Performance Anxiety & Yips With Eileen Canney Linnehan

0:00It's time for Cyber Monday, Dell Technologies biggest sale of the year. That's right, you'll find the lowest prices of the year on select Dell PCs like the Dell 16 Plus with Intel Core Ultra processors. And with built-in advanced AI features, it's the PC that helps you do more faster. From smarter multitasking to extended battery life, these PCs get the busy work done so you can focus on what matters most to you. Plus, you can earn Dell rewards and join many other benefits like free shipping, expert support, price match guarantee, and flexible financing options. They also have the biggest deals on accessories that pair perfectly with your Dell PC, improving the way you work, play, and connect.

0:38Whether you just got started holiday shopping or you're finishing up, these PCs and accessories make perfect gifts for everyone on your list. Shop now at dell.com slash deals and don't miss out on the best prices of the year. That's dell.com slash deals.

0:54I'm picking my kids up from school today and then doing our weekly routine, which is I take them over to Whole Foods. and we get all our groceries for the week. Then we have dinner. It's one of their favorite things to do. It's one of my favorite things to do. And then my wife loves it because she doesn't have to take care of it. This holiday season, whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner Whole Foods Market has what you need to delight everyone at your table. They even have heat and eat sides from the prepared foods department. You can make Whole Foods your one-stop shop. Everything follows Whole Foods Market's strict ingredients standards so you know it'll be delicious and good for you.

1:28You can also order online for pickup and even delivery in select zip codes to skip the crowds. Shop everything you need at Whole Foods Market, your holiday headquarters.

1:43Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives. But first, We've got a quick message from one of our sponsors.

2:28I think it keeps us all up at night, right? This idea that your gifts could suddenly go away, right? You look at Tiger Woods on the golf course and you go, man, what happened, right? Or you see a pitcher can't throw the ball, a batter who can't hit the ball. You see that field goal kicker miss field goal after field goal after field goal, and you feel for them. But really what you're thinking is, oh, my God, I hope that doesn't happen to me. And I mean, writers, like I think about this with writing all the time. You hear about writer's block. I don't know if it really exists or not. I mean, I know it does, but I also know it doesn't.

3:04And then at the same time, I go, what if suddenly I couldn't do it anymore? What if I sat down and I didn't have any more ideas? What if I couldn't make good stuff anymore? That would be scary financially. It'd also be so scary from an identity perspective. And then there'd be embarrassment and shame. It'd be a downward spiral. In the sports world, they call this the yips. They call it that, but they don't really talk about it that much. It's like the 800-pound gorilla, the elephant in the room. They know what happens. They don't know why it happens. They don't want it to happen. And so they pretend it doesn't happen.

3:41They see someone spiraling, losing it. And they're like, I don't want to mess with that. I don't want to get infected by that. It's scary. It's terrifying. So I was fascinated. I read this New York Times piece about this woman named Eileen Caney Linehan, an all-American, four-time, all-10 big selection. She played softball at Northwestern. She was and is an absolutely great pitcher. and she suffered from the yips. She suffered from this thing we all don't want to happen to us. And she's become an expert in helping people with that. So I hit her with an email and asked if she wanted to come on the podcast and she was excited too.

4:25And that's what we ended up talking about. Performance anxiety, mental block, the yips, whatever you want to call it. You may notice both of us raved about this book that we've both read called The Phenom about the pitcher Rich Ankeel who reinvented himself after a terrible case of the Yips as a designated hitter. Eileen does not have a book out. I told her at the end of it that she absolutely must write one. You can go to her website, consultwithecl.com. You can go to her website, at ECL underscore consulting. Follow her on Twitter, at consultwithecl. And enjoy this interview and maybe share it with an athlete or a coach you know.

5:05who's either dealing with it or has players who are dealing with it, because I think this is a great interview, and I was really excited to do it.

5:22It's in Shiloh Valley Township, I guess. I don't know. I don't know Illinois very well. It's a big state. Yes, it's actually close to St. Louis. Interesting. Anyways, you ready? All right. So I was thinking of you because the other day, my wife was reading this book about cognition and reading. And she was like, hey, I have a question for you. She was like, when you read, do you hear a voice in your head saying what the words are? Do you hear your own voice when you're reading? And I was like, don't ever ask me this question again. I was like, I cannot think I was like, whatever it is, it's working.

6:04And I don't want to, I don't want to get up in there and fuck with it. Right. I was like, my, I was like, my whole livelihood is dependent on whatever is working, continuing to work. And I don't want to get up and I don't want to mess with the gears, which I feel like is probably how a lot of athletes feel with, with psychology and, and all of this stuff, which is like, it's working and they don't want to mess it up. And then it stops working. And then they're like, now I definitely don't know what to do. And it's that elephant in the room, like, you don't want to, don't talk about it. Don't think about it.

6:37But in reality, owning it and thinking about it is actually allowing them to repeat it more consistently. Yes. Yeah. And especially when you're running into trouble, then I think it does make sense to sort of get in there and root around. But I do feel like self-consciousness is the enemy of a lot of work that depends on being in a flow state. Do you agree with that? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think everybody is wired differently. But the more safe and comfortable that people feel going into a situation, the more willing to take the risk they are. So if they are subconscious or self-conscious and insecure about something that they're going into where they're unsure of what would happen if the outcome isn't ideal, then it might limit their confidence and trust taking that next step.

7:35And I don't just mean self-consciousness in terms of insecurity or lack of confidence, but also in the sense of if you are thinking about what you are doing while you are doing it, that also means you're not just doing it. Yes and no. Yes and no. Okay. I think that sometimes, yes, in the flow state, you're not thinking about it. But the problem with a lot of people and personality types that might be prone to getting the yips or performance anxiety or mental blocks, those people are, there are more thoughts going through their head than they're even realizing, which is why the brain then shuts off in protection.

8:24so sometimes they need to be more aware of what they're feeling in that state in order to counteract that that makes sense to me it's like their their system is running too many programs so it's crashing so they're having to go what programs do i want to be running right now because in this critical moment i can't afford for the the computer to glitch i need to be eliminating the the unproductive programs and running the productive programs. And that's it. They need to override what their instinct is in that situation when the mental block and yips are popping up. Well, maybe we start there. Give me a good definition of the yips, because I feel like some sports fans will know about it.

