Oct. 14, 2025

Four Pillars of Peak Performance, Olympic Sport Psychologist Colleen Hacker, ENCORE EP 286

In an encore presentation, we sit down with Dr. Colleen Hacker, Olympic mental performance consultant and author of Achieving Excellence: Mastering Mindset for Peak Performance in Sport and Life, to unpack the real tools champions use when it counts. No fluff here—just clear methods backed by science and forged in the fire of world-class competition.

We start by redefining confidence as a moving target and show how to build it by fixing your focus. If you’re replaying missed sessions, old results, or an opponent’s best times, your attention is fueling doubt. Dr. Hacker shares a practical reset: direct focus to controllables—race plans, turns, breath patterns, fueling windows—and let confidence follow. From there, we dig into the split most athletes miss: the brain that builds skill is not the brain that unleashes it. Training is analysis; performance is trust. Her race-day cue, “easy speed,” helps you shed tightness, stop micromanaging, and let your timing run.

We also get honest about pain. Instead of treating it like a threat, Dr. Hacker frames discomfort as the separator—the price of entry to personal records. You can make pain go away by backing off, but you’ll also forfeit your best. For masters athletes, we explore how wisdom, intrinsic motivation, and an appetite for science become competitive edges. We break down the four pillars of peak performance and show why you must train all four systematically to avoid leaving potential on the table. Expect actionable tools: breathing and mindfulness to balance arousal, imagery and self-talk to prime performance, and precise recovery strategies around sleep, hydration, and glycogen timing.

We wrap with a clear challenge: mental skills work when you do the work. If you’re ready to move from knowing to doing, this encore will give you the language, the structure, and the daily habits to get there. Follow the show, share this episode with a training partner, and leave a quick review to help more athletes find us. Want more? Grab Kelly’s new book False Cure and stay tuned for our 2026 reboot with fresh weekly conversations to keep your mojo strong.

Kelly's new book www.False-Cure.com

Email us at HELLO@ChampionsMojo.com. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

00:01 - Host Update: Book & Reboot

00:30 - Encore Setup: Why This Episode

01:52 - Meet Dr. Colleen Hacker

04:21 - Why Mindset Matters in Sport

05:10 - Inside the New Mindset Book

08:23 - Confidence: The Elite Athlete Paradox

12:20 - Masters Athletes: Wisdom And Drive

16:40 - Confidence Follows Focus

20:42 - Easy Speed: Trust Your Training

23:08 - Making Peace With Pain

28:06 - Risk, Injury, And Aging Smart

33:20 - The Four Pillars Of Swimming

41:35 - Knowing vs Doing: The Real Gap

45:58 - Hosts’ Key Takeaways

50:22 - Follow, Review, And What’s Next

WEBVTT

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Hello friends, this is Kelly Palace, host of Champions Mojo.

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I'm taking a short break right now from recording new episodes of Champions Mojo for two exciting reasons.

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First, I'm gonna be busy launching my new book, False Cure, which I've been writing for the last year.

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It's a whistleblowing investigative journalism book about a denied health epidemic.

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If you'd like more information on that, just check out the show notes.

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But the second and most compelling reason I'm on a break is that here at Champions Mojo, we're preparing for the January 2026 reboot of powerful new weekly episodes with expert guest interviews, inspiring topics, and tips to take your mindset, health, and personal performance to the next level.

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We will be announcing some incredible partnerships, and I guarantee that what we have in store for you will empower you to keep your mojo strong in the new year.

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While I'm prepping all this great stuff, I wanted to kick off our Encore series with some of the most powerful conversations we've ever had.

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Today's episode is with Dr.

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Colleen Hacker.

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I've personally listened to this episode at least five times.

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Her mindset tools for both sports and life change the way I think and perform.

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They will help make you a champion.

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My hope is that if this is your second time listening to this episode, you'll take away even more insight and motivation.

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Or if it's your first time, you'll love it as much as I do.

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So settle in and enjoy this encore presentation in its entirety with the brilliant Dr.

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Colleen Hacker.

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It's truly an honor to have Dr.

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Colleen Hacker, who is the author of her new book, Achieving Excellence Mastering Mindset for Peak Performance in Sport and Life.

