Overcoming Fear and Playing Fearless with Dr. Jay Cavanaugh

[00:00:00] John Boruk: Hello again and welcome into the podcast that deals directly with the challenges of youth sports and how we can improve the overall experience for everybody involved. Thanks for being with us. If this is your first time, thanks for joining us. Thanks for checking us out. 

If you're a returning listener, we're glad you're back and hopefully you'll, you've found it somewhat informative. Our current episode with longtime NHL scout, Lou Mongelluzzo is currently up and running. If you have a son or daughter currently playing the game of hockey at the youth level, I urge you to give that one a listen. So many good little nuggets and bits of information with Lou, who has been involved in NHL scouting for over 30 years.

However, I'm equally excited to welcome in this week's guest. He's a mental performance coach for professional athletes. His client list of pro athletes includes get this motocross and Supercross athletes, and he's now working with golf and tennis players. He preaches building your mental toughness in so many different aspects of the mental game.

Through a website behind the Best and his weekly newsletter [00:01:00] called The Beast, which we will get into as well. Dr. Jay Kavanaugh, welcome to Raising a Champion. When did you realize that professional motocross and Supercross athletes actually needed a mindset coach?

[00:01:13] Dr. Jay Cavanaugh: Yeah. That's a great question.

So thanks for having me on, by the way. Yeah, absolutely. The first time I noticed it was, just the narratives and the self-talk. It is. It's a combination of being completely shocked at what people say, but also hearing the opportunities have that people have to improve, right?

So for example, guy gets off a track. Didn't have the performance he was looking for. Listening to how he processes that is as simple as just opening your ears, listening and hearing what he's saying because you know that the way that he's speaking is going to speak to his beliefs. It's gonna reveal a little bit of his values.

It's also gonna reveal the meaning and importance places [00:02:00] on things. He or she. And so you start to realize very quickly just by listening to people the narrative and conversation they have with themselves after let's say a failure. Cuz obviously we know what the conversation's gonna be like if you do well.

Oh my God, that was the best race ever. . But not enough people put emphasis on narratives and then knowing what is the. and what's feeding the narrative, right? What feeds the words that you say, so it's really interesting. 

[00:02:31] John Boruk: Yeah. And that leads me into, because when I watch some of the, these Supercross events, you have to have a level of crazy to you.

There’s not, everybody is cut from the same mental cloth that competes in these events. You have to have a fearless aspect, a fearless mindset to you that I would say 90% of the people out there they don't possess. So overcoming fears has to be a main element of what you try to in [00:03:00] instill in athletes or that they have to have it and if there's if it even remotely waivers, they really aren't in the, really the mindset to compete.

Am I correct? 

[00:03:11] Dr. Jay Cavanaugh: Oh, absolutely. And if you become an expert in fear, fear management as an athlete, whether it's in motor sports, golf, tennis, who knows, professional chess, . You start to realize that a lot of the mistakes we make are fear-based. And so one thing that I think a lot of people are surprised by is how many fears there actually are. We've got fear of other people's opinions, right? We call that faux pas. We have fear of rejection, fear of failure. Fear of disappointing your parents. That's a big one with student athletes. I work with some student athletes as well, and they are always looking for the validation from their mother or their father, and [00:04:00] that fear of not living up to the expectations they have can very much be paralyzing for them.

And there's many other fears as well. But what's, here's what's really interesting about John is if you look at all the. And Oh, fear of failure. Of course. I forgot the, probably the, one of the biggest. 

[00:04:17] John Boruk: You, you could, yeah. And you can all, you can also, I think, throw in there the fear of success and the sense that sometimes that thinking about getting to that, level and achieving that goal can be somewhat paralyzing.

So I, I think that, because. Because I, everything that I've read that, that especially certain athletes don't know where to go once you get there. But anyway, go ahead. 

[00:04:46] Dr. Jay Cavanaugh: Don't forget so to your point I love that you brought this up cause I've never actually thought about it, to be honest with you.

So I like being challenged. The fear of success is interesting because if you really think about it, and I'm just thinking of this on the fly, if you [00:05:00] get to the point, where I've succeeded. Now what I've basically done is I've raised the barrier, I've raised the threshold. Now I have further I can fall, right?

So I may can't, maybe my ability to grow may have been shrunk a little bit cuz I'm at, let's say the top or near the top at that point for the success. But, I can fall further. And so there's also an expectation that I now put on myself in that I perceive others to place on me. And so expectations are huge because you come up short of an expectation, you immediately have an emotional reaction.

And that's why, one thing for people listening, especially there's parents listening or coaches, one of the things that I absolutely love, and then we'll go back to fear, because I wanna cover what you just brought up. Cause I think it's a really great subject. if you, everyone says goals, right?

Gotta have goals. Gotta have goals. I don't use goals. I used to. They're fun. [00:06:00] But here's the thing with goals. Black or white, I wanna weigh, 220 pounds by April 15th. Okay. I either win or I lose. But here's the thing. What if I'm 260, I lose all this weight and instead of getting to 220, which is my goal, you know what John?

