Tammy Barlette 00:00
But I specifically remember when I was about 18 years old. And I remember driving across this bridge in Anoka, Minnesota, and for some reason at that moment, I had this thought and like, you know what? When I choose a path, because it's my time now to be an adult, make my choices. If it gets difficult, that's a good sign. I am not on the right path. And I need to and I had this big thought this is it. And wow, was that just terrible self advice. It was the worst, because I look back after all these experiences, and if I could tell myself, hey, what would I tell audiences now, if you choose a path, you do solid goal setting you know your way, know what you want. And if it gets hard, you take that as a sign you are on the correct path, that you are learning something you're growing, you're getting bigger, you're getting stronger, and it is good.
Lindsey 00:59
Welcome to the mindset coach Academy Podcast. I'm Lindsey Wilson. And I am a high performance mindset coach, a mom, a former professional athlete and an entrepreneur, I help coaches and high performers optimize their mindset to improve their coaching their performance, and those other athletes and their lives. Here, you'll learn all about mindset, how to live it, how to teach it, and how to sell it.
Lindsey 01:22
Hi all and welcome to the Mindset Coach Academy podcast. My name is Lindsey Wilson, and I am so glad you're here with me today, we have two amazing guests, a couple of our certified positive performance mindset coaches, also just badass as in their own right building mindset coaching businesses just doing good work in the world. And they get to share so many of their insights and life experiences and what they teach and how they're building their businesses.
Lindsey 01:52
Today, I have to apologize because I'm a little bit stuffed up. Probably got it from my kids. Yes, I will blame them a little cold. So I apologize if I sound a little stuffy. But that did not stop me from doing this amazing interview with Bryan Price and Tammy Barlette, I will let them introduce themselves, but they are badass. And really what we've talked about today is the mindset of being a pilot, and their experience, pre flight and in conflict and talking about nerves. And obviously, so much of this is applicable to athletics and to life.
Lindsey 02:29
We talked about perfectionism and failure, and they just have so many real world experiences that I was scribbling notes, half the time, just getting their descriptions of how they handle that pressure, and what we can all learn from it. And whether we're using it in our own lives, or with our clients or with our athletes, or the students that rely on us. We're gonna get a lot out of this interview. So let's do this.
Lindsey 02:55
Tammy Barlette and Bryan Price. All right. Hi, everybody, and welcome and mindset coach Academy podcast, obviously, my name is Lindsey Wilson. And I have two very special guests today that I will have them introduce themselves in a second. Today, you guys, as always, I like to nerd out on this stuff. And I go to the podcast planning sessions. And I think what would be interesting to me, and learning about the mindset of being a pilot is endlessly fascinating. Like when the Blue Angels come in town in Seattle, everybody else is complaining and I'm sitting there like, holy shit, this is awesome. So we have an amazing two guests today, we have Bryan Price, and Tammy Barlette. And we're gonna get right into the mindset. They're both certified mindset coaches. So they know about the study of mindset. And they also have lived it on a really, really high level. And I think athletics is something that they're interested in, but also the mindset of being a pilot. So let's get into it. Hi, guys.
Bryan Price 03:51
How are you?
Lindsey 03:52
Hi, Bryan, let's go first with you. Will you give us like the elevator pitch, if you will. What are you up to? What's your background? What are you doing these days?
Bryan Price 04:02
Yeah, absolutely. Great to see both of you. And yeah, so Bryan Price born and bred in Jersey. God's country is what I call it. And three sport athlete growing up, went to West Point play baseball for them. When I graduated, I was commissioned as an aviation officer, so I flew attack helicopters for the first half of my 20 year career. flew the Apache Longbow had operational experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. And then the army sent me to Stanford University to get a PhD in Political Science, and then spent the second half of my career teaching at West Point and running a place there called the Combating Terrorism Center.
Bryan Price 04:40
While there, I was also able to serve as assistant coach and the baseball team. And then at 2018. My wife said it was time to hang it up. And so a retired lieutenant colonel in 2018 and went and started a Leadership Institute at Seton Hall University called the Pacino Leadership Institute, where I worked for the past four years. In 2019, I stood up my company top mental game, after working with you and getting certified through you, and started initially working with athletes in both college and high schools, but then that, interestingly morphed into doing some corporate leadership development stuff. So I've been able to work with Fortune 500 companies. I'm an executive coach that works with CEOs and general officers, and even NFL players right now. So if you had to kind of put the Venn diagram of leadership and mental performance, I'm right in that middle spot there. So looking forward to the conversation.
Lindsey 05:39
Yeah, I can't wait to hear more about that. All right, Tammy.
Tammy Barlette 05:42
Tammy Barlette, I grew up in Minnesota. I did soccer, gymnastics and track so very familiar with athletics. And then I went into the Air Force, and I became a pilot, I flew the A 10 warthog, I was a t 37 instructor pilot. And I also transitioned after cervical spine reconstruction into flying unmanned platforms. So I flew the MQ one predator and the MQ nine Reaper, which is also where I went to weapons School, which is the essentially the Top Gun program for the Air Force.