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As a certified mental performance consultant and member of the U.S.

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Olympic Committee Sports Psychology Registry, she has served on six Olympic Game staffs, both winter and summer, and more than a dozen world championships teams working with Major League Baseball, the NFL, the PGA, the LPGA, Chrome Soccer, USA swimming, yay, crew, speed skating, track and field, and tennis, just to name a few.

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And in her day job, Dr.

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Hacker is a professor in the Department of Kinesiology at Pacific Lutheran University.

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Maria, today we're going to get to talk sports psychology, one of our favorite subjects.

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What more can you tell us about Dr.

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Hacker?

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Well, ESPNW named Dr.

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Hacker is one of the 30 women in the country who changed the way sports are played.

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And she's been inducted into seven different halls of fame, either as an athlete or coach.

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Her strategies for performance are sought by corporations, business groups, professional, and Olympic sports team, and both print and media.

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Her works appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and ESPN, just to name a few.

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And we're just delighted.

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There's so much to talk about.

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Thank you very much for being here, Dr.

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Hacker.

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It's an honor to have you on.

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Welcome to Champions Mojo.

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Right back at you, Kelly and Maria Champions Mojo.

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Like, what a title.

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Let's do this.

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It really is a privilege to join you and your listeners on your pod.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Yes.

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So we do want to ask you some questions that we know our listeners will be like, oh my gosh, we have the Olympic consultant for mental skills here with us.

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What could we ask her?

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So before we do those questions, can you just tell us about your new book, Achieving Excellence: Mastering Mindset for Peak Performance in Sport and Life?

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This is my new Bible.

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It is unbelievably comprehensive.

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There is nothing one could wonder about mindset for sports and performance in life.

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And we always talk about on this show, Dr.

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Hacker, how sports mimics life.

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But tell us about this new book, how it came about, and let's go from there.

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First of all, I have to comment on this little phrase that you use.

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We love to talk about the mental skills.

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We love to talk about sports psychology.

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I would say you love to do that because you cannot compete in sport without attention to that part of the game.

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You can talk about Iron Man, you could talk about distance swimming, you could talk about sprint swims.

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And I will argue till my last breath that those six inches between our ears might be the most significant real estate that we're going to face in the competitive cauldron.

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So there's a reason you talk about it because the psychology of excellence is inextricably linked to the competitive environment.

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Now, to the new book, thank you for those kind words.

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And I want to assure the listeners, I didn't write that promo.

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That was extemporaneous from you.

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And you actually hit on what we tried to do.

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This is my second book, 20 years in between the two.

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But this book really is the culmination of my career in this sphere.

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And it reads that way.

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It is written primarily for sport.

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There's no question.

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But the folks at Human Kinetics, the publishing company, said, we want it for high-achieving corporate athletes.

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We want it in sport, in any competitive domain, whether it's youth to intercollegiate to Olympic to Masters.

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And if you heard that in the pages, like when you read it, if you hear that attention, we were very purposeful about that.

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And there's tons of books in this marketplace.

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I'm aware of that.

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And generally they they are one or the other.

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They're like workbooky kinds of things, like here's a worksheet, do this, work on this, here's questions to ask.

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And you don't have any understanding of what that recommendation is based on.

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Both as a speaker and a writer, everything I do is scientifically based, it's evidence-based, it is grounded in the literature.

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And then I try to speak and write as though it's not, if that makes sense.

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Like I try to translate that jargon and that rather esoteric kind of data and make it accessible and practical.

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We talk about what each topic is, why it's important, examples in sport, in life, and in business to which they can be applied.

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And then every single chapter contains elements that say, okay, make it your own now.

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This isn't cookie cutter.

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This isn't one size fits all.

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This book allows each reader, each athlete, each high performer to overlay their careers where they are right now with the exercises and elements in the book.

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So it's been very intentional.

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I'm not going to be all shucks about it.

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I'm I'm proud of what we did.

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The reviews and the responses from the folks I care most about, and that is the athletes and coaches and organizations, has been remarkably positive.

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Yeah, it is a true masterpiece.

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And I I have been a collector of books in this genre for my entire life.

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My library is, I've probably got 25 books, and I have not read the entire thing, but I am absolutely thrilled.

