Speaker 1: It's more than just a podcast. It's a podcast network,
nineteen different podcasts that you can step into and explore.
Arrow dot net A r r oe dot net if
you're into hy a authors, and why you're not still
baffles me, because these are some of the greatest authors
on the planet today for all ages. Arrow dot net,
A r r oe dot net. Enjoy your exploration. Good morning,
doctor Nate, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2: Good morning, mister Collins. I call you Arrow. What a
wonderful name.
Speaker 1: Oh that's just one of those radio names that came
up while my wife and I were pinning out her
very first book, and she needed the character to be
somebody who ran a nightclub, and I said, I like
the name Arrow. That sounds like a nightclub owner. So
she ran with it and I stole it.
Speaker 3: Okay, And who generated the graphic that I'm looking at, the.
Speaker 1: Graphic that you got that was me? And the reason
why is because when you break down the walls that
I've got around me. Oh my god, I'm talking to
you about this, you'll understand this, doctor Nate, And that
is is that there is a spiritual energy within each
and every one of us. But what are you willing
to do with it. My choice is to share it.
Speaker 3: What a wonderful contribution to the world. Thank you, and
keep doing it.
Speaker 1: Well, look at what you are doing, because I mean
when you sit there and you write a book called
The Confident Mind, A battle Tested Guide to an Unshakable Performance,
I mean, I gotta be honest. When I came across this,
I chuckled as a creative mind because it was like,
oh my god, this guy gets it. It is not conceit.
It is having the confidence to be able to be
there with your mind to say we're going to go
there and we're going to win.
Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, And I'm so glad you distinguish confidence from conceit.
Speaker 2: It is a common problem.
Speaker 3: It's a misconception that if I think confidently, I'm going
to come across as a conceited against unlikable so and
so it is a misconception that hangs up a lot
of people.
Speaker 1: So true. But I have been known, though, doctor that
when people start calling me conceited and stuff, I'll take
off my shoes and say, a right, you start wearing
them and and but they wake up when I do
something like that, because I'm confident that Okay, I'm gonna
wake up a sleeping soul.
Speaker 3: M very very true. I like that analogy of sleeping soul.
Speaker 1: So, now, how is it that you gained the confidence
to bring out a book like The Confident Mind? I mean,
because you know, there's you know, that little bit of
a creative mind inside of you. Loves fear, loves doubt,
loves shame. It lives off that energy. But you're showing us. Ah,
there's another way.
Speaker 3: I had to acknowledge the fact that I was lying
to myself any time that I thought, well, you know,
my professional writing and my work with cadets at West
Point and you know a few other select professional athletes.
Speaker 2: That that work.
Speaker 3: Really doesn't have wide application and they're a whole not
a lot of people are going to really be interested
in what I have to say. That was a lie
I told myself, Okay, And when I finally looked at
the you know, the body of work that I had
accumulated up to that point, and the constructive feedback that
I had received on that body of work, I finally said,
you know, I don't need to lie to myself anymore.
What I have to say in the way I say
it really has wide application for lots and lots of
people that I came to that conclusion, oh, ten years ago,
as I think about it now, Yeah, and we're talking about,
you know, twenty fifteen, twenty fourteen. I really had to
make that distinction for myself. And then I started laboring
on this book and it finally saw the light of
day in you know, a few years back, and here
we are publicizing it again because it seems to have
hit a nerve with a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because what you're just talking about, well, you said
twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, those were the days before the
lockdown where we became uncertain in life, and what is
the thing you speak about. We've got to get back
to that place of certainty?
Speaker 2: Correct. Correct.
Speaker 3: My definition of confidence is simply a sense of certainty
about yourself that allows you to execute or live in
the world more or less unconsciously, naturally, intuitively, we have that,
as you put it, creative spark within us. Our nervous
systems are remarkable. If we want to hit a tennis
ball properly, we're much better just looking at the ball
and swinging the racket than thinking about, Okay, have I
positioned my.
Speaker 2: Feet, well, have I held the racket back far enough?
Speaker 3: Do I have the correct angle in my elbow and
my shiveling swiveling my hips properly and my following through.
Speaker 2: We tend to think that in.
Speaker 3: Order to execute well we have to be very analytical
and observational and self critical of ourselves, and that is
a myth. A certain degree of analysis and judgment and
criticism is useful in the learning process, but you can't
overdo it and bring that to the competitive or performance arena.
