Kind: captions
Language: en
you got to get comfortable being
uncomfortable
so can you handle the truth
there's a question and if you can't then
you if you see that then you can say
well if i'm going to change i'm going to
have to figure out how to deal with that
discomfort
until the point that i can see what i
need to see then i can change it so as
the persistence of continuing to do
something until you can do it
is is most of the work is is just
continuing to make mistakes learn from
mistakes but the mistakes
are viewed as feedback
not as i'm a failure it's just an event
not who we are
so that error correction is really
important and when you can see when you
attribute it to something you can learn
or change now you've got faith and
confidence to do it versus if you're
seeing it like oh i'm just not strong
enough i'm not tall enough and all of
that that's just
that's what i call the negative
community telling you you can't do
anything rather than saying well let me
see what can i what i can do so it's
like a child learning how to walk right
same thing
[Music]
hey everybody welcome to impact theory
our goal with this show and company is
to introduce you to the people and ideas
that will help you actually execute on
your dreams
all right today's guest is arguably the
most effective sports psychologist on
the planet with a master's degree in
counseling psychology he has taught
mindfulness and performance to everyone
from prison inmates to corporate
executives and some of the most
extraordinary athletes the world has
ever seen including michael jordan kobe
bryant and shaquille o'neal known as
phil jackson's secret weapon he was
brought in to help elevate the legendary
chicago bulls and los angeles lakers and
he did just that helping those teams
reach a legacy defining run of eight
championships jordan himself credits him
with transforming his on-court
leadership of the bulls and phil jackson
has said time after time
team after team i've seen athletes
transform and have seen championships
saved by players who believed in this
man's one mind one breath efforts his
ability to transform others becomes
easier to understand when you realize he
first had to transform himself after
spending much of his 20s addicted to
alcohol and heroin he learned the art of
self-mastery from the inside out and
he's remained sober for more than 30
years a testament to the efficacy of his
methods there is no one and no situation
that is beyond benefiting from his
unique and transformative approach and
that's why today he is one of the most
sought after speakers and performance
experts around
so please help me in welcoming the
author of the mindful athlete george
mumford
[Applause]
good great to be here dude it is so good
to have you here i read your book i had
it a couple years ago now and was really
really impressed with
the transformation that you went through
as much as the change that you've helped
other people make and what i want to
know is how do you make massive change
in yourself and how do you make it stick
i talk about
this idea of having a sense of urgency i
call it the aof method of motivation
which is ass on fire
so it wasn't because i decided to be
cool or that was going to be
intellectual it was because of a sense
of urgency
that i
started learning about who am i and why
am i here and
can can i connect with the masterpiece
that's already inside of me
can we create and cultivate the ass on
fire notion like can we build urgency
into our lives can we build urgency in
our lives yes we can
it's
for me
just thinking about my own experience
first it was you know
aof motivation and then it was a
commitment to excellence
so when people ask me well what what
game am i playing i'm pursuing
excellence in wisdom with grace and ease
and so it's really about the want to and
me deciding
or or taking responsibility i have a
masterpiece all i have to do is chip
away to let it express itself and that
instead of going because of this sense
of urgency i can go for the joy of
discovery that's really interesting and
i've heard you talk a lot about buddhism
and i know that you
lived in a um
a meditation center right right you
lived in a meditation center for six
years right i'm guessing you studied
buddhist philosophy pretty um intensely
yes
and
you said that
instead of being original sin that
there's the original blessing
yes original blessing talk to me about
that yeah what is that and what do you
mean so that that means that we start
off with a masterpiece
and we start off with the basic goodness
but
it's like that still small voice inside
it's it's still in small it can easily
be drowned out and the idea is to be
stealing no as it says in the bible and
to realize that
that we were wired for success but it's
how we relate to our experience that
determines whether
we're we're chipping away or we're you
know kind of burying
that sense of of wholeness that we that
we're born with it's just that we
we forget it we don't look inside we're
looking outside
and so unless we're still and we think
about it and we understand that i was
born with this masterpiece no one's can
give it to me or take it away
it's it's an inside job
and so if i look at what's right
it makes makes a lot of sense so it's
