failure, only feedback.

It's okay if you screw up growth mindset.

You're just going to get better through it next time.

You're just going to get better at performing in these few moments.

Welcome to the evolving potential podcast.

This is episode number 17.

Today I have on the show Wilton Atkins.

Wilton is a mental performance coach who has worked with professional sports teams, Olympians and businesses to help expand their potential.

He has over 20 years of coaching experience from new Zealand, where he grew up, to the US, including my home state of Arizona, here to his new home in Phuket, Thailand and internationally.

Online, he creates mental skills courses utilizing more than 50 courses he's taken into a simple framework and is the co founder and director of the Mental Skills Institute where he's able to draw on his experience as a former college athlete in tennis and cross country, as well as a premier grade rugby player in New Zealand.

More recently, he's won the spartan race in Phuket, Thailand and the tough guy in Gal event in New Zealand and has become the father of two children.

Finally, he's also written four children's books with a focus on personal development with his wife, a pediatric occupational therapist.

Welcome to the show, Wilton.

Thank you, Todd.

Appreciate it.

Happy to be here, buddy.

Absolutely, man.

So I want to first jump into the journey into mental performance coaching.

So what has led you to focus on mental performance coaching and particularly with, like, sports people and corporate corporate professionals?

Yes.

So I think my journey may be similar to a lot of people.

I didn't discover mental performance till a little bit later on in my life.

So for me, I lived sort of most of my life up until late twenties, almost unaware of the need for mental performance.

So I kind of stumbled upon it by accident.

So my tennis career, rugby career and track and field career was all pretty much unaware without any mental performance tools, nobody taught me these things, so.

And to a certain extent, maybe I wasn't ready or open to it.

For example, you know, being a young man, I probably wasn't mature.

I didn't mature until a little bit later.

And the other thing I would say is, maybe a lot of coaches weren't equipped to help people in this way.

So as a result, I wasn't exposed to mental performance until quite late, and I'd stumbled upon it by accident, really.

And it was through something that happened to my wife, a really dramatic, life changing thing for her.

So I'm not sure if I told you in the past, but my wife Mirren, had debilitating chronic illness for almost a decade.

And so we're talking about chronic fatigue, daily body aches, daily migraines, daily nausea, and this debilitating fatigue where she wasn't able to work full time, she wasn't able to.

Doctors told her she'd have to live with this for her whole life, she wouldn't be able to have kids, and basically just had to manage through this disease.

So multiple medical doctors and other experts said, you know, you just got to work through this.

You've got to manage these symptoms for the rest of your life, et cetera, et cetera.

So, you know, she was my girlfriend at this time, and we wanted.

We're willing to try anything.

So she ended up going to a course in Auckland, and it was a coaching course, a three day course, and it taught her the tools about how to coach herself and reduce the stress response of the mind body connection.

So I thought nothing of it.

So just give it a go, see what happens.

But, you know, when she came back from that weekend, almost a different person.

So because of the stress response, she also was gluten intolerant.

She had a medical diagnosis for gluten intolerance.

The course allowed her to reduce her stress response to now eat gluten.

The daily headaches and body aches went away.

She was able to exercise without crippling body aches and fatigue.

So, like, two weekends after that, we were hiking a mountain in the Milford sound, and she got her life back.

We were able to travel successfully, have a family, all of these things.

It would be odd for me not to be curious about a situation like this.

So it was so dramatic for her.

She got her life back.

Amazing.

And we don't even really acknowledge it now, but, you know, we were just talking about it recently.

We should really celebrate this every year, but it's just a distant memory now.

It happened about ten years ago, but, yeah, that was really the catalyst for me to understand that, hey, maybe there is something to this.

So that's when I delved into this whole world.

Before that, I was a coach.

I was a decent coach, a decent tennis coach working with kids and adults.

But now it's taken my coaching to a whole new level, a whole different direction.

I don't focus on chronic illness.

I think there's other people that are more interested in that aspect.

I thought, how can I use similar principles and develop my own to help people with performance, whether it be in the workplace or in a sporting capacity or just in the general life?

So that's where I focused my attention as I've applied and learned a lot of these tools.

But, yeah, that was, for me, how I basically accidentally delved into this world.

And you know what?

It's a blessing.

It was terrible what happened to my wife back then and many others.

But, yeah, for me, that was a huge, significant change for us.

And I basically dedicated the rest of my life to this avenue.

Now, that's crazy.

So she went and did her certification had a profound change.

You got very interested in figuring out what she had learned, what she had figured out, and then you went to go get this certification as well.

Yeah, so I didn't do that specific certification, but I did certifications and things of similar principles.

So I'm trained in coaching, sports medicine, sports psychology, which all has some valuable tools, but they don't really go into depth about some of the concepts that are talked about.

So I got into a little bit of, because I'm a science based person, I was like, okay, this needs to be backed up by evidence.

Right?

So I delved into a little bit of the research behind it and for me to be able to believe it, and I thought, yeah, actually there is something to this.

It's not really talked about.

So, yeah, I did a whole range.

I wanted to, Matt, maybe a little bit like you.

I like to tick all the boxes and check the evidence to see if this is evidence based and practical.

And it was.

So it just got me interested in a whole range of different modalities.

Right.

So I love the positive psychology, I love the NLP, I love hypnotherapy or visualization, stoic philosophy.

There's a whole range and they are all very similar.

They cross over and they all start telling the same story.

So if you round out your learning in a whole bunch of different modalities, you can become a really successful coach that can coach anybody.

So whilst it got me curious about what happened with my wife, I didn't necessarily focus on that.

It just took me down different rabbit holes to basically upskill my learning as a coach in a whole different array of areas.

Yeah.

So you had normal clients still like your tennis clients or whatever, and you started applying some of these mental things to the sessions and then did you see profound results in them as well, which is what kind of started shifting you into wanting to do just the mental stuff.

Yeah, exactly.

So, well, for me, I mean, I love tennis coaching, but I think that's just working on somebody's tennis.

Eventually, for me, I want to be helping someone in their life, in tennis, but also outside of tennis.

I want them to have a successful life, a career after tennis.

I want them to have a successful, healthy home life, and I want them to have an unbelievable mindset.

So tennis was awesome because it's a very.

I got to trial it on so many different clients so I could have the same conversation and get a lot of reps in talking about these concepts.

So I could sort of fine tune my philosophies, techniques on people, like, as like a trial and error.

So it was almost a bit of a luxury for me to have that career path as well.

But eventually tennis was just a way for me to have these conversations with more and more people.

But, yeah, my, I still have a few tennis clients, but for me, I'm more fulfilled helping somebody in a more holistic way.

Nice.

And so when did you decide, like, I want to build a business around this.

I want to call myself a mental skills coach or a mental performance coach.

How did that kind of transpire?

Yes.

So I had that plan quite early on, but you've got to be a little bit of a realist around finances.

So, for example, at the time, we were trying to build a some assets.

So when you go full time self employed, it's quite difficult to get bank loans because you need to have your financials laid out for three years.

So it was not a pragmatic move to go to early.

So at the start, I was just doing it as a side hustle on top of my corporate career, mainly from a pragmatic point of view.

But when the time was right, it was always the plan to build a business around a lifestyle business where I could go anywhere.

So it was just a matter of time before we were able to pull that off.

And it's not that easy, but that was our goal, that was our vision, and that's what we thought was really important for both for our family.

Wow.

So how did you face some of the potential imposter syndrome that you've dealt with from switching into something that is more soft?

It's a soft skill.

We're moving from tennis skills to now mental skills, and now you're calling yourself a mental performance coach.

This is something that's new, something that a lot of people don't understand.

And so I have to wonder how you might have dealt with, like, okay, now I'm calling myself a mental skills coach.

Am I.

Am I qualified to be that?

You know, obviously probably did some certifications to give yourself that mindset of like, yes, I'm qualified to do this, but I feel like a lot of people would deal with some imposter syndrome going through a transition like that.

Yeah, I.

Yeah.

So it comes into everything that I teach, really.

So, for example, the courses that I teach, I also apply to my own life.

So I have a whole bunch of principles that I live by that allows me to smash through anything like imposter syndrome, but definitely around imposter syndrome, it's a normal human response.

A few years back, I went to a talk with the All Blacks, New Zealand All Blacks rugby team mental skills coach, a guy called Gilbert Anoka.

Interestingly, he said that he'd never met or coached an All Black that didn't suffer from imposter syndrome.

So that's the first point.

It realized that everybody has it, or if they don't have it, they're probably just not admitting that they hammer.

So it's a normal human response.

And the other philosophy that I have on life is nobody has all the answers.

We're all winging it to some point.

Nobody has this set plan and it's going to follow through.

So, I mean, if you look right now, you've got the us elections coming on, coming up, neither of the leaders of the two main political parties have it all figured out.

To a certain extent, they're just winging it and making it up as they go, as they're going along, they don't have all the answers to foreign policy, economic policy, social policy.

You can't know everything.

So if you understand that we're all winging it and you understand that everyone has impostor syndrome, then you're really going to realize it's not actually that big of a deal.

So that that's the first belief that I have around it.

And the other thing I would say.

Yeah, yeah.

And the other thing I would say is, because everybody has imposter syndrome, or limiting beliefs, varying degrees, I would reframe it as a way to, if everybody has it and you are able to smash through it, then you are being able to stand out and dominate.

You're going to be able to set yourself apart from the opportunity.

So rather than it being a crippling self doubt.

That's like, okay, it's an opportunity for if I'm the one, and if our family is the one that can defeat it, then we will win.

