March 31, 2025 • 36 mins
Ever wondered why that voice in your head keeps sabotaging your performance? In this revealing exploration of Chapters 3 and 4 from "Positive Intelligence," we dive deep into understanding the mental saboteurs that derail even the most talented athletes.
The conversation uncovers how these negative thought patterns—which we all possess—initially formed as protection mechanisms in childhood but now cause more harm than good. Everyone has a primary "judge" saboteur along with accomplice saboteurs like the hyperachiever, pleaser, controller, or stickler. These mental patterns might have helped us survive and even excel (as Brenna shares from her gymnastics career), but they eventually become obstacles to peak performance.
What makes these mental saboteurs particularly dangerous is how they masquerade as helpful. "Without me pushing you, you'll get lazy" or "Without me judging others, you won't protect yourself." These justification lies keep us locked in negative thought patterns that wake us at 3AM with anxiety rather than helping us improve.
The most powerful strategy for breaking free? Simply recognizing and naming these saboteurs. When you can say, "That's my judge talking" rather than identifying with those thoughts as "me," you create separation that allows you to choose a different response. This awareness extends beyond individual performance to team dynamics and family relationships, as understanding different saboteur patterns improves communication and empathy.
Ready to identify your own mental saboteurs and learn how to weaken their grip on your performance? Take the free PQ assessment mentioned in the episode and join us next time as we explore how to strengthen your "sage"—the inner coach that provides constructive guidance without the emotional toll.
Are you an ATHLETE looking to take your training to the next level? Check out our website to learn more about 1-on-1 training opportunities:
mentaltrainingplan.com/athletes
Are you a COACH looking for an affordable year-round mental performance training program? Check out the MTP Academy available through our website:
mentaltrainingplan.com/academy
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, welcome to the Coaching Minds podcast, the
official podcast of MentalTraining Plan, joined again by
Brenna Brenna, thanks for comingback, being on the show again.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
So part two we're talking through chapters three
and four today of the bookPositive Intelligence and if you
guys have not listened to theprevious episode where we just
kind of introduced that firstsection, would encourage you to
pause this, go back and givethat previous episode a listen,
(00:34):
just so that you've got somegood background information.
But you know, brenna, why don'tyou kind of start us off by
giving us just a super quickrecap and buzz through of what
we talked about from section one?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah for sure.
So, section one we introducedthis idea of positive
intelligence, which is yourability to take your thoughts
captive and then make them workin your favor.
So it's the idea that we havethese two opposing forces in our
brain.
We have the saboteurs and oursage.
So we briefly talked about howsaboteurs everyone has a judge
(01:10):
and then there's nineaccomplices.
Your sage is that wiser,curious part of your brain
that's acting in your favor, andwe briefly talked about these
three strategies, which areweaken your saboteurs,
strengthening your sage andstrengthening your PQ muscles,
and so what we're going to bedoing over the next few episodes
is talk through more of thosestrategies, and so today's
(01:31):
episode is actually aboutweakening your saboteurs,
understanding your judge andjust getting a better idea of
what are these negative voicesinside my head.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, and I think, from a sport perspective, if I
were to say, how does this bestapply to our audience, social
(02:06):
media or that person that's justup in the stands that you know,
happy to point out your flawsbut not really helping with,
okay, well, what are we going toactually do about this?
And the sage would maybe belike that inner coach, like okay
you know we're not, we're notliving in la la land.
We're not just saying let'saccept mediocrity, but are going
to say, okay, what's happenedhas happened now.
(02:26):
What are we going to do aboutit now?
How are we going to moveforward?
But the part of the reason whyI like this book so much, part
of the reason why I like thesaboteur example even better
than the critic, is becausethere's there's that like hint
(02:47):
of I'm pretending like I'm onyour side, but really I'm
sabotaging things, I'm hiding,I'm underneath the surface, I'm
even appearing as helpful, I'meven able to justify.
Well, you can't, you can't getrid of this judge, then Then
you'll just be, you'll be okaywith you know, however you play,
(03:08):
and then you'll never getbetter, and then you're not
going to achieve your goals.
And and so there's a there's asneaky deceptiveness to it that
I that I just love.
Talk to us, talk to us a littlebit about.
You know, at the beginning ofchapter three, he's talking
(03:29):
about how, you know, as a child,he started to have these fears
and he started to have thesepains, and the role of the
saboteur is to basically helpyou survive.
So you know, he used the exampletalking about with his parents
that you know, we all wantindependence, we all want
(03:52):
acceptance, we all want security.
Those were three things that hebrought up.
So how are we going to getthose?
Well, we can either beassertive, we can take action
and command and demandfulfillment of these primary
needs.
We can try to earn our way andyou know, if I, if I do this,
(04:14):
then my parents will give mepraise and then I'll get that
acceptance that I want, or momwill be in a good mood.
So then there's, you know, somemore security, or there's a, a
void was the, was the third one,and so all of these saboteurs
kind of, you know, start offthere.
Talk to me a little bit about,because I know we spoke
(04:36):
beforehand about how knowingwhere these came from and
knowing what your enemy is givesyou a little bit better chance
at fighting and eradicating this.
Talk to us a little bit aboutthat.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah for sure.
So the really cool thing aboutpositive intelligence and these
saboteurs is they wereoriginally formed to serve you.
They were there to protect you.
So I can speak for myself asone of eight kids.
I developed a saboteur veryearly on to be a pleaser and a
hyper achiever, which is amotivation of acceptance and a
(05:12):
style of being assertive because, being one of eight kids, I
wanted attention and I wanted tobe.
Oh, I guess I wanted attention.
And then I just wanted to havethat acceptance for my parents
because I was always competingfor attention with seven other
people.
So my saboteur-.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Were you going to stand out?
Maybe a little bit.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah.
So my saboteur of hyperachieverwas I'm going to stand out from
everybody else by being thebest, doing the best that I can
and then pointing that out to myparents, which at the time, was
great.
Right, we developed that for ashort period of time.
I got what I felt wasacceptance at the time, what I
needed.
But then, growing intoadulthood, I find myself trying
(05:57):
to carry this hyperachieversaboteur with me and now it just
results in emotional drainageand physical drainage and trying
to do the most all the time.
But I know that's not me,that's just my saboteur that
developed at a time to protectme.
And these saboteurs can be good.
(06:18):
Sometimes I need tohyperachieve, but they can also
be bad, because they were put onus like a cast.
If we never take a cast off, wecan never grow.
So it's important that we breakthem down and really understand
why are they in our lives andare they serving us at the
appropriate time.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yeah, and I just I think I think it's easy for
people to kind of identify.
Well, how you know, we all wantacceptance, so did you, did you
go the assertive route and youtried to gain that by hyper
achieving, going after beingassertive, tracking down these
goals.
Was it more of like the youknow you're trying to earn
(06:59):
things, so like you're trying tobe a pleaser, you're trying to
you know, I would say that mywife might you know.
I would say that my wife might,you know, identify with a little
bit more of thosecharacteristics, being the
middle child of three, you know.