9:12And then because people don't want to talk about it, maybe people aren't as familiar with it as they should be? So my interpretation of the Ips, it tends to happen the most to people that have the same personality types that I have. So this is very telling in who I am. You're going to get close to that. We are all people pleasers, perfectionists, really hardworking, overthinkers, stubborn, competitive. we're also shaped to think that in order to get more we have to do more so nothing is there there we run the risk of there being like nothing is ever going to be enough so those are the personality types that it might attract some of those over performance things and then typically the tasks that are being attacked are the ones that we should be able to do, right?

10:11So the easier tasks or the ones that we've been able to do for a really long time in the flow state without thinking about it. And then suddenly an outside element or trigger hits, whether we're aware of it or not, and it causes our brain to shoot into fight or flight. And it starts to, it's different for everybody based on the sport but for me it would fuzz out my nerve signals to my right arm and so my arm every time I'd go to throw my arm would just noodle didn't matter what I was trying to tell it to do it wouldn't listen but I have helped a lot of different athletes and people just different ages genders sports whether it's softball baseball volleyball tennis golf pickleball an equestrian pickleball already.

11:02They're already getting the yips. It's actually really common. Yeah. I've, I've messed around with some pickleball also on my own and I, I, there are some moments where the stress gets so elevated where it's something you should be able to do. Right. And it, it, if you have some of those personality types, we just try and overperform this task. I've had a track runner. So like some of the stuff that people feel it's where like the dreams where you're trying to run and you can't run. You're trying to move your arm to save somebody and you can't do that. And so everybody feels different things, but it's always somebody's control being taken away.

11:43So the yips are, if we're being specific, it tends to be the field goal kicker who just can't make field goals anymore. The pitcher who can throw at the batter, but not to first base uh it's the catcher who can't throw it back to the pitcher it's the golfer who can't make putts it's usually not a complete collapse of the game right it's it's like tends to be a specific element of the game it seems yeah yes um it's shown up with pitchers and walking people um rick ankeel wrote a book about um yes his it yeah fascinating ability to be able to throw strikes so i've helped a lot of pitchers and throwing strikes and the spectrum is so broad It can be my amazing nine-year-old daughter who is like, I'm like, all right, one more, two-play softball, one more pitch.

12:34And she's like, well, now I'm overthinking this last pitch. I'm like, who cares where it goes? Just throw it. And she finds her way back. So it can be as simple as something like that, but it can also be as broad as my arm going numb and never making a successful overhand throw. So it can be different for everybody. and the mystery of it is like physically the person should be able to do the thing and there doesn't seem to be neuro neurologically some kind of injury like an external injury it is um it is just the psychological inability to do something that a person has done flawlessly millions of times sometimes it comes out from um a traumatic situation uh so like when i was younger i overthrew a ball when i was 13 and um lost the game for our team and i was so embarrassed from that situation that through some other stressful situations playing like that caused mine but it can happen after an injury sometimes people are nervous after they um get hurt are they going be able to come back and perform at the same level they were.

13:48Sometimes it's totally random and it just comes in. Um, sometimes it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's different for everybody, I think. Um, but yeah. No, no, I'm just pointing this out because it's, it can be traumatic. It can be an injury, but it's not, um, I broke my arm and now my arm's not as good as it was. It's, it's, it was, I got hit and now I'm thinking about my arm all the time. And even though I have, the doctor has cleared me, I'm not back to my old self for some inexplicable reason. Yeah. And I think there's a big misconception. A lot of people think the people that get the yips are mentally weak.

14:31There's a huge misconception about that, which is very, very frustrating for every person that has experienced it. And there are a lot of people that have experienced it. And the people that get it, it's, in my opinion, it's the highest form of a compliment. It means your heart is really big and you really care about what you're trying to do, but you're not lazy. It's not that you are being selfish and trying to let the team down and not working on these things and not being coachable. It's just that they care too much generally. Sure. And the suffering of it, I imagine, is almost more intense than my arm hurts from the injury, that's why I can't do it.

15:15The inexplicability of it and the lack of a clear rehab plan or way to fix it almost makes it more mystifying and terrifying and isolating and lonely, I imagine. because you should be able to do it you should be able to do and then when you can't explain why you're not doing it because it feels so bizarre and unless you felt it it's really some people literally still think it's made up but i mean even like like i got a text from a family member where and they they know and believe it's a very real thing but there was a cartoon about these squirrels throwing the ball around with their eyes all getting crazy like oh no they all the yips, you know?

15:59So there's this misconception of like, what, it's just, it's a fascinating thing. And all of those moments just make the people with them feel more alone and it feeds it more and it makes it way worse and way harder. Well, it's probably not unlike addiction where it's like, we understand medically that there's a hereditary component. We see it as a disease and yet willpower is also involved. Right. And so, So people, you know, they see someone slowly destroying their life. They see that it's not any fun for that person. And they're just sort of like, why don't you just stop doing it? And the person's like, if only it was that easy, you know?

16:41Yeah, totally. And so how did you come to specialize? So I had, I played until I was 26. And I never, I had moments of going in and out of practice. I was mostly fine every once in a while. If I got stressed out in practice, I would, I would struggle, but you made defensive shifts and plays and people had my back in that. So then, um, once I stopped playing, I started coaching. And, uh, when I was at UIC, University of Illinois, Chicago, I had a player that had a similar situation, similar, um, it was like the same defensive, uh, issue. And I started doing some research and through helping her, I found steps that allowed her to move through it.

17:28She got through her issue, just, I think also mainly in having someone to talk to about it. Because back when I was growing up, I would Google it and you couldn't, you can't find information on it, especially back then. And I knew that people like Steve Sachs and Mickey Sasser used to have those issues, but there was nobody. And I saw a sports psychologist, but I had a hard time fully letting go of ways I had been doing it. So after I helped my player at UIC, I went on and spoke at convention in front of all of the softball coaches of all divisions. And so it was 2012, 12 or 13. And ever since then, I've been getting calls.