Win being, whatever that means, be more successful.

So that's kind of the belief that I have around it.

And the other thing is, I'm quite clear.

And early on, and it's one of the key things that I teach, is understanding your clarity and motivation for things.

So if you have clarity, then you have a pull factor, and that's that.

Pulling motivation.

So that's the first part.

So, for me, getting clear on what I valued and getting clear on what was important and vision meant that any type of resistance, like a limiting belief or imposter syndrome, is.

Is easily overcome by what, knowing who you are and knowing what you value.

So, I think, for me, getting clear on my values, I knew one of my values was growth, and I knew one of my values was contribution and service.

So, yeah, if I'm true to that value and if I true to what I'm wanting to do with my life, then limiting beliefs are easily broken through, because you can see what you're trying to accomplish and you know what your values are.

So I think with clarity, the imposter syndrome, or beliefs is easily.

So it's easily defeated.

Yeah.

And I think the other thing, I would say it's one of the sexy.

The first pillar that I teach is, other than clarity and motivation is mindset.

So I've sort of simplified it down, keeping things really simple.

I really only see two key mindsets.

There's a lot of different mindsets out there, but they come into sort of two main things.

And the.

The first one is having true agency.

So, basically what agency means is that you are responsible and accountable for yourself.

So if you're responsible and accountable for yourself, you don't make excuses and you're not a victim.

So the opposite of having agency is making excuses and being a victim.

But we, you know, sometimes being a victim is valid, but a healthier way, in a more practical way, is having remembering agency.

So, yes, there's negative factors, like some bad beliefs that, like limiting beliefs or imposter syndromes that creep in.

But if you remember, you need to take control of agency.

So, for example, I think Jonathan Hyde talks about agency in a different way.

He talks about it in.

That's the social psychologist from NYU.

He talks about it, the elephant and the Rider.

So the elephant is not having agency, but the Rider is agency.

You've got to remember that you are the rider.

So if you are the riderhood, then you're responsible for what you're going to do.

And you're also with that responsibility.

It also automatically means you're probably going to accept things if things don't go well.

So responsibility and agency also equals acceptance.

So it's not.

It's in it.

You're in.

You're in an empowered state as well.

So if things don't go perfectly, it's okay because you're in that empowered state, you accept it and doesn't cripple you.

Does that make sense?

It does, absolutely.

Yeah.

And I'd like to touch on both of those.

We know first being clarity and motivation.

It's like if someone watching this is curious on doing a similar process as you've done and figuring out what is important to me, what do I value?

You know, kind of who am I and how do I develop a motivation that will pull me rather than push me?

What advice do you have for people to develop that for themselves?

Yeah, it's so important.

And the beauty about that is it's not the same for everybody.

Yours will be different to mine.

Your wife's might be different to yours, but having the awareness of it is.

And you're going to have a better relationship because you know what motivates your wife.

I know what motivates my wife, and we help each other and we're moving forward together.

And same with the people we work with, same with any team that you're a part of.

So how do you do it?

There's lots of amazing ways to do it, but I think the first part is just getting clear on where your gaps are, right.

So it's something really simple, like a wheel of life exercise.

Something is like, okay, where am I weak and where am I strong, and what's the most important to me?

So if I'm weak in this area here, let's say I'm weak in my relationships, I want to upskill in this area.

Or if I'm weak in my finances, I want to upskill in this area.

So that's your wheel of life.

You kind of need to.

It's a general basic assessment of where you're at, seeing where any gaps are, but also, more importantly, you need to figure out if these things are actually important to you.

So that's kind of understanding where your values are.

So there's something called a values elicitation.

And now with a values elicitation, it needs to be done with a.

With a coach who is familiar with this concept, because a values elicitation is not really, you're not really thinking.

You need to get into a more relaxed state.

When you're doing a value solicitation, it's not something that necessarily you think logically about.

You need to get into sort of a state where you're really relaxed and comfortable in a deeper state, almost sort of delving into a little bit of the unconscious.

So these are more about true motivation.

So you need to sort of be comfortable to get into a state where it's like revealing some things that you don't typically think about in your day to day.

Because, I mean, everyone can have a life planned and think, this is what I'm going to do, this is my values or whatever.

But unless it's done in a way that you're not thinking logically, it might not be what you truly want, those deeper unconscious needs.

So that the values elicitation is a simple process, but to do it well takes a bit of time, takes a bit of skill to figure out if these things actually truly matter to you.

So basically what you're doing is you figuring out what your highest values are, and that's.

And figuring out why that is important to you.

And what purpose does that serve?

So let's say I value making money.

What value does that actually serve me?

I value money because I want freedom.

So freedom is my higher value.

So I need to set up a life for me that gave me freedom.

So I value growth, that allows me to contribute and serve more.

So it's not a logical process.

Let's say you value family, and what does that family provide you?

It provides you with love.

So it's a simple process, but it's a really compelling process.

And you can help sort of have some pillars of things that are important, helps you with your decision, your decision making.

That's a really good, that's a really solid answer.

So, wheel of life, for anybody who doesn't know, would be like each category be like family, relationships, you know, personal life, spiritual life, whatever.

I.

You have like a put those in a circle, and then each one kind of fills out a section of that pie, you know, and then if it's.

If you had ten out of tens in each section, you'd have a perfect wheel.

But most people will not, obviously.

You know, we're going to have some shortcomings, whether it's financial shortcomings or, you know, spirituality shortcomings or relationship shortcomings, which are going to cause a little bit of a bumpy ride.

Right?

Yeah.

So getting people, to be very clear with that, and then getting people to put their, their values in order and figuring out, okay, yeah, I value family first, or I value finances first, or I value freedom first or whatever, and kind of aligning the, I guess, decisions they'd make in their daily life with, or the career path or whatever it may be with those values.

So along the lines of, like, getting someone to a trans state, then it makes me curious, like, I mean, what, what would you ask someone, I guess, as a coach, to get someone to answer in a non logical way?

Like if I was going to say finances, you know, and say freedom or whatever, it's like, how do you know that's not a logical response?

Now, I'm just saying that because, you know, obviously that makes sense to me.

I could use some extra money right now.

I'm struggling financially or whatever.

So you're getting someone to a trans state, which we can talk about in a second, like how to, how we might do that, which I think is kind of cool, but also like, how would you get, I guess, what questions would you ask someone to get them to elicit a response that would pull a deeper value from them that's not necessarily logical.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Right.

So it sounds pretty woo woo.

What we're talking about, right?

Getting someone into a trance state, but it's a, it's a normal, like, it's a normal everyday thing, right?

We're in a trance state right before we go to sleep.

Some people call it like a different brainwave frequency, call it what you want, but it's a normal relaxed state.

So simple things like closing your eyes.

When you close your eyes, you're removing all of the other filters.

So now your focus is on yourself, deep breathing.

So just doing something like that is half the battle.

And then what you're getting yourself to do is, and it also goes into a little bit, one of the processes we do is like timeline, or like a timeline trance, or a future self visualization where you are basically closing your eyes, doing some deep breaths.

Doing that is you a lot more relaxed and comfortable.

And you also have to build rapport with the client.

If you walk into my office now, I want to get you to close your eyes and we're going to do this thing.

You won't trust me, you might not be comfortable.

So we've got to do some other things first to build that trust.

But it's a normal state.

For example, with the timeline technique, I take a simple process where you close your eyes, focus on your breath, try and relax your body down from the tips of your head all the way down to your tips of your toes.

Once they are relaxed in a more relaxed state, then what you can do is for that process, you can take them through a imaginary induction.

So it might be imagine yourself walking down a staircase or imagine yourself walking, going down an elevator, or imagine yourself on a beach.

And all that is doing right is getting them into the relaxed state.

So they're not thinking about what's going on here right now in the room.

They are fully using their imagination.

Things that they.

Most people will never do their whole life.

Most people would go through their whole life with not figuring out what they actually want.

So doing something like this is so one of the most powerful things you can do if you do it well.

So once you get into that relaxed state, there's a lot of different ways to do it, but basically counting backwards is one of them.

I would recommend anyone do a training in it to get a little bit more.

It might take a few days to really understand the skills, and then you actually have to practice it to get really good at it.

And the other thing is you need to be in that.

I don't want to use the word trance because it's an off putting thing for people.

You need to be in that relaxed state yourself as the coach in order to take your client through the process.

So you're doing it with them, really.

You're imagining yourself and that if you can do it for yourself first, you're literally just replicating that process for them.

And you know what, like, I.

What I'm sounding right now, if I was my, you know, 27 year old self saying what I'm saying right now, I would.

What are you going on about?

But, like, seriously.

But because of, like, what I said earlier about my wife, now I'm open to this stuff, and it's also helped change my life, so I have a lot more clarity in myself.

Take people through the same thing and now you can almost layer it into a really short conversation.

So I was actually doing a.

I was coaching somebody yesterday or not yesterday, last week, somebody that was going through some shifts in their career.

They weren't quite sure.

They just had a relationship breakup and they weren't quite sure what they wanted to do with themselves, where it was a academic route, the career route, all these types of things, right?

So now, without having to do some sort of like, full induction or formal process, you can sort of almost layer it into a normal conversation.

You just get them relaxed, get them to close their eyes, take them through a quick process and doesn't have to be any big sort of woo woo thing.

So it is a normal thing, but she'd never, ever considered doing it in her whole life before.

And she found the process to be really enlightening because I basically got her relaxed, closed her eyes, did a little bit of an induction with some breathing, imagined herself into what she wanted from five years from now.

