How To Avoid Choking Under Pressure

Dr. Cooper

Welcome to the latest episode of the Catalyst Health, Wellness, and Performance Coaching Podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Bradford Cooper of the Catalyst Coaching Institute. And today’s guest is Dr. Sian Beilock. She’s president of Barnard college at Columbia university and the author of two books. The critically acclaimed Choke: what the secrets of the brain reveal about getting it right when you have to, and how the body knows its mind, the surprising power of the physical environment to influence how you think and feel. Her 2017 Ted talk has been viewed over 2 million times. You’re gonna love this one. By the way, we’ve had some questions about those who have tapped into some of the free videos over at youtube.com/coaching channel about where do you get those cool, Be a Catalyst hoodies, stickers, t-shirts, long sleeve shirts, that kind of stuff you’ll see occasionally. If you are interested in picking some up, you’ll be happy to know 100% of the profits go to charity. We don’t keep a dime. We’ll include a link to how you can find those items in the description section. And as always, if you have any questions about your current or future career as a health and wellness coach, we’re here. Pop over to CatalystCoachingInstitute.com or feel free to reach out to us anytime Results@CatalystCoachingInstitute.com. Now, before I choke and make this a lot harder on our editor, let’s tune in to Dr. Sian Beilock on the latest episode of the Catalyst Health, Wellness, and Performance Coaching Podcast. Dr. Beilock, it is such a pleasure to have you here today. Hopefully I won’t choke as we go through this interview, but, uh, we’ve got some really important things to talk about today. Maybe, maybe the best place to start is to define choking itself. If that’s going to be the topic of most of what we chat about today, what do we even mean by that?

Dr. Beilock

Yeah. Well, it’s a great question and I think it’s really important to define what it is and the way I talk about choking under pressure is it’s not just performance, ups and downs. We all have those, but choking is worse performance than one would expect given their skill level, precisely because they feel pressure in a situation. Maybe people are watching them. Maybe they’re really hoping to get a promotion. Maybe they’re trying to achieve something else in an athletic event. Um, maybe they feel that people are counting on them, parents, teammates, peers, any of those things can create pressure.

Dr. Cooper

Okay. And the question I was thinking about this morning as I was pondering, some of the things that we’re gonna talk about today, what about that person that says I never choke? Are they not putting themselves in a situation to have the opportunity? Are they never stepping up if they have that kind of perspective?

Dr. Beilock

First of all, I don’t believe that this person never chokes. I think, it’s interesting. We often talk about choking in really high profile events like Olympics or sports or a job interview, but there’s all sorts of times we choke. For me, it’s parallel parking in front of others. I’m a really good parallel parker when he’s not watching, but when he’s in the car, it takes me two tries. For others, it could be just introducing yourself at a party. You start sort of stuttering or you don’t listen to someone when they tell you their name. Those are little choke moments.

Dr. Cooper

So it’s an awareness of the potential and, and tuning into, you know what, I, I could’ve stepped up a little bit more there. Okay, good. Yeah. I was thinking the same thing we think of the field goal kicker who misses that national championship opportunity or the free throw shooter. But, uh, this is, this is true in all areas. Now test taking jumps to the forefront. For me, I’m sure a lot of the folks at Catalyst Coaching Institute, we have a lot of folks that are sitting for the national board exam. And we have a lot of people that say, you know what? I get really nervous about the exams. I, you know, I haven’t done this for awhile, I’m coming back and we walk them through some of those things. But in that setting, can we just kind of take a quick sideline for, especially with your role as the president of Barnard college, how have you seen some things that you’ve been able to do at the college or you’ve worked with others to help them in that setting of actually doing a test taking setting?

Dr. Beilock

Yeah, I mean, testing is a really, uh, one of the places that people talk about choking, right? They often can’t pull out the kinds of performances that they pulled out in a practice test for example. And so what my research suggests is that you have to learn how to be able to tell people that material or put it down on a test in that important situation. So one of the most important tools is to practice taking tests. We often review material, read the book, but we don’t, didn’t sit and practice doing what we’re going to have to do in the high pressure situation. And in athletics, we talk a lot about this as closing this gap between training and competition. And you’ve got to do that in the test too, because if you’re not used to answering the questions or doing it under a time limit or having people around you, then you actually haven’t practiced the skill that you’re going to need to show.

Dr. Cooper

It’s not just the knowledge, it’s the fill in the blank, all of the other things.