whether you're coming from a place of
scarcity
or i would say survival mode or coming
from growth mode which has to do with
yes i can
yes to life and i i have the capacity
and the responsibility
to make it different or to make it make
it better and so that's yeah so that's
the basic premises we have masterpieces
and so when i go in and work
with folks whether they're
hall of fame coaches like phil jackson
or
or just
uh everyday athletes or weekend warriors
i'm not going in trying to fix them
i'm relating to their masterpiece
that's really interesting and i want to
talk about that it's really powerful
coming from somebody who struggled
pretty profoundly the story that you
told about the needle breaking off in
your arm and you had to tie your arm off
to keep the needle from going into your
heart i thought whoa this is somebody
who really had to figure things out and
really climb out of a hole so in that
how did you not just kick the out
of yourself for
allowing yourself to become addicted
what was that process like for you of
of moving away from sort of
self-punishment into recognizing that
masterpiece that was still inside of you
so when i realized that
that i could beat myself up or i could
love myself and forgive myself like
continual forgiveness and that i could
differentiate between the ego and not
saying the ego is is evil is ignorant
you know so it's like you know we have
the brain so it's it's like the
reptilian brain
with only knows
fight flee
forage for food and reproduce that's all
it knows
so but then we have the middle brain we
have the cerebral cortex so when i can
engage the cerebral cortex by creating
space between stimulus and response
and and and exercising my
freedom of choice i'm choosing to live a
principle centered life that talks about
basic goodness love thy neighbor
love yourself
forgiveness
compassion those sorts of positive mind
states
now that's a totally different worldview
and so when i'm in that abundance or
when i'm coming from a growth mode
there's there's a total
change transformation of what i'm seeing
how i'm relating to things versus
the the survival mode or the reptilian
brain where we're just trying to survive
and you can't be in the growth mode and
survival mode at the same time either
one or the other so it's really
interesting you um when you were talking
about how
people have to like chisel a way to get
to what is already there and you've
talked you i don't think you said it
today but you've talked about the
michelangelo question about how you know
he's really just stripping away the
marble to get to the masterpiece he's
already inside i was like i love the
metaphor it's really beautiful but i
don't actually understand it but when
you were
talking just now i realized that you're
talking about the interpretations that
we all have of what's happening
so and i don't want the the comment you
made about the mirror mind to go by
without putting a finger on it so if i
understand correctly what you're saying
is the the way that you create that
space is by simply
mirroring back in that instance exactly
what is there without interpretation
without layers if i'm good or bad but
just simply this is the stimulus and you
said something and my mind was so doing
what you warned about which was
predicting what you were going to say
that's right and you said it's like
background and i thought for sure you
were going to say background noise and
you said background music and that
really hit me and it hit me because you
have this whole concept of basically you
get more of what you focus on so if you
focus on that it's background noise then
you're going to perceive the world one
way but if you focus at his background
music
even though it's the exact same
situation the exact same stimulus you
get a completely different result and
you've said that 90 of happiness is
what exactly based on um
it's based on how we interpret our
experience
so not what's real just how we interpret
that's right that's right so you have
people when if you have
so we know
that you can predict someone's this is
from research that shawna court did in
his series of books on happiness
advantage and that sort of thing that
you can predict somebody's success in a
job by three things one thing is
optimism or hope levels
second thing is social support and the
third one is interpreting
a situation as a challenge rather than
as a curse
so this changes so it's a matter of the
brain being in
survival mode or growth mode so just
looking at it so when we start with the
basic goodness of we start with georgia
start with a positive mind state they
call it the broadening build theory that
you actually
uh your cognitive functioning is
enhanced in other words instead of
having this you have this and your
thoughts and your feelings are different
totally different and you may be playing
out which we do thought organizes things
and we're thinking in a way of how we're
going to do something rather than how
it's going to go
badly so it's this whole thing
everything begins with the mind so if we
the mind is right everything else is
going to be right if we see things
clearly and accept the truth know the
truth and the truth shall set you free