And because she was in this state she wouldn't normally be in, she had some breakthroughs of what was actually truly important.

So I would encourage everybody who was like me and slight.

What are you on about?

Just to be.

I hope this conversation has maybe piqued your curiosity a little bit.

Otherwise, you often will go through life accidentally.

And you wake up.

You wake up when you're 70 years old, and it's like, why didn't I do what I wanted to do in my life?

You have to deliberately design and understand what's important.

Yeah, I think that's crazy.

Trying to differentiate what society tells us is important, what our parents tell us is important, what school tells us is important, you know, with what we actually believe is important to ourselves, to our own personality, to our own life experiences, tell those things.

And so kind of allowing the conscious mind to shut off, you know, or shut down or just quiet it a little bit.

To let that.

To let that voice come through is like.

That sounds like a really powerful process.

Wow.

Well, that's very wise words, actually.

I'm not surprised with your sociology background.

But just.

That's just piqued an idea that I had.

Well, the process for me, when I did it about 1011 years ago, understanding that one of my core values was freedom, I needed to create a life that would allow us freedom.

So that is going against the grain.

Now, be more specific.

We just built a new house.

Designed and built a new dream house.

And we loved living there.

It was a great house.

And then I realized that one of my core values was freedom and contribution and growth.

It's like, okay, well, how do I get that?

And then now you start filtering for things that allow you freedom.

And what it was, was completely against the grain, as you see.

So we actually sold our house that we just planned and built that we really want to live in because it was not going to give us freedom.

And I had filtered now, you know, reticular activating system.

Basically, it's a mechanism in your brain that allows you to filter for things.

What's important to you.

We all have it.

It's a deep, deeper part primitive part of our brain.

And so for me, I now was filtering for this value of freedom and I found somebody that was able to offer this.

So it was a mortgage broker in Christchurch with his business partner, who were able, basically they were property investors that would help people with a different approach to real estate investment.

And we had this conversation with him and it was like, we can help you build a portfolio with this counterintuitive idea.

And the counterintuitive idea was simple principles of understanding how to accumulate equity and understanding how to make sure that the numbers from the bank stack up from a cash flow point of view.

So you could get finance and you also get a portfolio because you're accumulating equity rather than the family home, which is generally the nice home with the white picket fence, and it's beautiful to live in.

It's a different.

It's a different type of home when you're thinking to buy, to build a portfolio.

So you can't really do both at the same time.

So basically my point is, understanding my value of freedom allowed me to be counterintuitive in how we approached our life.

So now we are able to travel the world because we also able to accumulate our retirement plan a bit younger than what we normally would have done.

So that is the importance of being clear.

Another story around being clear is, you know, one of our visions was traveling.

And one of the places in the world I've never been was Asia.

So one of my visions was visiting Asia.

So there's no coincidence that when we spoke to people that had lived and worked in Asia, we started to network with them.

So we were actually on a cheer lift on a ski field in New Zealand and we struck up a conversation on a two minute cheerlift ride and built a relationship with them that helped us find out what's it like on opportunities in Thailand.

So these are the types of things that can be clear when you're clear on what your vision is.

Similarly, one of my vision is also making the importance of my health and fitness.

So I'm getting a bit older now.

I need to prioritize that.

So that's a value.

It's also my vision.

So I'm now filtering for opportunities to do these things.

So one of my visions was, I even have a vision board, right?

So vision board is not an accidental, it's not some weird I toy, like cute toy that doesn't work.

If you apply and see it, you do it.

So on my vision board, I put it on a few years back about health and fitness in Asia when we moved here.

And interestingly enough, the photo that I put on was of the spartan race.

So I didn't even remember that I put that on the vision board.

But actually, it was the spartan race that I entered last year, so it's.

Okay.

So now I'm designing.

I'm designing what I want to do with.

Through the reticular activating system and knowing what's important.

And that's the race that you ended up winning.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cool.

Yeah, exactly.

So I guess the main point is not, I'm nothing bragging about the spartan race or anything, or cash flow or anything like that.

All I'm saying is a life doesn't occur without being.

Without having clarity and direction.

Yeah.

So makes perfect sense.

I mean, the reticular activation system.

So for you to sit there and know, like, okay, freedom's important to you, as opposed to maybe another person thinks it's finances, they're looking for any sort of financial opportunity that might limit their freedom because they're not realizing that's important.

Okay.

Now I'm going to take 80 hours a week of work, you know what I mean?

As opposed to, like, I'm going to find something that's going to allow me to travel the world and work online and do these things, because I know that while finances are important, I think freedom is even more important to me.

And so I'm going to look out for those opportunities.

Beautifully put.

Exactly right.

Or a career change.

So what's your value?

What is your value?

Are you in the right job or how can you apply your value to your current job?

Yeah.

Making sure that you're seeing it in the right way.

Yeah, exactly.

Are there any other stories that you can share of someone having success with the mental performance skill, you know, coaching or the mental skills training that's, like, significantly impacted their life or their performance?

Some of the best stories I have aren't even sport related.

When somebody has just got through something that is of challenge to them and it allowed them to see things in a different way, push through things and put themselves out there again.

But I mean, the framework that I teach is mindset, the principles of mindset, getting clarity and division, clarity and motivation.

Then the other thing is, the other big thing is understanding the hidden barriers.

And that's a huge thing for people.

We had a lot of big success.

That's probably one of my more popular pillars that gets breakthroughs for people.

And then the performance under pressure is a lot more specific to people at the higher levels.

But so that, that, that piece around the hidden barriers is around the concept of allostasis or cybernetics.

It's the same concept where that's where people are sort of stuck in a pattern, in a habitual pattern where they aren't pushing themselves out there.

So if you are only at a certain level with something, you are going to usually be stuck at that level.

So in order to perform at a new level, for example, a tennis player, you need to have a different behavioral patterns to get better.

And these behavioral patterns that you currently have are a set point.

So you're at a normal set point, and it's hard to change that because it's very much driven by our automatic processes.

So trying to break through and perform at a new level is very challenging.

So the concept of cybernetics, to try and get somebody from where they are now to perform at a new level, it is a huge breakthrough moment.

For example, I had a really good, elite tennis player who just wasn't improving, and he trained at the same level, he performed at the same level.

But in order for him to improve, he needed to understand this concept so that he could break through and do things in a whole new way.

So I think cybernetics and delving into that concept is huge, is a huge thing that people really need to look into.

Okay, so the hidden barriers, people are coming up against hidden barriers, and those are going to be some of the major things that you're able to help people with that are getting them to the next level.

It's a big part of something that you teach your overall pillar or framework system.

And so how, I guess, are you helping to make people aware of the hidden barriers?

How do we, I know that it would be, in my mind, a similar process to the calming down the critical mind, the analytical mind, and getting them to tap into that, that subconscious state.

We talked about cybernetics, too.

So the way that I understand cybernetics is kind of like a heat seeking missile.

All right, so if you want to describe cybernetics at all and these hidden barriers, like unleash, go talk about it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So heat seeking missile is a great example.

And another example is, let's say your psychology or your behaviors are like an AC or a heat pump where it has a thermostat.

So, for example, if you're performing at 20 degrees, just like a heat pump is, or AC, when the door is left open or the window is open and how hot air comes in, the AC is going to turn on because it knows it needs to be at 20 degrees.

So basically, our behavior is in exactly the same way.

So the way that I would see it is like with the AC method.

The AC example they're using is someone would be used to performing at a certain level, and maybe they're pushed to perform to a better level.

They're reached the next level now through coaching, through practice, through whatever.

But ultimately, they end up cooling themselves back down to the normal level that they're at because maybe their self image is still there.

Maybe there's some hidden things that are going on that are kind of forcing them to stay at that, at that level.

Am I right?

Exactly right.

Yeah, exactly right.

So what are some of the most common mental barriers that you're encountering when you're working with athletes or clients?

And how are you helping these people overcome the challenges?

Yeah, it is a big topic, Todd.

So we're talking about mental barriers.

We're talking about beliefs, which are often subconscious and without addressing these and also identity.

And that self concept is those hidden barriers.

So it is the hardest to shift.

So one way to explain what hidden barriers is is cybernetics or homeostasis.

So we perform at a level that is the same as what we believe.

So you only perform as well as with what your identity is.

So when we really want to change, make true change, we need to change at beliefs and identity level often rather than just like a skill level or, you know, going to a new team and learning a new skill might not be enough.

We really need to really change beliefs and identity to get that more lasting change.

And it's not easy to do.

That is definitely not easy to do.

There's a really good book out there called psycho cybernetics.

It was written a few decades ago, but basically, I think Maxwell Maltz is the author.

He was a plastic surgeon, and he got interested in psychology because of what was happening with his clients.

So, for example, he would make women, I think he was in California, I could be wrong, but he would make his clients traditionally, stereotypically more beautiful looking to hopefully give them more confidence.

What he noticed over his years of doing this as a plastic surgeon is none of these or many of these women.

Afterwards, they still didn't have confidence.

So why is this go really curious.

And then he discovered this concept of cybernetics and understanding that the self concept is a cybernetic mechanism.

So your beliefs on yourself and your identity is cybernetics, meaning it is coming back to a set point.

So if I get plastic surgery on part of my body.

And I, in theory, I should be more confident, but if I think I'm an ugly and unworthy person, it's not going to change.

So you need to work on that side of it.

It's more important than sort of the more superficial environment.

Will skill changes?

It's a lower level of change.

So now how do you do that?

It's not easy.

So I guess pointing out how to find it.