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This is just it, it is a true masterpiece.

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So what we wanted to do is while we have you here, the guru, the brain trust of mastering our mindset, when you deal with the U.S.

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Olympic swimming team, and pre-recording, we talked about the fact that we've had many Olympic champions on our show, and you've probably worked with many of them.

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What would you say is a common problem or a common issue that swimmers tend to have with their mindset?

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Well, it's a great question.

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And just one slight correction.

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USA swimming often hires one mental skills coach for the entire team.

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I am hired privately and individually by Olympic swimmers.

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So they have a team mental skills coach.

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And then when you get at the upper levels, they want their own person.

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I don't know how else to say it.

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USA swimming has a great track record, hires wonderful people.

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But I have been very fortunate to be hired from Olympic individual swimmers.

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Nice.

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I don't know if I'm going to surprise you two or not.

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And I would love to hear you comment on this.

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When people hear Olympians, when people hear gold medalists, when people hear the word Olympic champions, they don't expect what I'm about to say.

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One of the common threads is the issue of confidence.

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And they're like, but but they're world record holders, but they're Olympic champions, but they're in the top three in their discipline, in the work.

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Confidence?

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And there's a wonderful Robert Hughes quote that goes something like this perfect confidence is reserved for the least talented.

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It's their consolation for them.

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I love that.

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There's wisdom in that.

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Yeah.

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Truly greats have exceptionally high standards.

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They don't assume because they swam well in preliminaries or in Munich that they're going to swim.

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So what does that have to do with the finals?

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They understand that each moment their training is on the line, their approach is on the line.

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And technically, what their approach is in the early prelims may change when they get to the finals, right?

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In terms of conserving energy, in terms of not giving too much away in their race strategy.

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So the truly greats, not the wannabe greats, not the hangar-arounders in the engines, I would say to you that the confidence road is always under construction for those folks.

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They are either trying to get it back because they've lost it after a poorer event or a poor meet, or they're trying to maintain it for a longer period of time throughout a competition or in the run-up to a major event, or they're trying to just eat out a little bit more.

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Most of us realize that our swimming changes depending on our confidence.

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I hate to say that bluntly.

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Yes, yardage.

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Yes, nutrition, yes, sleep, yes, hydration, yes, elite performance is multifaceted.

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But confidence, individual confidence, which varies from time to time, from athlete to athlete, from race to race, from a competition to a competition, from site to site, is incredibly variable.

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I don't know if that surprises you.

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I would be curious, but I would say confidence is a recurring thread throughout a quant, throughout a four-year time period.

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What say you, experts?

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I am sure you're correct.

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And certainly that's been true in my own athletic career and professional career.

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Confidence seems to come and go, and sometimes you feel like a poser.

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But I guess since we work with masters, our audience is masters, and we're both masters athletes, I would ask you: has that been your experience with older athletes and older professionals that they also are struggling with confidence?

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Yeah, that's a great distinction because the demographics of the athlete changes in the course of our lifetime.

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What we're chasing in terms of records or achievements, what our approach is to training and to competitions, is not fixed in stone and it's not linear.

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It changes, it can change throughout the course of a lifetime.

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One of the aspects of master's level athletes, and I deal with master's level athletes in a number of sports, and I'm speaking in generalities, which carries it its own risk.

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There is a wisdom and an appreciation to the process infinitely more than in, for lack of a better way to say it, prime of their lives, athletes, they're like, I'm snapping my fingers now.

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They want it now, it's immediate.

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They rise and fall on the last performance.

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It is a rocket ship of up and crash and up and crash.

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Master's level swimmers, I really will stand by that.

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There's a wisdom, there's a patience, there's a recognition, and I would argue, at least in my master's level athletes, a real respect and appreciation for the training and the process and the experience.

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The intrinsic motivation tends to be consistently higher and a driving force.

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They're not trying to get their next endorsement.

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They're not trying to rise and fall on the next gig.

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This is about something generally personal, meaningful, intrinsically valuable.

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I want to see if I'm capable of this.

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I want to see how far I can push me to my capabilities rather than getting caught up in the comparison game of you, me.

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I don't mean to indicate that results don't matter, they do.