Dr. Beilock

The being able to show it. And, um, you know, another interesting phenomenon is that when we go over something in a book it’s right there, but can we actually close the book and then repeat it or answer a practice question that will actually give us the real sense of whether we know it. And often times people talked about, talk about choking and tests. And, uh, sometimes I think they actually, it’s not necessarily that they’ve choked, they just haven’t studied. So they have higher confidence than they should, that they know the material without the book or prompts and other things there. And you’ll get to know if that confidence is warranted by taking a practice test.

Dr. Cooper

That’s good. That’s good. All right. So range of setting, we’ve talked about field goal kicker, Olympics, test-taking are, are the strategies that folks use or the things that you’ve found in your research to utilize, are they similar for, for example, you, you talk about in your Ted talk, being pretty high level soccer player, a goalie of all places, you know, the spotlight is on when you’re going, you’re all on. Is that similar to the strategies you’d use in your current role as president of Barnard college or someone would use in his test taking situation? Are they similar strategies or is it site specific, situation specific?

Dr. Beilock

Yeah. So in my book choke, I talk a lot about different areas of performance, whether it’s leading a big organization or athletics or testing or public speaking. And the reality is that our brain doesn’t differentiate between whether we hold a golf club in our hands or pencil, we choke in very similar ways. And, um, there’s a whole toolbox of techniques that need to be used or that can be used, and those can be used across different situations. It really depends specifically on what you’re doing and it it’s about figuring out what works well for you. I talked about practicing a little bit, um, closing that gap and in competition, that’s certainly something to use in athletics, right? So if you’re going to have to perform and you know, you’re inviting your friends and family to that big day, and you’ve never had them watch you at practice. You might want to think twice about that because you’re, even though they’re there to support you, they can be your biggest fans. It also creates expectations for success. So maybe you want to get used to some of that in a practice situation. And if you can’t have your family there at practice do something to increase the pressure, videotape yourself, or, you know, set some goals for yourself about what happens if you don’t meet them, anything that mimics what’s going to happen in the real do or die situation.

Dr. Cooper

So it’s upping the game. It’s, it’s, it’s changing the penalty for mistakes before the real penalty kicks in.

Dr. Beilock

Yeah. And you then start to learn and you can practice all the different techniques that I talk about in my book choke. And then we know from research it actually works. So just as an example, when we have, you know, a beating heart and, and sweaty palms before a big event, if it’s a pressure situation, we often tend to interpret that as a sign we’re about to fail, right? Oh no, I’m not. I’m, you know, I’m really nervous, but it turns out that that physiological response is also the same response we get when we’re happy and excited. Like if you were surprised at a surprise party or, you know, if something great happened. And it also turns out that if you can reinterpret that physiological response, if you can remind yourself a beating heart and sweaty palms is not a sign, you’re going to fail, but instead a sign that you’re ready to go. And in fact, if you didn’t have those, you wouldn’t be up and as motivated and that beating heart is pumping blood to your brain. So you can focus and think in the right way, just reinterpreting those reactions. You can get good at that in a practice situation.

Dr. Cooper

Okay. And a person who’s good at that in setting A, does it translate or do you need to, for example, I couldn’t play soccer to save my life, so, but I’m pretty good as a triathlete. So if I take the things that I’ve used as a triathlete and try to use them on the soccer field, does that work or is self-efficacy such a major piece that you’re almost starting over when you go to a new setting?

Dr. Beilock

No, I certainly think some of the tools to deal with pressure are transferrable, but of course you have to know how to play soccer. I mean, if you’re just not sure how to play that’s different.

Dr. Cooper

Sure, and then you talked about that with the skill of knowing the knowledge for the test. You, you’ve got to know it, it doesn’t matter what you do with it.

Dr. Beilock

Yeah. But learning how to reinterpret your bodily reactions certainly can play out in different situations. Um, and understanding that, you know, you’re sort of this beating heart, the sweaty palms, the, you know, everything that happens in these highly arousing situations are not bad.

Dr. Cooper

Hmm. So, so self-talk? Big part of this process?

Dr. Beilock

Definitely. And I always talk about the fact that we tend to be really harsh on our, with ourselves. Um, you know, something that I think is especially true with women and I lead Barnard college, which is the, you know, the premier educational institution for developing women leaders. And we tend to be pretty harsh. We are perfectionist. I mean, this is true for everyone. It especially tends to be true for high achieving women. And some of the stuff we say to ourselves, we would never say to a friend. And I think just understanding that realization that you really can beat yourself up. And if you were trying to help a friend, you’d never say some of the stuff you say to yourself. So why not have that most important conversation, that one with yourself, why not talk to yourself like you talk to a friend?