Tammy Barlette 06:13
And then I ended my career as an instructor pilot in the T 38, which is the fighter trainer, I absolutely love teaching. And I did a lot of looking back. I did a lot of mindset coaching during my aviation career, especially at the end, not even realizing I was doing it. And then I retired in 2018, as Lieutenant Colonel and started a business called Athena's voice, which is a speaking collective featuring female pilots, that we just go speak out into the world organizations, corporations. And additionally, I decided that I think there's a lot of connection between athletics and the mental game and aviation and the mental game. And I think that if elite athletes are needing mental performance coaches, I think that pilots need them as well. Just like in athletics, it's a game that just doesn't stop. You can't pull over on a cloud, you have to be mentally prepared for everything at every moment. And so I've kind of shifted, in addition to my speaking, I went through your course. And what I'm doing is I'm transitioning to be a mental performance coach for aviators.
Lindsey 07:21
Love it, okay. The hardest part of this interview is going to be like, not asking you guys 1 billion questions, because I want to talk about all that. Okay. But tell me Tammy, I'll start with you. When you think about like your evolution, and like looking back now on the mindset, like, what do you think from an aviation standpoint? Like I know, as an instructor, you did a lot of mindset. You didn't even know you're doing it. But someone coming in? I mean, they're drinking from the firehose, I imagine, right? And there's all this stress and pressure. And I imagine a lot of them are going from being the big fish in a small pond to the opposite. We talked about that before. I just talked to a coach in the SEC. And she was just talking about, like, the freshman experience of these basketball players coming in and just being like, Oh, God, so tell me from your personal experience, what was your like mindset evolution, if you will, like, what was your experience? What was your mental journey? If you will.
Tammy Barlette 08:15
I think that ultimately, the military itself is what transition my mindset, because in the military, although you could quit some things you really, you don't really, you can't really quit, you know. And so I think that, honestly, in the military, taking away that opportunity to to think that quitting is even option shifted my mindset towards a, I'm not quitting. And what I like to say is, I'm going to fail out before I ever bail out, mentality. So because I think that's one of the things that's most important is just that idea of perseverance. And I believe that,there's resilience, which to me is, get knocked down, get back up, get knocked down, get back up, whereas perseverance is getting back up and pushing forward.
Lindsey 09:03
And so when, when you when did you start in the military? How old were you?
Tammy Barlette 09:08
Well, military training, I was 18. I got commissioned as Lieutenant when I was 21.
Lindsey 09:13
Okay. And do you feel like like, looking back on that? What do you think? Like, were there any like big pivotal moments? And like, what would you, working with yourself? 18 or 22 or whatever? What would you want her to know?
Tammy Barlette 09:29
Yeah, I think that a lot of it has to do with confidence. I look back and I think it's the accomplishments through pilot training. Pilot Training is one year long. It's extremely competitive. There are and that's what you were talking about, where suddenly you're not the best of the best anymore. You're surrounded by everyone just like you and someone will be at the bottom and you still have to remember how it what it took to get yourself there. And remember that you are worth something and you can be confident in that and as you build your experiences and achieve, things that you never thought you could pass check rides you didn't think you could.
Tammy Barlette 10:05
I mean, I remember pulling in the pilot training the first time ever and looking up and realizing that these two t 30, eights had their gear down. And they were landing on the runway together. And I knew that they did formation together, but I didn't know they landed together. And all I could think of was, I can't do that. But immediately I stopped myself. And I said, Nope, one step at a time, one small step at a time, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna drive him to the base, I'm just gonna find my dorm room, I'm just gonna put my uniform on and get show up like little tiny steps, like, have the big goal, but take the small steps. And so I think it really was pilot training was pivotal for me, and ultimately graduating with Pilot Wings.
Lindsey 10:45
I find that so interesting, I never really thought about that as a civilian that, like, you really can't quit, cuz I'm like, again, I'm talking to this coach in the SEC. And there's a big thing with the transfer portal answer, Bryan knows all about this, where it's a lot easier for kids basically, to quit and like, go somewhere else. And not that there's never a reason to transfer. I don't mean that. But like, they're making it easier, basically, for people to think that it's going to be, done with my cousin about this too. Like she's doing something really hard right now. And she kind of wants to go somewhere else. And I'm like, it's gonna be hard anywhere. If you're a driven person, right? It's gonna be hard, there's going to be shitty pieces over here, the grass is not always greener. And so giving people that opportunity, you do start thinking, well, this is gonna be it's gonna cost me better over here.
Tammy Barlette 11:29
You know, I'm so glad you brought that up that comes out in my keynote, in the last section of my keynote, talk about getting in the zone. And I truly believe that, where you're going to run like you exactly what you just said, you are going to run into hurdles everywhere you go, no matter where you go. So I think that you need to know your personal core values. First of all, what matters to you, you need to do solid goal setting. And if you can say I did solid goal setting and that's something I want, then. And once you step down that path, you go I have a no quit mentality unless there's some major change. Because when things get challenging, you need your all of your thought energy towards that objective, you can not let well should I quit sneak in, it's gonna pull thought energy that you don't have and ultimately, potentially create a self fulfilling prophecy.