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I don't mean to indicate that I don't know that I'm fourth and you're third.

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I probably do.

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But my focus, my primary, and again, I'm speaking in generalities, is about the process, the value, the goals, mastering, no pun intended, mastering the craft, trying to be a little bit better.

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And for masters, again, with my clients, for me myself, I'm still running marathons, have marathons.

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There's a problem in sort of, I don't know, I'll say it how I do.

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I'm the oldest I've ever been, and I'm busting it out.

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There's something you generally see in the life trajectory.

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You go one way or another, you don't just stay on a plateau.

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And so there's again this intrinsic pride of, I just had another birthday and I'm fast.

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I just birthday and I just cranked it out.

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It is so powerful and compelling.

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Yeah.

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So I love master's level athletes.

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It's it's the same, but it's different.

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That's how I'd say it.

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Yeah.

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I love that.

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And I do too.

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I want to give you my response to confidence for a master's athlete.

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So yeah, I feel like that what you've said as a master's athlete, many masters athletes have different pedigree.

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I was an Olympic trials qualifier as a young swimmer, went to college on a full scholarship, continued swimming masters, now swim at a high level where I go to a meet, I'm trying to win a national title, get a number one time, set a world record or a national record.

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That's my trajectory.

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I swim with the range of people who are swimming in their first meet.

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They're afraid to dive off a block.

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So we all have different levels of confidence.

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But I, as this master's athlete that's trying to achieve something special for my age group, for like all the history that we talk about it.

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And the wisdom, it doesn't seem to make me any more confident.

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Maybe it's just a work in progress, like you said.

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You doubt that you're ready, you doubt that you've had the best.

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So I love that confidence is whether you're swimming at a high level, whether you're a brand new swimmer, whether you're an Olympic level.

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So let's talk about that confidence.

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And do you think that it applies to comparison?

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So when I'm lacking confidence, I might stand up and say, ooh, I'm swimming against swimmer A and swimmer B.

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And oh my gosh, they've had top times above me this season, and I'm scared of them.

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How do you find that comparison has to do with confidence?

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That's a good question.

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It is.

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And let me willfully choose to be repetitive.

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I want to come back and say the confidence road is always under construction.

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And that might sound like some cute little phrase, but there's power in understanding that because I find that people are continually frustrated by how they're cop, you know, I'm confident wines and my cop.

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It's this nagging issue.

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And it's like we don't mow the lawn and go, I mowed the lawn, that's it for the rest of my life.

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We expect to mow the lawn again.

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We don't wash the dishes on Monday and go, whoa, thank God those dishes are done forever.

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We normalize repetitiveness and that important things need to be done and done again and done again.

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And then all of a sudden we get to confidence.

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Not only is our confidence falling, but then we're frustrated over that fact.

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And what I'm trying to do is normalize it by saying the confidence road is always under construction.

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So I want to say that.

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Secondly, and all of these require some explanation.

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I'll try to do it in the most pithy way that I can, but confidence follows focus.

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I'm going to say that again and then explain it.

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Confidence follows focus.

00:18:23.119 --> 00:18:25.759
Athletes want to know how do I get confident?

00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:27.279
How do I keep confidence?

00:18:27.359 --> 00:18:28.960
How do I stay there longer?

00:18:29.200 --> 00:18:34.240
And what I say to them, the beginning is to understand that confidence follows focus.

00:18:34.400 --> 00:18:39.839
So that when we are, I'm putting in air quotes, when we're lacking confidence, you know what we're thinking about?

00:18:40.079 --> 00:18:43.039
We're thinking about the sets that we didn't get in.

00:18:43.279 --> 00:18:50.319
We're thinking about the days we had to skip because we had a cold or we had, oh, that shoulder injury that's flaring up again.

00:18:50.480 --> 00:18:51.119
Do I train?

00:18:51.279 --> 00:18:52.559
Do I take a day off?

00:18:52.720 --> 00:18:54.160
And then that messes with her.

00:18:54.559 --> 00:18:55.759
Do you understand what I'm saying?

00:18:55.920 --> 00:19:01.920
Is when you lack confidence, I can't say it's 100% of the time, but it's up there.

00:19:02.079 --> 00:19:04.000
It's an overwhelming majority.