Dr. Cooper

With a friend, you can, you can tape the conversation. You can, are there strategies you can use or things that you’ve encouraged people to use to catch yourself? Because I agree. I think we’re, women, absolutely, men are terrible as well. We’re just hard on ourselves. I would never say the things to our kids or to a friend or to my wife that I say to myself ever. And yet I continue to do it. Are there ways to catch yourself and tweak that a little bit?

Dr. Beilock

Yeah. I mean, there’s definitely some techniques. So first is just realizing that this happens, being aware of it. Um, you know, in, and psychologists often talk about this idea around self compassion, which is really what it is, giving yourself a break for not living up to your own expectations. And it’s really an important skill to develop. It’s a skill, a practice like anything else, if you find yourself constantly in that negative ruminative cycle, there’s a couple of things you can do. One is to actually talk to yourself, distance yourself. So instead of like, Oh, I did so bad, I would say to myself, Sian, you know, here are the three things you did well, actually talk to yourself, like you’re talking to a friend, it creates this sort of psychological distance and you’re less likely to beat yourself up. A second is to really try and catch yourself when you’re, you’re in that downward spiral. And another really helpful thing to do can be just to write it down, write your thoughts and feelings down. Um, and our research and others have shown that what this actually does is give you a little bit of insight and perspective. So it’s kind of like that really nasty email. You write that you’re not going to send, but you write and you feel better. And you kind of realize maybe this isn’t as bad as you thought, or maybe there’s another side of it, getting it down on paper can almost download it from mind and allows you again to distance, to step back and to understand what’s going on. And you know, the third is that we want to give ourselves a break, not just for being hard on ourselves, but for the fact that we actually even have these feelings. I think sometimes we feel sort of ashamed or I can’t believe, you know, I’m ruminating so much or I’m worrying about this. And, but actually just acknowledging that it’s okay to worry about it. You don’t have to worry about the worrying because everyone does it and you’re human. Um, that’s part of the sort of self-compassion.

Dr. Cooper

And as you do these things, do you find over time that there’s less need to do it? Or is it always there? And you’re just hitting the margins a little bit more.

Dr. Beilock

Yeah. I mean, I think of it as a kin to hitting a tennis ball against a wall. At some point, you don’t have to think about it as much. Right. It becomes more automatic. And the idea is actually to turn some of these self-compassion techniques into habits, right. Where you are on this downward spiral and you’re ruminating and you can catch yourself and either you step back or you then really instead of, you know, just continuing you step back and say, okay, you know, here’s what I can control. Here’s what I can’t, here’s what I did well, here’s what I didn’t. Anything to sort of get you out because it takes a lot of mental energy to sort of run around in a circle in your head.

Dr. Cooper

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. As I was preparing for this interview, listened to your, your talks, several interviews that you’d done in other places, the, the practicing piece is a high priority. You’ve mentioned that, you’ve given us some tips. What does that look like on a daily basis? It is something where literally, okay, I jumped on my bike an hour a day and I also 10 minutes a day do this thing. Is that what you’re talking about? Is it more catch yourself in the moment and work through that? Or is it literally something that it’s part of every day?

Dr. Beilock

You can make it part of everyday. I think it’s not one or the other. So for example, you might journal every day, right? So get your thoughts down on paper. It’s a way to sort of catch yourself if you’re having negative thoughts. If you had a bad performance, in the last competition, you might spend five or 10 minutes a day re-interpreting that performance, right? Not thinking about what you, how you let down yourself or your team, or you’re so disappointed, which is something you’re probably doing automatically. You don’t even have to practice it, but what did you do well, or, you know, what are you going to change for the next time, actually spending some time carving out some time doing that will help you the reinterpret and rethink what you had done. And there’s research shows that when you can reevaluate negative situations in that way, um, you’re less likely as time goes on to have such negative reactions to what happened.

Dr. Cooper

Interesting. So it is a training process. You get, you get better at it.

Dr. Beilock

You get better at it. And it’s just like how you would train a muscle when we have a negative experience or when we, um, something goes wrong. You know, we have areas of our brain cells in our brain that react. And those can be very much akin to our negative alarm signals. Uh, the kind of signals that went off when we were previous iterations of our species, having to get up the tree when the lion was coming there, I always talk, I talk about them as sort of our neural alarm signals. And the idea is to figure out how to train your mind, to help calm those down. Not to turn them off, but to help it such that they don’t take over our thoughts and feelings.