I lost all the weight, but guess what? I failed. You say, oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Oh, don't be too sorry cuz I got down to 221. I got to 2 21, but by definition that goal was black and white. You get to 220, that's it. So it's considered a failure for many, right? Cause you didn't hit the goal.

But yet, if you have a target, the concept to me of a target is a little bit different. So let's say for example, imagine you have a bullseye, right? And so you're aiming for the bullseye of that target. Now, obviously you wanna get, let's say they're darts, right? You're throwing darts. You wanna get each dart inside the bullseye.

Let's say round one, you start. [00:07:00] and one. If you've ever played darts before, you're, the first one or two is gonna end up in the wall, not even on the actual target anywhere. It's gonna end up in the wall. So definitely that's always a fun one. But then let's assume that most of, there was a pattern to each of, let's say, five darts you through and none of them were near the bullseye, but as you got better and you improved and neither you worked on your focus, your release, right? You found these small little 1% gains as the night went on. Now all of a sudden you realize that hey your target was to get as many as you could in the bullseye. You never hit the bullseye, but boy, look at where you were and look where you are now.

So it's a lot more open-ended and it's adjustable and it can be adjusted even in real time. You can have a different target. And so it's it's something that can move and have a little bit more flexibility and a little less of that black and white. And so that's just something I personally use with the athletes I work with.

And it seems to work. [00:08:00] 

[00:08:00] John Boruk: Yeah, it's that gray area. And I wanna elaborate though, because we were talking about fear, and that's something that, that you do emphasize. So how would you speak to a younger athlete? And I can relate to my own experience because I played Texas high school football and as a sophomore, I wasn't very comfortable in, in the engagement part and in the tackling and the physical part.

And it wasn't until later in my junior season, and then certainly as I became a senior that I really grew into it. And I don't know what clicked. I don't know what, where my mind space was able to flip that switch, but it did. So how would you speak to a young athlete playing football for the first time?

You look at some of these other sports lacrosse, very physical sport hockey, once they start checking at the age of 13 and 14, where you know before you're just bumping now. You have to anticipate hitting and checking, and that's where that fear factor can come to ball. And even gymnasts, right?

Learning to fly through the air, [00:09:00] knowing that if you don't execute it, you don't execute on the balance beam. You could land on your head, or it could be a very catastrophic result. So how do you talk to a young athlete when it comes to overcoming that fear.

[00:09:14] Dr. Jay Cavanaugh: Sure. I love it. The first thing is here's the one thing that all fears point back to, and this is where you want to go with it.

You can ma, you can show that every, one of all the fears I mentioned earlier all point back to one. And that fear is the fear of the right? And so what we're really fearing is this uncertainty, this unfamiliar unfamiliarity, this unpredictability us not knowing how things are gonna go. And that's also part of what causes performance, anxiety, stress, even the stress in general for all of us.

Geez, they I don't know what tomorrow's gonna bring, like we're having layoffs at work. What's gonna happen tomorrow? It's always [00:10:00] seems to be the fear of the unknown. , that's one thing. And then what you wanna do with the fear of the unknown is very simple. You wanna come up with strategies to make the unknown become known.

And so one of the ways to do that is you first, you wanna lean into it, right? And so what people, the analogy I like to use, especially with kids, is I, or student athletes I say to them, I say, imagine that if you lean into a. it will shrink cuz it's afraid of you. However, if you run from a fear, it will feel confident and it will grow, right?

People love these visuals and so the longer and further you run from a fear, the bigger it gets, the more it weighs on you, right? And so you lean into it. Now when you lean into it, here's an interesting thing that you'll notice is…let's say for example, your fear is hitting. We actually had this conversation [00:11:00] recent recently with someone.

I said, what was your fear, Jack? So Jack said his most recent fear was that he was going to crash off of this jump. Because it was windy. Said, okay, yep. That was a fear. And he said, I wrote so tight, my nerves were on edge. I said, okay. I said, how many laps did you do in the session that you had this fear?

And he is I wrote probably for 20 minutes, so maybe 15 laps. I said, okay. And so we leaned into it and I said, out of the 15 laps that you did, how many of. Did the fear actually prove to be legitimate, true and real? And I said, in other words, how many times was it sketchy? How many times did you crash?

And he goes honestly only one of the times like I felt the wind a little bit, now that I think about it. . Yeah. I think just one time I'm like, so you mean to [00:12:00] tell me 15 times? And then one, you focus. So what you start to realize, and you'll see this pattern happen time and time again.

When you lean into it and you ask someone to really identify the difference between what their perception of what this fear was, in the reality of it, you, they start to become surprised because they're like, oh, wow, you, like I was fearing something that actually had a very low likelihood of happening, and even worse, I'm already through it.

It never actually did happen. And then they start to realize how foolish that is. Now that brings them to a very powerful place because now at this point, they start to realize that fear is an illusion. We always hear the same, fear is fear, false evidence appearing real, but I like to consider it like an illusion.