18:14And so just through, at this point, I've probably helped maybe 150 people. And just through all of the natural conversations and steps that we have used to help people get over it, or I have used to help get people over it, I have found some really good techniques that, and also patterns and tendencies among the people that get it. So, yeah. It must be tricky because I've got to imagine for an athlete, pretty much every problem that they have solved in their life up until that point, athletically, they have done with willpower and determination, right? You push through it, you keep going, you do it through willpower.

19:03And this is one of those things where the solution is the opposite of the thing, right? Like where willpower is effectively the problem or the source of the problem, caring too much, trying too hard, being too determined about it. And so how do you solve a problem on which the stakes are extremely high, your ability to play the game is at stake, and you have to be less determined about it than you are for the other things that you have solved? So you have to redirect what you're fighting. So when the yips are happening, you're fighting, your subconscious is teaming up against you. So the yips, the people around you that you're trying to provide for, as well as your subconscious, every all of that is attacking your well being.

19:58And going into that situation as your authentic self is really challenging then because you don't you feel like you're doing it by yourself. and so it's it's not necessarily doing less it's doing less with certain things and redirecting that willpower and that fight into not doing it for those reasons and fighting for yourself to pull through and to fight against them and saying I might make a mistake in this but I'm not going to make a mistake because I'm worried about making a mistake and so right well i think about rick and rick and keel right he could he could throw in his driveway he just couldn't throw in front of the crowd yeah so everybody has um a center point it's i use the metaphor of a weed right so you can try all these different techniques and different tools to try and get um a different arm slot and do these things but essentially, if you're not getting at the root, whether it's afraid to fail, afraid to let people down, also for themselves, they have such a high level of expectation for themselves, that sometimes it's, it is self driven, not for other people.

21:13But if you think about that level of expectation that they have, it's kind of like, you have kids, right? I think you. Okay. So in when they're younger, you're teaching them right from wrong. You're teaching them rules. And if they make a mistake in just a little kid accidentally dropping, it's an accident, they drop something, they don't get in trouble for that. But if they break a rule that they know that they know better, they know they shouldn't do, there are consequences. And so for these people, it's myself included, we create this standard that we're not allowed to live outside of. And if we break that rule, there is a natural reaction of some self-punishment.

22:01It's well-intentioned because it's trying to help us move through it, but it's creating this dynamic that we need to do more to fix it. And how could we let ourselves down? And so in learning how to be more of our authentic self and be proud of our journey and to see failure as an opportunity to show our resilience and show our commitment to ourselves and our passion. And it allows us to go into that situation knowing and actually objectively looking at, did I make that mistake on purpose? No. Okay. I need to let it go. And that's going to allow me to get the outcome that I want. Well, I think again about Rick and Kiel, right?

22:43Like he sort of has this traumatic thing. It's a sold out televised game. And he throws like three pitches in a row, like at the backstop. And that's what he's focusing on. Like I fucked up. I messed up. But as he tells it in his book, he's like, I think he's like dad and his brother had been like arrested like the day before there had been some enormously traumatic family incidents within hours of this happening. So a kinder person would have said to themselves would have said, I'm having a terrible game. because my family is in trouble. And by the way, this event is revealing to me that my family was not all that it seems.

23:22And it would be impossible to perform well under these standards. But instead, he gets in this loop where he messed up and now he doesn't trust himself and he like sort of can't get out of that loop. Yep. Yeah, I think there are some tricks that people can use sometimes also in lowering that expectation. So, um, going into it saying, I have no idea what to expect, what this is going to bring. I'm just going to take it as it comes. Right. So sometimes people can lean into that idea or for Rick and Kiel, I think maybe saying, um, I have nothing to lose here. It's a, it's a hellacious day. This is terrible.

24:05Like I can't believe what I'm going through and it therefore downplays what he's going into and lowers the expectations. So then his best self can rise up. But it's hard to, it's hard when that's such a different mentality than that natural fighting. It's just when the brain starts kicking in and protection and trying to save you and take you out of that situation. Yeah. And I, I, you know, people think stoicism is a sort of suppression of emotion, right? And And to me, that's a great example of what happens when you suppress emotions. Clearly, his family was his family for an extended period of time, right?

24:44It's not like this is a surprise event. But he had clearly been in some ways in denial about it, right? And so then when that becomes impossible to deny, when the trauma comes rushing to the surface, it's overwhelming and it leads to problems. And so I think that is, you know, people tend to think that, hey, if I ignore it, it will go away. hey, I can't afford to think about that right now. I don't want to process it. So we stuff this stuff down. But what happens is it comes exploding out in the worst possible moment. And then that can create very traumatic moments like the ones he experienced or the, you know, somebody, somebody misses a free throw and it costs them the game because X, Y, and Z had been happening to them in recent days.

25:30Well, they're feeling like they don't trust themselves at the free throw line anymore. But really the free throw a lot, the missing, the free throw was a symptom of the other emotional issues earlier down the road. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. There's a metaphor that I use with a lot in kind of explaining it. And it's the idea of, do you know how you're supposed to fight a black bear? So if it's a black bear, you fight back. It's a brown bear you're supposed to lay down. Okay. So with a black bear, we're kind of representing the yips. When you go into that situation and you feel the ips you're like i don't want to feel this stop thinking about it stop thinking about it stop thinking about it just makes it worse it just keeps getting like scarier and and more um passive right trying to hide from it yes when in reality you have to fight it back like it's a black bear you have to go and attack this thing head on be open talk about it ask for help being vulnerable and that there are steps that you can do in this, but it's so bizarre when it's happening.

26:34It doesn't make sense why suddenly it just goes away, but it, it is a thing. And I think the more people talk about it as this, um, I don't know, just, just more openness with it. I have hopes that people will fight it more and then I hope it goes down and how many people are getting it. Hopefully.

27:01Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Basko County, I drove my car about halfway down the dirt road that we live on, thought this isn't going to work, stopped, parked it, walked the rest of the way home, borrowed my wife's car, drove into Austin and bought a truck. What I bought was a Toyota Tacoma. And this truck wasn't just transportation getting me to and from my house. It unlocked a whole different style of living for us, not just on the ranch, but in our little Texas towns. There were places I could go now that I couldn't go before, especially out here in the piney forests, through the fields and on the unpaved roads like the one that I lived in.