Lindsey 12:17
Totally. It's such a powerful thing. And I think also, you know, it's like, for those of us that are mindset coaches, I mean, we work with our clients so often on this idea that like, just because your brain is screaming at you, this is the wrong thing. We interpret that as it actually is the wrong thing. Instead of like, our brain is not designed to push us it really isn't. I mean, it's designed to keep us safe, like, in no part of our brains were like, Let's go up in the air and fly around. Right? So how did you overcome that? And, Bryan, I know you have like 1 million things to comment on. So let me let me just ask me this last thing. How did you allow? Like, how did you get control of your brain to do something that really isn't like, a natural thing for your brain to want to do?
Tammy Barlette 13:02
Well, I think that first of all, understanding that piece of it is the first step. But I specifically remember when I was about 18 years old. And I remember driving across this bridge in Anoka, Minnesota, and for some reason, at that moment, I had this thought and like, you know what, when I choose a path, because it's my time now to be an adult, make my choices. If it gets difficult, that's a good sign. I am not on the right path. And I need to and I had this, like big thought this is it. And wow, was that just terrible self advice. It was the worst, because I look back after all these experiences. And if I could tell myself, hey, what we're going to tell audiences. Now, if you choose a path to do solid goal setting, you know your way know what you want. And if it gets hard, you take that as a sign you are on the correct path, that you are learning something you are growing, you're getting bigger, you're getting stronger, and it is good. That's one thing I've done when it gets hard. I just go, Yep. Thank you. I'm on the right path.
Lindsey 14:01
I mean, if anybody could take anything away from what all of us teach that, I think is like so powerful, like when your brain is screaming at you to stop, it actually means you should keep going. Doing something significant with your life.
Tammy Barlette 14:17
Absolutely.
Lindsey 14:18
All right, Bryan, I know you got like 1 million things to comment on. So let's go here we go.
Bryan Price 14:21
So I really liked that. And I think it reminds me I had an opportunity to interview Julie Foudy. Games, greatest soccer players, American athletes of our time. And I think when your brain is screaming at you, it's an indication that a there's pressure but be that you care about what's going on. And she at one point during the World Cup match went to her the great sports psychologist that works with the US Women's National Team. Dr. Colleen hacker, I believe her name is and she said I though if you're the sports psychologist, I need you to get rid of my, my butterflies. And she said, No, the butterflies are an indication that you care that you care about what's going to go on. What you need to do is to get your butterflies to fly in formation. And I feel like that's a whether you're we're talking about piloting, we're talking about athletics, whether you're talking about pressure in business, it's, that is an indication that you're freaking out that your mind is screaming at you that you care. And so how do you then, you know, as Tammy said, how do you persevere and then move forward from that? So it's super, super important.
Lindsey 15:34
I love that. And I know, Bryan, you're while all your guys's kids are playing sports, or my daughter's seven, and she hadn't played, we had a bunch of smoke here the last couple of weeks. And so she hadn't played for a couple of weeks. And we were going to the game, and she was saying she was nervous. And I just think of like, how many of us have been taught to tell someone not to be nervous? You know, like, I almost felt myself like, it's okay. You don't have to be nervous, you know? And then I was like, wait, I'm a mindset coach, no nervous, that means you're ready to play. That's great. Congratulations. And like, we just don't get that message enough. Like, we think like we shouldn't, that we shouldn't have butterflies, we shouldn't be nervous. So I think those are all really great points. And I know things that you guys work with your clients a lot, Bryan, as I asked Tammy, tell me a little bit about I know you've came out as college baseball, but tell me a little bit about your mental evolution, if you will, with all your different experiences.
Bryan Price 16:23
Yeah, I think what helped me kind of get out of my own head, in a lot of places, whether it was sports, because I was an undersized athlete, or in aviation, no one. So Tammy was a fixed wing pilot, I was a rotary wing pilot. And, it's not like, a lot of people in their spare time, just go fly helicopters. So it's like a new experience for everybody.
Bryan Price 16:48
And I feel like it's, I'll never forget, when we were learning how to actually hover, which is one of the most difficult things to do in a helicopter, you get it over time, but they kind of compared it to trying to ride a unicycle on a gigantic basketball, to give you an indication, but I think one of the things that in terms of the evolution of my mindset, something that was helpful, that I think is also kind of an officer mindset to which is Mission First People always, and one of the things that I know helped me get out of my own head, but also helps my athletes get out of their heads, as well as business leaders that I work with, is putting others in front of your own issues, right? Like, my team needs me.
Bryan Price 17:32
My copilot needs me, my teammates need me in order to, for everyone to perform at the highest level. And so that's one way that I think I was able to kind of get out of my own head, which was to focus on that. And I feel like there's a lot of different times that what we're dealing with is like, how do you deal with pressure, ultimately, the pressure that we feel. And I remember, feeling a bunch of impostor syndrome, probably the biggest one was at Stanford, and one of my first days, one of my classmates sat down next to me. And he asked me what my background was, I shared it, I was already feeling like an imposter anyways, at a,elite institution coming from the army.