00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:07.680
What did I want to do is peel back the layers and say, what are you focusing on?

00:19:07.839 --> 00:19:09.119
What are you thinking about?

00:19:09.359 --> 00:19:20.079
And chances are when your confidence dips, you're thinking about how you haven't swung well in that city before, or in that pool before, or at that time of the year before.

00:19:20.240 --> 00:19:21.279
Do you see what I'm saying?

00:19:21.519 --> 00:19:27.039
Or at that meet, or you didn't match up well against that particular swimmer before.

00:19:27.200 --> 00:19:28.000
Well, that was then.

00:19:28.160 --> 00:19:29.119
This is now.

00:19:29.759 --> 00:19:31.519
Do now well.

00:19:32.160 --> 00:19:36.559
And we carry that baggage, literally baggage.

00:19:39.680 --> 00:19:46.559
Imagine if I put a 10-pound weighted vest on your body and say, go get them, tiger.

00:19:46.640 --> 00:19:48.079
That's what you're swimming in right now.

00:19:48.160 --> 00:19:52.240
And you'd go, Why on earth would I swim in a weighted vest?

00:19:52.559 --> 00:20:00.000
But we do that psychologically and emotionally by carrying test baggage into the present performance.

00:20:00.480 --> 00:20:03.119
And then my phrase is we tend to swim heavy.

00:20:03.359 --> 00:20:04.960
We tend to swim heavy.

00:20:05.200 --> 00:20:12.400
I want to say another common issue that is related to confidence and related to focus.

00:20:12.720 --> 00:20:21.279
Athletes don't realize, and again, I struggle with do these phrases make sense without explanation or how much explanation?

00:20:21.599 --> 00:20:41.599
But athletes, by and large, a majority of their time in their sport, they benefit the process of putting skill in, the process of putting speed in, the process of putting technique in, whatever it might be, stroke, turn, start, finish.

00:20:42.319 --> 00:20:50.000
That process requires effort, thinking, repetition, attention to detail.

00:20:50.559 --> 00:20:54.640
Not yet, do it again, not yet, do it again, not yet, do it again.

00:20:54.720 --> 00:20:56.480
And loving that process.

00:20:56.880 --> 00:21:06.240
But the process of pulling out that talent, pulling out that work is entirely different.

00:21:06.480 --> 00:21:14.799
That's when we don't want to think, we don't want to analyze, we don't want to critique moment by moment.

00:21:15.119 --> 00:21:19.920
And so there's this tricky little dichotomy that I have benefited.

00:21:20.079 --> 00:21:26.720
I'm as good as I am because of my attention to detail and I sweat everything and nothing's ever good enough.

00:21:26.880 --> 00:21:28.640
And I'd say, good on you.

00:21:28.880 --> 00:21:29.599
Exactly.

00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:32.559
So put excellence in, it requires that.

00:21:32.720 --> 00:21:36.799
But to bring excellence, then you have to trust your training.

00:21:37.039 --> 00:21:40.079
You have to let go and trust your training.

00:21:40.240 --> 00:21:42.720
Okay, so let me give you an example.

00:21:42.960 --> 00:21:45.039
And I won't tell you who.

00:21:45.359 --> 00:21:50.240
I hope that our listeners won't be able to guess who because I want to protect this.

00:21:50.400 --> 00:21:56.799
This is a multiple gold medal swimmer that I worked with prior to a particular Olympic Games.

00:21:56.960 --> 00:22:04.720
Remember, I said the process of bringing skill out, the performance element is almost the opposite of what went into it.

00:22:04.960 --> 00:22:06.720
And so she's swimming.

00:22:06.960 --> 00:22:09.759
And so we try harder when we train.

00:22:09.839 --> 00:22:10.720
We try harder.

00:22:10.960 --> 00:22:14.799
When you try harder when you're swimming, you're tighter.

00:22:15.119 --> 00:22:16.400
Timing is off.

00:22:16.799 --> 00:22:21.039
So the phrase that we use for her is easy speed.

00:22:21.279 --> 00:22:25.119
We didn't want her to swim at a hundred percent.

00:22:25.359 --> 00:22:26.480
Do you guys get what I'm saying?