27:46We got to go deep into the hill country's wild beauty. We've driven all the way out to East Texas. We've driven across the country. And by we, I mean not just my wife, but both my kids who I drove home from the hospital in that truck. Toyota trucks are built for those who understand that the best adventures happen when you're willing to veer off course. Because you never know when you'll end up on a Toyota adventure detour. And of course, this is stoicism too, because every detour, every obstacle is an opportunity. But it's helpful if you can handle the difficulty inherent in that. If you've got the resilience and the right companion to make it wherever the road takes you, discover your uncharted territory.

28:28Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. You probably heard the headlines about all the different cuts to foreign aid and food benefits. This is having a profound impact on the world's poorest people and the world's poorest communities. But, you know, just hearing about that, that's not what stoicism is about. But stoicism is, to me, what you're going to do about it. And that's where GiveWell comes in. GiveWell is trusted by tens of thousands of donors each year because they provide free and independent research that helps you understand how to have a big impact. GiveWell has spent the last 18 years researching global health and poverty alleviation, and they direct funding to the highest impact opportunities.

29:13Over 150 ,000 donors have already trusted GiveWell to give more than$2.5 billion over the last several years. And research suggests that these donations will save over 300 ,000 lives. I myself am one of those donors. I donate to GiveWell every year. It means a lot to me. And you can find all their research and recommendations on their site for free. And thanks to the donors that sponsor this research, GiveWell doesn't take a cut from your tax-deductible donation to their recommended funds. And if this is your first gift through GiveWell, you can have your donation matched up to$100 before the end of the year or as long as matching funds last.

29:48To claim your match, go to GiveWell.org and pick Daily Stoic from the drop-down menu under podcast. That's how they know that you heard about GiveWell from the Daily Stoic and you'll get your donation matched. That's GiveWell.org. Code the Daily Stoic to donate or find out more. Marcus Aurelius has this line in Meditations. He goes, today I escaped my anxiety. And then he goes, actually, no, I didn't escape it. I discarded it because it was inside me. And I think about anxiety being something similar to the yips in that the common variable is you. You know, the outside scenarios are not what's causing it.

30:30We go, oh, I get the yips. I get anxious at the airport or I get the yips when the game is on the line. but actually you are, it's, it's in you, right? The external thing is not causing it. It's you and the inside and realizing that could feel weird, but it's actually very empowering because then it means you also hold the solution or the key to unlocking what that is. I love that. I was doing some, I was like looking into stoicism as well. And I think that like some of the virtues, right? It's being brave and doing what's right and the truth and understanding. So many people that are experiencing it really need to understand and want to understand why.

31:13Why them? Why is it happening to me? The people that don't get the yips are the selfish, super mean teammates. Those people will never get them. So the people that deserve the yips, generally speaking, the people that deserve the yips the least are the ones getting it. so then trying to make sense of that and if your moral compass is trying to comprehend bad things happening to good people and if i live life in this good true way why is this bad thing happening and it doesn't it doesn't make sense but to me now now it does you know and i think just being brave and seeing it allows you to fight it back even if it's inside you totally agree well the irony is right the person who gets anxiety about going to the airport and missing their flight is probably not the person who rolls up to the airport like 40 minutes before their plane takes off they're they're the person who is already planning to get there two hours early who packed the night before who double and triple check the itinerary so so it's yes so you're you're torturing yourself, even though you've already done vastly more than the average person to prevent the outcome that you are worried about.

32:32Oh, it's so true. And then telling those people, don't worry about it. Don't stress out about it. But telling someone that typically overthinks not to overthink, it's kind of a kind of mean, in my opinion, it's not possible. Yes. And then also, the people that get them are also typically really positive in the world. Like if you were to ask people in their very close circle. Sometimes there are people that break the mold, but generally people are very loving and empathetic and compassionate and the least judgmental people possible. But then they have that moral standard for themselves that they don't want to break.

33:09And so getting them to celebrate themselves in the way that they celebrate other people, they need to really look at everything. So doing, looking at worst case scenario, which people say generally not to do. They say, don't be negative. Don't be negative. But in reality, sometimes you have to, in order to feel, in order to relax about that worst case scenario, you have to have a plan for that. Otherwise those people that have those, our personality traits can't relax. You can't stop worrying. You can't stop trying to protect people around you. Well, the Stoic practice there is called premeditatio malorum, which means a premeditation of evils.

33:54It's effectively a pre-mortem instead of a post-mortem. It's negative visualization. So Seneca is saying that, look, the unexpected stuff hurts the most. And so if you think about it and you work your way through it, you go, well, here's what I'm going to do if this happens. Here's what I'm going to do if that happens. Hey, if that happens, Is it actually the end of the world or does it just feel like it's the end of the world? And you're sort of working through it. Now, there's a tension there because you could also argue that thinking about the worst case scenario and meditating on it is what anxiety is.

34:30But I think by thinking about it and then having a plan, you're actually setting your mind up to not have to worry about it because you've put some boundaries around it. you go, I'm going to walk up and talk to this pretty stranger. If the worst case scenario in your mind is that you could die, that's going to be very scary. If the worst case scenario is actually that they're politely not interested and it doesn't go anywhere. Those are two totally different environments to walk into. And one is much more realistic than the other. Yeah. I listened to one of your podcasts about that specifically.

35:05And I have a a very personal story I'd like to share with you and how it kind of connects to this as well. And I find that my story in this also has been helpful for other people in seeing and finding peace in moving forward with some things and being, becoming more present in where they are. So my mom passed away two and a half years ago and thank you. And she was sick for nine years. So she was very young when she was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. And for nine years, it's that up and down battle, right? The anxiety coming up and there's a big scan or is this chemo going to work? And at a certain point, it's not very sustainable, right?