Dr. Cooper

So the re-interpretation helped me walk the line of being too easy on ourselves and the re-interpretation process. So I, I mess XYZ up and there’s, there’s one end of the spectrum. And I’m talking extremes here obviously, but bring us back to the middle. There’s one interpretation of, Oh, I’m such an idiot. That’s terrible, blah blah blah. And the other one of, Oh, you’re fine. You’re loved just like you are. It’s all wonderful. It’s all good. No problem. Walk us through, neither side is valuable.

Dr. Beilock

Yeah. And I would argue that those two extremes you just gave were not about what you actually did. Right? They were just about how you feel. The question is then can you turn it to what you did? Okay. Like, I’m just going to take something like a swimmer. Maybe they didn’t get off the blocks, fast enough. Maybe their stroke wasn’t fluid. Like what did they do wrong? That’s fine to talk about. And what are you going to change for the next time? Or why does your previous experience let you know that you’ll do better the next time, take it out of like, I’m so great or I’m so bad. What did you do wrong? And what are you going to change for the next time? Because research shows that when you have some control over a situation, you might not have control over the whole situation, but you can certainly work on getting off the blocks quicker than you actually are less likely to worry those neural alarms. Those are less likely to go off and you have more ability to focus on what you want to focus on.

Dr. Cooper

Yeah. Good. So making it a little more objective. All right. So you also discussed the goal isn’t to avoid focusing, the key is to focus on the right things. Can, can you give us some examples of the differentiation between these two?

Dr. Beilock

I mean, I think oftentimes when we’re in stressful situations, especially when we’ve practiced something to perfection, we do something pretty counterintuitive or that you wouldn’t think would be bad, but we often focus too much on the details of what we’re doing and we actually mess ourselves up. And the athletic world, I talk about this in terms of, you know, we think, we start thinking on the, on the back nine about exactly what our wrist is doing as we’re hitting the ball. And we don’t usually think our wrist and it actually disrupts a fluid performance, but this can happen anywhere. You know, we’ve all done this where we raise our hand to ask a question or to make a comment when other people are watching us. And we start thinking about every word coming out of our mouth and because we are pretty well versed in speaking and starting to think about every word that comes out of your mouth actually disrupts your ability to speak. So the key is to focus on aspects of what you’re doing that are going to help rather than unpack something that’s already automatic. Um, so I talk a lot about key words, maybe have a mantra. I do a lot of work in golf. So a swing thought a couple of things that you’re going to focus on. And this is true in all sorts of situations. When you’re sitting for a test, maybe you’ve figured out that your problem is that you like dwell on an answer. It’s a timed test. And you struggle with moving on, so maybe your mantra is move on, right? Anything that sort of helps you get out of focusing too much on the details to get where you need to, if you’re giving a pitch to a client or you’re giving a talk, what are the three things that you want to get across? Nothing else really matters. That’s your mantra, right? That’s what you’re going to focus on. Every time you go back to those words.

Dr. Cooper

The unconscious competence is, is kind of that path. It reminds me of the book. This has had to be in the seventies, the inner game of tennis, where they could actually, he would, he would say, well, I’ll, I’ll say to my opponent, if they’re playing really well, I’ll be like, it just seems like you’re doing something different today. Are you giving more top spin? And it’s really, and he said, that would throw them off because now they become conscious about what they’re doing well, and you’re saying we can reverse that by being less focused on the details and more focused on the broader mantra, keywords or reminders.

Dr. Beilock

Yeah. My father gave me, I think it was Galloway, right? Is that who wrote that book?

Dr. Cooper

I think it was, yes.

Dr. Beilock

He gave me inner tennis when I was a teenager. And, um, yeah, I mean, it had a profound effect on me as an athlete and it’s definitely in my research, a lot of it in, especially the early days was designed to really show the neuroscience features. Um, and yeah, I always say, you know, if you want to mess someone up, ask what they were doing with their elbow.

Dr. Cooper

I love it. Um, all right. You, you talk in your second book, how the body knows it’s mind discusses how the body’s movements affect our thoughts and decisions. So fascinating. Can you walk us through some of the core elements of that phenomenon?