Speaker 2: That will just tie you up in knots M.
Speaker 1: God, you sound like my mom. I mean, I mean
really do. Because my mother, she knew I wanted to
be a professional bowler, and it was all about all
about the steps, the timing, the pivot, it was all
about the sliding, getting up to that foul line too early,
exactly everything you're talking about. And then she goes, there's
more to it than that, and so let me to
I mean, where were you during my teenage days when
I wanted to be a professional bowler, sir? Because I
really needed you to get me there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if I had a nickel arrow. For everybody who
has who has made the comment, boy, I wish.
Speaker 2: I had had this back in high school.
Speaker 3: Boy. Yeah, I wish I had had this when I
was a university athlete.
Speaker 2: I wish I had had this when I was, you know,
doing my cardiac surgery residency. Man, I wish I didn't
have this stuff then. Okay, yeah, I wish I had
a nickel for all of those Mansara.
Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with doctor Z coming
up next. The name of his book, The Confident Mind,
A battle Tested Guide to an Unshakable Performance. We are
back with doctor Z. Aren't we psychologically broken?
Speaker 3: Though?
Speaker 1: Because business leaders don't want to deal with those of
us that say I can be the leader, I just
choose not to step up into that role because I
think I still need to learn something from this end.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's very frustrating when people thwart their own development
and they choose to take a rather limited view of
themselves rather than take a very careful inventory of their successes,
of their capabilities that created those successes, and then decide, well,
this is the truth about me. I accomplish that and
that and that and that because I'm disquality and disquality
and disquality and disquality. Maybe that tells me that I
have reasons to be certain about myself when I am
challenged next with a algebra test, a sales presentation, or
a third and eight in a football game.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, because you know that third and eight, I
can't imagine what's going on in that field. And and
and to you know, to be that quarterback more importantly,
to be that person who's just gonna hike the ball
if that timing is off your fried And then what
was the quote that I just heard this past week.
It was it was to the quarterback of of New
York and and he they said that don't forget that
what you do during the playoffs, your fans will never forget.
And I thought, that's too much pressure.
Speaker 2: Man. Now this is true.
Speaker 3: The fans won't forget it until you perform at a
higher level, and then the fickle fans.
Speaker 2: Are all going to fall in love with you.
Speaker 3: So you've got to separate your sense of yourself from
the adulation of the fan base, because the fans are
rather fickle. Okay, this was really true for my long
term client, Eli Manning.
Speaker 2: Of the New York Giants.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, he you know, he was on the cover
of the New York Times magazine back during his rookie year.
You know, because he was drafted very high. He comes
from a football family of royalty. The pressure on that
fella is immense. And the important lesson that he learned
was to be very comfortable in his own skin.
Speaker 2: He is, whether.
Speaker 3: Whether people were, you know, praising him or whether people
were crucifying him. Yeah.
Speaker 1: See, well then I need I need to thank you
for doing that to him, because I love him more
today than I did on that football field. And it's
not because I'm a Carolina Panther fan. It's just that
he is not afraid to be himself and to laugh
at himself. That's what I love about him.
Speaker 3: Indeed, indeed, his nickname amongst his teammates was easy E.
Speaker 2: He did you know, he never.
Speaker 3: Got super super too high, and he never got too low.
He was a steady presence in the huddle. And that's
kind of important, you know, at that level of performance.
Speaker 1: When you're showing somebody that there is a difference between
conceit and confidence. Does it involve daily writing? Only because
I've been a daily writer since July of nineteen ninety four,
and I know how how important that writing has been
to me. Why I guess I don't understand why somebody
else would not want to also jump on that ship.
Speaker 3: On daily writing, daily reflection is a marvelous process. I
urge people to conduct a daily reflection of their workday,
or their sport practice or the lesson that they might take.
Conduct a daily reflection where did I work hard? What
little things did I get right? What am I making progress?
And what am I getting better at? And that's a
five minute reflection. And I urge people to write that
stuff out on a blank piece of paper or on
a PDF that I provide for them, so that there
is a tangible record of yeah, I put the work in,
Yeah I got this right, Yeah I'm getting better at
factoring a polynomial equation or whatever the heck? All right,
And just the awareness of that that's in front of
you in hard copy is very valuable. And I'll say
just a step further on that, there is some evidence
to suggest that when you write it out with a
pen and paper, as opposed to keyboarding it into a.