00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:26.720
Yeah.

00:22:26.880 --> 00:22:27.839
Let's not swim at a hundred.

00:22:28.240 --> 00:22:28.400
Absolutely.

00:22:29.039 --> 00:22:31.440
Tight shoulders make slow times.

00:22:31.599 --> 00:22:35.200
So we wanted her to have this feeling of easy speed.

00:22:35.359 --> 00:22:37.039
And again, now I'm whispering.

00:22:37.200 --> 00:22:43.200
Not because we didn't want to win a gold medal, not because she didn't want to swim fast, not because she didn't want to get a PR.

00:22:43.440 --> 00:22:44.880
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:22:45.200 --> 00:22:56.079
But running for it, minutely monitoring her stroke, her turn, her split.

00:22:56.400 --> 00:22:59.599
That's not the process of bringing skill out.

00:22:59.759 --> 00:23:02.799
That's the time to let go and trust your training.

00:23:03.039 --> 00:23:07.279
This is a great point to ask about pain.

00:23:07.519 --> 00:23:08.400
So yeah.

00:23:08.640 --> 00:23:09.599
Love, love, love.

00:23:09.680 --> 00:23:14.720
And easy speed is a term in swimming and tapering that we always talk about.

00:23:14.880 --> 00:23:20.880
When you taper and you're properly prepared and you're in the right place, you just easy speed come.

00:23:21.200 --> 00:23:25.759
So that is a term that I think many elite swimmers know and I love.

00:23:25.839 --> 00:23:28.720
And that's a good trigger for when you dive in.

00:23:28.880 --> 00:23:29.920
Easy speed.

00:23:30.240 --> 00:23:40.240
But for those of us like Maria and I, and this would be one of the questions that we're listening to that we talk about a lot because we do have a lot of triathletes, so endurance athletes.

00:23:40.480 --> 00:23:55.200
The thing that freaks me out more than lack of confidence, more than anything, is when I'm standing behind the block, and I know many people do it, and Maria's on her bike, ready to go for 12 hours, and I'm about to swim a mile, I am afraid of the pain.

00:23:55.519 --> 00:24:08.160
I literally fear that pain because I know, yes, I can have easy speed on the first 800 of a 1500, but when I hit the halfway point, it's a different story.

00:24:08.319 --> 00:24:17.839
If I'm on the threshold of that aerobic anaerobic threshold, I have to maintain that pace to hold the pace to set the record.

00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:20.160
It's just excruciating.

00:24:20.480 --> 00:24:27.200
What strategies could you share with us that those of us that are afraid of the pain could use?

00:24:27.599 --> 00:24:36.880
Respectfully, I would argue that without the pain, you would not be a master's level swimmer at the highest level.

00:24:37.039 --> 00:24:42.000
I would respectfully argue that you love the pain and you hate the pain.

00:24:43.279 --> 00:24:44.000
True.

00:24:44.319 --> 00:24:50.160
That which we achieve too easily, we esteem too lightly.

00:24:50.400 --> 00:24:51.680
You guys feel me on this?

00:24:51.839 --> 00:24:52.799
Yeah, absolutely.

00:24:53.039 --> 00:24:54.319
Oh yes.

00:24:54.720 --> 00:24:56.480
So there's lots of different ways.

00:24:56.559 --> 00:25:02.480
You understand phraseology, but love the wind, love the rain, love the hills.

00:25:02.640 --> 00:25:02.880
Right.

00:25:03.039 --> 00:25:07.680
You can't go in fearing the hills, fearing I need it to be perfect, right?

00:25:07.759 --> 00:25:16.720
It the weather and the course or whatever it is, whether it's cycling or running, swimming, I guess it would be open water versus a controlled environment.

00:25:16.880 --> 00:25:19.440
But love the wind, love the rain, love the hills.

00:25:19.680 --> 00:25:23.200
That's a metaphor for the pain is coming.

00:25:23.599 --> 00:25:25.920
And the pain is the separator.

00:25:26.079 --> 00:25:28.480
The pain is the separator, right?

00:25:28.799 --> 00:25:30.960
Are you willing to endure?

00:25:31.200 --> 00:25:32.559
And now I'm gonna go back.