35:52It's living life in this constant state of panic. And so when I reflect back on that journey, there was a moment where I think we all had to kind of accept that we were going to lose her. Right. And in coming to peace with that. And I think the fear was what would happen, you know, after the fact, what would life be like without her? but in fixating on that it took me away from my moment with my mom so that right I think reflecting back I maybe had that subconscious processing and I and I let go of that and I was able to be with her in every like final step you know through through the end of that and that's something that after that the next step okay so obviously after after losing her is challenging but then finding where do I want my journey to go?

36:49What do I want my legacy to be? What do I want my life to be? And how can I honor her? How can I carry her into this next stage of my life? And it was then that I became more public with my consulting and trying to reach outreach more people. And so turning something really hard and sad and terrible into something really good and spreading, helping spread her goodness, that's kind of how I'm trying to live life. So I feel like that matches a lot to kind of my own personal journey as well. Yeah, it's interesting. Seneca, on the one hand, says, you know, keep it all in your mind, every bad thing that could happen, meditate, sort of negatively visualize.

37:34And on the other hand, he says, he who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary. So like we know what the outcome is going to be, or we know what a potential outcome is, right? We could lose someone and that will make us very sad and we'll be lonely because of it, right? At some point, our career is going to end. We could fail. Like we know these things are in the realm of possibilities. But if you're just walking around miserable because that's someday going to happen, you're actually just prolonging that shitty feeling, you know. And as you said, you're taking away from the fact that while your mother has a terminal diagnosis, she is not currently gone.

38:17She is currently here and you're rejecting the present moment with them. So it's actually it's taking the you're feeling the thing you're going to feel someday. you're feeling it now instead of feeling what you should feel, which is grateful and good because that hasn't happened yet. Yeah, totally. It's so hard though. We know we don't have anything to be anxious about, but still the anxiety is there. Or we know it's not happened yet, but we can't help ourselves from extrapolating. I feel like extrapolation is the enemy of a lot of happiness and performance. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, the fear of the unknown and the, um, also sometimes based on maybe how people are raised, right.

39:10If they're waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know, being, being nervous about being comfortable because maybe they haven't experienced that type of life. And then there's also the situation when people have been comfortable their whole life and they feel like they need to live up to something to express their gratitude. And there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to do that. So, well, isn't, isn't that why, you know, extrapolation being so destructive or distracting, isn't that why coaches talk about following the process? Because the process is the, the process is, takes for granted that positive extrapolation, but it makes, it pushes it from your mind.

39:54You know, it's like, hey, we know if you show up and you do the next right thing, if you do your job, if you follow the standards, more often than not, good performance and winning is going to come out of that. But you're not going to be thinking about it all the time. You're just going to be focused on this at bat or, you know, this drive or this game or this practice or this drill. The process is inherently about extrapolation, but you're not the one doing the extrapolation. The hardest part with that, I think, is that people, it's about how it's heard. So when I went to my sports psychologist, he was amazing and said wonderful things.

40:38I didn't always, I would project my own judgment onto him and thought, he doesn't understand. He doesn't understand what I'm going through. So how can this fully work? so sometimes with coaches and saying respect the process sometimes i've had people say well they're supposed to say that to me or they don't understand because they don't have the same personality as me and they think it can be just so easy and so they're they have this fire especially a lot of these athletes have this really competitive fire that they hate failing and losing more than they like winning. And so sometimes respecting that process, they want, especially with younger generations now with social media and media gratification, they want to have that fast fix right away.

41:30Sorry, Gov. Well, it's hard to trust a process which you have not experienced, right? So the coach has been doing this 30 years. So they've seen your exact problem in your exact issue, not just happened before, but they've seen it play out. And they've seen the athlete who did it the right way and come out of the other side. And they've seen the athlete who didn't and come out the wrong side. Right? Like, I now know the rhythms of the process of creating a book. And I know there's moments where it feels like it's not going to come together. And there's moments of elation, followed by moments of despair.

42:10And I know the process because I've been through it a bunch of times. But if you had told me on my first book to trust the process in one of those moments of despair, I'd have been like, what process and why should I trust this? But now I can. And so that's really the hard part is when you're in it the first time, when you're in your first slump, or you're having your first issue or your first setback, or you're coming back from your first injury, it's really hard to trust because it's not trust. They're asking you to have faith, like faith without evidence that this process is going to see you through.

42:47You don't know and you don't believe it. And it's a really hard thing to let go of the unknown. But again, it's thinking too far in the future. And then we're always trying to evolve and always trying to get stronger. and so it's learning to let go of the past maybe it will look different but sure something uh an exercise i like to do with some of with my clients is i i think about have them think about their future self their past self and their current self and think about the advice that they would give to each other and through that they learn how to give themselves self-love in the moment more present because they're amazing teammates generally when, when they're out there and they see someone else floundering, they're like, it's okay.

43:34I love you still. Right. No, that's the, that's the tricky thing is like when people come to us for help or when people express vulnerability to us, I'm struggling. I don't know what to do. I doubt myself. We're all over it. We're excited even to help. Uh, we, we respect them for, for the bravery to do it and then then when we're struggling we our mind goes to the exact opposite place which is like i'm weak for thinking this i'm gonna be an imposition on other people to ask for help like we we don't we respect it when our teammates do it and then we don't respect ourself for needing to ask for reciprocation of the same thing that we gladly give to others It's so unfair.

44:24It's so unkind and so unfair. I wish that we didn't do that to ourselves. And I think that, you know, our vision of being stoic, right? The stoic says, like, just deal with your suffering, just grit your teeth and bear it and keep going. And so one of the passages, I actually talked to a lot of athletes about this is, and especially military groups when I speak to them, Mark Cirillo says, you know, we're like soldiers storming a wall He says, you've fallen and you need help. If you have to ask a comrade to pull you up, so what? I love it. And I love that part at the end. I love the so what. It's not like, hey, you should.

45:08It's like, literally, this is not only not a big deal, this is why you have teammates and comrades. This is what they are there for. And if you can start to see it that way, that actually it's almost selfish to not ask for help. to sort of take it upon yourself, that you're actually harming the team and the organization. I think you can counterbalance that sort of guilt and lowercase stoicism that says, I should just stuff this down and this is my burden to bear. Yeah, completely. It's interesting. Stoic is a word that was used a lot to describe me as a pitcher. Have you seen a picture of what I looked like when I played?