One of the easiest processes to find it is a hypnotic process, a timeline process.

So instead of envisioning the future, you can often envision remember any things from the past or limiting decisions from the past that may have triggered this belief.

So where did beliefs come from?

They often come from childhood.

Well, hypnosis, where you can remember a time where a limiting decision may have occurred.

So if you get into a relaxed state, which most people might not do, remember a time when they were in your childhood home and any, what were people telling you?

Or what year at school, what were people telling you?

Or if you have a sibling, what were they saying to you?

Although sometimes it might be a parent.

So if you dont tell them what theyre thinking, they will find their own limiting decision.

If you do a nice hypnosis that they will lead, you will figure out where some of these beliefs actually came from.

So, for example, it might be, I had a sibling that told me that I was dumb.

Okay, so that's why.

That's a cybernetic mechanism that might be serving somebody throughout their whole life.

Or I had a mum that told me that I was fat.

There's your cybernetic mechanism for your whole life.

Right?

So, because that imprinting phase in childhood.

So timeline therapy is an advanced technique, but it's quite, quite a compelling technique to find that limiting decision or that limiting belief of where it came from and shining a light on it often allows people to release it and have full acceptance of it.

And often they'll have a better relationship with family members after it, or whatever, teachers or whatever, accepting that maybe they had positive intentions from what they're saying, and it allowed them to release what this limiting belief was.

Whatever this that's holding them back now, even as an adult, some people, their whole lives.

So that's one.

Yeah, that's really cool.

And now that you bring that up, I'll share my own story with the audience, just to give some clarity there, because I had my own powerful experience when I did my NLP certification, which I didn't expect to happen, they told me to, you know, try to let go of the conscious mind and try to see what comes up in the subconscious when it comes to this particular limiting belief I had, which was like, trying new things are scary.

It's bad to try new things.

It's dangerous to try new things.

And so it's like, the fear of failure really is what it was.

And so I had my own thing that came up in that moment, which was this moment of when I was, like, six or seven years old, and I had lived in this, like, you know, all black neighborhood.

Like, a lot of kids that were bullying me, unfortunately, at the time, they invited me to play baseball, and I thought it was gonna be this cool thing.

I never played baseball before.

I was really excited to try it out.

They give me the bat.

They say, hey, it's your turn.

Throw the ball to me.

I miss, everybody laughs.

They throw it again.

I miss, everybody laughs.

I get incredibly embarrassed and decide, like, I'm never trying new things again.

You know what I mean?

Like, screw this.

And then, like, I didn't realize that I had kept that for so long.

And it's crazy that, like, now I'm, like, wondering why.

It's like, oh, I'm gonna go do this thing.

No, I'm gonna stick where I'm comfortable.

I'm gonna stick with what's, you know, familiar to me, because trying new things is scary.

Trying new things gets me made fun of.

Trying new things equals pain, you know?

Yeah, that's crazy.

Do you have any stories, I guess, that came up for you that may have helped you to be a better athlete back in the day or have helped you release some things, maybe to become a better father or anything along those lines that came up for you personally?

Yes, I did.

But probably something I wouldn't be willing to share, actually, to be here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nothing crazy, but, yeah, some for me and for other people that I did.

I visited my childhood home, which was actually a beautiful, amazing place, had a great childhood, but also not all the information that you get there.

Some of them you remember certain conversations that might be a long term belief that you have around yourself.

So, yes, certainly it's.

Certainly, I had some breakthroughs during that process, and I've had breakthroughs with other people doing that process, too.

That's held me back, but, yeah, it definitely doesn't hold me back anymore.

So we have clarity and motivation as a part of your principles.

We've got the values levels that are included in that.

We've got the hidden barriers.

I know there's one more I'm missing.

What other frameworks what other core principles are involved in your teachings?

Yeah, the next one is performing under pressure.

So this is more for people that, you know, professional athletes or, you know, someone that has high stakes, so high stakes corporate role that need to be clutch and I mean, everyone needs it, but often this is more relevant for them.

And we have a whole range of tools that help people perform under pressure.

So for example, some of the tools around relaxation techniques, helping with someone's focus and attention, techniques that help people visualize the pinnacle moment.

So when that comes to that pinnacle moment, they've already done it before and they're a bit more dissociated from it so that they don't feel as typed.

There's a whole range of tools around that.

In one of the sections that we teach.

And so moving forward, teaching these things, you've taught them both in like events as well as in person.

Right.

And so has it been, in your opinion, a hard process for you to develop this framework?

Was it something that's like you've gone through and you've changed it a quadrillion times and you've fought with yourself on what should be included in the framework?

And I can only imagine there's like, for me, I've been overwhelmed.

I've got all my books behind me.

You know, I point to those regularly as a.

Sometimes they could be an amazing thing and sometimes they can be an overwhelming thing.

You know, I've got so much information I can pull from.

How do you come up with your own framework?

Is it just through, through the experience, through the expertise, coaching?

Yes.

So the framework that I use, I really try to keep things really simple.

So there is so much information out there, there is so many tools and techniques, but you can identify the different pillars they all fit into.

So knowing these factors, you know, mindset, there's so many mindsets out there, but the two key ones are knowing that it's possible to change through the growth mindset and having full personal responsibility.

Those are the two.

If you can do both of those, it creates the most impact.

Knowing what's being clear, you need that part of it.

So it's going to have you give you the motivation, the unconscious stuff.

So there's just, there's just so many different.

All the information out there fits into these groups performing under pressure and then the holistic part, communication and relationship outside of the court, outside of the work environment.

You need to be great in that area too, so you can have a sustainable family life and great friendships and relationships.

And then the last one is structures and a system.

So with the structures and system it's like, you know, mindset's not, or skill set and mindset is not that important unless you have structure around it because especially now we have big tech, have the best psychologists in the world trying to distract us.

We need to have that routine in place.

So you need to design your environment and your accountability loops.

So all of these things are locked in place by something solid.

So I could have the best mindset in the world, but unless I have a routine that I am held accountable to, I'm still going to drift away from that.

So it's a really simple concept of this framework, but within each of them is a whole range of different tools you could take.

So I guess I have with all the study that I had done, degrees, different coaching, all the books, the patterns all indicate for me these different key pillars that they all fit into.

And often when I'm working with somebody, somebody calls me on a quick zoom call and they need help with the challenge this framework will.

I can coach them as a simple framework pretty much.

I really haven't had a problem that couldn't be solved with this framework or one of the aspects from this framework.

So for example, I had a call recently from the, a professional rugby player who was struggling with pressure.

So they were in a, they were in an overtime game and they were, they were, they got stage fright because that match was in overtime and they needed to score or the game was over.

So next time play stopped, the game was over.

And this was a key player, it was a, a fullback.

They were, you know, one of the most dynamic runners on the team, a key player.

That need were the ones that needed to have the ball in their hands to score the winning try.

And, but instead of this dynamic player being, stepping up, putting their hand up and trying to get involved and the player get their hands on the ball to break the line, they removed themselves, they hung back.

It was like a situation like that.

Each of these pillars in this coaching framework are important.

So I literally took them through each of these steps.

Okay, so what's your mindset?

Do you have a growth mindset?

Now, this isn't exactly how I coach them, but I'm just giving you an example how each piece of this framework works.

Growth mindset.

If they had a growth mindset, they would realize that there's no failure, only feedback.

So it's okay if you screw up growth mindset, you're just going to get better for it next time.

You're just going to get better at performing in these key moments.

Now, the next mindset.

Do you have responsibility and agency?

Because if you had responsibility and agency, you would accept that.

If you didn't break the line and you did make a mistake, that's okay.

So you need to work, we need to work on their living above the line, their responsibility and agency.

So it's the mindset piece at work, values.

Okay, I work with this person.

Were you living your values?

One of the values for this person was contribution and bravery or courage.

One of their values was courage that you weren't living your values of contribution and courage.

You weren't contributing to the community and you weren't living the value of courage.

So they need to be clear on what that was.

Understanding the concept of those hidden barriers, I go, okay, there are reasons out, a static reasons why I didn't do what I needed to do.

They needed to work on that piece of it.

Where are you at in your belief level?

Do you genuinely believe that you weren't the right person to put your hands on the wall at that time?

So then we needed to work on that area.

So, and then specific tools around performing under pressure to get into the right mental state.

So, okay, how do you get into the right mental state?

Did you do the prep before it?

Did you do, for example, some kind of a visualization where you prepared for these types of situations?

There's an amazing process called the movie theater technique that I take through with certain clients.

Emdr, beautiful technique, or another simple technique is creating your triggers.

So, okay, it's over time.

Once you're triggered, it's going to get you into peak state.

So that's that framework and then.

Yeah, so a simple example with that, each part of these pillars applies.

So there's, I haven't come across a problem yet, and I coach people every day that couldn't be solved from working through this framework.

Please.

Yes.

That makes a lot of sense.

I mean, from what I, what I'm hearing is like, yeah, I see it really all kind of coming together, especially with the aspect of having a coach at your side.

I think trying to do this by yourself would be incredibly, incredibly hard.

So, I mean, I have respect for you who seems like you've done a lot of it on your own, but having that clarity and motivation around your values, what is important to you then overcoming the limiting barriers or the hidden barriers, and then establishing some sort of accountability or systems to make sure that you're really taking those actions and prioritizing your behaviors in a way that supports those values and then understanding how to, like, communicate and have the relationships with people in your life, which I would assume would be some boundary setting as well, of like, hey, these are the things that I decided are important to me, and this is how I'm going to live my life.