Speaker 2: Document, you.
Speaker 3: Actually you create a more neurobiologically complex task. Writing with
your fingers involves more nerves, more muscles, henceforth more of
your nervous system more of.
Speaker 2: Your brain power.
Speaker 3: It has a more powerful effect on you writing it
out long hand.
Speaker 2: As opposed to tap tap tap tap tap on a keyboard.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. One of the things I also try to
take these people to, and I'm sure that you do
it as well, is that because when you write it down,
it's the interpretation of the moment you felt when you
wrote it. But now you're taking on the dear future reader.
So I'm inviting people to actually grab their digital phones
and with the recording device, record their voice that's pitch, volume,
and tone. And if you lie into that phone, you're
going to tell that futureself. I lied when I was
saying this. You're going to hear your voice tell your
story of healing.
Speaker 2: Yep. Absolutely true.
Speaker 3: The stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves are so meaningful,
but unfortunately they are generally underutilized and misunderstood. The stories
you tell yourself about yourself either open up doorways for
development and improvement, or they put walls around you and
keep you right where you're at.
Speaker 1: Doctor, how do you deal with those moments? With you
being so close to the sports heroes and business leaders.
We all have to face that. I used to be moments.
And I mean when a sports hero then becomes just
a regular person out there on a real street they
used to be? How do they break free from being
a used to be?
Speaker 2: By doing a little bit of reflection on.
Speaker 3: What enabled my success in my sports life or my
previous job. What qualities did I show their? What qualities
did I developed there? And where can I apply those
same qualities?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: Okay, I may not be a professional football player anymore,
but I am still a observant, physically active, curious INDIVI.
What are the things that help you succeed there? How
can you use them today? And just as you set
goals and dreams for your sports success, well what goals
what dreams create some of that same excitement for you? Now, yeah,
you're not going to take the field with eighty thousand
people chewing anymore on Sunday afternoons. But maybe you want
to build a business that will bring that some of
that same excitement. Maybe you want to climb Mount Everest.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Okay, it's not up to me to
think about what you want.
Speaker 3: It's up to you to think about what gives you
a goosebumps?
Speaker 2: What are what things?
Speaker 3: What experiences might take your breath away and give you
that same sense of oh wow, this is awesome. Are
you Are you willing to look at those possibilities and
then pursue them just like you decided at some point, Hey,
I'm going to dedicate myself to run, to lift, to
practice the study so that I can get a Division
one athletic opportunity.
Speaker 2: See, you're willing to be that same dreamer. Now.
Speaker 1: You know, there's so many people Doctor Nate that that
have probably said I wish I had Doctor Nate in
a in a something I could put in my in
my back pocket and keep with me at all times.
And I think you have finally done it with this book,
The Confident Mine, because I mean, you have no idea.
How many times I keep going back to this dang
book because it's like, Okay, what would he do? What
would he do? And and and God, when you reach
that level, please be confident in your heart that you're
reaching non sports people with this book.
Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, no, thank you. I am very very proud
of that.
Speaker 1: What's the next step? Are are you going on tour?
Do you have a podcast that we want to talk about?
Are you going to do a specialty show on Hulu
or Netflix where you're going to talk down breaking down
the actual sports hero to the humanism stage.
Speaker 3: Well, there are a number of ideas in the works,
a video based instructional program that I think a lot
of people might find interesting. There is also in development
basically a doctor Z TV series What We Yeah, where
a somewhat fictionalized Doctor Z with a somewhat fictionalized support
team helps a wide array of clients and folks experience
better lives. In every episode, doctor Z is with an
airline pilot, or a neurosurgeon, or the kicker of a
football team who's been choking but has got a big
one coming up.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So there they are all kinds of Well, I should
say there are a few next step ideas in gestation
right now, but I am very busy fielding requests from
people all over the world. Australia, United Kingdom, the first
French horn seat in the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Estonia.
Speaker 2: I'm not making this up. These are the people who
reach out to me.
Speaker 3: There are people from all over the world that are
seeking a little bit of advisement and I'm happy to
work in that capacity.
Speaker 1: Wow, and I'm gonna put it this way, he says,
in confidence, because conceit would have stopped him thirty seconds ago.
I love you, man, and you've got to come back
to this show, doctor Z.
Speaker 2: I'm always happy to come back and hang with you Arrow.
This has been a joy.
Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 3: Okay, you got my word on that you do the same.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir,