We’re excited to welcome mental skills coach Trevor Moawad to this week’s podcast. Trevor talks about the shortcomings of unconditionally positive thinking, advocates for neutrality, and recommends strategies that athletes, coaches, and parents can use to optimize performance and quality of life in all sports. Trevor’s book, It Takes What It Takes, is absolutely outstanding and I highly recommend it.

A special thanks to this show’s sponsor, Athletic Greens. Head to https://www.athleticgreens.com/cressey and you’ll receive a free 10-pack of Athletic Greens travel packets with your first order.

Show Outline

• How the field of sports psychology as a whole has struggled to solidify its significance in the world of performance and why consumers are reluctant to invest resources in their mental training
• Why the bar is set seemingly low for mental skills professionals and how the industry as a whole needs to evolve to provide a tangible goal for consumers to work towards
• Why the standard positivity-only, relax-and-breath mental training model is insufficient preparation
• How being raised in an intelligent, positivity-focused family influenced and equipped Trevor for the rest of his life
• How the lessons he learned for developing and possessing an elite mentality growing up were without context until he became very sick during college, and how this adversity propelled him to the next level mentally
• How Trevor’s experience as an athlete, coach, and teacher have provided him with the experience and empathy necessary to connect and collaborate with elite performers
• What research says about the true impact of negativity on one’s psychology
• Why the externalization of our thoughts is so powerful – especially when negative – and how the tone and context of our language play an influential role on our mental state
• What the true impact of consuming negativity in your life is, and what profound research has shown the impact of watching just three minutes of news daily to be
• How quality mental training addresses the root of one’s mentality, controlling your thoughts, and how the industry of sports psychology has fallen short of creating real changes in individuals by prescribing meditation, breathing, affirmations, etc.
• Where athletes should start when looking to develop and master their mentality
• Why the elimination of negativity is the first step for any individual looking to improve their mentality
• Why developing a neutral mindset is the answer for being elite in any field of endeavor and how individuals can use honest evaluation to build awareness and focus for the work that needs to be done
• How the true parameters of one’s influence are limited to one’s own self and how this fact can alleviate pressure placed on relationships between parents and children as well as coaches and players
• How parents can better leverage influence to parent their children and why parents should learn to provide insight and options on the process as opposed to the outcomes
• How players can mitigate the impact of negative coaches
• What insights and lessons Trevor has from working at different levels across multiple sports
• What specific lessons Trevor took from working with the Memphis Grizzlies and NBA-legend Vince Carter, especially the struggle and sacrifice required to play 22 years in the NBA
• What Trevor’s “Supersize Me” Experiment was, and why Trevor chose to test his limits and combat the consumption of negativity at an extreme level
• What some of the common pitfalls parents fall into are when managing athletes and their mentality
• Why champions are actually born and unmade
• How defining your goals and acknowledging your values provide the context necessary for aligning your behaviors to who you want to become
• How Trevor’s mental approaches translate across multiple sports and how success translates across any discipline

You can follow Trevor on Twitter at @TrevorMoawad and on Instagram at @TrevorMoawad. And, you can check out his book HERE.

Sponsor Reminder

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