now a reaction or a response to it even
if we react to it we can step back and
say okay that didn't work out so well
if i had to do over what would i change
and then you change it and you might
have to like myself trying to get clean
or whatever you may have to react
hundreds of thousands of times before
you finally realize oh i don't have to
do that
but you have to be paying attention and
part of it is having that faith that
vulnerability to just see things that
are hard to see
and things that are uncomfortable so in
my book i talk about you got to get
comfortable being uncomfortable
so can you handle the truth
there's a question and if you can't then
you if you see that then you can say
well if i'm going to change i'm going to
have to figure out how to deal with that
discomfort
until the point that i can see what i
need to see then i can change it so as
the persistence of continuing to do
something until you can do it
is is most of the work is is just
continuing to make mistakes learn from
mistakes but the mistakes
are viewed as feedback
not as i'm a failure it's just an event
not who we are
so that error correction is really
important and when you can see when you
attribute it to something you can learn
or change now you've got faith and
confidence to do it versus if you're
seeing it like oh i'm just not strong
enough i'm not tall enough and all of
that that's just
that's what i call the negative
community telling you you can't do
anything rather than saying well let me
see what can i what i can do so it's
like a child learning how to walk right
same thing it's interesting hiding in
there um i hear notions of identity you
talked you said something so interesting
and i actually thought it was a part of
um recovery to say i am a recovering
addict and you said that they teach you
not to do that why do they teach you not
to so my meditation teacher larry
rosenberg
when i was in recovery and he understood
he said
when you see yourself as a recovering
addict
you are you are telling the universe
you're identifying with with who you are
instead of saying i'm just in recovery
uh right because because you're telling
the nervous system how you want to
behave so if i'm a recovering addict
then there's a whole
there's a whole process that i'm
supposed to be doing because i'm
identified with being a recovering
addict and based on what i know of a
recovery addict
i'm going to be living that out or or
limiting my possibilities but put myself
in a in this frame so focus on what you
want
rather than focusing on what you don't
want
that's really powerful now um in that
you've talked about clarity being really
critical
how do you help people find clarity how
should people think about what their
goals are what they want what they're
striving towards how do they build that
vision so beginning with a masterpiece a
pretty good place to start and then
saying well what do i want or and then
being willing to
to have the burning desire and then to
put a a plan of
attainment in place and being willing
to persist and keep changing things
until you get what you want so it's like
we become what we think about does that
make sense so it's really more about
uh like just keeping it simple and just
well you know
who do you want to be
you know why why why are you here on
this planet if you live according to the
principles of
of love compassion
you know appreciative joy uh you know
celebrating other people's
um successes but how do you overcome
hatred and
and confusion and just having a good
heart
then i think you that's what happened to
me then i start to get clear about what
what i like to do and how i could be of
service how can i help other people so
in recovery the first thing they tell
you is you gotta help somebody else to
have the same problem so you can get out
of your
your selfishness or your self um
conceit or you know your ego and just
focus on how you're going to help
somebody else
and so it's there's no one way to do it
but what i would say is
that it has everything to do with just
be still a note just think about it's
got to be inside jobs so how am i going
to
chip away
to express the masterpiece now i can
listen to you i can listen to myself and
other people but i have to find a way
that works for me
but i have to keep at it and be willing
to learn from my mistakes and continue
to pay attention and to see is that
taking me where i want it going if it's
not then what else can i do so you need
the mindfulness but you need the
understanding of the wisdom or what are
the principles involved in
and true north or what does it mean to
relate to another person so we know
that mutual benefit mutual respect is
really helpful
coming from a place of abundance is
really helpful and if we think win-win
it's really helpful and so these
principles they don't change and they're
universal and they're self-evident so if
we're
principle-centered
then then we'll we'll figure out the
other stuff but i'll be but those
principles are guiding principles
they're guiding ideas that help us to
just say okay how can i be george based
on
taking what i learned from buddhism or
or philosophy psychology or whatever but
the ultimate responsibility is me but i
have to have some idea or vision or