Bryan Price 18:12
And I asked him what his background was. And he said, Well, I graduated college by the age of 16. I was like, did you what he's like? No, I was once UCLA 16. And I graduated from Harvard Law at the age of 20. And I'm like, I remember going home to my wife, and I am in the wrong place. I don't deserve to be here, like, I'm out of my comfort zone. But again, I love Tammy's advice of knowing what you want, and then working towards that goal. And I was able to complete my PhD in three years, which, again, all of this stems from kind of getting outside of your comfort zone, how do you manage your own pressure? And how do you persevere and move forward as Tammy talked about?
Lindsey 18:52
Yeah. And so what kind of, So we've talked a little bit about pressure. I love that idea of putting people first because I think so often. I mean, I think that's just great advice, whether it's nerves or in really any kind of like negative emotion, it seems like for me, oftentimes, especially being brave, though, like you put other people's first you think about, like, what they need, that's why team I think is so so critical, and support and team in whatever sense that comes up, or family or whatever. But how do you take now that you guys are both mindset coaches, Tammy go back to you? How are you taking, like what you learned in your whole career? Obviously, we've taught some things in the certified coach stuff, but how are you like actually taking someone and practicing these things? And that's kind of a big question. Maybe it just one or two things that you teach them, but how do you move someone from I want this life from where they are.
Tammy Barlette 19:52
One thing I like to focus on because it's often a common problem is confidence. And it's such a difficult thing because a lot of people, for me, how can I be confident about something if I have an athlete actually accomplish it yet. So that was something I had to learn. And it took me a long time. So if I can teach someone how to do that earlier, that's even better. And part of the reason it took me a long time was because my mindset around answering questions confidently, so let me explain.
Tammy Barlette 20:21
So when I was in Korea, flying 810, what I would study in the vault, which is just a locked classified, this is a room. And I remember I was in there one day, and the weapons officer walked in. So he's the chief instructor pilot in the squadron, any throw out a question? And I immediately knew the answer. But I paused. Just because that standard Tammy fashion, just make sure it's right. I can see it in the book somewhere. I want to make sure. And in the meantime, somebody else answered and the answered incorrectly. But I recognize that this person answered the question as if it was the answer.
Tammy Barlette 20:58
And I thought to myself, after all these years, I've been in the military for like five years at this point. And I thought, huh, so that's what they've all been doing. They just answer it was, like Uber confidence. But that wasn't that wasn't the hitch. I was trying to figure out why do I have such such trouble doing that, because I knew I was supposed to do that. But what I realized was that it felt like I was being dishonest. If I didn't know the answer, and I spit it out as if it was the answer. I felt like I was lying.
Tammy Barlette 21:28
So once I recognized that mindset around answering confidently, it was much easier for me, well, it wasn't easy right away, but I actually could overcome it, because I knew why I was not answered confidently. So what I did was I I started to just throw out the answers, even if I wasn't 100% Certain. And I realized that 90% of the time, the answer that I thought was probably not even right, was right. And it was just an incredible boost for my confidence. So it and it just kind of like snowballed from that point. So that's been really helpful. And then the other thing, I think is important is flying the plane.
Tammy Barlette 22:07
So when everything goes starts going wrong, you can't just like I said, you can't just pull over on a cloud there, you have to deal with it. But how do you deal with it when you're starting to freak out thinking, I can't believe this is happening, whether it's rolling out, I have emergency, I'm gonna have to shut an engine down or whatever is going on, you have to handle it. But just go back to the basics, or the Air Force taught me which was aviate, navigate, communicate, which sounds simple, but ultimately, it's applicable to not just aviation, I mean, people aren't really flying planes, but take that and convert it into whatever you're working on.
Tammy Barlette 22:41
But so the aviator, just fly the plane, make sure I'm not going to hit the ground. I'm gonna save airspeed, just kind of go back to the basics. And you can't just say go back to the basics, you have to give yourself some steps like this aviate navigate communicate, so then that Okay, where am I going? What, Where am I going to put this plane? Last? Who am I going to talk to? Because lot times people go right to the calm, they go right to talking. And that's dangerous, because you have to fly the plane first. So how did that apply it to whatever you're working on or whatever business you're in, or whatever sport you're in? Those two things I thought were really helpful. And they really have a lot of people as a confidence, and then a way to go back to the basics and get yourself calm again in a stressful moment.
Lindsey 23:18
Hmm, I love that. Bryan, what about you?
Bryan Price 23:21
You know, first off, Tammy reminded me of a great aviation quote, which is, which is talking about flying the plane, which is takeoffs are optional landings are mandatory. How that you get to determine what you know, oftentimes what that type of landing is. But yeah, I love the fly the plane reference in terms of how do we, work with clients? And how do we get them to where they want to go? I think the first step and this is like any type of coaching, whether you're talking about mental performance coaching or leadership coaching, is getting that individual to have some semblance of self awareness.
Bryan Price 23:57
Right, not only of what they want to accomplish, but also what are those obstacles that are standing in their way. And in some cases, maybe a lot of cases, even when you work with athletes, or folks that you're coaching, there are some blind spots that have existed, right, some scar tissue in terms of their own identity over time that that we need to work through. One of the things that I talked about in my keynote is when it comes to, like, we never think twice about updating our software on our phones, right? As soon as Apple sends you that notification that says like, Hey, you got to update me I can't hit that thing install fast enough. And you know, when I when I talk to audiences, I usually say out there like, there's anybody else out there rockin like iOS one software on your phone? No, of course not. You automatically update it.