And I need to communicate that respectfully to anybody in my, you know, surrounding environment to make sure that they understand why I'm living the way I'm living and how it's best for me.

But I clearly don't want to be selfish too much to the point where I'm, you know, disrespecting everybody.

But I do want to have those things in place.

And so to me, I mean, I, we already talked about this before, but I'm very interested in the aspect of accountability and having a system, you know, whether that's personal or with a coach.

You know, let's just say that there's no coach in the picture because I like to do that for the audience.

It's like imagining that they're at home and they want to hold themselves more accountable.

They want to have systems and structure to make sure that their behaviors are staying in line with what they think, at least that their values are.

You know, maybe they don't know for sure.

Maybe they haven't worked for the coach, but they think their values are a, b, and c.

And so they want to align their life and prioritize their life towards a, b, and c, and they want to hold themselves accountable to it.

Like, how do you help people maintain accountability.

As a coach?

It's easier because then I'll book in a weekly meeting, check in on them, someone without a coach.

I think you need people in your life that can hold you accountable to your structure.

So you need to prioritize what you need, what you want to do.

So schedule in, you know, probably daily exercise, you know, daily resistance training, daily cardio.

Doesn't have to be in a gym.

It could be anything.

You need to prioritize daily friendships and connection if that's what's important to you, or weekly.

You need to schedule that in.

You need to actually schedule in daily time with the people that are important to your family, family in your life.

You actually diarise, schedule that in.

You need to have any key things that you're working towards, specific goals scheduled in to your calendar.

So it's as simple as having a calendar and a checklist that someone holds you accountable to.

That person that holds you accountable could be a friend of yours or a brother or sister, and they are both supporting you but also holding you accountable.

They need to be on board with what you're trying to accomplish.

They need to understand that, you know, whatever the dynamic is, that they can't be too hard or too soft.

And that's a simple structure.

It's not rocket science having that structure, but you need to schedule in all of the things that are important to you.

So, for example, there's a rugby team that is really important for them to check in with each other.

So the relationships and the bonds of the team are important.

So they actually, it's not just training that they schedule in.

They schedule in their coffee meetings, coffee catch ups to talk about each other's families.

That's cool.

So, and also, you've got a.

You can structure in fun.

So this is where we have fun as a team.

We go into go to a stand up comedy night.

So you actually have to design it.

You actually have that structure in there based on what you want.

And so how do you think that you, being a prior athlete, having experiences playing on.

I know you did individual sports mostly.

I feel like tennis is pretty individual cross country, but rugby is a team sport.

So how would you say that you being a prior athlete has helped you to be a good mental performance coach?

Yeah, it has a lot because I experienced some pretty tough situations.

And, for example, I remember I was playing indoors in Nebraska in the jewel, in a duel match.

Whoever won my match, the team's gonna win.

My coach at the time said to me.

Cause I was battling it out in a close match against somebody that was pretty similar level to me, but I probably should have been beating.

I was probably slightly better.

So it was about three all in the first set.

And my coach said to me, if you don't come to the net on every single point, I'm taking the scholarship away.

So it was like, oh, my God, this is like, this is brutal.

So I've been in those situations where there's a lot of the high stakes, the expectations, scrutiny and consequences.

You know, I've been in a similar situation to that rugby player in an overtime match.

When you're the key player and you need to have the ball in your hands, but you're scared to do it.

Yeah.

And with endurance sports, which is a slightly different coaching thing that you need for endurance sports, and I also know that with my cross country background, I know what needs to be done with endurance sports as well.

So I've got quite a good mix of sports where you need to initiate movement, like a tennis serve versus sports where it's a ten game versus sports that are more endurance based because they all require slightly different tools.

So, yeah, I can, I definitely empathize with their situations, but to be fair, I don't think you necessarily need to have a background as a competitive athlete to be a great coach.

It can help, but I honestly don't think you need it.

So speaking on individual sports versus team sports, I think that's really cool.

Like, we kind of talked about that before as well, about how there's certain sports, like, let's say volleyball or tennis, where there's a lot of time between things to kind of second guess yourself.

Even like being up in the batter's box, you're about to bat, you know, there's a lot of time before you actually get that pitch or throw up that ball to hit the serve, you know, when you really kind of have chance to second guess yourself or get in your own way.

And so that, to me, is really interesting.

But also, like, how might your approach differ from something like that to like a team sport?

Like, what would be the major differences there?

I guess, yes.

So even within a team sport, there's different roles within a team.

So you have your kickers, you have your players that might be.

They don't have the roles where they need to initiate movement.

So it's really a case by case situation.

But I mean, they're all, all of the stuff is relevant.

Every tool that you do that we teach can be relevant for different situations.

Curious, too.

Then you, having done tennis and having done cross country, how might you approach a sport where there is a lot of time between initiating an action?

So you talked about specifically how it's important.

Mental skills are important for those types of sports.

And you even mentioned potentially having me come out and enter the world and specifically seeking out those types of sports as, you know, prime for mental performance coaching, you know, so, so how, how do you help people with those time barriers, the time between doing things to kind of get out of their own head?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's right.

Because when there's time to think about things, there's more time for you to get tight and you can't take it away by movement.

So there's more time to get the yips.

For example, you're standing over a green and you need to putt for a gold medal or you need to hit par on your last hole to win the gold medal, and you have to stand over there and execute a drive that's a lot harder than executing a drive on the first hole.

So similarly, if you are kicking a penalty kick or field goal or a kick in rugby, you have your own thoughts to deal with, whereas if you're just running a race, a long distance race, basically there has more the training that you have done prior, has more of an impact on the outcome, has a less of a mental component, it's a different mental component of.

It's more pushing through pain.

So can you push through focus to push through pain with those endurance events, whereas with the ones that you need to initiate a movement, it's more around calming the stress response, which we're using the stress response to your advantage.

So just a really simple tool that we use with that is the one with triggering.

So you have the structures around your routine.

You need to create a routine that gets you into a relaxed state that you do even when you are not nervous.

So when it becomes an automatic process to get you in that state when you're nervous, so that you can execute it in the same way, exactly the same routine, exactly the same functions, and you can have emotional triggers that help you stay relaxed whilst also accepting it and using these principles from the framework as well, just realizing it's going to be there and also modifying it accordingly.

So, for example, if you know in a certain moment that you are going to be tight, you might aim at a different spot in a situation where the match is on the line.

I typically get tight here, so I actually need to follow through a little bit more based on the feedback I'm getting in similar situations.

So just being.

Having that awareness.

So self awareness, routine instructors are really simple ways to help in those situations.

So an example of, like, a routine or a trigger, be like the free throw, you know, shooter bouncing the ball a couple times, the exact same way every single time.

Or a tennis player, player bouncing the ball, you know, so it's like this, is that something that's like, triggering them to a more calm response, something that they've done 100 times, 100 million times, who knows, you know?

Is that a good example?

Yeah, great example.

Yeah.

So, free throws, tennis serve, golf putt, kick it, goal, keep the routine the same, you know, and it's.

It's process orientated rather than outcome orientated.

So you're focusing intently on the routine rather than the outcome, because that obviously takes care of itself.

So let's take a specific example.

If it's tennis serve, bounce the ball, you might visualize the technique and visualize where it's going to go.

So I'm serving out white ace.

I can see that in my mind before I do it bounce or do my deep breaths.

Some people will even add in like an anchor or a trigger, for example.

They might look up and they might do a little smile so they get themselves in a really relaxed state.

I think there was an american basketball, female basketball player that did that to get herself really calm when she was in France for the gold medal.

She's calming herself, remembering that this is, you know, it's just a game.

In a relaxed state, often a rugby player will do it.

They'll smile at the goal post, visualize the path in which the ball is going to go.

Same amount of steps back each time.

There's their routine.

So the trigger there was the smile, which allowed them to find that emotional state, to execute the skill.

So, yeah, working with each specific person to figure out what works for them best and also what works for their technique best as well.

And knowing the triggers when they are getting tight and what their habits are when they are tight.

So where they can aim if they're more prone to hooking it, really tuning into that, staying down on the follow through, for example, in terms of like, aligning it with where your current weaknesses are.

So can I ask you about your business and kind of go back to now building your business from all these things?

You know, it's obviously you're very, very good at this stuff.

It's very cool and you love doing it, something that you want to do for a long time.

And so how did you go from starting a business and just kind of getting your foot in the door with this stuff to doing it at a high level, doing it with, you know, Olympic athletes and doing it with, you know, these high performers and stuff.

How did you go about building your business?

I guess, yeah, so I think for me personally, so I worked for ten years in corporate roles and enjoyed doing that.

And as I said, long term, this is what I always wanted to be doing.

So there are times where I really need to focus on my work because some of them were quite intensive, quite intensive roles.

So I prioritized that.

But towards the end of that, I also added in this career as a side hustle.

So that was for pragmatic and realism, realistic reasons.

I couldn't afford to go burn the boats and go all in because of my values of needing to accumulate those assets.

It's harder to get bank lending without the financial records over many years.

So being a pragmatist, I built it as a side hustle and started doing it with my tennis coaching clients that I would do in the weekends just for fun.

Started to see it pay off.

So I was just trialing these ideas, and then after that, I started to run small workshops, invite people in and say, okay, what's resonating?

What's not resonating?

Fine tuning my message.

And, you know, also back then, I was actually formulating what.

I actually have reduced it since then.

I had some stuff in there that I don't talk about now because it wasn't as relevant.

It was super interesting to me, but it didn't meet the need, and it wasn't applicable.