Dr. Beilock

Yeah. So I wrote choke really to show how our mind can disrupt our body and everything we do, but it turns out it goes the other way around too, our body really influences how we think and feel, and our environment does as well. And I don’t think we often think about that, but I can certainly say in the last year, it’s more important than ever as many of us are home working remotely on zoom all day. The fact that we’re not getting up moving around, maybe we’re not, um, you know, out in nature as much, those sorts of things actually have an impact on our ability to think and concentrate. And so exercise for a sample, not only changes the body, we actually know it can affect the brain in really meaningful ways. People who exercise tend to be able to concentrate better. If you’re an older adult, exercise can actually change the size of aspects of your brain involved in memory like the hippocampus. We know that’s so important. And even being able to look outside to be in nature can, can change your ability to think as well.

Dr. Cooper

And the things that you can’t control. So you brought up a good example. Folks are teaching their kids at home, or at least they’re overseeing their remote training from home. They can’t get alone in their office. They are less likely to get outside or it’s winter time. And so they’re less likely to get outside when you, when you face those things, then what?

Dr. Beilock

Then you, then it really, I mean, I think, you know, why it’s so important in the pandemic is that, that we don’t have these built-in entities to commute or do other things where we’re walking around outside. And so you’ve got to carve them out and this idea that sort of exercise or moving as an afterthought, um, for what you really want to do, which is to focus on your job or your kids is the wrong way to think about it. Um, I’ll give you an example. We know from research about a phenomenon called the incubation effect and the idea being that when you step away from a problem, you actually are working on it unconsciously. And you’re more likely when you go back to it to be able to solve it. But the it’s exact opposite of what we tend to do. We tend to sit at a computer, bang our heads against the wall, want to finish, want to power through. And the research suggests that we’d be better off taking a break. And so sort of knowing that science should help you build into your routines ways to get up, to move around. I mean, it’s why I always joke that you come up with the best retort to an argument with your spouse 10 minutes later, right? It’s not in the moment. It’s because you’ve stepped away. And it’s certainly true. We know from research with humans, with other animals that when we are not thinking about something, when we’re sleeping, um, we’re putting connections together in a way that helps us see new ways to solve problems.

Dr. Cooper

Love this stuff. Can you give us another example from the book or related to the book in terms of how the body does affect the mind? The reverse of maybe what we typically think?

Dr. Beilock

Yeah. I mean, I think oftentimes, um, we talk about a poker face. Like we tend to think it’s all in our face, how we’re showing other people how we think and feel. But, um, another good example is remembering that our body communicates a lot of information. So in the book, I actually show pictures of tennis players winning and losing points at Wimbleton. And you can not tell from their faces whether they won or lost a point, but you can certainly tell from their bodies, but the bodies communicate a lot of information and important information. And you know, this idea of fake it till you make it, if you’re, you know, going into a competition or walking into a job interview, how you’re holding yourself actually matters.

Dr. Cooper

Okay, let’s come back to the tennis players. Can, can you tell a difference in the better players does, uh, you know, a number one ranked player, not show it in his body as much or her body as much?

Dr. Beilock

That’s interesting. These were all winning, like championship points. So I don’t, I don’t know if they looked at that, but they showed that the face you couldn’t tell, but the body is easily. You can easily tell. Um, but it’s an interesting question about whether people who are more experienced have learned to use their bodies in a way that, that does it show it as much, but I don’t know. I mean, these were people playing championship points at Wimbleton pretty good players. Our bodies may be the insight that we can’t stop.

Dr. Cooper

All right. It seems the story we tell about ourselves to ourselves would play a huge role in the potential for choking. Is that accurate? And is it, if so, is it something we can address with specific measures?

Dr. Beilock

Well, I always talk about this idea that people are not born chokers or Thrivers. It’s learning how not to choke is a skill. You have to learn like anything. And so I think really continuing to tell us ourselves a story about how we improve and how this is something we learn our psychological toolbox, it’s something we have to put together. Just like any sort of skill set is really important. And we know from research, especially with young kids, that if you highlight the fact that effort and hard work is the way to gain a skill versus you just have it, there’ll be more likely to persevere and be more likely to get up after failure. And I think that’s true with performing in pressure situations. If the narrative is that we can get better at this versus I’m a choker, the way people react or the way people will be willing to enter a challenging situations will be very different.

Dr. Cooper

I think you’ve touched on something super important. I want to run down this rabbit hole a little bit. So I’m a choker or he’s a choker, she’s a choker that is just part of our vernacular. It is part of what we say about ourselves or other people. And you’re saying, Nope, Nope. It’s situation specific. But are there, there are clearly tendencies, cause once I’ve had that in my brain and I start repeating it back to myself, coming back to your original statement of how important self-talk is. I do become a choker.