Or he talks about how one ofhis siblings in the book wanted
(07:19):
acceptance and so when thingsweren't going well, when mom and
dad didn't have a safeenvironment or weren't accepting
of you know how his sibling wasacting.
He would just go with thevictim saboteur and kind of
withdraw and you know, oh, woeis me.
But at least, at least you knowhe's, he's getting some of that
acceptance, he's getting someof that victim mentality, some
(07:40):
of that.
That victim card, I don't know,I thought it was, I thought it
was very interesting and readingthrough the entire chapter, I
think, really gives, reallyhelps you identify.
Where did these come from?
You know what?
What's the description of it,what are the thoughts that go
(08:01):
with it, the feelings that gowith it, what are the
justification lies that we tellourselves, the impact it has on
ourself and even on other people.
So the judge is the big one.
Let's talk a little bit aboutthat.
Tell us a little bit about howwe judge ourselves and others.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, so everybody has a judge.
There's 10 saboteurs, a judgeand nine accomplice.
Everybody has a judge.
You judge yourself, you judgeothers and you judge
circumstances.
So our judgment and judges toourself.
It tells us lies that we haveto earn attention and love and
value and the judge is like apushing force.
(08:46):
If you feel like you're beingpushed to do something, that's
the judge telling you you haveto assert yourself into action
or whatever your motivationalstyle is to avoid those feelings
, those negative feelings,whereas the sage on the
counterpart is more of a pullingaction, like you want to move
forward, you want toself-generate, these feelings of
(09:09):
joy and creativity.
So if you feel yourself beingpushed more than you're being
pulled towards a positive orwhat you think might be a
positive outcome, it's more thanlikely to judge um and then
judging others.
I think judging others is areally interesting topic because
everyone does it Like socialmedia, conscious, unconscious.
(09:33):
Everyone's always under theinfluence of judging others and
comparing themselves.
What I really like about thisconcept that he talks about in
the book is this idea ofprojection.
Like he tells a story about twocoworkers and they were talking
(09:54):
to each other and her judge wasfacing his judge and then all
of a sudden we have conflictwith each other, and it's not
because the people don't agreewith each other and they don't
like each other.
It's because the front they'reputting on is creating this
negative energy and thesenegative back and forth
conversations where we're justgetting lost in the words and
lost in the emotions and thethoughts and then judging our
(10:18):
circumstances.
I found myself, as an athlete,doing this quite often.
I would judge the lighting in ameet room, I would judge how
much chalk I had on my grips, Iwould judge the other team's,
leo.
It was like you judgeeverything right, like you're
always looking around you, andunfortunately, we kind of live
in a world where the habit iswe're just gonna hate on
(10:41):
everybody else, so judgingothers.
And then we also put all of ourfaith in this idea of I'll be
happy when and that's such adangerous lie, the dangerous lie
of when being a moving target.
I thought that all throughoutmy career too.
You know, like, okay, in highschool, when I get to college,
then then I'll be really havinga good time.
(11:03):
Oh, I'm just a freshman, let'swait till sophomore year, okay,
but when I'm a senior I'm reallygoing to figure it out and that
moving target is really justour judge, putting unrealistic
expectations on ourselves.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah, and I think we saw that.
You know guys that wereinterviewed after the Super Bowl
that were kind of like you know, I've been chasing this for a
long time and it was reallyawesome.
But you know, to be honest, wekind of got there and it was
like, well, is this it?
Like you enjoy it?
For a couple days, like Isaacand I talked about that and I
(11:38):
almost felt bad saying it outloud, like after we won a state
championship, I almost felt badtelling people like it wasn't
the the act of winning the gamein and of itself, that final
outcome wasn't nearly asmeaningful.
(11:59):
Or, you know, when mycompletion percentage gets up
here, or if my batting averagecould just be this, or if I
could just, you know, throw thismany miles per hour like the
(12:20):
other guys, then I'd be happy.
But then as soon as we reachthat goal, like you said, we
realize we're not happy.
I liked the some of thejustification and lies that the
judge says.
So like without me pushing you,you'll get lazy and complacent,
or without me judging others,you'll lose your objectivity and
(12:42):
not protect your self-interest.
Without me, you feel bad aboutnegative outcomes but you won't
do anything to change themwithout me scaring you about bad
future outcomes.
You're not going to work hardto prevent them.
And he used the example in thebook of if you don't do well
enough in a game and there's apart of you that judges you know
(13:05):
what?
That wasn't up to my standard.
And then, as a result, you goback in that next week.
And then, as a result, you goback in that next week.
You train different, youhydrate different, you eat sleep
different, you watch filmdifferently, you work harder in
practice, like if it changesthings, then that was a positive
thing.
But the example he used waslike if it's waking you up at
(13:29):
three o'clock in the morning andall you can think about is, oh
my gosh, what if this happens?
What if that happens?
What if?
And then you start judgingyourself, comparing yourself to
other people what's this collegerecruiter think?
What are they going to have onsocial media Then it's obviously
doing way more harm than good.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
For sure, discernment is good.
Discernment's a good skill, um,but your judge is different
from discernment.
If it's waking you up in themiddle of the night, all those
negative feelings are caused byyour judge, whereas your sage is
that objective piece thinkingokay, how do I need to train
different to succeed next time?
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yeah, so talk to us a little bit about the master
saboteur.
A little bit about the mastersaboteur.
We talked about how it wasinitially developed to help us
survive.
It was beneficial in childhood,but then, carrying that over
(14:25):
into adulthood, it becomesnegative.
Talk to me a little bit.
Let's go a little bit deeperback into your story of just
what did that hyper-achievingand pleasing mindset look like
as a child?
How did it help you as a child?
How did you even see benefitfrom it?
(14:46):
And then tell yourself, oh, Ishould keep doing this.
And then when did you realize?
But now in adulthood, this iscausing more harm than good.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
For sure.
So, like I mentioned, I had avery strong saboteur construct
of a hyperachiever, a pleaser,but also a stickler.
I was a gymnast I mentionedthat previous episode so in
gymnastics it's one of thosefunny sports where you can only
lose.
You can only lose tenths, youcan only lose points.
(15:17):
There is no opportunity to gain.
It's really based on thissubjective person's opinion of
how not perfect you are.
So naturally, I developed thisstickler, perfectionist,
saboteur construct where I feltin every area of my life I had
(15:37):
to be perfect.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
And I want to, I want to pause you right there
because, to be fair, if you hadother girls that you were
competing against that maybedidn't have some of those same
tendencies, who were maybe just,oh, it's okay, we can all do
however we want, yay, let's feelgood about ourselves that
(16:01):
weren't holding themselves to ahigher standard, then at some
point they're going to startfalling off and they're not able
to keep up with you.
I mean, is that fair?
Fair?
Speaker 2 (16:11):
totally.
My stickler is what got me tobe a collegiate gymnast.
To be good at a sport, thatmeans you need to be perfect.
The stickler was my friend fora time, um, or I accepted it for
a time.