00:25:32.720 --> 00:25:36.319
This is what I love about truly authentic conversations.

00:25:36.799 --> 00:25:40.559
In my mind, we come back to one of my earlier answers.

00:25:40.799 --> 00:25:43.519
It's personal, it's intrinsic.

00:25:43.759 --> 00:25:45.599
Nobody's making you do that.

00:25:45.759 --> 00:25:48.559
I'll tell you how to stop the pain, Kelly.

00:25:48.640 --> 00:25:50.480
Here's how you make the pain stop.

00:25:50.799 --> 00:25:53.599
Go slower, choose shorter races.

00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:59.039
I was a national level inline skater, like where you're down low, all quads.

00:25:59.119 --> 00:26:00.000
You guys with me on this?

00:26:00.079 --> 00:26:00.319
Yeah.

00:26:00.559 --> 00:26:05.440
Here's how I can make the pain go away in a billionth of a second.

00:26:05.599 --> 00:26:06.400
Stand up.

00:26:06.720 --> 00:26:12.880
I have goosebumps right now because I would argue that pain is a hook for you.

00:26:13.200 --> 00:26:14.480
That pain is a hook.

00:26:14.559 --> 00:26:16.160
You hate it and you love it.

00:26:16.640 --> 00:26:18.720
You know that it's a separator.

00:26:18.880 --> 00:26:22.799
And you're saying, yes, I'm willing to go there.

00:26:23.200 --> 00:26:35.839
And I would argue to be at the level that you guys are, not only are you saying, yes, I'm willing to go there, I'm willing to endure longer and deeper than you.

00:26:36.240 --> 00:26:37.039
That's true.

00:26:38.319 --> 00:26:39.839
I wish everybody could see Dr.

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:40.880
Hacker's face.

00:26:41.279 --> 00:26:45.519
I just gave the most You look to the left and to her right.

00:26:45.839 --> 00:26:46.240
Yeah.

00:26:46.480 --> 00:26:48.799
Adorable look to the left, look to the right.

00:26:49.119 --> 00:26:49.759
I love it.

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:56.240
If you remove the pain, my hunch is that you'd find a different achievement domain.

00:26:56.400 --> 00:27:03.759
I think it's inextricably linked to the pride and the challenge and the difficulty of the events.

00:27:04.079 --> 00:27:08.799
Because frankly, you could make it go away instantly.

00:27:08.880 --> 00:27:10.720
You're choosing not to.

00:27:11.039 --> 00:27:12.000
Embrace that.

00:27:12.160 --> 00:27:14.000
That's your superpower.

00:27:14.319 --> 00:27:15.680
That's your superpower.

00:27:15.920 --> 00:27:22.640
I know in advance that this is gonna push me to my limit, and I'm gonna want to quit.

00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:24.640
And I know I won't.

00:27:24.880 --> 00:27:28.160
And I know I have trained so that I don't.

00:27:28.480 --> 00:27:29.680
You understand what I'm saying?

00:27:29.759 --> 00:27:30.079
Absolutely.

00:27:32.319 --> 00:27:33.119
That's beautiful.

00:27:33.920 --> 00:27:45.680
I want to build on that fear question with a different, maybe kind of fear for masters athletes, which is as we continue to challenge ourselves, my family is always saying, Stop.

00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:47.039
You're gonna hurt yourself.

00:27:47.119 --> 00:27:48.400
And sure enough, I do hurt myself.

00:27:48.559 --> 00:27:50.640
I overdo it or I try something new.

00:27:50.799 --> 00:27:57.359
I'm challenging myself to learn new swimming skills right now, also trying to learn some new balance skills as I'm in my 60s.

00:27:57.440 --> 00:27:59.359
And yet there's risk associated with that.

00:27:59.440 --> 00:28:03.279
There's risk of injury, there's risk of maybe long-term disability.

00:28:03.519 --> 00:28:04.640
What do you say about that?

00:28:04.799 --> 00:28:11.359
Like, how do we walk that line of the real fear of hurting myself, I suppose, is the simplest way to put it.

00:28:11.680 --> 00:28:13.680
But I want to add embarrassment to that.

00:28:13.920 --> 00:28:14.400
And embarrassment.