And so the more you lean into it, the more you resolve it, and it's a powerful exercise. So that's one way to go for sure.  

[00:12:51] John Boruk: But when you talk about fear and you really brought up, I thought a very good point in the first part of that description was [00:13:00] when you get into fear is when you start thinking and going into depth about the consequences.

Is if I'm at, if I'm at the plate and I have a chance to, we're down a run, but I got a chance to win the game with a bass. The co what are the consequences if I don't do that? Who's, what's the conversation gonna be like in the car ride home? What is how are my teammates gonna look at me?

And I think a big part of what you do, and when I was reading throughout your newsletter, and this is really hard, I think young athletes can do this. I think as you get older is this starts creep in is to live in the moment. To really narrow that window as small as possible, right?

Where the past doesn't creep in, where you're past failures, you're thinking about that. And then what the future's gonna be is if the failure actually does happen, what are gonna be the consequences? And so talk about that, how [00:14:00] you really have to, to square. And live in that mental moment. 

[00:14:04] Dr. Jay Cavanaugh: Sure. And I'm gonna answer that question, but guess what, I'm gonna put you in the hot seat for a second. So play along with me on this. All right? You said, unless I heard you wrong, that it's harder as you get older to be in the moment. Is that what you said? 

[00:14:18] John Boruk: That was my experience. And as I as I have kids that kind of go through that because when you're just a you're just playing, right? You're just out there and you're kicking, you're doing that. That's my experience. But is that not always the case? 

[00:14:33] Dr. Jay Cavanaugh: What I'm wondering, is it true? Is what you said truly, a fact? Here's what's interesting is think about how easy, I'll bet you anyone listening to this right now, it was so easy to buy into your narrative, right?

Yeah. And for you. I'm not denying your narrative. You said, ‘Hey, as you get older, it's harder to be in the moment. What's interesting, and this is just a side note before I respond to your original question, is, [00:15:00] think about how many narratives we buy into, world's coming to an end.

All the banks are gonna go out. Yeah. Once you hear something, it is, and it's almost there's this instinctual, deep-seated neanderthal desire we have, or maybe not even desire, but a need that we maybe no longer need in modern times, but back in the day, if you had a belief that we should travel north, because that's where the food was.

I better be on board with your belief and your narrative because if not, I'm gonna want to take half the tribe south. You wanna take half the tribe north? Now we get a problem cuz now we just split resources. So what you start to realize as a side note, is that narratives are very easy to buy into. But what's interesting is challenge your narratives because they're so easy.

They go under your radar. Like just now when you said, hey, as you get older, it's harder to be in the present moment if you really think about how easy it really is to be in the present. It's actually probably one of the most easy things you [00:16:00] can do. Modern society would completely disagree with me.

If we were taking a poll right now, you would smoke me. You'd have 90% would agree with you, may. And if, and maybe 10% would agree with me, actually I'd say it'd less so 

[00:16:15] John Boruk: If we take it right. Yeah. If we take it from a personal standpoint, we all go to work. And I think at some point what, whatever happens through the ebbs and flows market conditions and job layoffs and.

You, you start to think, okay some point, maybe I'll lose my job. If you lose your job in your twenties, it's pretty easy to bounce back. You're probably not making all that much money. My guess is you probably don't have a family, so you don't have other mouths to feed as opposed to being in your forties and fifties.

So now those thoughts really start to take off and they start to run off. And I'll give you another example. back in, when I was working in Nashville, five and a half years, I covered like you I actually covered motor sports and nascar, and [00:17:00] I was in Indianapolis Motor Speedway when Darryl Waltrip announced his retirement and of all the things that Oh, wow.

Yeah. Of all the things that he said. During his retirement speech, the one thing that stood out was why as motor sports athletes aren't as competitive in their forties and fifties as they are in their twenties and thirties, is because the fearlessness isn't at the level as it was when they're young because they now, their mortality starts to creep in.

And then as they're going around turn three. They're not flooring the gas quite like they did when they're in their twenties and thirties, because guess what? Now they're thinking they've got kids and now maybe grandkids are on the way. This is what he said. And so it really resonated with me how the mental approach, because you think, okay, if you're driving a car at the age of 50, how come you can't do it at the age of 50 as well as you could do at the age of 20?

And the Jimmy Johnsons and everybody who's competed in that level, how they hit that, and then it starts to [00:18:00] go, then they go down the twilight to me that really resonated as you get older. The different things that start to creep in.

[00:18:11] Dr. Jay Cavanaugh: Yeah. And what's interesting about that example is what came first did the belief that he is approaching an age and did the narratives of the 17 interviews he was a part of in the month or two prior to that, where everyone said, wow, Darryl, you said it was Daryl, right? Yeah. Darryl Waltrip. Yep. Yeah.