Where it really becamedetrimental for me was when I
would succeed, but I refused tosee it.
(16:33):
It's okay to not be perfect,even though you might develop
that mindset of it is.
So, again, like we all have ourjudge, but then we usually have
three, three saboteurs that arestrongest.
And I think when I took thisassessment because there's a PQ
(16:54):
assessment that you can takefree online when I took it as an
athlete out of 10, I was a 9.9in controller, a high eight in
stickler and then hyperachiever.
So when you think aboutunderstanding an athlete or a
person and you see theirsaboteurs, it gives you a better
(17:18):
lens to view them with empathy,because you're like, look at
what's up against them.
You're like, oh, brenna's justtype A, always working hard, she
never sits down.
Why can't she just relax and behappy?
Because the judges and thesaboteurs are telling me that's
not an option.
As an adult now I know better,and I say I know better.
(17:38):
Of course, everything's ebbsand flows.
Um, that, those are me.
It's not what makes me Brenna.
Those are just the saboteurs inmy head trying to bring me down
because they once protected me,but now I'm ready to outgrow
those.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, yeah, I think the the one that I that was the
strongest for me was the hyperrational, um, just the, you know
emotions were uncomfortable tome and, to be honest, like in
seventh and eighth grade I wasthe new kid at school.
You know I ended up being thestarter on the football team.
(18:15):
Some of the kids my age didn'tlike that.
They let me know about that.
There was certainly somebullying, some punching me in
the kidneys in the hallway afterlunch, some just some you know
nasty, terrible things that weresaid in the locker room, stuff
like that.
So it was like I needed someway to protect myself from these
(18:39):
terrible things that were beingdone to me.
So it was like, all right, well, these emotions are
uncomfortable, so I'm just goingto go super intense on rational
processing.
You know I'm going to be.
There's a little bit ofcoldness, some distance, some.
You know there's this intense,active mind a little bit more
(19:04):
private, like literally, as I'mreading off these
characteristics, it's like, oh,my goodness, this, this was me.
And so, you know, there was atime where that was beneficial.
But then where and I'll saylike I was well beyond my
playing days before I had anyclue, you know that I was
(19:24):
struggling with something likethis.
I didn't even realize how bigof an issue this was till I was
married and my wife is trying tohave a conversation with me
about emotions and how she wasfeeling and I was like, well,
this doesn't make any sense.
Can you give me a?
Can you give me a time where Idid that?
(19:45):
You know, going back to myhyper rational, like I don't
have to deal with how you'refeeling if I can just disprove
you in the court of our logicalargument that I'm right and
you're wrong.
But it's like at some point Ihad to realize how she's feeling
is how she's feeling, and Idon't get to judge whether
that's right or wrong.
(20:06):
That's how she's feeling and sothere are going to be, you know
, there are going to be timeswhere at the beginning it was
beneficial and then somewherealong the way it becomes not so
beneficial.
So the, you know, moving intothe, called it the judge.
(20:37):
The master sabote was chapterfour.
Um, I love the quote that thatyou had pointed out a
predisposition to exaggeratingthe negative and assuming the
worst is actually good forsurvival, because, like you said
, that was part of what got youto the level that you were at.
That was part of what was thereason for your success.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yeah, for sure you don't need to have a saboteur
control you, but their powerscan be beneficial to you if you
have the positive intelligenceto know when they're being
helpful for you.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
If you're out in the jungle and the leaves rustle,
then it's good for your survival.
For you to say that could be astinking tiger.
I shouldn't stay here.
I better run or hide or getback in my Jeep or pull out my
(21:36):
gun.
There better be some plan.
I better get out of thissituation so that I survive.
You know, and even if 99 timesthat's not a tiger stalking me,
there's still a an awful lot ofbenefit in that one time that it
was a tiger and I was able toget the heck out of there.
But all too often, you know, weget into this, we get into this
(22:00):
fight or flight mode way toooften and we get set off by
everything you know.
Talk, talk to us a little bitabout you know, maybe some of
the the tigers quote unquotethat hunt us as athletes.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah.
So something that comes to mindfor me, because it was a big
tiger was failure, but notfailure by performance, failure
by somebody else's standard,which is where that like pleaser
mindset comes in.
It's like every time I was likemom and dad are going to be so
mad at me if I don't do good.
Nine times out of 10, they werelike did you do your best?
(22:41):
I was like yep, did you have agood attitude?
Yep, not mad.
The maybe one time is probablywhen I had a bad attitude.
I sulked, didn't give my besteffort, didn't prepare.
So it was good for myhyperachiever to step in to push
(23:02):
me those nine times out of 10.
But it's also okay for my judgeto judge myself that one time I
didn't put in my best effort.
You know they can be good Again, as long as they're not
controlling you.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
One of the suggestions that I loved about
the saboteur was this idea ofnaming and separating and saying
, hey, my judge thinks this, soI'll go back.
You know, I like to use thisexample just because it's easy
and people are kind of familiarwith it.
(23:29):
Like 2016, we lose two regularseason games by a combined three
points and I would say if wedidn't go back and change things
and improve how we were doingsome things and turn up the
intensity even more, thenthere's no way we win a state
championship that year.
So you know, the example wouldbe that on, let's say, Saturday
(23:54):
morning after the game, whenwe're watching film, it's not
allowing that judge to say Ican't believe I threw that
interception.
Gosh, I suck, no one's going tobe recruiting me anymore, we're
not going to have an undefeatedseason.
What if all this work we did inthe offseason wasn't good
(24:14):
enough?
And just going down that rabbithole of negativity is not
beneficial.
And just going down that rabbithole of negativity is not
beneficial.
And so in the book he said thejudge thinks that that was a
stupid interception.
And in my mind, to take thisback to, like our critic and our
coach example, it's almost likeyou know we could name them.
We could call them Bob, wecould call them negative Nelly,
(24:38):
we can whatever, but being ableto say, hey, this critic thinks
that that was a terrible pass.
Ok, that's nice that the critichas that opinion.
Now, as the inner coach, what dowe need to do about it?
Was it the wrong read?
Did we not watch enough film?
(24:59):
Was it just a bad pass?
And you know what we're goingdo about it.
Was it the wrong read?
Did we not watch enough film?
Was it just a bad pass?
And you know what we're gonnalet it go.
Was it?
You know I, I did, I didn't do,I didn't know the game plan
well enough.
What needs to change?
Do we need to throw this routemore in practice the next week?
Do we need to practice thismore?
Do Do we need to get better?
You know what are the, the, thesage or the inner coach, or
(25:22):
whatever you want to call it, isable to say okay, you know
there's this negative thing thathappened.
Now what do we do about it?
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, it really makes me think of like a Goodwill
hunting moment where it's it'snot your fault.
You know, I I did this with my14 year old sister actually this
past weekend I had theopportunity to go home and she
came to me and she's like I'mhaving a lot of anxiety, like I
don't know why, I don't knowwhere it's coming from.
I'm like let's take thisassessment.