Bryan Price 24:51
But when was the last time that you updated your most important software, right, which is which is our mindset. And then the second thing is I think particularly with this younger generation where they have to live on social media, and the fear of FOMO. And the status comparisons that they put themselves against with their peers, unfortunately, is trying to decouple their identity from you, like their self esteem from their, what they do. So instead of saying, like, I am a baseball player, or I am a softball player, I want to decouple that, and I want to say, No, you're the awesome kid, brother, son, daughter, or whatever. But you also happen to play and kick butt at your particular sport. And so let's figure out how to maximize your potential over here. But make no mistake, don't you know, and I think that's what is a large problem with a lot of athletes is that coupling of their performance with their self esteem, I think that's dangerous.
Lindsey 25:53
So but some of the things you guys talked about, I think are so applicable to so many of our listeners, I know that's applicable to me. I'm sure you guys went through this. I think it's big in the military and in athletics. And that is Tammy, you were talking about this a little bit is. So we want people that fly airplanes and perform at a high level to be very driven, and very precise. Let's put it that way. Right.
Lindsey 26:20
And, to some degree, that is what people are attracted to, right. As far as getting into the military, playing a high level sport is almost like this perfectionism thing, right? Like, we want to do things, right, we want to have the right answer. We are, our ego is so connected to our performance. And I think we want people to experience that. And then at some point, that is a real hindrance to growth. And I see this a lot with, you know, you guys have been in the certification. A lot of our certified coaches grew up like this, a lot of us that are high performing driven people, we have this mentality.
Lindsey 26:58
And I'm just interested in either your personal experience or experience with clients of like, how do you morphed that into, not being so scared of failure, especially when you're talking about something that, failure is really significant for pilots? How do you balance that and find that ease and flow or whatever you want to call it? And? Yeah, I think that's my question. Tammy, you want to start with that?
Tammy Barlette 27:24
Yeah, the one of the things, I would always teach my students, and obviously, this is something I needed to learn as a student as well. But I spent a lot of time in the instructor seat, which is why I'm referencing the instructor side of it, but I would tell them, the only difference between you and me is how many mistakes you make and how big they are. There's no perfect flight, no pilot will ever fly a perfect flight. So it's just a matter of making those mistakes smaller and smaller. And I would share with them that I made mistakes too. And I try to share the mistakes I do make so that people can see Oh, it's okay.
Tammy Barlette 27:59
Now, for me, one of the most challenging experiences I had was was going to weapons school. So I went to weapons School, which is six months long. I left when my children were 18 months old and three months old. It was the most difficult thing I've probably ever done. And I knew that I wasn't going to keep up if I didn't like ask my questions as they came because it was such a challenging program.
Lindsey 28:24
An infant when you're going through weapons school?
Tammy Barlette 28:28
I had an 18 month old and a three month old. Did I misspeak?
Lindsey 28:31
No, I'm just saying when you got when you ended or when you started.
Tammy Barlette 28:35
When I left, I had an 18 month old and a three month old when they asked me I was pregnant. Like when they asked me to go I was pregnant. And then they actually reneged. And we're like, Well, maybe not. And I said nope, too late. Sorry, I'm going. So I showed up at weapons school with a three month old baby leaving a baby at home.
Lindsey 28:53
Hard enough as it is, let's win if you're just going to like a regular job.
Tammy Barlette 28:56
It was quite challenging was one of the things that I would never take back. But I'm not trying to do it again. But I was determined, I was bound and determined that I was going to make it through this. And I knew that I had to keep up. I felt like I was surrounded by people who are well above me. And I couldn't keep this perfectionist mentality. Because that's you're not going to survive like that.
Tammy Barlette 29:18
You have to ask questions. And so one of the things I did was I made a pact with myself. I made a decision that no matter what, unlike I've done in the past, if I had a question in class, I was going to raise my hand and I was going to ask it. And again, here it is small steps towards big goals. But one of the things I like to say is you make a decision, it's the decision we're not quitting on. In this case, I'm not quitting on that decision. So I remember thinking the first time I went to go raise my hand I thought, oh gosh, here I go. I am going to show everybody they don't belong here. And but you know, I did it anyways.
Tammy Barlette 29:52
And I just I kept doing and I kept doing it and I thought first of all I was going to show everybody didn't belong there. And second of all that I was good And then we went that student in the class who has so many questions that it makes classical long and everybody's annoyed like that person, you know. But what was really funny was, I discovered that wasn't the case. Almost every day after class, people came up to me, and almost under their breath, they would say, I'm so glad you asked that question.
Tammy Barlette 30:19
I was wondering the same thing. And it made me just realize that people just aren't as brave socially as they could be. And that's what I was doing. I was just putting myself out there and being vulnerable, and then realizing that everybody else is just like me. So it took me being vulnerable to realize that I didn't have to keep this perfectionist standard, which, which made me progress much quicker. And I ultimately helped everyone else in the class as well.