Dr. Beilock

It can be this self fulfilling hump. Right. So, I mean, whether you’re talking about like the English soccer team, their lack of ability to take penalty shots, um, yeah. I mean, yeah,

Dr. Cooper

Actually pause for a second. Tell that story. Cause I don’t think a lot of folks were, we’re here in the US. I did my PhD in the UK, so I’m very familiar with it, but try to talk that story through. Cause it’s pretty fascinating.

Dr. Beilock

Yeah. I think, you know, there’s this stereotype that the English can’t take penalty shots compared to say the Germans and you know, at sometimes you just accept that stereotype as a team, we know stereotypes can actually affect how we perform. Um, you know, if you tell women that, a woman before she was supposed to take a math test, that women aren’t as good at math as men, there’s a likelihood she’ll perform poorly. And so these stereotypes and these self-fulfilling prophesies really have an effect. I guess my point is that there’s just no research to suggest that a team is a choker. They probably didn’t practice the right way. Um, or a person can get better at performing under stress. And, you know, I think people talk about, well, look at someone like Michael Jordan, you know, he was amazing on the court, but you know, look at him, try and play baseball. I mean, he was better than you or I, but he also had his choking moments. There’s just not a lot of evidence that you’re born one way or the other, or that you’re a choker or not. But there’s certainly evidence that if you start calling yourself a choker and you continually sort of put yourself in that category, you can, there’s really this notion of a self fulfilling prophecy is real.

Dr. Cooper

And the soccer team story. They were able to change it somewhat.

Dr. Beilock

Yes. And they changed it by how they practiced, you know, instead of just practicing by themselves, actually seeing themselves in competitive situations, practicing with things on the line, competition, others watching them really matter.

Dr. Cooper

So they built that, the coach built that into what they were doing on a daily basis. And as a result, their outcome was different. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. All right. So someone else, so you’ve got someone else in your life who sees themselves as a choker, feels like, ah, I choke all the time. You’re, you’re a coach, you’re a friend. What, what could you do for them to help them shift that when they’re entering some high pressure situation, any tips for, because a lot of our listeners, either coaches or they’re looking at going into that, and that’s a big part of helping somebody, is those, those key moments, those critical moments, guidance on what they could do?

Dr. Beilock

Yeah. I mean, I like what you talked before about the narrative and the story that we tell ourselves. And I think that applies to other people as well. And so the question is, you know, what, what one or two things are they going to focus on in, in that high pressure situation, they don’t have to do the best they’ve ever done, but just having setting attainable goals and something small, um, you know, can help them start to change the narrative about themselves. And you want to take baby steps. It’s not going to, I think this expectation that you go from performing the worst to the best in a pressure situation is probably not so attainable or the way to go. It’s what can you control moving forward? What are the two things you’re going to work on? And if you’ve done that, then you’re not a choker.

Dr. Cooper

Taking those baby steps with them. So going back, okay. Now next situation we did this last time and here’s what happened. Let’s look at it objectively, not with the feelings, not with the emotions. And so the next time we’ll do this, is that kind of the step-by-step process you’re looking at? The building blocks?

Dr. Beilock

And continuing to iterate on that. And that’s really about retraining the brain, right? And so then for the next week, as you look back on what happened in that, it’s not that I did 80% wrong and 20%, right. It’s now I did that 20%, right. Because I was really focusing and now I’m going to do this one extra thing and it’s, it’s really building on it. And just like, you don’t become a really fast marathon runner overnight, you sort of train up to it. The idea is to get people to understand the mentality that you’re training the brain as well.

Dr. Cooper

All right. The sports fans in the audience would be disappointed if I didn’t ask this one, are there secrets to increasing the odds of an opponent? Some team, my son is a huge basketball fan. So if we’re sitting in the game and we’re playing the golden state warriors, is there anything he can do to improve the chances of Steph Curry choking?

Dr. Beilock

Oh no. I grew up in Oakland.

Dr. Cooper

Oh you, so you can’t give me those secrets. Let’s pretend like it’s San Antonio then

Dr. Beilock

I don’t think I can answer that question. I mean, first, you know, we talked a little bit about this jokingly, but you know, getting them to focus on what they’re doing. Right. And so anything, anything that gets them to start looking at what they’re doing, what they’re doing can, can be very powerful.

Dr. Cooper

So the waving, the flags and the signs behind the free throw line, not, not having a big impact, but maybe saying your left foot is too far forward.