Um, she took the assessment andher top three saboteurs were
(25:52):
all 9.5 or higher anxiety-basedsaboteurs.
And I was able to look at herand say, tatum, it's not your
fault, like, it's not you.
Like those voices think thatyou can't do this, that you have
to be this, that or the otherthing, and to see, like the
relief of like, like thatbreakdown, it's, it's not me,
it's, that's a you problem thatI'm not associating with.
(26:14):
But I choose to listen to thisinner coach, the self-love, the
curiosity part of me that'sgoing to get me on my way just
as effectively, with way lessemotional toll.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
I believe you even had another family member take
it.
Let's dive a little bit moreinto that and maybe some of the
benefit of understanding whereyou're coming from, where
teammates are coming from Ifyou're a coach, where your
players are coming from, ifyou're in the business world,
(26:46):
where the other people in youroffice are coming from.
I want to hear that story.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yeah for sure.
So I've taken it, my dad'staking it, my sister's taking it
, and I was home this weekendand we were all talking about
these saboteurs.
We kind of side-eyed my momlike mom, have you taken it?
And so we had my mom take thePQ assessment, and she knows I
was going to talk about this.
I got permission, I'm not goingto get in trouble.
But she scored a 10 out of 10,which is the max score you could
(27:15):
score for pleaser andhypervigilant.
And so when you think about thepleaser and the hypervigilant um
saboteurs, the pleaser is outand their lie is I have to do
this, um, to earn love.
I have to do this to earnacceptance, I have to do this to
take care of everybody else.
(27:35):
The hypervigilant is over heresaying I have to do this because
nobody else can.
And so when we think about aparent relationship and I was
even talking to my teenagesister, because the girls know
the teenage daughter to the momrelationship can sometimes be a
tough one and you butt heads andyou don't understand why is mom
(27:56):
, has this pleasurehypervigilant construct that's
telling her I need to take careof you and I need to do it all
for you.
And then you have this teenagerwho has a controller and also a
little bit of a pleaser in her,who's like I want to earn my
acceptance, but I'm afraid todisappoint you.
And when you think about howthese two saboteurs might be
meshing with each other, itresults in a lot of conflict.
(28:18):
And so when we were able to setthose aside and sit down and
talk about my mom's saboteursand my sister's saboteurs, it's
like, well, no wonder we'rehaving issues right now You're
coming off with I want toprotect you and do it all for
you, and my sister is like Iwant to start earning my
independence, but I'm afraid todisappoint you.
So these assessments can bereally great for all teams, like
(28:40):
a coach to a player, a playerto a player, like where's the
breakdown happening?
Where are you coming from andwhat am I not understanding?
It helps you see past your lensof saboteurs and really
activate your stage to empathizewith the voices that somebody
else might be dealing with.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I love that.
And before we hop into what dowe do about this?
How do we weaken them a littlebit, I want to just kind of
summarize real quick for me as amental performance coach and
some of the most benefit that Isee from all of this kind of
(29:21):
wrapping up what we've talkedabout so far.
Number one the description.
The description of saboteur Ilike way better than inner
critic, even though the innercritic is maybe a little bit
more sportsy.
I love the idea of like thismilitary insurgent in my brain,
pretending to protect me,pretending to have my best
(29:46):
interests at heart, but thenhaving the ability to sabotage
things If I give them too muchpower.
It's almost like this spy thatyou know when you're you're
playing this game with, withspies on an international level.
You want to, you want to trustthem and you want to get the
information out of them, butlike you're not going to give
(30:06):
them your laptop password sothey can get in there and get
access to everything, right, sowe want to keep them at a little
bit, at an arm's distance.
I love the origin piece to this.
I love the ability to go backand look at and examine why did
this happen.
Where did this come from?
Because that's when I think youcan really start to see, oh,
(30:30):
this benefited me when I was akid.
I'm just not a kid anymore andI don't need this anymore.
I think that makes it a littlebit easier to start to shed some
of these things.
I think the separation piece ofyou know this is not the
ultimate master of my mind.
(30:52):
I'm not going to let this judgeor I'm not going to let this
hyper rational or this victim orwhatever saboteur run the show.
They can have their opinion.
We're going to use theiranalysis, we're going to use oh,
this wasn't good enough.
And then I am going to takeback over and, using the sage or
(31:15):
using that inner coach orwhatever you want to call that,
moving forward, I am now goingto put together a plan and then
execute that plan and put thatto work.
I would say that you know, atthis point, if I could just get,
if I could just get my kids ormy athletes to read part one and
(31:37):
part two, that at least givesus a whole new vocabulary of
things that we're able todiscuss.
You know, it's not justself-talk.
There's literally like 10categories of potential
self-talk and the roots andorigins behind them.
I see a ton of value in that.
I see a ton of value in that.
(31:58):
So now we start to move forward.
I will say you know, I thinkwhen they start to take back
control, they do a really goodjob in the book of how do we
make long-term, meaningful,lasting change.
I think that there are someother additional tools that we
need to incorporate, just in thesports world, because, you know
(32:20):
, I, I need to get my guys andmy gals to be able to make some
changes immediately on the golfcourse right now and take back
control.
But I, I want to dive intoexposing the lie and then
weakening your saboteur, becauseover a longer timeframe, I
think this is gold.
(32:42):
Talk to us a little bit aboutthose two ways that you can
really start to weaken thesaboteur.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
So this first strategy is so simple and so
self-explanatory.
To weaken a saboteur, really,you just need to, like you said,
expose the lie.
You need to understand thatthese thoughts are a lie and
they're not benefiting you.
Saboteurs do their greatestdamage when they've convinced
you that they are you and theyare your friend and they've
(33:11):
worked their way into yourself-talk.
But I even challenged the ideaof self-talk.
Is your saboteur talking to youself-talk or is that, like you
said, the critic?
Is that that other voice thatwe don't want to associate with?
So the first step in takingback control of your thoughts
(33:32):
and getting a stronger, positiveintelligence, just bring
awareness to be like oh, thejudge said that the judge thinks
that I didn't do a good enoughjob there.
You know what I think?
I'm going to move forward andabandon that thought.
Take what's helpful, take what,or leave what's not, and just
move forward.
So really simple first strategyStart to recognize where your
(33:56):
thoughts might be going awry,not serving you.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
And you know, that kind of brings us to the end of
part two or the end of chapterfour, where we're saying we have
these saboteurs, we have thesecritics, we have this stuff in
our head.
Sometimes it's beneficial,sometimes they point out things
that need to improve.
Other times it's just noise andwe need to move on.
But understanding we don't haveto be held captive by these
(34:21):
things, and not everything inour own head is innately trying
to help us and do positivethings and do good.
And especially in the, in theworld of athletics, where so
much of high performance isuncomfortable, so much of high
performance is uncomfortable, somuch of high performance goes
against that.
(34:42):
Let's keep ourselves safe andhappy and free from harm, and
free from psychological harm,like we're constantly saying no.
To achieve greatness, we got togo, put a lot of things on the
line and we're going to have totake some risks.
So next, uh, the next section.