possibility what is the future i can
live into
that i'm motivated and inspired
to live into because we live into the
future we
we see so when i was at addicts
it was wasn't no future it was just this
but once i realized oh i i don't have to
be that i can
i can get out of that addiction and live
a life
of love and compassion
and self-expression because that's
that's what it comes down to basically
who am i and how can i express myself
because that's what it comes down to
yeah so what are we all chasing after
i said everybody
i don't know you can think of people
according to joseph campbell he thinks
we're all
chasing after meaning or having a
purpose
it may be one thing some people say
they're chasing happiness and
and of course victor franklin said
happiness cannot be pursued it has to
ensue so you do things that make you
happy so i say people want peace of mind
and people just want to be happy i would
say
or they don't want to suffer less so the
way i look at it is if i can alleviate a
little suffering or eliminate suffering
completely
that would be huge in yourself and
others and others right when we can open
our heart and see other people suffering
it helps us to connect and have more
compassion can't have compassion without
suffering
whoa never heard anybody say that before
i can have compassion for them because i
know from a personal level what that
feels like to be in pain or to feel like
you're not worthy or that you know
you're never going to be anything
or you're just um
just feeling really awful about who you
are self-worth low self-worth or just
feeling like you're not worth anything
when when you can identify with that
feeling
then it's easier to have compassion for
somebody who's going through that
because you know what it feels like and
how awful it feels
and so
yeah i think we're we're social
creatures but when i can relate
so the pain i go through helps me to be
more sensitive to other people's pain so
it's just really
uh it's
it's just knowing that the universe
works in a certain way all right it's a
friendly universe if you look at it that
way it's friendly if you look at it it
gets dangerous side right yeah we get to
decide so when you look at it as a
friendly universe and there's a
lawfulness to it then align with the
lawfulness and then then that's how you
you're gonna have to go deeper on that
one i know what you mean yeah the the
einstein quote the most important
decision any of us will ever make is
whether we live in a friendly or a
hostile universe i've heard you talk
about that a lot so i'll want you to
start there but then
also um
just how this all begins to play out i
think that you have some really
interesting insights so
what does it mean that we get to choose
between those two things
yes so
number one we don't know we can choose
that's our birthright we get choice and
some people say yeah you're addicted or
your or your you know your genes and all
of that stuff well we know with
consciousness if you focus and do
certain things the genes may not even be
turned on so it all comes down to this
moment this moment is the only time
we can transform and i say join now or
never
so i got laid off or i get fired from a
job i can relate to it like
you know now what am i going to do i
don't have a job i'm not going to be
able to pay the rent or anything or i
can say oh one door closes another one
opens
cool okay so you know why would i want
to be somewhere where they don't want me
right so that empowers me
just by me interpreting it that way
and seeing that oh okay no worries and
we know this from some resources that
people who
have hope and optimism then then they're
going to figure stuff out if you have
the opposite of that then you're going
to be a victim you're going to be in
survival mode and there's going to be no
space there's going to be noise and
clutter there's no space to create
i love all that stuff and i think that
it's even more interesting in the
context of what you do for a livings and
and this i really want to talk about so
you work with some of the highest
achieving hardest pushing like i mean
between jordan and kobe bryant i can't
think of people that are more maniacally
focused and driven i mean it's insane
kobe used to make 1300 three-point shots
a day right just crazy so how do you
have this like
it's about
the not doing it's about being still and
quiet so you can hear the voice it's
about you know creating that space and
also be like that intense
yeah so that it's interesting because i
work with a lot of people
and
not everybody has that
that
uh pursuit of excellence or wants to be
has and of course michael jordan and if
you said him and kobe had that curse
it's not a curse but it's like they just
have to be a certain way
so it's really more about understanding
that about themselves the self knowledge
this is how i roll this is how i run i'm
committed to this and then
showing them how or giving them the
opportunity to see
that okay so if you're gonna if you
wanna be better at making threes
then you gotta put in that work so you
have to have
the
the passion the fire i mean that's huge
the want to the desire to push through
pain and and that sort of thing getting
comfortable with uncomfortable so you so