Dr. Beilock

Exactly. Or pause for a second. And the pause is that we know that attention takes time to deploy it. Like if you speed up, you’re not going to be able to pay as much attention. So getting them to slow down and calling that time can actually be helpful.

Dr. Cooper

Yeah. So that’s the, and that’s almost like the, what do they call it? The freeze when they, when they do that time out, they’re trying to freeze the kicker or freeze the free throw shooter.

Dr. Beilock

There’s a reason why they do it.

Dr. Cooper

Have you looked at any stats on whether it works or not? It seems like the, the kickers are figuring this out or they’re expecting it now. Maybe that’s the difference. It didn’t used to be expected and now it is. So they’re just like, well, I’m going to have another three minutes here.

Dr. Beilock

There is some research that’s been done showing that for, it’s not for the most difficult kicks, but for sort of the kicks in the mid range that the freezing the icing, the kicker actually does make it less likely that they’ll miss.

Dr. Cooper

Interesting. Um, so let’s, let’s look at this perspective wise, how, how different is choking in the big moment, those big stage situations compared to some personal goal, like exercising, or eating healthier or I’ll make it simple. You wake up in the morning, you’re going to go work out and you choke, you stay in bed. Is that, is that a completely different topic? Is that not related to your research at all? Or is it different? Just a different level of it?

Dr. Beilock

Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if I would call that a choke per se, but it’s certainly, you know, not doing what you intended to do it. And so, you know, I guess in a way you could call it, I mean, it’s interesting. I’ve never thought about that. I wrestle with that every morning with myself, you know. So I, you know, the question then is, can you, I’m less concerned about whether we’d all call that a choke or not, but can you apply some of the techniques. And I would say with that one, you know, for me, I’m like, okay, I’m just going to go running for 10 minutes. Right. So it’s like this, the baby steps, right. I cause what I really think when I’m in bed in the morning is like, I don’t want to go on a 45 minute run. Right. But I can go for 10 minutes and then when I’m out there, you know, I tend to go a little more, but even if I went for 10 minutes, I would consider that a success. And I would then reinterpret that as a success. And maybe I’ll do a little more next time. And I think a lot of the strategies are very simple and you know what I talk about it in choke on how the body knows it’s mind is that, you know, there’s, and what I provide are these toolboxes of techniques. Cause it’s not a one size fits all. You’ve got to figure out what works for you. And maybe what works for you is not just running for 10 minutes, but you’ll do it every other day. Right. You’ll reassess your goals. I think where we get so hung up is we create these such high level goals that we don’t hit them. And then we, you know, we focus on the failure rather than reinterpreting what our goals should be.

Dr. Cooper

Yeah. It’s fascinating. We have BJ Fogg was on just a few weeks ago and it’s interesting to hear his tiny habits things overlapping with the things that you’re talking about. It’s incredibly effective. Cause I, I think everything you’ve talked about could have an influence on getting up and getting that thing done and moving forward and changing the narrative. And I’m not a lazy person. I’m, I’m an active person. I at least start, I always get that 10 minutes or whatever your narrative is. Um, that’s powerful. All right, let, let’s make it personal. You’ve had an incredibly successful career. And as a result, you face bigger and bigger moments every single year. It’s kind of like I just say to my wife, when I’d get a promotion, I’d say, yeah, honey, this is a big deal, but it’s the easiest job I’ll ever have the rest of my life. And you’re, you’re similar. It’s like every few years you’re taking these next steps, these great books. You’re, you’re now president of Barnard college. Are you seeing the application similar to what you saw a decade ago in your life or what your first book came in, I think in 2010. So you’re 10 years into really digging into that. Talk to us about your life and how you’ve been using it as you’ve moved through these different phases of your life and challenges.

Dr. Beilock

Yeah. I mean, I definitely people always ask me like why I wrote choke and I definitely, I do Me-search in addition to research, I want to understand why I sometimes do really well and why I sometimes don’t and, and what I’ve learned is what makes me, what is most exciting to me is continuing to learn and continuing to be uncomfortable. And so, you know, it was much easier to be uncomfortable early on I think when everything was new and then you get good at something or you get more comfortable and I’m always kind of searching out for the uncomfortable situations because that’s where I get the most enjoyment or, or bang, I guess for buck, but I feel you have to search them out, right. If you’re going to grow. Um, and so doing something you wouldn’t normally do sticking your neck out there, you know, taking a new direction, taking, uh, a leap in a way that you hadn’t expected. And where I find myself, even in this last year with the pandemic and running an institution of higher education, I think, you know, the, my proudest moment of the last year is that I’ve become more comfortable with not knowing everything and being, not having a playbook and being uncomfortable and living in that uncertainty and knowing that I’ll be able to act in the moment and, you know, I hope I can continue that.