It talks about, you know, notjust weakening the lies.
(35:07):
But then how do we now start tostrengthen this sage?
Or, in our sports example, howdo we now start to build up this
inner coach where we'veidentified yeah, this wasn't
good enough, yeah, I came upshort, okay, but now what are we
going to do and how are wegoing to move forward?
(35:27):
Be at our best stuff like that.
So, brenna, looking forward to,uh, having that conversation
next time.
Appreciate you joining us thisevening.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Yeah, thank much.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
it's always a pleasure if you have questions
or want to learn a little bitmore about how working with
mental training plan can helpyour individual athlete or your
team, head on over tomentaltrainingplancom.
Click on the contact us buttonat the bottom.
Send a message.
Let's set up a phone call.
Have a quick conversation aboutyour son or daughter or your
(36:00):
team and, until next time, makeyour plan and put it to work.
Hey, welcome to the Coaching Minds podcast, the
official podcast of MentalTraining Plan, joined again by
Brenna Brenna, thanks for comingback, being on the show again.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
So part two we're talking through chapters three
and four today of the bookPositive Intelligence and if you
guys have not listened to theprevious episode where we just
kind of introduced that firstsection, would encourage you to
pause this, go back and givethat previous episode a listen,
(00:34):
just so that you've got somegood background information.
But you know, brenna, why don'tyou kind of start us off by
giving us just a super quickrecap and buzz through of what
we talked about from section one?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah for sure.
So, section one we introducedthis idea of positive
intelligence, which is yourability to take your thoughts
captive and then make them workin your favor.
So it's the idea that we havethese two opposing forces in our
brain.
We have the saboteurs and oursage.
So we briefly talked about howsaboteurs everyone has a judge
(01:10):
and then there's nineaccomplices.
Your sage is that wiser,curious part of your brain
that's acting in your favor, andwe briefly talked about these
three strategies, which areweaken your saboteurs,
strengthening your sage andstrengthening your PQ muscles,
and so what we're going to bedoing over the next few episodes
is talk through more of thosestrategies, and so today's
(01:31):
episode is actually aboutweakening your saboteurs,
understanding your judge andjust getting a better idea of
what are these negative voicesinside my head.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, and I think, from a sport perspective, if I
were to say, how does this bestapply to our audience, social
(02:06):
media or that person that's justup in the stands that you know,
happy to point out your flawsbut not really helping with,
okay, well, what are we going toactually do about this?
And the sage would maybe belike that inner coach, like okay
you know we're not, we're notliving in la la land.
We're not just saying let'saccept mediocrity, but are going
to say, okay, what's happenedhas happened now.
(02:26):
What are we going to do aboutit now?
How are we going to moveforward?
But the part of the reason whyI like this book so much, part
of the reason why I like thesaboteur example even better
than the critic, is becausethere's there's that like hint
(02:47):
of I'm pretending like I'm onyour side, but really I'm
sabotaging things, I'm hiding,I'm underneath the surface, I'm
even appearing as helpful, I'meven able to justify.
Well, you can't, you can't getrid of this judge, then Then
you'll just be, you'll be okaywith you know, however you play,
(03:08):
and then you'll never getbetter, and then you're not
going to achieve your goals.
And and so there's a there's asneaky deceptiveness to it that
I that I just love.
Talk to us, talk to us a littlebit about.
You know, at the beginning ofchapter three, he's talking
(03:29):
about how, you know, as a child,he started to have these fears
and he started to have thesepains, and the role of the
saboteur is to basically helpyou survive.
So you know, he used the exampletalking about with his parents
that you know, we all wantindependence, we all want
(03:52):
acceptance, we all want security.
Those were three things that hebrought up.
So how are we going to getthose?
Well, we can either beassertive, we can take action
and command and demandfulfillment of these primary
needs.
We can try to earn our way andyou know, if I, if I do this,
(04:14):
then my parents will give mepraise and then I'll get that
acceptance that I want, or momwill be in a good mood.
So then there's, you know, somemore security, or there's a, a
void was the, was the third one,and so all of these saboteurs
kind of, you know, start offthere.
Talk to me a little bit about,because I know we spoke
(04:36):
beforehand about how knowingwhere these came from and
knowing what your enemy is givesyou a little bit better chance
at fighting and eradicating this.
Talk to us a little bit aboutthat.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah for sure.
So the really cool thing aboutpositive intelligence and these
saboteurs is they wereoriginally formed to serve you.
They were there to protect you.
So I can speak for myself asone of eight kids.
I developed a saboteur veryearly on to be a pleaser and a
hyper achiever, which is amotivation of acceptance and a
(05:12):
style of being assertive because, being one of eight kids, I
wanted attention and I wanted tobe.
Oh, I guess I wanted attention.
And then I just wanted to havethat acceptance for my parents
because I was always competingfor attention with seven other
people.
So my saboteur-.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Were you going to stand out?
Maybe a little bit.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah.
So my saboteur of hyperachieverwas I'm going to stand out from
everybody else by being thebest, doing the best that I can
and then pointing that out to myparents, which at the time, was
great.
Right, we developed that for ashort period of time.
I got what I felt wasacceptance at the time, what I
needed.
But then, growing intoadulthood, I find myself trying
(05:57):
to carry this hyperachieversaboteur with me and now it just
results in emotional drainageand physical drainage and trying
to do the most all the time.
But I know that's not me,that's just my saboteur that
developed at a time to protectme.
And these saboteurs can be good.
(06:18):
Sometimes I need tohyperachieve, but they can also
be bad, because they were put onus like a cast.
If we never take a cast off, wecan never grow.
So it's important that we breakthem down and really understand
why are they in our lives andare they serving us at the
appropriate time.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yeah, and I just I think I think it's easy for
people to kind of identify.
Well, how you know, we all wantacceptance, so did you, did you
go the assertive route and youtried to gain that by hyper
achieving, going after beingassertive, tracking down these
goals.
Was it more of like the youknow you're trying to earn
(06:59):
things, so like you're trying tobe a pleaser, you're trying to
you know, I would say that mywife might you know.
I would say that my wife might,you know, identify with a little
bit more of thosecharacteristics, being the
middle child of three, you know.
Or he talks about how one ofhis siblings in the book wanted
(07:19):
acceptance and so when thingsweren't going well, when mom and
dad didn't have a safeenvironment or weren't accepting
of you know how his sibling wasacting.
He would just go with thevictim saboteur and kind of
withdraw and you know, oh, woeis me.
But at least, at least you knowhe's, he's getting some of that
acceptance, he's getting someof that victim mentality, some
(07:40):
of that.
That victim card, I don't know,I thought it was, I thought it
was very interesting and readingthrough the entire chapter, I
think, really gives, reallyhelps you identify.
Where did these come from?
You know what?
What's the description of it,what are the thoughts that go
(08:01):
with it, the feelings that gowith it, what are the
justification lies that we tellourselves, the impact it has on
ourself and even on other people.
So the judge is the big one.
Let's talk a little bit aboutthat.