So Darrell was probably interviewed, who knows? For years, Darryl was pushed, a narrative was pushed on him of, wow, Daryl, you're, you're getting to an age now where you're thinking about wrapping up your career. What are your thoughts? Next question. You hear it with athletes all the time.

They are drilled with the same question from a different person time and time again. And so they have these narratives forced on them. So you start to wonder, in my eyes, cuz I always like to [00:19:00] challenge these things. what came first? That he adopted from others that you know what?

Yeah. Maybe it is. Maybe it is time. I slow down. Just like a teenager, right? Think about it. The worst thing I feel that we do with teenage athletes, or teenagers in general, I should say, is we shame them for their imagination at a certain point. So think about it. It's the greatest gift we have.

It's the only thing that we have that other species don't, right? The only thing is the human imagination. So it's one of the greatest gifts we have and there's so much power to it. We still haven't even tapped into it. However, if I'm a nine year old and I believe that I am a cowboy, do you, and you're an Indian.

I'm walking you like a cowboy. I'm starting to talk a little different. Dude, I don't have to fake it. I am a cowboy. You address me as cowboy. You talk to me like I'm a cowboy and if I tell you to do something, you do it or I'm gonna shoot you, and that's [00:20:00] it. There's no denying it. So my imagination is so powerful.

My belief the characteristics that I can embody, right? I'm so powerful. I become whoever I want. And you start to see that. I develop in and express or exhibit the characteristics that I desire on demand. If I want to be courageous, I'm courageous, I wanna be strong. I'm strong. I wanna save a damsel in distress.

I save her. I just am who I choose to be. However, what fe, so keep in mind what feeds that is the imagination now all of a sudden, I turned 14 or 13, 12, whatever the number. Now nowadays, maybe it's 11 and I'm playing Cowboys and Indians or someone and maybe one of the other kids says, I don't wanna play this anymore.

This is stupid. I wanna play video games. So a little bit of shame. Maybe the dad or mom says something. Little bit of shame. Shame is a very big motivator. Now all of a sudden, I haven't been shamed for being a cowboy. In my mind, I've been shamed for using my [00:21:00] imagination. So now all of a sudden that starts to taper off.

And so little bit of a side note, but it's just interesting just as a side note how that works. But I wanna go back to something that you said, just cuz I don't wanna walk away from it cuz it's super important. Just if we could pull back a little bit to where you asked me the question that I did not answer you and I challenged your narrative.

One of the, one of my favorite when it comes to fear is acceptance, right? Because remember how I said you wanna lean into something so when you lean into something, you accept it. So in other words, you play it through, right? So let's say. You're single and you wanna ask a woman out and you're afraid that she might reject you.

So you have the fear of rejection and it's, and it also points back to the fear of the unknown. So you start to get nervous, you start to, that starts to cause you to doubt yourself and you don't do it well. One of the things that you can do, there's different tools you have, but one of the tools that you do have is, [00:22:00] And so the way I would present that to you would be, alright John, so you go up and she says she's not interested.

So then what? And then you're, you look at me like a little bit of a peculiar, I can't even say it. Odd look. Yeah, odd. Look back at you and I give you an odd look. And then you're oh, I don't really know how to answer that. And I go what does she thinks I'm not attractive.

I go, huh, okay. So then what? So you start to realize that. So then what is pretty? Question to ask yourself, you’re a kid. It doesn't matter the age, but it's basically if you go into something and you're not, and you're, and you fear the unknown, then accept all consequences. Yeah. I could try to launch off this jump and it may not work.

I could try. Out for the Olympic team and they may reject me. Okay. Yeah, they may and they may not. Okay, so then what, so acceptance is really interesting, but from a performance standpoint, don't forget, and this is super [00:23:00] important as well, there's so many important things. You could write a book on just fear.

Actually I'm considering doing it, but I'm gonna call up the uncertainty effect. But anyways, when it comes to fear. Another thing is don't forget what's really happening here. You're actually activating the sympathetic nervous system, right? So now all of a sudden, my heart's racing in my body. Does not realize it, but it perceives that there is a threat.

It perceives I'm being trained because don't forget, your body is not the mind. Your body just reacts. And so it, so if it feels that fear and you just crust over that threshold where the fear response is activated. So it's either fight, flight, or freeze, right? The sympathetic nervous system, now all of a sudden, you've created a cascade of events that are not gonna serve you.

You're not, you're more likely to, you're less likely to interflow state, right? And you're less likely to perform to your potential because your body is thinking it's under attack. When's the last time, you think an athlete is gonna [00:24:00] perform when they think they're under attack? One little tip that you have, and this is gold.

I use this as much as a carpenter uses a hammer, is ask your athlete, ask your child. Ask yourself, is this a challenge or a threat? And really identify and separate the fear that you're feeling because if you look at something as a threat, you're gonna have a problem. You're gonna suffer.

There's gonna be consequences if you look at it as a challenge. It's still the same thing. You're still looking at the same adversity, you're still looking at the same obstacle, but now you look at it as a challenge. Oh yeah, you know what, that is a challenge. Like I work with a pro golfer.