45:50I looked really mean. You can look it up. But my face was, I like never broke my like mean face, which is not my personality. I cried during commercials. I'm like such, I'm a super hugger. Like I'm very, very, I have three dogs. I was super softy. So, but when I would go and play, I like put on this stoic face. Everyone would always say, oh, you're so stoic out there. Nothing seems to bother you. But inside, I would have fears, especially when it came to my overhand throwing. I didn't know what I know now, right? I think obviously if I knew the tools that I teach people now, I would have been able to come up with my solution back then.

46:33But I allowed my third baseman, who was like amazing, she would be like, watch out, I'm going to push you over. Don't take that ball for me. I need this ball. and in in asking her for help she was able to it made her feel needed and then and so she would want to get into into the play more and so it created this beautiful chemistry within our infield there um but it took me being vulnerable and asking for that but when it came to the actual pitching i i would compartment i had compartmentalized it right so it's it's kind of different But yeah, I don't know. Well, I think this is similar with parenting, right?

47:18It's like you want your kids to say, I'm scared. I'm intimidated. I need help. I don't know what to do. And yet you as the parent, how often are you actually modeling this, right? Are you saying, hey, I lost my temper because I was overwhelmed, because I'm stressed, because I have this thing going on at work. That's why I was behaving this way. That's self-awareness, right? Like it's not weak or bad to think about why you are feeling and behaving the way that you are. And it doesn't excuse the behavior, but it's showing that you understand why you did what you did and why that maybe wasn't the best thing to do.

47:57So if you think your job as the parent is to be invulnerable and all-knowing and infallible, you're actually missing the opportunity to teach them how to manage and deal with their own emotions because they've never seen someone do that, right? Like they've never, they don't understand that the reason they are grouchy or they hit their, their brother or whatever is because they're having big feelings and they could step back and deal with those feelings as opposed to express them in the behavior because they've never seen mom and dad do that. Yeah, I think that that's definitely shifted. It's interesting because my the age range of my clients I have in a from 75 down to 10.

48:41So in hearing all the different stories and the different experiences that people have had. I think the older generation has experienced like just button it up and go don't talk about your feelings especially for the male population I think that that was harder but then in general right just keep it all together don't feel your feelings and then now it's so I'm 38 so like I think for me I was allowed to feel my feelings more but I still needed to go and do these things because it wasn't as accessible. And now the younger generation, whether it's someone that's 20 or my nine-year-old daughter, it's somebody that is definitely getting better.

49:23But I still think that there's a misconception about vulnerability. Being vulnerable is being brave, putting yourself out there. It's strong. It's allowing yourself to move forward and learn how to handle it in a reaction that you maybe need to. hearing your fears, knowing that you also have strengths to help you handle that. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, that's what's like, maybe there's a difference between self-consciousness, which I would say is largely not productive and self-awareness, which is productive, right? Self-consciousness is like, what are they going to think of me if this happens?

50:03Or I look so stupid. You know, I always do this. Nobody likes where you're thinking about how you're perceived in a way that becomes debilitating. And then self-awareness is like understanding the patterns that you have, understanding the loops that you can get into, the weaknesses that you have that you're trying to work on, understanding your strengths. Self-awareness is going, here's what I should be doing and here's where I am doing it and not doing it. And here's what I'm trying to do to get better at it. Yeah, completely. There are tools and steps out there to help people move forward.

50:47It is funny, though, you're talking about not talking about I was I did it with my sister the other day, and we were talking about our grandfather, who was an extremely anxious person, like a debilitating person almost to the point point later in his life to sort of agoraphobia and paranoia. And it wasn't that it wasn't talked about because it was talked about. Like he's a worry. You know, we talk about it. My parents would talk about how he was a worrier, you know, how he would, you know, they would talk about it as if it was a problem, which it was. And then only later after he's passed on and I've started to understand his life more, that when I understand the circumstances of his life, you know, he spent a good chunk of World War II in a refugee camp.

51:33You know, he barely escaped with his life. Like, as I understand his life, I understand that this anxiety is quite rational. Do you know what I mean? Like, of course he was anxious. He came from a world where horrible things could happen to you in any moment. And so it's almost like I have an immense amount of sympathy in retrospect in that it's like, it's almost like everyone was gaslighting him. Like they were just like, why are you like this? And the answer, the answer is he's like this because of what he went through. And I don't think he was able to be kind enough to himself to see the connection between one and the other, that this has nothing to do with the family road trip or nothing to do with the weather report.

52:16It has everything to do with his unique circumstances, But then also everyone else sort of just assuming that he should be normal, that there would be no consequences as a result of what he went through, was also kind of profoundly unfair. And also, what is normal?

52:37Well, it's almost here. Christmas is just a couple of days away and maybe you're scrambling. You're like, what should I get my dad? What should I get my mom? I got to get something to my sister. People love showing off pictures of their kids. And that's where today's sponsor comes in. I've gotten one as a gift. I've given it as a gift. The Aura Digital Picture Frame. It's easy to use. It never gets old. You're constantly updating it with new pictures. Aura Digital Picture Frames are so much better than any digital picture frame I've ever seen. It's got a high resolution. It's got a color calibrated display.

53:09You can add video. You can have two pictures come up at the same time, picture and a video. It'll pair photos together for you. like two pictures of the same person or from the same day. It's really easy to set up. You just download the app, connect the frame, and then you can pick photos and videos right from your phone from anywhere in the world. And there's a reason Oprah added it to her favorite things three different times. For a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visiting AuraFrames.com to get$35 off Aura's best-selling Carver Matte Frames, named number one by Wirecutter by using promo code STOIC at checkout.

53:42That's A-U-R-A frames dot com promo code stoic. This deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast. So order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. You hear that? That's not just a Toyota truck. That's the sound of no crowds. No alerts. No distractions. And no telling what you'll find next. You know, like a detour. So why would you ever take a tour when you could take a detour? Toyota Trucks.