Tell us a little bit about howwe judge ourselves and others.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, so everybody has a judge.
There's 10 saboteurs, a judgeand nine accomplice.
Everybody has a judge.
You judge yourself, you judgeothers and you judge
circumstances.
So our judgment and judges toourself.
It tells us lies that we haveto earn attention and love and
value and the judge is like apushing force.
(08:46):
If you feel like you're beingpushed to do something, that's
the judge telling you you haveto assert yourself into action
or whatever your motivationalstyle is to avoid those feelings
, those negative feelings,whereas the sage on the
counterpart is more of a pullingaction, like you want to move
forward, you want toself-generate, these feelings of
(09:09):
joy and creativity.
So if you feel yourself beingpushed more than you're being
pulled towards a positive orwhat you think might be a
positive outcome, it's more thanlikely to judge um and then
judging others.
I think judging others is areally interesting topic because
everyone does it Like socialmedia, conscious, unconscious.
(09:33):
Everyone's always under theinfluence of judging others and
comparing themselves.
What I really like about thisconcept that he talks about in
the book is this idea ofprojection.
Like he tells a story about twocoworkers and they were talking
(09:54):
to each other and her judge wasfacing his judge and then all
of a sudden we have conflictwith each other, and it's not
because the people don't agreewith each other and they don't
like each other.
It's because the front they'reputting on is creating this
negative energy and thesenegative back and forth
conversations where we're justgetting lost in the words and
lost in the emotions and thethoughts and then judging our
(10:18):
circumstances.
I found myself, as an athlete,doing this quite often.
I would judge the lighting in ameet room, I would judge how
much chalk I had on my grips, Iwould judge the other team's,
leo.
It was like you judgeeverything right, like you're
always looking around you, andunfortunately, we kind of live
in a world where the habit iswe're just gonna hate on
(10:41):
everybody else, so judgingothers.
And then we also put all of ourfaith in this idea of I'll be
happy when and that's such adangerous lie, the dangerous lie
of when being a moving target.
I thought that all throughoutmy career too.
You know, like, okay, in highschool, when I get to college,
then then I'll be really havinga good time.
(11:03):
Oh, I'm just a freshman, let'swait till sophomore year, okay,
but when I'm a senior I'm reallygoing to figure it out and that
moving target is really justour judge, putting unrealistic
expectations on ourselves.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah, and I think we saw that.
You know guys that wereinterviewed after the Super Bowl
that were kind of like you know, I've been chasing this for a
long time and it was reallyawesome.
But you know, to be honest, wekind of got there and it was
like, well, is this it?
Like you enjoy it?
For a couple days, like Isaacand I talked about that and I
(11:38):
almost felt bad saying it outloud, like after we won a state
championship, I almost felt badtelling people like it wasn't
the the act of winning the gamein and of itself, that final
outcome wasn't nearly asmeaningful.
(11:59):
Or, you know, when mycompletion percentage gets up
here, or if my batting averagecould just be this, or if I
could just, you know, throw thismany miles per hour like the
(12:20):
other guys, then I'd be happy.
But then as soon as we reachthat goal, like you said, we
realize we're not happy.
I liked the some of thejustification and lies that the
judge says.
So like without me pushing you,you'll get lazy and complacent,
or without me judging others,you'll lose your objectivity and
(12:42):
not protect your self-interest.
Without me, you feel bad aboutnegative outcomes but you won't
do anything to change themwithout me scaring you about bad
future outcomes.
You're not going to work hardto prevent them.
And he used the example in thebook of if you don't do well
enough in a game and there's apart of you that judges you know
(13:05):
what?
That wasn't up to my standard.
And then, as a result, you goback in that next week.
And then, as a result, you goback in that next week.
You train different, youhydrate different, you eat sleep
different, you watch filmdifferently, you work harder in
practice, like if it changesthings, then that was a positive
thing.
But the example he used waslike if it's waking you up at
(13:29):
three o'clock in the morning andall you can think about is, oh
my gosh, what if this happens?
What if that happens?
What if?
And then you start judgingyourself, comparing yourself to
other people what's this collegerecruiter think?
What are they going to have onsocial media Then it's obviously
doing way more harm than good.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
For sure, discernment is good.
Discernment's a good skill, um,but your judge is different
from discernment.
If it's waking you up in themiddle of the night, all those
negative feelings are caused byyour judge, whereas your sage is
that objective piece thinkingokay, how do I need to train
different to succeed next time?
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yeah, so talk to us a little bit about the master
saboteur.
A little bit about the mastersaboteur.
We talked about how it wasinitially developed to help us
survive.
It was beneficial in childhood,but then, carrying that over
(14:25):
into adulthood, it becomesnegative.
Talk to me a little bit.
Let's go a little bit deeperback into your story of just
what did that hyper-achievingand pleasing mindset look like
as a child?
How did it help you as a child?
How did you even see benefitfrom it?
(14:46):
And then tell yourself, oh, Ishould keep doing this.
And then when did you realize?
But now in adulthood, this iscausing more harm than good.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
For sure.
So, like I mentioned, I had avery strong saboteur construct
of a hyperachiever, a pleaser,but also a stickler.
I was a gymnast I mentionedthat previous episode so in
gymnastics it's one of thosefunny sports where you can only
lose.
You can only lose tenths, youcan only lose points.
(15:17):
There is no opportunity to gain.
It's really based on thissubjective person's opinion of
how not perfect you are.
So naturally, I developed thisstickler, perfectionist,
saboteur construct where I feltin every area of my life I had
(15:37):
to be perfect.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
And I want to, I want to pause you right there
because, to be fair, if you hadother girls that you were
competing against that maybedidn't have some of those same
tendencies, who were maybe just,oh, it's okay, we can all do
however we want, yay, let's feelgood about ourselves that
(16:01):
weren't holding themselves to ahigher standard, then at some
point they're going to startfalling off and they're not able
to keep up with you.
I mean, is that fair?
Fair?
Speaker 2 (16:11):
totally.
My stickler is what got me tobe a collegiate gymnast.
To be good at a sport, thatmeans you need to be perfect.
The stickler was my friend fora time, um, or I accepted it for
a time.
Where it really becamedetrimental for me was when I
would succeed, but I refused tosee it.
(16:33):
It's okay to not be perfect,even though you might develop
that mindset of it is.
So, again, like we all have ourjudge, but then we usually have
three, three saboteurs that arestrongest.
And I think when I took thisassessment because there's a PQ
(16:54):
assessment that you can takefree online when I took it as an
athlete out of 10, I was a 9.9in controller, a high eight in
stickler and then hyperachiever.
So when you think aboutunderstanding an athlete or a
person and you see theirsaboteurs, it gives you a better
(17:18):
lens to view them with empathy,because you're like, look at
what's up against them.
You're like, oh, brenna's justtype A, always working hard, she
never sits down.
Why can't she just relax and behappy?
Because the judges and thesaboteurs are telling me that's
not an option.
As an adult now I know better,and I say I know better.