So back then, I was, like, talking about the evidence, the research, and the neuroscientist, the neuroscience.

It was like, wow, this is really cool stuff.

I was like, yeah, it's great, but only 20% of the audience is into that.

So, example, a wee while back, I went to a conference at a blue collar working event as a keynote speaker, was a coach, and she was.

She had the same problem as I had back then.

She gave the whole 50% of her talk on the neuroscience, all of these interesting ideas.

She was talking about the prefrontal cortex and the parasympic nervous system and breathing, what happens when you breathe and what it does to the stress response in a highly scientific way, which I found amazing.

The rest of the audience probably not so much, and she forgot to even link it back to how it was relevant to that audience, which was a blue collar company.

So that's a common trap.

When you're building a business, it needs to be very simple.

It needs to be relevant and needs to be applicable.

So I made all of those mistakes starting out.

It was awesome for me, but it didn't meet the need, and it was harder to apply to get results.

So I made those mistakes with those initial workshops, fine tuned the message, came up with the frameworks, and then slowly building that client base, selling the workshops for more money, and then you can build a business from it.

So, yeah, I think there's an interesting.

I might have told you.

I think Todd Herman's story was quite a cool story.

Yeah, he did it basically.

He went around 50 clubs and did 50 talks for free in changing rooms, and he talks about the whole.

He talks about something else, but what an awesome way to fine tune what you want to talk about to see what resonates.

And so you're doing these workshops in person?

Yeah, in person.

You know, my first workshops were, like, a few people, mainly family and friends.

So it's like a hotel, or was it like, where were you doing them?

Like a.

I think my first one was like a church and a library.

Wow.

Yes.

So it's not, it's.

But you know what?

That's cool.

That's fine by me because I understand.

I practice what I preach around growth mindset.

You know, where I was at then, it was where I was at then.

I wasn't at a level where I deserved to have more people.

I'm responsible for that.

I just needed to improve.

So part of the way I improved was also improving my speaking.

So I started to go and take a lot of courses in public speaking, starting with toastmasters and then paying money to do professional ones.

So you've got to, you've got to own where you're at and improve to get better.

And how did you realize that some of the stuff you were teaching was too logical and not necessarily like emotional enough or story based or practical and applicable?

I get.

Did someone tell you that?

Or was it just like you were starting to look at people that were successful versus people that weren't?

Like, how did you realize that?

I realized it.

I think I just started to simplify it because they don't need to know this, they need to know what's in it for them.

And I just really need.

It needs to be short, sharp, concise.

They need to know what's in it for them.

Unless you're a lecturer at a university.

Take all of that.

I could take it all out.

So I think it was a bit more of self awareness.

Also, I went to a session with another mental skills coach that gave me that advice to say, okay, the common trap for young, up and coming mental skills coaches is exactly what I see.

They're not simple, it's not relevant and it's not applicable.

So that's the key.

And so when you were working a normal job and taking clients on the side, you know, side hustling and you're starting to work these workshops, was it challenging to balance family life at the time?

I mean, I don't know if you had your kids yet, but you had a, had a girlfriend or a wife or whatever at the time.

Am I right?

Yeah, yeah, it is, it is, it is challenging.

But being clear, having that clarity once again, I'm linking it back to the course because I practice what I preach.

I knew it's what I valued, my family knew that what, that's what was important, so they supported me.

So whilst I was busier, there was a little bit more stress on myself and maybe I would, I would sacrifice a little bit of that because I knew that one of my values is growth and contribution.

So I'm clear on what motivates me, what I want to do.

So it allowed me to manage that process.

And I also had skill.

I also had to develop my skills around communication and relationships with my family life, too.

So how I communicated with my wife, you develop that skills as part of being a good coach.

You need to practice what you preach.

You need to be a good person with the family.

So it all applies.

It all made things.

It all made things more enjoyable.

That's good.

So we talked about.

We've talked about growth and agency a lot, and I kind of want to circle back to how to help someone develop growth mindset and how to help someone develop agency and that responsibility for themselves.

Or Chaka Willink would call it extreme ownership.

Yes.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

So, I mean, there's a theme in a lot of personal development books of agency.

You look at Jocko Willink, extreme ownership.

What does that mean?

That means agency.

You need to have full responsibility.

You're not making excuses about.

Amazing book.

Exactly.

He knows it.

That's his message.

That's his key message.

It's the one thing he says.

It's the main thing that Wayne Dyer says.

Excuses, be gone.

Don't make excuses for your life.

Where you're at now is where you are right now.

It's up to you to get better.

So there's all these themes around it.

You know, empowerment comes by taking responsibility.

It's a common key belief.

So, you know, off a lot of new personal development books are regurgitating that same message, that same principle.

So it comes a point when you, a young person, is ready for that message, where it sound, it kind of just clicks.

So there's not.

Most people won't have that many friends and family that's truly in their corner.

And I don't say that with any pride, but it's true.

At the end of the day, the only person that is gonna live your life the way that you want to live it is you.

So if somebody has a friend or family member that really backs them and believes in them, they keep hold on to that person.

So you got to watch people that are in your corner when you succeed, because those are the people that you want around.

But at the end of the day, there's very few of those people out there, truly out there.

So it really comes down.

It really comes down to the person.

And that is.

It's a little bit sad, that belief, but it's also hugely, and it's hugely empowering because it means that if you want to do it, it's up to you.

No one really cares about your excuses.

At the end of the day, no one really cares.

So you're either a victim or you're fully empowered.

And when you're fully empowered, it doesn't mean you're going to smash life and dominate and win and make a whole bunch of money and be really successful.

But it means that, hey, if you at least give it a go and you'll be okay with where you are, you accept it.

And then it gives you the confidence because you have that self acceptance to keep going and trying new things.

So agency is both a very can be crippling if you're not ready for it, but if you are ready for it and fully embody it, it almost makes you unstoppable because you know that everything that you do, you are responsible for.

So there's a, I don't fully believe this quote, but it's a very healthy quote to have.

It's not your fault if you're born poor, but it is your fault if you die poor.

So obviously there's a lot of social issues that go into that.

Trickle down, trickle down economics and systematic things like that.

That's true.

But it would be more powerful to somebody to have that belief that if it's not your fault if you are born poor, but it is your fault if you die poor, you have a lower starting point.

But hey, no one's going to help you be successful.

It's up to you.

And you know what?

If you want to change the system, it's up to you to do something about changing the system, too.

So have you ever had an athlete then, that perhaps great athlete, but total victim mindset, total blaming other people, blaming the refs, blaming the coach, blaming their parents, blaming whatever, and they're potentially not ready for that mindset.

Have you ever come up against that and like, what might you do?

I mean, sounds stressful to be like trying to convince someone that they're fully responsible for everything and they're just insistent that, no, they're not.

You know, it's this person's fault and it's this person's fault how much you address that.

Yeah, you know what?

And it doesn't make me very proud to say this.

I think a lot of people have this.

I certainly had this mindset growing up.

If I, as a young tennis player coming up, so many excuses.

Like if I, if I was coaching this me 20 years ago, I was like, what?

I wish I could coach me back then because I had it.

I had this mindset.

It's like it's too windy.

I don't think two players on the court, we both have exactly the same wind.

What ridiculous.

And you know what?

There's so many, even professionals out there complaining about the wind, complaining about the string tension, complaining about our line umpire call and letting it dwell on them being a victim to that instead of taking responsibility.

Rugby teams blaming the referee fans.

That's how I know if you listen to a fan, if a bad call happens, you know, if a fan has no agency and the rest of their life, as if they have that same mindset around their sports team.

So it was blaming and making excuses about their sports team.

They most likely have that same mindset about their own life.

So, for example, if you have a bad call in a sports game, yep, that could be a terrible call, right?

But what can you control with that?

You can control.

Did you talk to the referee clearly about your point of view, about why that was a bad call?

What could you have done to influence the referee?

Right?

There's things you could do.

Did you have these conversations?

Did you research the referee beforehand?

What their habits?

So there's things you can control.

And often even coaches after the game will blame decisions on the referee, complain about that as an offset for not taking accountability for their own performance, their own coaching performance.

So, yeah, it's really common, this kind of way of thinking about things.

How do you fix it?

Through evidence.

You need to tell them.

You need to explain things to them, explain the concept in great depth until they finally understand it and people come to it at different times.

You know, a young 18 year old might not be ready for it because they're bulletproof.

So teenagers.

Teenagers are harder to.

They already teenagers.

And I was the same, maybe not open to it might be because of biologically they aren't fully matured yet, but also they have a lot more confidence and they think they know everything.

So I'm just talking generally, some teenagers are really on.

Yeah, but I think that was a great answer because I actually, my last guest and two guests ago actually, he talked about how he kind of goes through with people on like, the controllables, you know, what.

What you're able to control and what you're not able to control.

And so it sounded to me like that's something that would be potentially helpful in a situation like this from what you just said was like, okay, the ref made a bad call.

Well, what's in your control and what's not in your control there?

You know, and maybe getting them to realize that more things are under their control than they may have realized and certain things that they're taking, you know, blame for whatever are out of their control, and you just need to let go of those things.

And so, like, providing evidence to them seems like a great place to go with that one.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

Yeah.

I think Stephen Kobe.

Kobe explained that really well in his book, the circle of control, the circle of influence.

And it's exactly what you just said.

You can only control certain things, be responsible for those.

You can't control it.

It's okay.

And so for.

Go ahead.

Sorry, I'm just going to say in the same approach that I have to growth mindset as well.

Yes.