Lindsey 30:45
Well, I mean, that I think that's so much of like, when we're working with a team, right? I mean, you guys know this, like, when you go work with a team, some of what we do is just bringing to the surface, what everybody's thinking and feeling already. And that alone, if it would teach them nothing else is so powerful, because everybody thinks they're all alone in their struggles. Right. So the only ones that get nervous are the only ones. And I think also like that idea of like, I imagine so much of what you guys practiced with your training is like what we talked about earlier, which is overcoming your brain's natural instinct to play small, right to not raise your hand to not like push yourself to not go the optional takeoff, like, we have to listen to our brain but not make decisions based.
Bryan Price 31:37
I think, what Tammy describing is kind of like a growth mindset, right, which is really to fight against those tendencies to play small and to put yourself out there. And I think the challenge, whether you're talking about athletic teams, or businesses, is when you have a culture that doesn't identify that and where everyone is playing small ball and impostor syndrome is put at scale. Imagine what that does in every meeting, right? Where people are afraid to say, I don't understand this. And that is pervasive across the organization. And that leads to, bad problem solving, slower innovation, ultimately, the bottom line and on teams, that translates into fewer people experimenting with stuff.
Bryan Price 32:21
And I think, tying this back to your the discussion about the fear of failure, like Make no mistake about it, the fear of failure is a powerful fuel, like it will make people do things it'll make, you know, it is a fuel. But to be honest, I think that people mistake that as being the ultimate level of their performance. And what I usually tell people is, is like, you are succeeding, in my opinion, in spite of your fear of failure, imagine what you would be like, if you remove that fear, fear of failure, and you are succeeding, chasing something that you love or want to, that you are so passionate about being involved in. I once had a I was an assistant coach for a head coach that ruled under fear, right, and very high performing program.
Bryan Price 33:12
But I talked to him and I said your players perform for you because they fear you. And imagine how much they would perform for you if they if they loved you. Right. I think that's an important difference. So for those out there that are thinking to themselves, fear failure it is my fuel, it gets me going. I say yes, but it's capping your potential. To a certain point. Imagine if you remove that fear, I, I think you're succeeding in spite of your fear of failure, not because of it, if that makes sense.
Lindsey 33:40
Yeah. It's so funny. You say that because I'm doing a video later today. And I'm talking about, like, how often we are trying to achieve something and it's like, we're in like, one of the like, Go Karts where you're like pressing the gas and the brake at the same time? You know, when you first get on one, you're like, what, then you kind of figure it out. But in the beginning, you because it's two pedals, you're like you're doing both right, and you can't keep moving forward and also holding yourself back and expect to be going at the correct speed. I love all this.
Lindsey 34:14
All right. Tell me about and Bryan, do you have any experience with this like in your either with your clients? Or can you just give an example of the executives but where this like came up for you either personally or with one of your clients, like perfectionist, fear, failure? Anything like that?
Bryan Price 34:32
Oh, 1,000%. And what's kind of ironic is, I think some people think that once you make it to a certain position, whether that's the major leagues or the NFL, or you make it to the C suite, that those things go away, and if anything, those feelings are amplified. And so that's one kind of crazy thing that I've kind of learned in most likely my executive coaching component where, again, I have an eclectic group of general officers that I'm working with right now to include the Air Force. Folks that are playing professionally in these other places, those feelings of impostor syndrome and stuff, doesn't they don't abate.
Bryan Price 35:15
And I think you've mentioned this, I think, Lindsay at the outset, which is, step one is being self aware that those things exist, right? Like, let's put those out out there. And I think when organizations do that, and they put it out there, I mean, one good example here is the seals, right? Think about how closely the seals are. And one of the reasons why I think they're so successful is because the training that they go through to become seals strips away initially, any ego that you have, like when you're freezing to death, half naked with two other guys that you need to, be next to used for warmth, and to stay alive. That makes that you a lot more vulnerable, that allows you when you're in the classroom to say, hey, I don't understand because you're not worried about their, self incrimination of you or whatever. But I'm sure Tammy has got some interesting things on this as well.
Lindsey 36:08
Tammy, do you have anything?
Tammy Barlette 36:10
Ah, it just brought up a lot of people not dealing with the emotional side of just struggles. And we haven't really, I don't really think we've talked about that. But you have the fear of failure. But let's say you do have a failure. What do you do with your, Do you end up quitting? Or do you process through it and move on?
Tammy Barlette 36:30
I think a lot of people will do the push it aside, and like the emotions of the failure and just push aside, pretend doesn't exist. But what I like to compare that to is the little kid in the scary movie, who in the bad guy comes in the room, covers his eyes, and he says to himself, you can't see me, he can't see me, he can't see me. And you're literally watching the movie, like, kid that doesn't work, like get out of there, that doesn't work. And the same thing happens with our emotions, there's a battle going on inside of us. And if we don't acknowledge that battle, their fight the enemy's fighting us, and we're not fighting back, and eventually it's going to take over.