54:28No one's normal. We are our own imperfect, authentic selves, right? So like, I think in just being that and just seeing if he wants to go and do those things, giving himself grace with that. There's also a negative reappraisal. There's a tendency that people have in gaslighting themselves. So sometimes negative reappraisal can be helpful in saying, we referenced Rick Ankeel, right? It could be, there's much more serious things happening in my life right now. I have, this is just baseball. I'm just going to play the game. That can be a helpful perspective, but it can also be dangerous where losing my mom after a nine year battle, maybe someone lost their mom, mom from a heart attack.

55:19So saying, well, it could be worse. Maybe this situation could be worse. And then in a way, it belittles, it minimizes what that experience was. And so I think that happens a lot. And it sounds like maybe even with your grandpa, well, yeah, he went through these things, but he needs to figure it out. And, you know, it could be worse. He needs to, he needs to be normal, but hearing the, hearing the trauma, acknowledging the trauma and connecting rather than separating that can, we live for connection, right? So in finding that connection, it allows him to see that maybe there is a different way that he can do it and taking that risk not being alone is when you can see you can see how easily sort of multi-generational trauma happens right so he goes through something and then of course my mom lives in this house which would have been a pressure cooker and would have had stress and fear and uh high cortisol levels and hormonal responses and then you know because the source of it is not talked about or dealt with, right?

56:27It forms and shapes her life. And then two generations later, I'm a seven-year-old and I can't figure out why I'm stressed out, right? It's because I'm... And then conversely, now I have a seven-year-old and he can't figure it. And so by not talking about it and not dealing with it, not asking for help with it, you're not fooling anyone, right? Like you're not fooling anyone. You're, you're actually only ensuring that it continues to affect and traumatize and complicate things for your teammates or yourself or your siblings or your, your offspring. Yeah. Seeing it, this is, you're seeing my, my sappy heart come out here, but seeing it all through play out that way, or when people look at their past, current and future self, it's, it's so hard for me to not get like, to love the beauty of that connection.

57:30Yeah. And in trying to, I talk very openly with my feelings of, you know, about what I went through with my mom, with my kids, so that I hope they are able to then process maybe my passing down the road in an easier way. It's a beautiful gift that we get to pass on, but it's also recognizing maybe it's harder for some people to do that. And just because it's harder doesn't mean it can't happen. Or maybe it needs to happen in their own way and letting their own individuality play into it, whether it's through art or sports or a book or movies or traditions.

58:11Yeah, I just think that's just a beautiful thing that life gives us. No, I totally agree. Like when the Stoics say the obstacle is the way, they don't mean, oh, because of this thing you went through, you're necessarily or automatically going to be a better athlete for it, right? That this disadvantage turns into an advantage on the field or whatever. Uh, there's, there's no upside to tragically losing your mother. The way that the obstacle becomes the way is that because of the pain of that experience, the pain of your own children is potentially lessened slightly because a lesson was learned and things were done differently in the future.

58:56Do you know what I mean? And so, so in a, in a sense it's, it's a darker version, but it's also more beautiful. I agree with you. It's more beautiful to know, hey, because of what I went through, I can make it better for other people as you have done in your career or as you do with your own family. To me, that's what the obstacle is the way means. It's that these difficult, traumatizing, painful things that we go through, there's also the opportunity for what they call post-traumatic growth also, that something good can come out of it in terms of wisdom or empathy or love or connection, not your batting average improved as a result of it.

59:43Yeah. And in seeing it that way and letting go of the outcome, going more process-oriented, then I have found with my clients, it's interesting because I have some clients that are actively playing and i have some clients that aren't that maybe suffered from it and want to get closure or peace i also have some people that um have hopes of playing catch with their future kids and those things so yeah um but it goes hand in hand the happier they are the the less they suffer from the yips but because they're happier they're not afraid for the yips to come which the fear feeds them so then yes but they also know they have the tools if they do come so it's it's literally i i can geek out about that part of my job forever because when they have that aha moment and they realize that they can actually let go and be happy and when they're happier they play better and they found their process that they have been hearing about and thinking about and trying to do for so long.

1:00:54Well, and that's Rick Ankeel's story, right? He doesn't really pitch again. He becomes a designated hitter. But I think, look, the movie version of that story is he becomes a designated hitter and then hits a grand slam in the World Series and everything's amazing. I mean, it's a pretty short DH career that he has. But what everyone who witnesses it takes from it. It's that he it's that he was still standing at the end of it. That was the beauty. You know what I mean? Like it was that he got a single at bat was enough that like the the the opportunity and the beauty and the success of it wasn't that he triumphed over all of it and became the best in the world.

1:01:40It's that he muddled through it and found some satisfaction and pride on the other side. It's like we're talking about cancer. You don't win. You know what I mean? You don't beat it. It's that maybe you carve out a few more years or connections come. You appreciate the time that you have. These aren't storybook endings necessarily. They are if you look at it from the right angle. So what stood out to me in Rick and Heal's book was the timing of when he made the call to stop pitching. He had just met his now wife. So something that I work with my clients on is separating who they are from what they do.

1:02:29And so that is a massive step in disconnecting that. So when they fail, they don't identify as a failure. When they struggle with something, it doesn't mean that they are a struggle or needing help is weak. So when I read that part, it like really hit me. I'm like, oh my gosh, he feels so comfortable in his own life right now after his own personal trauma that he's seeing that he is worthy of being happy. And then he doesn't need baseball. He might want it and that's a different scenario. But if you, when you need it or it's a job or it's your livelihood, it shoots you into that fight or flight.

1:03:09And so in disconnecting that, it's not disloyal to the game. So the people that are experiencing mental blocks or high anxiety, it's like when you're in a really loving relationship or as a parent, you really love, or even with pets, you really love them. But just because you really love them doesn't mean you need to think about them all the time. Right. It doesn't it's not disloyal to your children to not think about them for every second. You have you feel safe and comfortable within that relationship to know that it's OK to not think about it. So. Literally, almost every person that I've ever helped that has experienced gifts, they think about it all the time.

1:03:54they think about it the moment they wake they wake up they wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it wondering what's going to happen is it going to impact something else and in learning that like i make a rule i say they're not allowed to think about their sport or the yips if they're not actually doing the sport so in following that they actually become more present within the classroom, if it's a student, within their relationship. And so those situations become richer and more full. So there's less conflict. And then they're able to compartmentalize and in turn, it eliminates their yips.