We always have two challenge holes for every round. Like right now where is he? We, he's in Argentina and we've got two talent ho challenge holes for tomorrow's round. And so he actually, oddly enough, It's statistically better on his challenge holes, but we can't make, [00:25:00] 18 holes all challenge holes, but we do it to break up the monotony and make it fun.

But he always performs better under that challenge. And don't forget, Challenge is also one of the flow triggers, right? We all talk about this peak performance state, this flow state, right? This magical place that only a few have been. Once you start to identify what feeds it, what fuels it and increase the odds of you entering it, you realize that if you're looking at things as a threat, you ain't it.

And if you look at it as a challenge, boy, you just increased your odds quite a bit of entering into that flow state. Really interesting stuff. 

[00:25:35] John Boruk: So when you're talking. Instituting what you did with this golfer putting in challenge holes is this, because they're bearing down their f the focus is a little bit more intense.

And that they're, the determination then comes out as a result of that because now they feel like, oh, the challenge is on, I've got to, I've gotta now find that peak performance. Yes. 

[00:25:58] Dr. Jay Cavanaugh: And you know it, [00:26:00] I don't. I don't do this with every athlete. For example, you could have a challenge hole, you could have a challenge obstacle.

You could do this in very in context. However, this is the only athlete I have that I recognize very early on that if you challenge him, He just rises up. It is, even if you challenge, if I had said to him what I said to you, say hey, I don't know if I agree with that belief.

Oh here's what I think about my belief. And he'll challenge you. He loves it. If you question him, he likes it and he's fueled by it. So a lot of it is you gotta find the fuel, right? Fuels your son, what fuels your daughter, what fuels you, right? Because when you find your fuel, now you've found something you can tap into on a regular basis, and it's different for every athlete. Yeah. 

[00:26:59] John Boruk: One of the quotes that [00:27:00] you had when I was looking over you the newsletter, and this is really good and this is where I really wanted you to expound on this is Letting Go is one of the top three skills that all legends in Sports Share Master this, and you instantly move closer to being one of the best. So how do you master letting go?  

[00:27:17] Dr. Jay Cavanaugh: We can talk about that because it's something that, if you think about it, think about how many times you have to let go from something and let's also be clear. What are we actually letting go of? Yeah.

And what you're letting go of is your emotional attachment to an event or experience, right? You said you were gonna call me at five, but you end up calling me at five. Now all of a sudden I'm like, Hey man, John, like you told me we're gonna do this podcast at five and you called me at five 30.

Okay, I'm placing meaning and importance on it and I feel desire and this isn't what happened. You called me right on the dot, but let's just play, we'll play out this role. Now all of a [00:28:00] sudden, the meaning and interpretation I have on the event is causing my emotional response. And now that emotional response, think of it as having a cord, almost like a suction cup or like a web from Spider-Man's web, like stuck.

So there's an emotion that's within me that's stuck to the event. And as long as. The more meaning, importance I place on the event, the greater the emotion and the greater the emotion and the more challenging it is it's gonna be for me to let go. So the first thing you wanna do, if you wanna let go, believe it or many people talk about letting go a lot.

However, what they don't talk about, which they should more often is, what if we manage the emotions surrounding an event ahead? The attachment, right? And so if we go there now, what we've done is we've created less of an attachment, [00:29:00] less of an emotional attachment. So therefore we've already, by default, made it that much easier to detach or become, to break free from that which we're emotionally attached.

And that is where you wanna really challenge the meaning you place on things and the importance you place on things. So those two are important. , let's say that you do need to let go from something. Once again, I'd say a couple different ways you could do it. One is you wanna learn from it, right? Cause you don't wanna ruminate, right?

Ruminate. Oh, yeah. 

[00:29:33] John Boruk: It's, yeah, it's going down the rabbit hole, right? It goes down the rabbit hole and you'll never come out because you're constantly chasing your tail.  

[00:29:40] Dr. Jay Cavanaugh: Oh, for sure. And then it becomes a vortex. I call it the vortex, right? Yeah. Rabbit hole, for sure. And that's a great one.

I like that thing as well. But it's a vortex because what I feel is. , the more you think about what should have happened, like John should have done this, and then I have the emotional response, and then the emotional response feeds Another [00:30:00] similar thought is that what John does with all the other guests?

Then I have the same emotion again, and then I'm like, wow, I thought we were friends. I thought we had respect. Then that feeds another emotion, and then all of a sudden you start to just spin out of control. And so the way to break the vortex or get out of the rabbit hole is to be. Okay, so what can I learn from this?

I changed, I can, so one thing I can do is I can challenge my perspective. You never asked John why he called you 30 minutes late. Did you know that his, son sprained his ankle like literally. 20 minutes ago and he's trying to help his son. Did you think about that? So you start to realize oh wow, I didn't get the whole story, I didn't get the whole picture.