Tammy Barlette 37:04
So what does that all mean? To me, it just means taking time to process through and acknowledge that emotions that come with it. Like when I when I've had failures in the past, I want to come home and I just want to put my head down and start working. But I know that the emotions that come with that failure need to be the process through so, as much as at the time it feels like a waste of time to get angry, or journal or cry, or whatever it is, you need to let it out. Because I do that and I let it out, then I can actually put my head down and move forward without this, speed, pulling on me pulling me back and holding me back and I can just I'm free to move forward and it won't eventually come up and bite my butt if you will. And surprise me because I've dealt with it.
Lindsey 37:48
I love that, I think so much of like the one we're really getting to failure here. But like that idea of like, we talked about in the certification of like, it's about the story you tell yourself. And if you don't even tell any story, you're gonna be just gonna, you're gonna have something in your brain about what that failure meant. And I think, this is what we do sometimes with the post competition, too, is like you're gonna, I'm sure you guys do a debrief post flight, like, what went well, what didn't go well, and not get all wigged out about it. But like, not making it mean, you're a bad pilot or bad basketball player or a bad person. Like processing what happened? That is such a, an unrecognized skill and opinion.
Tammy Barlette 38:33
I was gonna say in the debrief, we process through what happened. But it's really important to figure out, though, like, why it happened, and what we're going to do next time. Yep. So next time, I will, you know, identify what is the root cause? Because oftentimes, you don't actually identify the, if you don't dig it out. You think that the cause is a but it's really something much deeper. When you say, Well, why did that happened? Well, why didn't you keep going? Then you can actually address the root cause and then you can move forward.
Bryan Price 39:01
Yeah, I was just going to add, like, the analogy that comes to mind is like, a pool. Now I don't have a pool, but if I did, you have to buy a filter with the pool, right? Like, the pool is going to get like there's going to be imperfections that come in, whether it's leaves, bugs, animals, you know, algae, you need a filtration system to deal with that muck and, you know, a lot of people like when Tammy talks about the folks that want to do this, that's like acting like you don't need a filtration system for your pool. You got to clean it out.
Lindsey 39:32
Yeah. Okay. Do you guys have a couple more minutes? Okay, last thing I'm gonna do is just talk about how you're using your mindset training from the last your whole life right now in your life in your business. What's your struggles? What are you how are you applying this to? Let's start with you, Tammy. How is that as applying to Tammy's life right now in your business?
Tammy Barlette 39:57
Yeah, I think that I'm constantly mean like What struggles am I having that I'm using mindset?
Lindsey 40:01
Struggles And just like what were State of the Union, Like, what are you working on now with your mindset in your life or in your business?
Tammy Barlette 40:08
Yeah, I think it's a cop constant. I have a constant battle with impostor syndrome. And I think, for me, it's because I'm still feel like I'm in the shift from being in the military on to the, into the civilian world and kind of defining my role in who I am in what I do. Because leaving the Air Force as a pilot, and this is very common, is you think, Well, I'm a pilot, what else am I going to do? I only fly planes. But you have to think much bigger than that. Because what we've done is way bigger than just fly planes. There's a lot of there's a lot of leadership, there's a lot of training, there's a lot of mindset work that goes into, into flying. And so I think for me, I just continue to battle that impostor syndrome and recognize that it's okay.
Tammy Barlette 40:52
And I continue to, fail and keep going, whether it's small failures, or big failures, but I just take what I have learned, as far as that goes, and move on, because you're talking about we're talking about perfectionism, we switched back into failure. But in my opinion, they're connected. Because if you're a perfectionist, and you fail, now you feel like you have failed. But you gotta shift that mindset, again, to failure is part of the process. And like I said, I'm gonna fail out before I bail out.
Lindsey 41:24
Love that, Bryan what's going on with you?
Bryan Price 41:27
Yeah, so in terms of mindset, I had to put my mindset to the test recently, were after I left the military, I led this Leadership Institute at Seton Hall University for four years, super proud that in June, we were named the country's most outstanding program by the Association of leadership educators. So from four years, from scratch to that was was awesome. But for reasons that I'll share for another time, I decided to make a pivot, a career pivot, which was, No, I was not going to do that anymore. And I decided to cash in all my tips on doing all the other stuff I'm doing now in terms of leadership development, mental performance, working with athletes working with businesses and doing keynote, speaking and coaching.
Lindsey 42:16
Full time now?
Bryan Price 42:17
Full time.
Lindsey 42:23
Thats a big shift, right. I mean, so many of our mindset coaches do have as this as a side hustle to start with until they can build it up. And and you did it.
Bryan Price 42:31
Yeah. Well, and you deserve thanks for that, right, because I think the stuff that I learned in your certification program helped me give the kind of self courage to make that decision, and to bet on myself. Right. You know, one of the things that I think is helpful advice for anybody, because we are caught up in our imposter syndrome and caught up in our own heads. And sometimes it's not logical, as we've discussed, is, and I use this with a client the other day, I said, if your best friend was in your situation, what advice would you give that best friend? And we all generally know the answers in those cases, but it's like, accepting that advice. And so anyways, yeah, so I'm all in but having to work through that imposter syndrome that Tammy talks about myself and kind of betting on myself, which is scary.