How do you explain growth mindset is.

Okay, here's growth mindset.

Why don't you have a growth mindset now?

It's not as simple as that.

You need to provide comprehensive evidence for growth mindset.

So you're almost kind of like a socratic method to disprove the theory of having a fixed mindset and that someone's skills are genetic.

So the opposite of a growth mindset is that someone's complex skills are predetermined by the.

They're hereditary, they're genetically predetermined by their family.

So if you are an amazing tennis player, it's because your family were great at tennis, or if you're amazing golf player, it's because you were born into it.

Your family has the gene for golf or basketball or whatever it is.

So, you know, a lot of people still have, you know, unconsciously still sort of believe this sort of stuff.

It's like, oh, I'm not a public speaker.

My family's never good at public speaking, or I'm not an artist or whatever it is.

Our family's not good at maths.

So, yeah, it's out there.

It's in our society.

For example, some people used to think that women weren't worthy because they basically were intelligent enough to vote, make it.

Make a form, informed decision to vote in an election.

Same thing with African Americans.

People thought they can't.

They're not allowed to vote.

They can't have the same rights.

Why would you not be able to do that?

Because people had a fixed view about what they were capable of.

So this is a fixed mindset, and it's not that long ago people thought that way, and it's still there today.

We're only a few generations on, so you need to provide evidence.

It was like a fixed mindset is not accurate.

So I've got a lot of ways that I explain it, but let's say it's a football player that wants to improve their football.

You could show them some amazing five year old in Brazil, right?

And this brazilian kidde, the favela, can bounce the ball, juggle the ball on his feet and his shoulders and his head and his knees, like a hundred times in a row.

He's five years old.

So, earlier on, in my culture, growing up, it's like, oh, man, you're so talented.

What, this.

This kid, you're so talented.

You got a real gift for football.

I've worked now with hundreds of children, and I can say I've never coached a talented or gifted child.

So, for example, at tennis, I've never seen a natural born tennis player, because the children that come to me for tennis lessons or came to me for tennis lessons, what I used to think, or someone used to call their real talented at tennis, they just had a different upbringing up until that age of five or six.

And so often, like, the rural kids or the kids that have more space outside or the kids that might have done a completely different sport and just had a higher level of coordination, motor coordination and proprioception.

So because they've done reps, even just through play, they might have a farm where they kick the ball around and throw balls and throw stones into a water trough.

That kid coming to a tennis lesson with me at five years old versus some other.

Another kid that's only played video games, it would be easy.

And this is what society sees.

It's like, well, Jimmy's so talented at tennis, and old Tom over here, who's the video game kid, he's so uncoordinated.

It's like, oh, I'm obviously not talented at Tinas.

So what happens is, with this language, this kid keeps playing, he gets confidence, and confidence from it.

It's just, it's an ongoing spiral that accelerates.

And this kid never does sport again.

So.

So this is the influence of not nailing growth mindset.

Like, it's out there, like that's out there in the workplace.

For example, leadership.

You are a natural born leader.

I don't.

I've never really seen a natural born leader, but people think that some people are talented for leadership.

Leadership is a skill.

Anyone can develop leadership.

You can develop your ability to communicate with others.

You can upskill your knowledge around the issues, develop your ability to build rapport ability, the skill of think systematically.

These are skills.

Another example that disproves growth mindset is golf.

So, for example, not long ago, there was, I think 70% of the top female golfers in the world were from South Korea.

So most people would think, are these South Koreans, they've obviously just got their talent, natural gift for golf.

So people actually generally thought that.

But if you actually look, it's a cultural thing.

They start earlier, so they specialize earlier, which has its own issues, specializing earlier.

But it allows them to produce unbelievable golfers, and they have a whole training academy around it.

That's why they produce so many amazing golfers.

So if you think that, if you think that 70% of the top female golfers in the world is because they have a special gene for golf, that there will be somebody that would be hard to convince in the growth mindset, and to be fair, I wouldn't necessarily try too hard.

People will come to accept it.

Your job is not to.

My job is not to change every single person.

People will come to it in their own, in their own way.

But if you look around, if you just look around at the evidence out there is pretty overwhelming.

The cultural, environmental factors that produce, that produce somebody's skill.

And I think one of the valid reasons why people don't have a growth mindset is because they will look at physical characteristics.

So they'll say, yeah, well, how come you're not in the Olympics if you don't have a growth mindset?

How come you didn't win the hundred meters?

I say, well, growth mindset is not going to allow me to do track and field at the Olympics because there is a huge degree of phenotypic characteristics involved in that, which is genetic characteristics.

How are you fast twitch, your height, your speed?

These things are fixed, relatively fixed.

So this is largely a physical skill, though.

So when we're talking about growth mindsets, we're talking about learning and improving and developing complex skills.

We're not talking about changing physical characteristics.

That's why I don't play in the NBA, because I'm not over six foot five.

Yeah, well, actually, somebody that's shorter could still play if they develop these skills.

But I'm not going to be as good as LeBron James in the middle of the basketball court.

Yeah, he is a bigger body.

But the complex part of that is if I need a full growth mindset, is that I could easily, if I trained back in the day and developed those skills over time, no reason I can't shoot better than LeBron.

There's a complex skill, there's no reason I couldn't have developed my handles better.

So pointing out the difference between the bits that you can change, which is complex tasks and physical tasks.

So if you apply it to a tennis.

I have limitations on my tennis.

I am not going to be able to serve as consistently as a really tall player because it's simple physics and simple geometry.

They have more height and more angle geometrically to get that ball in the court.

So they want to serve at a higher serving percentage.

They have longer levers to get more angular velocity on the ball.

Yeah, that there is fixed, but what about the parts that aren't?

How you apply yourself to learn the technique, how you apply yourself to the details of training through deliberate practice, that's not fixed.

So point out the studies.

Carol Dweck, in her book, who actually coined the germ growth mindset, talks about it really well.

You probably know the story around the math study children.

So there was two control groups.

One group of children were told that, well, they did a first test and they did a mast test.

There was a control group, and then there was the group at the other group.

So what she said was, to this group of kids after they did the maths test, they were praised for intelligence.

Well, you guys are so smart.

You are super, super duper smart.

No wonder you did well on that math test.

The other group were praised, wow, I love the effort you put in and the perseverance you put in to that mass test.

So they got different feedback.

Now, the key bit that both groups were taken to do a second mass test, which was almost impossible that they couldn't complete.

So the group that was a praise for intelligence, they ended up giving up very quickly because this test was quite hard.

And the group was praised for effort.

They developed the disposition that something could be developed, something through effort.

So they pushed, they tried, they had a growth mindset.

The group that was praised for intelligence and thought they were awesome and talented, they were like, well, if I can't do it, it obviously means that that has exceeded my ability of talent.

And actually, that's a good point, because look at the name of your podcast.

Evolving potential.

You're, you're evolving your potential.

You're not, you don't have a fixed potential.

It doesn't say fixed potential.

That says evolving potential.

So the word potential, I just love that you can evolve it.

You can, you can grow it.

Yeah.

And, yeah, and I love thinking about it, both on an individual level as well as a societal level, you know, which I know that you're going to be familiar with the story of Sir Edmund Hillary, you know, climbing Mount Everest and so hits home for you.

And, like, just things like that where it's like, once we know it's possible, once we know it's possible as a species, as a human, all of a sudden, all these other people can do it, you know, the four minute mile, you know, Roger Bannister, it's like understanding.

Like, okay, well, if he can do it, then I can do it.

And that is, to me, that is like, the typical evolving potential is.

Yeah.

How do we get more people to understand that they're capable of more, you know?

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

So with your work as a sociologist, you really appreciate that.

And that's a great point, because at the end of the day, what do we coach for?

Right?

We're there to help people be the best that they can be.

And why do we want to do that?

Because we want to make the world a better place.

So if somebody that we coach can go on and change the world for a better place or make their family a better place, that's awesome.

Oh, yeah.

So I want to talk about two more things I'm curious about.

Since we're on the topic of growth mindset.

It seems like a perfect segue into the books that you and your wife wrote, because I feel like that's probably a thematic occurrence in those books, and then also any sort of future goals or plan for the mental skills institute and where that's going.

So we'll start with the books.

You have this idea to write books with your wife and just go from there?

Yeah.

So didn't plan to write the books, but I think it was around.

Having kids is such an amazing thing.

So being a coach, it's like, man, I really need to give them the best chances as possible and help them have the best mindset as possible or create culture and environments in our house where we have certain ideas and attitudes and beliefs.

So I thought children's books are really powerful because we ended up.

We read quite a few books that we weren't really resonating with the messages.

It was a little bit outdated.

Some of the stuff was like, witches and monsters and good and evil was like, okay, well, knowing that, you know, those first years are very important, we need to put some good stuff in there.

So took the ball by the bull, by the horns, and started writing our own books.

So I thought, okay, we need to have a few different themes in there, not just one theme.

So we kind of had a bit of a.

We had sort of two skills around agency, resilience, and then two skills around, like, sort of theory of mind and perspective taking to round them out so they could understand all of that sort of stuff.

So the first book that we wrote, it was called learn in ancient power.

And this story is really about theory of mind.

Knowing that in theory of mind is understanding what somebody else is thinking is different to what somebody else, other person is thinking.

That's really what theory of mind is, knowing that your model of reality is different to somebody else.

So it really helps with relationships, even in the schoolyard.

So I think that was best described in Plato's allegory of the cave, the greek philosopher Plato.

So I would encourage anyone just to read that because it's really, really quite a powerful story, but just quickly summarize it.