(17:38):
Of course, everything's ebbsand flows.
Um, that, those are me.
It's not what makes me Brenna.
Those are just the saboteurs inmy head trying to bring me down
because they once protected me,but now I'm ready to outgrow
those.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, yeah, I think the the one that I that was the
strongest for me was the hyperrational, um, just the, you know
emotions were uncomfortable tome and, to be honest, like in
seventh and eighth grade I wasthe new kid at school.
You know I ended up being thestarter on the football team.
(18:15):
Some of the kids my age didn'tlike that.
They let me know about that.
There was certainly somebullying, some punching me in
the kidneys in the hallway afterlunch, some just some you know
nasty, terrible things that weresaid in the locker room, stuff
like that.
So it was like I needed someway to protect myself from these
(18:39):
terrible things that were beingdone to me.
So it was like, all right, well, these emotions are
uncomfortable, so I'm just goingto go super intense on rational
processing.
You know I'm going to be.
There's a little bit ofcoldness, some distance, some.
You know there's this intense,active mind a little bit more
(19:04):
private, like literally, as I'mreading off these
characteristics, it's like, oh,my goodness, this, this was me.
And so, you know, there was atime where that was beneficial.
But then where and I'll saylike I was well beyond my
playing days before I had anyclue, you know that I was
(19:24):
struggling with something likethis.
I didn't even realize how bigof an issue this was till I was
married and my wife is trying tohave a conversation with me
about emotions and how she wasfeeling and I was like, well,
this doesn't make any sense.
Can you give me a?
Can you give me a time where Idid that?
(19:45):
You know, going back to myhyper rational, like I don't
have to deal with how you'refeeling if I can just disprove
you in the court of our logicalargument that I'm right and
you're wrong.
But it's like at some point Ihad to realize how she's feeling
is how she's feeling, and Idon't get to judge whether
that's right or wrong.
(20:06):
That's how she's feeling and sothere are going to be, you know
, there are going to be timeswhere at the beginning it was
beneficial and then somewherealong the way it becomes not so
beneficial.
So the, you know, moving intothe, called it the judge.
(20:37):
The master sabote was chapterfour.
Um, I love the quote that thatyou had pointed out a
predisposition to exaggeratingthe negative and assuming the
worst is actually good forsurvival, because, like you said
, that was part of what got youto the level that you were at.
That was part of what was thereason for your success.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yeah, for sure you don't need to have a saboteur
control you, but their powerscan be beneficial to you if you
have the positive intelligenceto know when they're being
helpful for you.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
If you're out in the jungle and the leaves rustle,
then it's good for your survival.
For you to say that could be astinking tiger.
I shouldn't stay here.
I better run or hide or getback in my Jeep or pull out my
(21:36):
gun.
There better be some plan.
I better get out of thissituation so that I survive.
You know, and even if 99 timesthat's not a tiger stalking me,
there's still a an awful lot ofbenefit in that one time that it
was a tiger and I was able toget the heck out of there.
But all too often, you know, weget into this, we get into this
(22:00):
fight or flight mode way toooften and we get set off by
everything you know.
Talk, talk to us a little bitabout you know, maybe some of
the the tigers quote unquotethat hunt us as athletes.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah.
So something that comes to mindfor me, because it was a big
tiger was failure, but notfailure by performance, failure
by somebody else's standard,which is where that like pleaser
mindset comes in.
It's like every time I was likemom and dad are going to be so
mad at me if I don't do good.
Nine times out of 10, they werelike did you do your best?
(22:41):
I was like yep, did you have agood attitude?
Yep, not mad.
The maybe one time is probablywhen I had a bad attitude.
I sulked, didn't give my besteffort, didn't prepare.
So it was good for myhyperachiever to step in to push
(23:02):
me those nine times out of 10.
But it's also okay for my judgeto judge myself that one time I
didn't put in my best effort.
You know they can be good Again, as long as they're not
controlling you.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
One of the suggestions that I loved about
the saboteur was this idea ofnaming and separating and saying
, hey, my judge thinks this, soI'll go back.
You know, I like to use thisexample just because it's easy
and people are kind of familiarwith it.
(23:29):
Like 2016, we lose two regularseason games by a combined three
points and I would say if wedidn't go back and change things
and improve how we were doingsome things and turn up the
intensity even more, thenthere's no way we win a state
championship that year.
So you know, the example wouldbe that on, let's say, Saturday
(23:54):
morning after the game, whenwe're watching film, it's not
allowing that judge to say Ican't believe I threw that
interception.
Gosh, I suck, no one's going tobe recruiting me anymore, we're
not going to have an undefeatedseason.
What if all this work we did inthe offseason wasn't good
(24:14):
enough?
And just going down that rabbithole of negativity is not
beneficial.
And just going down that rabbithole of negativity is not
beneficial.
And so in the book he said thejudge thinks that that was a
stupid interception.
And in my mind, to take thisback to, like our critic and our
coach example, it's almost likeyou know we could name them.
We could call them Bob, wecould call them negative Nelly,
(24:38):
we can whatever, but being ableto say, hey, this critic thinks
that that was a terrible pass.
Ok, that's nice that the critichas that opinion.
Now, as the inner coach, what dowe need to do about it?
Was it the wrong read?
Did we not watch enough film?
(24:59):
Was it just a bad pass?
And you know what we're goingdo about it.
Was it the wrong read?
Did we not watch enough film?
Was it just a bad pass?
And you know what we're gonnalet it go.
Was it?
You know I, I did, I didn't do,I didn't know the game plan
well enough.
What needs to change?
Do we need to throw this routemore in practice the next week?
Do we need to practice thismore?
Do Do we need to get better?
You know what are the, the, thesage or the inner coach, or
(25:22):
whatever you want to call it, isable to say okay, you know
there's this negative thing thathappened.
Now what do we do about it?
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, it really makes me think of like a Goodwill
hunting moment where it's it'snot your fault.
You know, I I did this with my14 year old sister actually this
past weekend I had theopportunity to go home and she
came to me and she's like I'mhaving a lot of anxiety, like I
don't know why, I don't knowwhere it's coming from.
I'm like let's take thisassessment.
Um, she took the assessment andher top three saboteurs were
(25:52):
all 9.5 or higher anxiety-basedsaboteurs.
And I was able to look at herand say, tatum, it's not your
fault, like, it's not you.
Like those voices think thatyou can't do this, that you have
to be this, that or the otherthing, and to see, like the
relief of like, like thatbreakdown, it's, it's not me,
it's, that's a you problem thatI'm not associating with.
(26:14):
But I choose to listen to thisinner coach, the self-love, the
curiosity part of me that'sgoing to get me on my way just
as effectively, with way lessemotional toll.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
I believe you even had another family member take
it.
Let's dive a little bit moreinto that and maybe some of the
benefit of understanding whereyou're coming from, where
teammates are coming from Ifyou're a coach, where your
players are coming from, ifyou're in the business world,
(26:46):
where the other people in youroffice are coming from.
I want to hear that story.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yeah for sure.