I cast judgment too soon. So in this example and so one thing you can do is you can challenge. your perspective, which is of extremely powerful way to go. And I like to look at that as like a pyramid, right? [00:31:00] And I look at it as like a flat, I guess the word would be like a flat pyramid. So as having three sides, one side of the pyramid is my side.

The other side of the pyramid is the polar opposite side that I challenge myself to investigate. And then sometimes you could play with the third one. I like to, for the third one, think of someone I look up to how would you know, how would Kobe Bryant look at this? I don't know. For lack of a better example, right?

So now I have my polar opposite and I challenge it to be 180 or would it be 180, 360, 180. And then someone I look up to. And just the act of challenging your perspective does something very cool. It creates space. It gets something very cool. Now all of a sudden, I'm only a vortex because I'm thinking and feeling.

I'm thinking, feeling, I'm thinking, feeling. I'm now all of a. [00:32:00] I have to look at it from the polar opposite, perspective. Now all of a sudden, he doesn't. It's someone else. So in this case, I've broken free from the vortex. If I look through Kobe's eyes, I break free from that vortex because I am no longer attached to an emotion because it's not about me.

I'm becoming someone else. I'm looking through someone else's eyes and their lenses, and so therefore, the emotions tend to quiet down a little bit. And then at that point, I've created some space I've created in that space, time and choice. And at that point I can learn, I'm a little more settled in my nerves and I say, hey, you know what?

Let's just do this, bro. Let's go. Let's crush this podcast. Yeah. 

[00:32:43] John Boruk: And that is, then I'm good. And that's so good because when I think about we all have childhood memories or experience, and I would say 80 to 90% of those are those profound ones that left really just [00:33:00] a, that resounding feeling of negativity.

Like I, I, like I, I broke a kid's leg in second grade. I still know exactly where it was, where I was sitting, the kid's name, all of this. And maybe the good things that happened throughout first, second, third grade, I don't remember all of. They all, it's all, it's one big clump. But I do remember those very, because it's the, for whatever reason, the negative memories stay with us longer than the positive ones.

I, we, I was mentioning Texas high school football as a senior, we were ranked fourth in the state. We wound up losing like 35 to ten first round of the playoffs. I don't remember the 10 games that we won to get to that, but I do remember that game more than any game because that's not the way our season was supposed to end, it was not the way that we were supposed to go down. We were supposed to go a lot farther than that, but it's just, it's so [00:34:00] interesting how we really get caught in, like you mentioned, treating those moments. Almost wish that, my, my 50 year old self could go back and talk to myself as a teenager in 20 and 30 and say, take the lesson out of this. What's the learning experience? Learn from this, build from this, and then just move on, let it go. But we, it's, people do that differently and it's just I just find that so interesting that, and I, and when I do talk to a number of athletes, they feel the same way.

They can recall the losses a lot more, or at least the failures and a lot more specific detail than they do the triumphs. 

[00:34:41] Dr. Jay Cavanaugh: Yeah. And there's a simple reason. So one thing that I think is a really important point to make, and you start to see that this proves itself time and time again. So I always link things back to the US all days.

Now keep in mind that this is my belief in my narrative. You can choose [00:35:00] to believe it or not, but I think it makes sense. And so the way our brain exists, the center of our brain is older. The front where our forehead is newer, like the neocortex, right? And so what we start to realize is emotions are very deep in the limbic system.

They're like in the center of our brain, right? And the way that we, that I believe we evolved and there's evidence to support this, is that technology. And modern modernization kind. I'm struggling with some words like you of society. 

[00:35:36] John Boruk: These are like five syllable words. You you're not putting easy words out there.

[00:35:42] Dr. Jay Cavanaugh: Yeah. I'm gonna start using easy words. I gotta work with that. That's an opportunity for me. Yeah. . But anyways, so when you think about how we've evolved, I believe that we've out evolved. Society has out evolved, like the pace of our brain evolving with modern [00:36:00] times, right? And so that being said, what I believe is the deeper areas of our brain have what I would call like vestigial agendas.

That served us 10,000 years ago, 20,000, 30,000 years ago. So to bring it back to that game, the reason why you remember the 10 losses, right? Or you don't re Yeah. That you remember the losses more than the 10 wins, or whatever the mouth was. Yeah. Yeah. Is because back in the day, it goes back to the same theory, which if you made a mistake and we went north and there's no food, you die. I die. The tribe dies. Like energy and resources weren't a guarantee. There were times where if you go the wrong way, I don't know, T-Rex comes, food comes starvation whatever it is. What if we make the wrong move? Our goal was to survive.

It wasn't to thrive. To create a growth [00:37:00] mindset, right? Like, I haven't eaten for seven days, John, how about you? You're like, oh, geez, I ate half a rabbit like two weeks ago. I'm like, man, I don't know. We gotta find something. But if we failed, the consequences were grave, right?

And so nowadays I still think that we have that vestigial issue or whatever the word would be five, five syllable word. For, still remaining in that context of how we frame and how we view failure. And so it's tough, and I think it's important. I want to go back for a moment too.