00:28:15.359 --> 00:28:18.400
And embarrassment because that's what I hear from people.

00:28:18.640 --> 00:28:26.160
I'm embarrassed to go to a meet and dive off the block funny, or hurt myself, or be laughed at, or get last.

00:28:26.880 --> 00:28:36.720
What those two questions have in common is fear, but the origins and the solutions are, I would go two different directions with that.

00:28:36.799 --> 00:28:40.799
So I don't have a one answer for both of your questions.

00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:46.480
But one of the things, it's it's a little bit like what I said about achieving excellence.

00:28:46.799 --> 00:28:50.480
You cannot know about science, but it doesn't make it go away.

00:28:50.880 --> 00:28:55.359
You cannot know about physiology, but it doesn't make it go away.

00:28:55.680 --> 00:29:04.400
You cannot know about muscle repair and the different timing of nerve repair versus muscle repair versus joint repair.

00:29:04.559 --> 00:29:08.480
You cannot know any of that stuff, and it doesn't mean it goes away.

00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:11.839
And so I'm gonna go back to what I said earlier.

00:29:12.160 --> 00:29:16.880
To me, and again, do I deal with a ton of masters athletes?

00:29:17.119 --> 00:29:17.359
No.

00:29:17.519 --> 00:29:18.480
Who are my clients?

00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:19.599
I'm just owning it.

00:29:19.680 --> 00:29:22.640
They tend to be the best of the best in their craft, right?

00:29:22.799 --> 00:29:24.640
So I have to own that.

00:29:24.960 --> 00:29:44.960
But these folks, as a result, intrinsic, personal, now they're studying the science of refueling, of hydration, of listen, I have a meet in two weeks, but this muscle is going to repair on its own time.

00:29:45.599 --> 00:29:59.839
And so what I'm saying is, most masters athletes that I'm working with, the breadth of their knowledge about psychology, about physiology, about their own body.

00:30:00.640 --> 00:30:08.400
The folks that can stay in it and in it at high levels for a long time, they are tuned into the science.

00:30:08.559 --> 00:30:10.880
They are tuned into the science.

00:30:11.119 --> 00:30:15.119
Where younger folks, for lack of a better way to say it, they have handlers.

00:30:15.279 --> 00:30:17.680
They have handlers that tell them what to do.

00:30:17.839 --> 00:30:19.359
They moderate the load.

00:30:19.599 --> 00:30:23.279
They've just got an entourage of sports scientists.

00:30:23.599 --> 00:30:27.519
Most masters athletes are their own entourage.

00:30:27.839 --> 00:30:34.079
And so, Maria, to your point, there's a joke, show me an elite athlete and I'll show you an injured athlete.

00:30:34.160 --> 00:30:36.000
Well, there's some truth to that.

00:30:36.720 --> 00:30:37.200
Love that.

00:30:37.440 --> 00:30:46.000
And our ligaments don't have the same elasticity, the same recovery speed in our 21s.

00:30:46.160 --> 00:30:54.079
Now, I might be a 70-year-old master's athlete who has the physiology of a 25-year-old, but not an 18-year-old.

00:30:54.400 --> 00:30:55.039
You know what I'm saying?

00:30:55.119 --> 00:31:03.039
Like, in other words, I'm an outlier in my age cohort, but at some point, physiology wins.

00:31:03.200 --> 00:31:04.160
It's science.

00:31:04.400 --> 00:31:06.640
We don't live forever, right?

00:31:06.960 --> 00:31:09.359
And so I go back to earlier comments.

00:31:09.519 --> 00:31:24.240
There's a wisdom and a patience and a personal control and personal agency that I see in master swimmers, masters athletes that I don't see in the younger cohort.

00:31:24.400 --> 00:31:26.720
They go to somebody and say, fix it.

00:31:26.880 --> 00:31:28.079
Here's the event.

00:31:28.319 --> 00:31:30.240
This is what I have to have happen.

00:31:30.400 --> 00:31:37.680
And they're willing to do short-term fixes and they're willing to cede power to external sources.

00:31:37.839 --> 00:31:53.119

Four Pillars of Peak Performance, Olympic Sport Psychologist Colleen Hacker, ENCORE EP 286

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