kobe had to have that but it's also the
understanding
that
and this is the interesting thing about
the elite athletes and so tom brady in
there they're always looking to get
better they're always looking at how am
i
what can i do now to give me an edge and
that's why i say they're probably the
best students because they get it and
they want to get better and they know
this is going to help them get to the
next level so there's a willingness but
there's a want to there there's a
passion there that
that you have to have so it's not for
those who need it for those who want it
so you can have different degrees do you
have to be as intense as them no
but i i think that
we have that capacity to do that now
whether or not we want to and whether or
not we've but a lot of it has to do with
what we think
the results of our training is going to
be so when you know that it's going to
take you where you want to go
there's a commitment to doing whatever
you need to do to get there versus like
okay yeah i want to because people say
yeah i want to be like mike and kobe but
then when i tell them what they had to
do they said no i signed up for that
you know i'm not trying to be like that
i'm not and so and that's for them
knowing that they don't want to make
that commitment
so it's fine there's nothing wrong with
that but the people who really get it
and understand
what it is to
to really say okay i really want this
and and that could be a problem you can
want it so badly that that your effort
is going to be marked up so you got to
want it badly but then you got to allow
things to happen
that's that's a challenging thing but
when you have folks
like like if you talk about mj
uh he just
i mean
i i i can tell you one time i'm working
out with the team for the game and he
has something going on with his finger
and i have them doing some some kind of
exercise and i said mj you don't have no
i'm doing that
that's i mean it's just he's going to do
what everybody else is not going to do
kobe's going to have a finger there
where he can't hold the ball but no he's
not going to stop playing he's going to
change his shot and he's going to do
what he needs to do but he has that
awareness and the know-how
and the commitment to just doing what he
has to do
if that means
putting another three four hours a day
on top of practice that's not a problem
because that's what he's committed to
and so
so it's
it's just understanding what are you
doing is it taking you where you want to
go
are you
as intoxicated by the pursuit of
greatness as i am i i
like when i hear stories about people
like kobe like jordan who are just
driven to
the level of being concerned for their
well-being that excites me
and it it ignites something in me and
makes me think about my own potential
and how
much farther than what people think
we're capable of we really are capable
of or do you think that that is exactly
what
the buddha was saying when he said that
desire is the root of suffering i see it
as just me being me
and this is this is this is this is
where my bliss is so i'm following it so
for some people they're going to say
yeah dude you're
you're intense
yeah but that's their opinion but to me
i'm just being george so to answer your
question yes i i think that that this
commit and i think because of that i get
i get drawn to people like you like
michael like kobe and
and other folks why because
because um that's that's what i'm
interested in and and that's the energy
that i'm
creating yeah i um man there's something
about people that are completely
committed that are completely driven
that that i i am drawn to tremendously
it is so fascinating because
we were talking before we started
rolling
i think you represent a type of
mindfulness practice that
could have saved me from years of
rejecting mindfulness because i thought
it was soft i thought it was weak and i
felt like the thing in my life i had to
overcome was that but that by my nature
i was
very lazy i was very soft i couldn't
take pain i couldn't hold a vision in my
head of what i wanted to become and then
execute against that if
early in my life i was not willing to do
the 1300 three-point shots
and
the the biggest
gains in my life came from when i
stopped worrying about how many shots i
needed to make and i just started making
them and falling in love with the
journey for sure and not worrying about
the end result but really trying to love
my day-to-day moment i really resonate
with what you're saying about this
moment is all you have right so you
better learn to experience or to enjoy
that and i found joy in the process in
the hard work
because i could finally believe in what
it was that i was trying to become
and so for me you're this fascinating
mixture of you're really going hard for
things you really
obviously are attracted to to ultra high
achievers but at the same time you used
to teach a three month
silent retreat and i i'm hoping you can
bring that together for people that that
they're the same guy
that is helping the most extraordinary
athletes reach an even a new level who's
not telling them you know don't strive
don't go for these really big things but
at the same time understands that the
way that you create that space is