Dr. Cooper

Now you brought up a good point. Your level of risk goes up at each one when you’re 18, and you’re like, I’m going to put myself in an uncomfortable situation. It’s very different than you, now you have a lot of eyes on you. You’ve got a lot of pressure on you that you didn’t have at 18 or 25. Does that change the perspective or the strategy?

Dr. Beilock

I mean, I’d like to think I’ve learned along the way. Um, but you know, it’s, I’m responsible for 3000 young women now and the entire institution and, you know, college presidents or CEOs in the most complex organizations. I think you can have, what I’ve learned also is that you don’t have to know all the answers. You just have to have really good people around you who feel comfortable, voicing opinions that are contrary to your own. One of the biggest things I do as a leader of higher education now is create teams of people who push back, because I think it’s so important for the best decisions to be made that you have a freedom and your senior team or your leadership team to have those really difficult conversations and arguments. I think the worst thing for me would be a team of people that just agreed with whatever I said. Um, and my most fantastic times are when I get to help propel other people’s good ideas that I didn’t even have. Like, that’s the most exciting thing.

Dr. Cooper

That’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. I’ve got one more question, but before we do, what’s the best way for folks to keep up with you, follow you. I know you’re on Twitter. What, want to learn more about the college? Give us the whole rundown here.

Dr. Beilock

So you can look at, um, I’m on Twitter as SianBeilock and I’m on Instagram as PresBeilock and you can go to my webpage, which is SianBeilock.com. Um, see my Ted talk and I’m out there writing a lot, so, yeah.

Dr. Cooper

Nice. All right. Final question. Just to wrap up any words of wisdom, things that I haven’t asked that you’re like, Oh, you forgot to address this one thing. Is there anything you’d like to leave us with kind of in summary or things that got left out of the conversation?

Dr. Beilock

Yeah. I mean, one thing that I talk a lot about these days is the importance of having multiple identities. So, um, I’m a mom, I have a nine year old, I’m a college president. I’m a researcher. I’m a very slow runner these days, but all of these things helped me be a whole person. And one of the things that I think is really important is that when you have a crappy day in one, you can fall back on the other. And there’s some, there’s a real mental health component to that. So thinking explicitly about all your multiple identities and valuing them, you know, if I have a hard day at work, I go home to my nine year old. And when my nine year old tells me I’m the worst parent ever, I can be excited about someone telling me something great at work and really focusing on that, um, can be really beneficial. Maybe you’re a good friend or a good, anything that really rounds you out. There’s a power in being able to look at those different aspects of yourself in a moment when you’re getting kind of pounded in one.

Dr. Cooper

Warren Buffet would be proud. That sounds like diversification.

Dr. Beilock

The diversification of your individual person.

Dr. Cooper

Yeah. I love that. That’s a great way to wrap Dr. Beilock such a privilege. Thank you so much. You’ve got so many things on your plate and I appreciate you joining us today. This is wonderful.

Dr. Beilock

Thanks for having me.

Dr. Cooper

So interesting. Many of you know, I did my PhD work in the area of functional mental toughness. So I was particularly interested in the opportunity to discuss Dr. Beilock’s work as we both saw some overlap between what she was finding and what I found. Thanks to you for tuning into the number one podcast for health and wellness coaching. Next week’s guest is one of our hidden gems. I’m not going to give it away, but if you’ve been trying to create or break a habit in your life, you do not want to miss this next episode. If you’re a health and wellness coach, or thinking about heading that way in your career, we’d love to have you join us over at the health and wellness coaching forum group on Facebook, we’ll include a link to that, or you can drop us a note Results@CatalystCoachingInstitute.com and we’ll send over the link you need to join. It’s a great spot to share ideas, encouragement, and a whole bunch more in the field of coaching. Now let’s go be a catalyst on this journey of life, the chance to make a positive difference in the world while simultaneously improving our own lives, not getting burned out, which is the essence of being a catalyst. This Dr. Bradford Cooper of the Catalyst Coaching Institute, make it a great rest of your week. And I’ll speak with you soon on the next episode of the Catalyst Health, Wellness, and Performance Coaching podcast, or maybe over on the YouTube coaching channel.