Lindsey 43:24
Yeah, of course. And we know now that's our brain is in the right direction. It's just telling us. All right, where can everybody learn about you guys, Tammy, go first?
Tammy Barlette 43:37
Well, you can go to athenasvoiceusa.com/. And you can also find me on LinkedIn, a little bit Instagram, not so much but LinkedIn and Facebook. It's Tammy Barlette, T A M A, and Y, last name is B A R L E T.T E.
Lindsey 43:52
And who are you mostly working with? I know you said fighter pilots, when everybody else that should look you up and and hire you.
Tammy Barlette 44:02
Well, again, I'm still doing the speaking I have a keynote on perseverance and, how do you not quit when everything inside of you wants to quit? And then I also do the coaching. I can I mean, I coach beyond aviators, that's just my focus, because that's my specialty. But I can work with athletes and business people as well. It's really a broad spectrum mental, the mindset piece and the aviation piece really marries well with a lot of other industries.
Lindsey 44:29
Yeah, well, anybody would be what lucky to work with you. Bryan, what about you? Where can we find you and who should be working with you?
Bryan Price 44:35
Absolutely. So my top mental game. So online topmentalgame.com. And also on Instagram, if you want to follow me on LinkedIn, I spell my first name with a Y the right way. B R Y A N Price in terms of people who should work with me, primarily working right now with athletic teams, mostly college, a little bit of high school, some in the pros but also on in the business side of the house, love doing team effectiveness, love doing one on one executive coaching. But we're working with some high performing teams.
Lindsey 45:08
Nice. Yeah, guys, if you're looking for a speaker or a coach, both of you guys I know are just amazing. I'm so proud to have you on this podcast and so excited to watch her you continue to take this workout to the world. So thank you for joining us today guys. Go check them out on all the social channels I just mentioned. And we will see you soon for some more mental game podcasts coming up, and you guys will have a great day. Bye for now.
Lindsey 45:33
Oh, my goodness, you guys, I love this interview. I love those two as mindset coaches, students, and just as humans, like they have just been a pleasure to have in our community. And I just wanted to reiterate that this podcast, I think this is something that was definitely shareable you know, anybody that's interested really in the in the, the pressure of performance. And I think piloting is such a good example of how we can manage our mindset, we can manage our thoughts. And to be able to do this allows us to do amazing things in our life. And of course, they're not only doing amazing things in their military careers, but now they're doing it as mindset coaches.
Lindsey 46:20
And I'm proud to have been their teacher through the mindset coach Academy and of course proud to just have been part of their success in working with people and their businesses are building and it's just really, really cool to see them taking this to the world because so many people need their coaching. And I hope if you haven't already to follow them on social media and reach out to them, they do a lot of wide range of work so they could work with you individually. Or if your athletic department or even in a corporate world, you could get them to come in.
Lindsey 46:51
You might be thinking after listening to them, that you are also interested in being a certified coach. And if you are our certification opens early 2023. So you should definitely get on the waitlist. But I do want you to check if you're also having some sort of impostor syndrome. Because to be honest, when I get on with Tammy, and Bryan, I also look at them and think, holy shit, they're at a really high caliber. And so if you're feeling that, don't worry, I feel it too. But I also want to encourage you to take a step forward. If you want to be a mindset coach, download our ultimate mindset coaching toolkit, it will take you from the sidelines to working with your first practice client and I guarantee that they started working with the first practice fine, I know, because that's what we do in the mindset coach Academy.
Lindsey 47:33
And this is really the first step and the link is in the show notes. It's also on positive performance training.com. And I really encourage you if you have any desire to be a mindset coach, or you have any desire to think that you may be might want to at some point, be in that code and build a business like they are, download that guide, follow it you will be sitting across from your first practice client very soon, if you choose to if you go through the steps that we teach, and you can do it.
Lindsey 47:59
So go ahead, download the ultimate mindset coaching toolkit and get started on your path the way that they did with working with your first client in order to be a mindset coach someday. So anyway, I love this interview. If you liked it rate and review us it really does help and we will see you again very soon on the Mindset Coach Academy podcast. But Special thanks to Bryan and Tammy for joining us. Alright guys, have a great day and we will see you soon.
Lindsey 48:25
Hey, if you love this episode, make sure to check out all of our free and paid resources over at positiveperformancetraining.com You want to take mindset training to the next level we got you. But here are three more specific ways. If you want to take mindset training and live it more in your life. Definitely subscribe to this podcast. We send out bonus episodes, we have our mental Mondays, we have interviews and training episodes, definitely subscribe.
Lindsey 48:50
Again, you can check that out at positiveperformancetraining.com It is a great course that will teach you and your athletes how to have pre, during, and post-competition routines to up your performance. And if you want to learn how to have a mindset coaching business in order to sell mindset coaching, highly recommend signing up for our waitlist for our next certification cohort, which usually opens about once a year, but in the meantime, go to positiveperformancetraining.com.
Lindsey 49:21
And check out our Ultimate Mindset Coaching Toolkit which will show you exactly how to get started with your first mindset coaching clients. Again, go to positiveperformancetraining.com for all of our free and paid resources.
