Winning the Mental Game with Dr. Amber Selking (Part 1)
John talks with Dr. Amber Selking — author of Winning the Mental Game: The Playbook for Building Championship Mindsets, podcast host of Building Championship Mindsets, entrepreneur, mental performance coach for LSU football, wife, and mom. Dr. Amber has a PhD in Applied Sport and Human Performance Psychology from the University of Missouri. Listen to this episode to learn more: [00:00] - Intro [01:29] - Dr. Amber’s bio and backstory [03:53] - Working with LSU football [05:48] - Why Dr. Amber decided to pursue a career in sports psychology [08:45] - The brain’s impact on performance [10:19] - Psycho-neuromuscular theory [12:13] - How to stay calm and control the controllables [15:19] - Limited attentional capacity of the brain [15:58] - Impact of social media on mental health [17:28] - Dr. Amber’s approach to providing suggestions when working with clients [19:56] - Impact of NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) deals [21:58] - Helping athletes prepare for life transitions after sports [26:23] - The idea of “teach for transfer” [27:41] - Pain, Purpose, Platform [30:36] - Dr. Amber’s experience with the John Maxwell Team [33:31] - How mindset is often used as a buzzword in social media [35:57] - What mindset really is NOTABLE QUOTES: “The brain is not a muscle in the scientific sense, but it functions like a muscle in the extent that the parts of it that we use grow and get stronger, and the parts of it that we don’t get weaker.” “Every thought we have sends an electrical signal from our brain through our neurons into our bodies to do something. And the question is, are those thoughts helping you or hurting you?” “Be aware of your thoughts. Recognize what you’re thinking, then take those thoughts captive and ask yourself, ‘Is this thought helping me or hurting me?’ If it’s hurting you, release it and replace it with the right way of thinking.” “Our thoughts affect our emotions, which affect our body’s response, and so this starts to come to life for us and puts a lot of control back in people’s lives and in what can feel like a very uncontrollable world that we’re living in today.” “We don’t fight against flesh and blood; we fight against principalities of the darkness.” “If we fill our mind with the straight Twitter feed of negativity, there’s going to be no room for good stuff. And it’s just going to be this constant fill of more anxiety and more stress. So, be very mindful of what you let in.” “The problem for most people is that when the pain comes, and we’re bombarded with this message that pain is bad, it’s horrible, that we should do everything we can to avoid it. But purpose tells us the exact opposite. You have to work through it. You should expect it. It needs to be there because it owns your purpose. It leads you directly to it. It clarifies what your purpose is.” “If everything rises and falls on leadership, what does leadership rise and fall on? And that’s where I think mindset comes into play.” “A mindset is like an Instagram filter on your brain. You could have one picture, and if you put a black-and-white filter over it, it looks very different than if you put a Lo-Fi filter over it.” “Everything we know in brain science is in the Bible. But the cool thing about science is no one feels a certain way about science, so you can talk to everybody about these things.” USEFUL RESOURCES: https://selkingperformance.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/amberlattner/ https://www.instagram.com/drselking/ https://x.com/ChampMindsets https://x.com/DrSelking https://www.facebook.com/selkingperformancegroup/ https://www.facebook.com/alattner "Winning the Mental Game: The Playbook for Building Championship Mindsets" (https://a.co/d/7dpSpIA) "A Dream Come True: The Buzz on Greatness (Zip the Bee Book 1)" (https://a.co/d/eoKIwQw) "Winner's Circle (Zip the Bee Book 2)" (https://a.co/d/ep26gs1) CONNECT WIT