1:04:36They go away. What's like thinking about your kids and what could happen to them all the time is not actually making you a better parent. It's making you a more stressed out and overly attached parent. And so, yeah, it's not only not a betrayal, it's like what you should be doing. And so detachment feels like the antithesis of good parenting, because what we're trying to do is create attachment, literally. But weirdly, too much of it is the wrong way to go. And you sort of have to disconnect slightly. You have to turn down the volume a little bit. And conversely, this makes you better at the thing, better at parenting, better at hitting a baseball, you know, better at putting, whatever it is, it makes you better.

1:05:20Like, paradoxically, I found like the, the less I have thought about the sales of my books, the more they have sold, because I'm thinking, I'm thinking more about, am I making the right book? Am I, am I authentically in it and interested in it? Do you know what I mean? Like I'm, I'm more engaged in the process of it. And I'm not thinking, how is this going to play? What are they going to think about this? Is this, I'm just, I'm just in, in the moment of, of the thing. So it's not only not a betrayal, it's weirdly a kind of a deeper commitment to what you're doing, but it's hard, but it's hard when you're judged on wins and losses and sales, right?

1:06:05So you have to, you have to kind of transcend the griminess of the thing and, and attach to it at a higher level. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree. Um, well, this has been amazing. I I'm so fascinated by what you do. And, uh, I, I, I imagine writer's block is, is a similar form of the yips. Yes. That and then public speaking too. stage fright stage fright yeah the same um yeah so interesting um i have some messages from uh some of my clients that they wanted me to pass along to people oh that to to give them hope can i can i share yes um yeah it's beautiful uh don't give up find someone to trust and share what you're going through.

1:07:02One of my clients, I have an equestrian. They say ask for help and that it's okay to need help. They have a more positive relationship with the sport and therefore herself. Have hope because you can get through it. Don't be embarrassed. Be open and don't hide it. Rely on support and those around you. It will get better and you will find your new normal. remember whatever you're experiencing lots of other people have experienced it and you can find people to help you and own what you're going through and know you aren't alone by owning it you have support internally and you can get help so it's just i like just hearing them find their voice through my voice in this and the stuff i'm teaching is so special and i think it domino effect of it, I hope, helps so many people.

1:07:54No, I think it's beautiful. And it's particularly important because, as we said, this is a thing that not only did people not think existed, but largely denied existed for a very long time. So you think about the amount of suffering that people went through alone, or criticism that they went through alone. And then you think about what they're saying the solution to that to the Yips is, it really makes you, yeah, it makes me feel for the Steve Sachs of the world. There wasn't the understanding or the empathy or the support system necessary. And so the people were going through not a preventable or a solvable thing necessarily, but there was stuff that would help, but that wasn't available.

1:08:44And we're much luckier because that stuff is available and people have talked about it and we should take advantage of it. Yeah. I think, um, it's also interesting because with social media, people can hide behind things. So sometimes people are really unkind still. So even though there are more recent resources for help, it also unfortunately can increase bullying and people criticizing. Um, so I think my request and that is just for people to ease up and understand that if suddenly somebody loses the skill that they were able to do in a non-stressful situation, they're not trying to, they're trying really hard not to, and that being kind and supportive and compassionate to them is going to help get over it much faster.

1:09:37And I think that's just, the world needs that right now. There's a lot of really dark separating situations. And I think the more compassionate we are to other people and not belittling what their experience is, the more we can try and create that connection again. Nothing is more terrifying than the prospect or the reality of your gifts abandoning you or losing your touch, right? And so no one is suffering more than that person, right? And so the reaction should be there, but for the grace of God, go I. Like that could be you. And think about how awful that would be. Not look what they just cost me or like this is the easiest thing in the world.

1:10:28Look at how much they're being paid to do this thing and they can't do it. It's torturous. It's torturous. And to understand that, yeah, depression, addiction, all of these sort of silent afflictions, the person is suffering at a level that we really can't comprehend. And grace and empathy and understanding are really the only proper responses.

1:11:16thanks so much for listening if you could rate this podcast and leave a review on itunes that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show we appreciate it and i'll see you next episode.

1:11:32My family owns a 2023 Toyota 4Runner, and honestly, it's my favorite vehicle that I've ever owned. Around town, it's smooth and reliable, but where it really shines is on our trips into the backcountry. We've taken it on backpacking adventures to Colorado and New Mexico, loaded up with gear, and never had to think twice about whether it could handle the terrain. That's what Toyota trucks are built for. Off-road confidence, rugged durability, and the freedom to explore. Toyota has a long history with the outdoor community, and they're committed to helping more people get out there and experience what nature has to offer.

1:12:01From remote trails to scenic byways, Toyota Trucks empowers you to take the detour, roam freely, and discover places that still feel wild and untouched. And they're not just making great trucks, they're working to expand access to adventure so more people can connect with the outdoors and pass that passion on to the next generation. Discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. That's toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. Look, ads are annoying. They are to be avoided if at all possible. I understand as a content creator why they need to exist.

1:12:38That's why I don't begrudge them when they appear on the shows that I listen to. But again, as a person who has to pay a podcast producer and has to pay for equipment and for the studio and the building that the studio is in. It's a lot to keep something like the Daily Stoic going. So if you want to support a show but not listen to ads, well, we have partnered with Supercast to bring you a ad-free version of Daily Stoic. We're calling it Daily Stoic Premium. And with Premium, you can listen to every episode of the Daily Stoic podcast completely ad-free, no interruptions, just the ideas, just the messages, just the conversations you came here for.

1:13:22And you can also get early access to episodes before they're available to the public. And we're going to have a bunch of exclusive bonus content and extended interviews in there just for Daily Stoic Premium members as well. If you want to remove distractions, go deeper into Stoicism and support the work we do here. Well, it takes less than a minute to sign up for Daily Stoic Premium, and we are offering a limited time discount of 20 % off your first year. Just go to dailystoic.com slash premium to sign up right now or click the link in the show descriptions to make those ads go away.