We can jump back to this, but when you were two, don't. You hadn't emotionally ev developed yet. So your ability to make sense of what happened and rationalize what happened was very inaccurate and you probably viewed what you did as. [00:38:00] Not a mistake and not just wrong place, wrong time or whatever happened, but you viewed it in a way that was much more catastrophic and because it was catastrophic, you took the emotions and amplified them 20, 30, 50 fold.

And you weren't able to process them. So it caused probably a permanent almost like an emotional scar in your brain that you could revisit and go through. But that's probably why that happened because that's an interesting time. Even another thing that's super important for parents, your kids between the ages of zero and seven, they don't have the ability to filter out information.

So when you say something, they take it as fact, right? So for example, I, anyone listening to anything I'm saying right now are they, if they're over, seven years of age, they're filtering out what I say. I don't know if I agree with what he said. I don't know if I like [00:39:00] what he, I like what he said about that, but I'm not sure about that.

Fine, you're filtering. You should, however, a 6, 7, 8 year old, you tell them that they're no good or they're never good, or whatever they accept, everything is fact. Their ability that part of the brain doesn't develop until 7, 8, 9 years old. And so you have to be very careful with what you say to kids at that age because that goes right directly into their subconscious programming and it has one of the most powerful impacts on their future.

So that's another important thing to note for parents. 

[00:39:31] John Boruk: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah you also and I think that's a big reason why transitioned from football to baseball. Cuz I was a defensive back. I get burned for a 40 yard touchdown and I couldn't think of anything else that we may win the game 28 to seven, but I gave up the seven points and I'd be thinking about for an entire week.

Whereas baseball you're almost, it's a sport where you're designed to fail. You only. If you're really [00:40:00] good 30, 40% of the time, you know when you're at the plate. And I could live with that. I could live with knowing that. Okay failure's part of, is part of the equation here where it wasn't necessarily the case with football and everybody and baseball has that level of failure.

But you talk about playing the long game. And avoiding the quick fix. How does that apply to your coaching and working with athletes? 

[00:40:25] Dr. Jay Cavanaugh: When you say the long game, gimme a little bit more on that guide. Guide me a little on that one. 

[00:40:33] John Boruk: So I guess the long game as it applies to the mindset of how you play the game, is that where I'm taking the exact, I was sifting through the newsletter and you'd mentioned about.

I think playing the long game or looking at it from more of a long form perspective than just, I guess a quick fix. Does, is this something that, that that you [00:41:00] instruct your athletes over? Or is this something that that, that resonates with them?

[00:41:03] Dr. Jay Cavanaugh: Yeah. So there's different ways to look at things.

I think sometimes, the further you. Into the future. It's important to look into the future. However, the further you look ahead, the more separation there is between you and where you wanna be, and that in of itself is, gives you a sense of lack and scarcity. So I think it's important to have long range targets and a long range focus.

But you don't wanna spend too much time there because if you do, it feels very far away. And that can create some anxiety and some feelings that aren't optimal. However, in the short term you always want to be thinking about what are the things I can do today? Like one of the best cadences you can get an athlete into, and this is is [00:42:00] get them into the cadence of.

Wake up in the morning before your two feet hit the ground. Set a feeling based intention, not a to-do list, not a, oh, I'm gonna go to the gym, I'm gonna, no, that doesn't mean anything. A to feel intention. In other words, you're setting before your two feet, get out of bed and touch the ground. You are determining what your dominant focal emotion is gonna be for that day.

Then you follow that up with what version of yourself needs to show up to experience it. And then you imagine a little bit, you let it marinate for a little bit and you imagine it what that might play out to be and what it might look like. And that's the short term thing that you want to do. And then you want to see if you execute on it.

Because if you really think about it, what is sport? Sport to me is having an intention and then executing on it. I failed at the. The last wrap. The last time I was up with the plate I failed miserably. Okay let's learn. What did I do wrong? You [00:43:00] did this and this.

Okay. My intention, my singular focus is gonna be this. Let's see if I can execute. And if you get people to set intentions and then execute on them, what you can start to learn is like that's all you need to do. That's why you build confidence, right? Confidence to me, like everyone complicates confidence.

You know what confidence to me is it's saying you're gonna do something and. If I say I'm going to the gym, and I'm gonna have a great workout, and I go to the gym and I have a great workout. I get a little bit of a hit. I get my little dopamine hit. If I, if I say, then I'm going to set my feeling based intention of feeling momentum today, or let's say, here's an even better one.

I had an athlete do this one think yesterday. They wanted to feel connected with their team. I said, Ooh, I like that. I like that a lot. . And then he said in order for him to so this is what he in his voice message to me. Cause I, I actually have a unique program where I voice message my clients every day.

My, like elite [00:44:00] athletes. So I'm messaging 'em on voice apps all like every day there's one, two, maybe three voice messages. So we are constantly, we are always getting 1% out of our athletes every single day because of it. Instead of having a chat. Week or two for 45 minutes. Anyway, so he said he wanted to feel connection and he said the version of himself that needs to show up to do that is an empathetic listener.