So what happens is you have these prisoners trapped in a cave.

They've been in the cave their whole life.

So that's the only reality that they know inside of this cave.

But then one day, one of them somehow gets out of the cave and sees this whole reality outside.

So they see the real world.

Sun, trees, animals, whole new experience, cities and towns.

So this person outside of the caves goes back into the cave and explains it to his other two prisoners, and they have.

They end up killing them because they don't believe what his reality.

They think he's lost his mind.

So what that is, is a really good allegory metaphor for what we all happen in our day to day lives.

We have different experiences that's really different from somebody else.

So it's quite a profound thing.

And helping children through that, what somebody else might be feeling or thinking is different from yourself is quite a cool thing.

And just on that, wouldn't that be great with election season coming up in America right now, instead of just, like, ridiculous sort of talking at each other?

And it's just assuming that nobody else has any validity in their ideas.

There's only one true way to think, and the others are wrong, whether you're red or blue.

That's the.

That's how your culture right now is structured.

And to be fair, a lot of other cultures they have, they don't address this simple concept of theory of mind.

And it's, you're not going.

America's not going down a good path because of it.

So anyway, that's a side note.

The second book is on the agency, believe it or not, because you know that I'm passionate about agency and.

Yeah, so basically, it's quite a fun story.

It's about these kids trying to climb this mountain, Ted and Tilly, brother and sister.

And the first group of people all fail for different reasons and make excuses of why they did it.

You know, fun kid wade stone issue, all these sort of reasons, making excuses, not being accountable, why they could make it to the top or not overcoming these challenges.

And then protagonists in the story, Ted and Tilly, they have responsibility, and when they get to the challenge, they overcome it through problem solving and they reach the top.

So that's about responsibility of climbing the mountain.

And it's got a second message in that story as well, which is when they did get to the top, it wasn't about success and awards and prizes.

It was about.

Okay, I'm actually feeling really intrinsically proud of what I've done.

So there's two messages in that one.

The next book is about managing your emotional state, which is very challenging for adults, let alone kids.

And that's a cool story about how there's children that they're building a hut in a forest, doing free play out in nature, and then something really terrible happens.

The hut gets broken.

And managing their emotional state with some quite cool tools, and then they are able to rebuild the hut.

So all of these stories, by the way, they're not done in, like, personal development logical ways.

They're in a fun, rhyming narrative so that it's.

That's sort of user friendly for kids and families.

And the last book is about emotional intelligence, understanding that every behavior originates from a positive intention.

So that basically is about empathy and curiosity, helping somebody develop more of a flexible way of thinking about things.

So, yeah, it rounds out the set, having that agency and resilience, well, as having a really flexible and greater perspective taking.

And those are four things that are really important to us.

If I was to write a fourth book for kids, it would be a story around growth mindset, but, yeah.

And so how old are your kids now?

Seven and five birthdays are coming up, and they're.

They're on a countdown.

One's 60 days out for his birthday, and one's 18 days.

They're counting them down.

So.

Oh, wow.

Pretty close.

And so do your kids.

Love these books.

Proud of you guys.

You know what?

They.

It's quite interesting, actually.

They understand the concepts.

They really do understand the concepts because, you know, like, there's an argument for saying that, you know, young kids aren't ready for these types of messages or, you know, my my kids can articulate and explain to the messages that even, like, when they were four, like, they could.

They could sell the book to a stranger.

Thanks.

They could almost say exactly what I just said.

They understand it.

And it helps them have, you know, positive relationships at school.

That's crazy.

That's crazy.

That's so cool.

I love the fact that you guys have done that.

And do you, do you have a plan to write more currently or is that kind of just taking it, going with the flow and seeing what happens?

It's not currently because I think for now I'm really focused on building the mutual skills Institute, building that business books take a wee while, not necessarily the writing phase, but also the publishing and the sales phase.

You don't make a lot of money from books.

We mainly did that for, for, you know, growth experience and a lending experience.

You, unless you are on, you know, all Barnes and noble, you aren't really going to get rich from selling books.

But I wouldn't rule it out.

I mean, but it's not right.

It's not right now.

And so that's perfect segue then, as well.

So what do you see?

What are you trying to accomplish with mental skills institute?

What are some, some goals you have, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So with the mental skills Institute, we have a few different parts to it.

So we have bits where we do corporate coaching and help businesses basically create a culture of success and growth.

So that's, that's a.

I love doing that work where we help, we help the team.

We coach the team with some of the principals from our pillars and then allow them to be open to having feedback from each other.

So when they have feedback from each other, then we then coach them on an individual level, but then we just pass it back on to themselves so they can integrate their own culture themselves.

So it's improving their own culture from inside out.

They drive it.

So we love doing that sort of work.

But another big focus for us now is our online course.

So we have online courses on the mental skills institute and we are marketing and selling them and we're in the process of building more courses.

So our first course is a mental skills coaching course.

So it's really for leaders and managers and coaches or any professionals that are wanting to level themselves up mental performance, because most managers or coaches really know the strategies and the techniques.

This will give them a whole bunch of new information that's missing and it will add to their skill set.

They'll make them more, more valuable, a more influential coach.

They'll help them progress their career and make a bigger difference.

But we're also going to layer in more courses as well.

So there's a lot more courses that we're currently building and we're also potentially looking to bring in some other coaches onto the platform as well, that we'll go to have courses in a different aspect of coaching.

So that's.

That's our huge focus for the next couple of years.

That's crazy.

And so you're.

Are.

You're doing this full time, then you're able to support.

That's.

That's awesome.

See?

That's awesome.

It's awesome.

You made the transition.

Okay, so now I'm curious.

Last question here.

If anybody is getting interested in mental skills coaching or if anybody listening is interested in kind of dipping their foot in this information, you've listed some books here already.

What might be some books or resources or specific areas of research where you think would be really lucrative for someone to kind of get interested in this stuff or to learn more about this stuff?

Well, I think without being self promoting, I think our checking out the Mental skills institute, we have it quite in a simple way that we can sort of simplify all of the key themes around what we've just spoken about.

But other than that, that's a great question.

There's so many incredible books out there.

I think psycho cybernetics will help you with the cybernetic side of things.

I think understanding around agency, you know, excuses be gone by Wayne Dyer or Jocko Willink's one you mentioned was really, really great.

What's the jocko willink one called again?

Extreme ownership.

Extreme ownership.

Beautiful book.

And then around growth mindset, this I would.

The book I'd recommend for that one is peak by Anders Ericsson.

That would be the top one.

Other than that, another really good one is bounce by Matthew Syed on growth mindset.

And of course, Carol Dweck's mindset.

Incredible book.

The book on barriers and beliefs.

I really like the book Magic of thinking big by David Schwartz.

Yeah, great book.

And also psycho cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz.

Incredible.

Now performing under pressure.

There's a lot of good books.

Once again, I recommend our course, but I think there's actually a really cool New Zealand guy.

His name is Kerry Evans.

He synchronizes it quite well.

He has a book, I think it's called perform under pressure.

Kerry Evans.

He's a trained psychiatrist and he writes.

He has a model called Red and Blue Brain, which is basically the logical mind and the emotional mind, and finding the balance between that.

So that's a nice book around performing under pressure.

And he has a different tool that he uses, a red blue tool.

What else?

And then you have communication and relationships, I think.

I think upskill in those areas.

I think some of the stuff that we talk about is really cool in communication and relationships.

But I also recommend getting out there yourself, training and speaking toastmasters.

Upskilling.

Don't be afraid to go to some sort of couples group to leverage off each other to make each other better.

Those would be, those would be some of the books that I would recommend, I think for it.

For a mutual skills coach starting out but consume information, take on.

You can take a note that's perfect and apply it.

That's a great, that was a great answer and I'm glad.

I'm always happy when someone throws in one I haven't heard of because I haven't heard of this Kerry Evans guy.

So I'll have to look that up when we, we get off this call because I'm always curious about new information, you know, different ways people explain things, finding, you know, new and exciting things to help people understand this stuff better.

Yeah.

So where can they find you?

Tag your instagram, tag your website, anything that can help people to find you if they want to work with you, if they're interested in your courses, if they're interested in finding of your content.

Where can they find you?

I would just search me on LinkedIn or Facebook.

My name is Wilson Atkins, obviously, or the mental skill Skills Institute.

So yeah, even if you have questions, we don't.

We're happy to give out information or ideas for free, but if you want to work with us, that's okay.

But we don't expect anything from it.

We love doing this.

We're the right fit or not.

That's okay as well.

So yeah, I encourage anyone that's curious just to get in contact and start a conversation.

Okay, perfect.

Hey, man.

Well, thank you, Wilton, for being on the show.

It's been awesome.

We clearly could have talked so much more.

You have so much information to deliver.

You know, we've already had a conversation prior that was like over an hour.

That was super jam packed full of stuff as well.

So I'm always impressed with you and your work.

Very awesome.

Very grateful for having you on the show.

Very grateful for everybody watching the show.

So thank you for being here.

No, no, I really appreciate what you're doing is, well, Todd and I really admire your, your depth and breadth of knowledge as well.

Really insightful questions.

I think you're doing a great job and some of the best that you've had.

Really, really interesting to listen to.

So actually listen to a few of your episodes and some really great stuff out there.

Actually, recently I was listening to the one that was helping mental skills around, using technology to help people perform under pressure.

So there's really cool stuff on the podcast.

So keep up your great work and all the best.

Thank you very much, weldon.

You take care, man.

You too.

See ya.