silence
explain to us the power of silence
explain why slow motion gets you there
faster yes so when when i when i become
a silent witness and i can observe
things what happens is in the way my
definition of practice even though i've
done
three months silent retreats and that
sort of thing i don't do that now my
practice from the time i wake up to the
time i go to sleep
i can be mindful you know what's my mind
you know how's my mind is it is it
moving towards moving away or is it just
kind of spaced out
and so to me the secret is the
continuity of mindfulness continuity of
paying attention to
what i'm doing and understanding what
i'm doing and why i'm doing it or
whether it's working or not so does that
mean the continuity of mindfulness is
that about getting rid of my
um story around what's happening and
just being present for the just
realities of what's happening yeah but
you can be aware of the story and see
how it affects you see the whole thing
is it's not like either like okay i
gotta get intimate with anger with
frustration
with with jealousy but can i relate to
it in a way where i'm not identified
with it i'm just noticing oh when
there's anger in mind my jaws are tight
and you know i'm looking at people and
you know i'm hating
i'm not really loving i'm hating you
know like oh i don't like them anyway or
all that stuff and then when i can see
that and say okay so is that who i want
to be
no then okay so what do i need to change
i need to change my mind what matters is
whether we react or respond to it that's
the power and that space we get to
choose
don't let life choose for you you get to
choose i get to choose and that's what i
say yes and
how am i gonna make this work
it's gonna be great
what do you say to people that have
tried meditation and they say
i just couldn't do it i can't make my
mind be silent
well for me it was hard sitting still so
some kind of movement but here's the
thing
it's not about you making your mind
silent it's about being with the mind as
it is
see it's an interpretation of whether
you're doing it right if you don't think
you're doing it right you're gonna have
a version i ain't doing this
but if you just like even now just
sitting and sitting and breathing
breathing in breathing out and knowing
i'm sitting that's enough
knowing i'm listening and i'm talking to
you that's enough i'm here
i love that
before i ask my last question tell these
guys where they can find you online
yeah so they can find me at
georgemond.com uh then there's a mindful
athlete facebook page
and i think my name on twitter is george
mumford or george t mumford i can't
remember i have somebody do that stuff
i'm not very good on it and i think
george mum for that uh instagram so i
have folks that
that helped me with that
that kind of stuff but yeah it's
so they can find me there all right my
last question what's the impact that you
want to have on the world i want to
each human being i interact with and
each human being to release the divine
spark or have some access to that peace
that stillness that masterpiece
within so obviously i want to alleviate
suffering and i want people to live more
in joy
and to be more self-expressive just be
who they're supposed to be
i love that
all right guys whoo you are going to
want to read the book
it is absolutely extraordinary it's
called the mindful athlete and it really
shows you how you can both pursue
excellence to hold yourself to an
extraordinarily high standard and at the
same time learn to create that space in
the eye of the storm so that you can
slow things down slip into your body as
he says which is really just a way of
saying you're not thinking about what's
behind you not thinking about what's
ahead of you you're not telling yourself
a story about the moment you were simply
in that moment and if you've practiced
something enough then your body's really
going to take over and of course that's
what they call being in the zone and
you're going to be able to perform your
best and do truly extraordinary things
but if
like me you're foolish and you reject
the notion of there being power in the
ability to create that space you're
forever going to hold yourself back and
i love his definition of
getting to that masterpiece that's
already inside of you that it's
not about thinking that you start bad
and have to find your path to good it's
really about quieting your mind stopping
the interpretation stopping beating
yourself up not telling yourself a
negative story choosing to live a
principled life which is focused on
creating that beauty that connection
finding the love so that in that moment
you can have joy which is what is going
to prime you to be in the zone and to
perform at your best i think he is an
extraordinary mind that you guys will
all benefit from greatly especially if
you want to achieve something amazing
and have fun doing it all right if you
haven't already be sure to subscribe and
until next time my friends be legendary
take care george thank you man
george bernard shaw said it better than
i ever could he said the reasonable man
adapts himself to the world
the unreasonable one persists in
adapting the world to himself
therefore all progress depends on the
unreasonable man