And if you knew the athlete he's aggressive. He's got a strut to him to hear him use the word empathetic is fascinating of itself. But for him to say he wanted to be the empathetic listener, I was like, this guy's becoming a leader. And you know what? It's funny. He is leading his team at this point.

He has become a leader and he actually went out and executed as intention and he connected with his team and that gave him confidence. And then what happens? Then he gets his dopamine hit the next day, send an intention [00:45:00] and execute. And then what you. Is on the execution. It's not just, this is what I love to do too.

Powerful little twist to it. You didn't execute or not execute it. You give yourself a rating on a scale of zero to 10 on how well you executed. Because what that invites in is the opportunity for a discussion on where we can maybe improve and maybe identify some resistance. For example, if he says, Hey on this example I just gave.

I executed eight out 10. Oh, okay. What was the difference between it being 10 out of 10? He's there was this one guy in on the team and I felt like he hadn't performed well recently. And, I didn't really connect with him and I didn't engage with him. And then that would be opening up for a great discussion, cuz then the discussion could be, Hey, I completely see why you did that, but guess.

Could you also see it through my eyes and my lens and my perspective that maybe [00:46:00] he's the exact guy that you should have connected with because he might be the weakest link, link on the team right now, and maybe he's not aligned with you, not connected with you, and doesn't share the same vision with you, or maybe doesn't even know what the vision of the team is, and therefore he feels disconnected, which is what you're sensing, and then all of a sudden you open up this powerful opportunity to form a connection and improve.

So it's really interesting. 

[00:46:26] John Boruk: That's, that is very interesting. And you having that empathy to hear out, your fellow teammates, to hear out another side that you. Probably didn't even remotely consider so good. Dr. Jay Kavanaugh has been our guest on the show. So d Jay, go ahead and tell me a little bit about your business, your website.

I think you got a podcast, the newsletter. Go into all of that and for people who are really interested and want to dive a little bit more into what you 

[00:46:52] Dr. Jay Cavanaugh: do. Yeah, so if you like listening to podcasts, I have a website called Behind the best.co. [00:47:00] They wouldn't sell me the.com, so it's dot co. So behind the best.co, it's the people mindset and secrets behind the best athletes in the world.

We interview the people that are one degree of separation from the top athletes and some athletes. But I think one of the most underserved interviews is the people behind the scenes. If Rafa, Raphael, Nadal crushes it, one. I know that he's got a team of people and he can tell me what he did.

I wanna know what, what did his mental coach say? What did his support coach do? What were the challenges that led up to this? Who's the guy that is? Or woman who's his right hand or right hand gal? Right hand man. And so we interview some of those people, get some really fascinating insights. And then I share some mental performance tips myself.

So that's the podcast. And then be also on behind the Best Co. We have a newsletter called The Beast. So there's the Beast Free version, which is where you get access to us. We just send you the [00:48:00] emails to the podcast just to keep you in the loop so you don't miss out on anything. And then The Beast Premium is where every Monday you get access to a very detailed, that's the newsletter you looked at, the Beast Bulletin every Monday.

Is where you get a very detailed Monday through Friday game plan on how this, the actual actions that you should take to become a better athlete yourself. There's also a section for parents and coaches, and so it's really thought out. I put my probably too much effort into it, if there is a such thing.

No, it's, I focus too much on it. I try to. 

[00:48:39] John Boruk: Yeah, but it is there, there is a wealth of information in there. That's what I really liked about it, is, Yeah if you subscribe to it and you pay for it you're not gonna be undersold at all. There's, you could spend, once you get that weekly newsletter, you will spend the rest of the week dissecting it and going through the information that's on there.

And then next thing you know, you got another week of [00:49:00] information. Dr. J Kavanaugh thank you so much for coming on raising a Champion. So much good stuff. And this flew by in no time.  

[00:49:07] Dr. Jay Cavanaugh: Yeah, we've gotta do it again and. Thanks for, your voice, that voice of radio voice.

I tried to have that, that strong, confident tone in my voice. So even just talking to you, I caught myself kind of cheating on my voice a little bit. I raised up my confidence a little bit. So I think you might have given me like a little bit more of a little oomph to my speaking ability.

So thanks for the challenge and the gift and helping me level up without 

[00:49:35] John Boruk: me even realizing it. I should take you back to when I first started down in Texas with my Texas twang. There wasn't very much confidence to it. I it had to come, it, it had to come with time and a lot of work at it.

So trust me, it's it was 25 years in the making. All right, Dr. Jay Kavanaugh, thank you so much. We end our show, like we, we like to do it with our quote of the week. Once you start seeing your potential, the grind becomes [00:50:00] addictive. Thanks to all of you who are listening on this particular episode and re a reminder if you have the chance go on, give us a review.

It certainly helps us move up the charts. And thanks for joining us and hope you'll join us next time.