So I've taken it, my dad'staking it, my sister's taking it
, and I was home this weekendand we were all talking about
these saboteurs.
We kind of side-eyed my momlike mom, have you taken it?
And so we had my mom take thePQ assessment, and she knows I
was going to talk about this.
I got permission, I'm not goingto get in trouble.
But she scored a 10 out of 10,which is the max score you could
(27:15):
score for pleaser andhypervigilant.
And so when you think about thepleaser and the hypervigilant um
saboteurs, the pleaser is outand their lie is I have to do
this, um, to earn love.
I have to do this to earnacceptance, I have to do this to
take care of everybody else.
(27:35):
The hypervigilant is over heresaying I have to do this because
nobody else can.
And so when we think about aparent relationship and I was
even talking to my teenagesister, because the girls know
the teenage daughter to the momrelationship can sometimes be a
tough one and you butt heads andyou don't understand why is mom
(27:56):
, has this pleasurehypervigilant construct that's
telling her I need to take careof you and I need to do it all
for you.
And then you have this teenagerwho has a controller and also a
little bit of a pleaser in her,who's like I want to earn my
acceptance, but I'm afraid todisappoint you.
And when you think about howthese two saboteurs might be
meshing with each other, itresults in a lot of conflict.
(28:18):
And so when we were able to setthose aside and sit down and
talk about my mom's saboteursand my sister's saboteurs, it's
like, well, no wonder we'rehaving issues right now You're
coming off with I want toprotect you and do it all for
you, and my sister is like Iwant to start earning my
independence, but I'm afraid todisappoint you.
So these assessments can bereally great for all teams, like
(28:40):
a coach to a player, a playerto a player, like where's the
breakdown happening?
Where are you coming from andwhat am I not understanding?
It helps you see past your lensof saboteurs and really
activate your stage to empathizewith the voices that somebody
else might be dealing with.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I love that.
And before we hop into what dowe do about this?
How do we weaken them a littlebit, I want to just kind of
summarize real quick for me as amental performance coach and
some of the most benefit that Isee from all of this kind of
(29:21):
wrapping up what we've talkedabout so far.
Number one the description.
The description of saboteur Ilike way better than inner
critic, even though the innercritic is maybe a little bit
more sportsy.
I love the idea of like thismilitary insurgent in my brain,
pretending to protect me,pretending to have my best
(29:46):
interests at heart, but thenhaving the ability to sabotage
things If I give them too muchpower.
It's almost like this spy thatyou know when you're you're
playing this game with, withspies on an international level.
You want to, you want to trustthem and you want to get the
information out of them, butlike you're not going to give
(30:06):
them your laptop password sothey can get in there and get
access to everything, right, sowe want to keep them at a little
bit, at an arm's distance.
I love the origin piece to this.
I love the ability to go backand look at and examine why did
this happen.
Where did this come from?
Because that's when I think youcan really start to see, oh,
(30:30):
this benefited me when I was akid.
I'm just not a kid anymore andI don't need this anymore.
I think that makes it a littlebit easier to start to shed some
of these things.
I think the separation piece ofyou know this is not the
ultimate master of my mind.
(30:52):
I'm not going to let this judgeor I'm not going to let this
hyper rational or this victim orwhatever saboteur run the show.
They can have their opinion.
We're going to use theiranalysis, we're going to use oh,
this wasn't good enough.
And then I am going to takeback over and, using the sage or
(31:15):
using that inner coach orwhatever you want to call that,
moving forward, I am now goingto put together a plan and then
execute that plan and put thatto work.
I would say that you know, atthis point, if I could just get,
if I could just get my kids ormy athletes to read part one and
(31:37):
part two, that at least givesus a whole new vocabulary of
things that we're able todiscuss.
You know, it's not justself-talk.
There's literally like 10categories of potential
self-talk and the roots andorigins behind them.
I see a ton of value in that.
I see a ton of value in that.
(31:58):
So now we start to move forward.
I will say you know, I thinkwhen they start to take back
control, they do a really goodjob in the book of how do we
make long-term, meaningful,lasting change.
I think that there are someother additional tools that we
need to incorporate, just in thesports world, because, you know
(32:20):
, I, I need to get my guys andmy gals to be able to make some
changes immediately on the golfcourse right now and take back
control.
But I, I want to dive intoexposing the lie and then
weakening your saboteur, becauseover a longer timeframe, I
think this is gold.
(32:42):
Talk to us a little bit aboutthose two ways that you can
really start to weaken thesaboteur.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
So this first strategy is so simple and so
self-explanatory.
To weaken a saboteur, really,you just need to, like you said,
expose the lie.
You need to understand thatthese thoughts are a lie and
they're not benefiting you.
Saboteurs do their greatestdamage when they've convinced
you that they are you and theyare your friend and they've
(33:11):
worked their way into yourself-talk.
But I even challenged the ideaof self-talk.
Is your saboteur talking to youself-talk or is that, like you
said, the critic?
Is that that other voice thatwe don't want to associate with?
So the first step in takingback control of your thoughts
(33:32):
and getting a stronger, positiveintelligence, just bring
awareness to be like oh, thejudge said that the judge thinks
that I didn't do a good enoughjob there.
You know what I think?
I'm going to move forward andabandon that thought.
Take what's helpful, take what,or leave what's not, and just
move forward.
So really simple first strategyStart to recognize where your
(33:56):
thoughts might be going awry,not serving you.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
And you know, that kind of brings us to the end of
part two or the end of chapterfour, where we're saying we have
these saboteurs, we have thesecritics, we have this stuff in
our head.
Sometimes it's beneficial,sometimes they point out things
that need to improve.
Other times it's just noise andwe need to move on.
But understanding we don't haveto be held captive by these
(34:21):
things, and not everything inour own head is innately trying
to help us and do positivethings and do good.
And especially in the, in theworld of athletics, where so
much of high performance isuncomfortable, so much of high
performance is uncomfortable, somuch of high performance goes
against that.
(34:42):
Let's keep ourselves safe andhappy and free from harm, and
free from psychological harm,like we're constantly saying no.
To achieve greatness, we got togo, put a lot of things on the
line and we're going to have totake some risks.
So next, uh, the next section.
It talks about, you know, notjust weakening the lies.
(35:07):
But then how do we now start tostrengthen this sage?
Or, in our sports example, howdo we now start to build up this
inner coach where we'veidentified yeah, this wasn't
good enough, yeah, I came upshort, okay, but now what are we
going to do and how are wegoing to move forward?
(35:27):
Be at our best stuff like that.
So, brenna, looking forward to,uh, having that conversation
next time.
Appreciate you joining us thisevening.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Yeah, thank much.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
it's always a pleasure if you have questions
or want to learn a little bitmore about how working with
mental training plan can helpyour individual athlete or your
team, head on over tomentaltrainingplancom.
Click on the contact us buttonat the bottom.
Send a message.
Let's set up a phone call.
Have a quick conversation aboutyour son or daughter or your
(36:00):
team and, until next time, makeyour plan and put it to work.
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