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Join me for an insightful conversation with PJ Nestler, a performance expert known for training elite athletes and enhancing mental toughness. This episode delves into the nuances of mental resilience, the power of mindset, and practical tools to achieve peak performance in both sports and everyday life.

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Resources Mentioned:

• @coachpjnestler
• @gabbyreece
• GabrielleReese.com

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Show Sponsors:

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Time Stamps:

[00:00:00 – 00:06:00] Introduction to PJ Nestler and His Role at FitLab 
[00:06:01 – 00:10:00] Breaking Down Mental Resilience 
[00:10:01 – 00:20:00] Behavioral Psychology and Performance 
[00:20:01 – 00:35:00] Tools for Enhancing Mental Toughness
[00:35:01 – 00:45:00] Applying Performance Mindset in Personal Life 
[00:45:01 – End] The Role of Self-Awareness in Performance 

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Show Transcript:

[00:01:02] Gabby: PJ Nestler. Welcome to the show and just starting off to establish, um, Well, who you are, you, you have trained, uh, you know, people talk about training and trainers. I don’t use that word anymore for people like you, because when people understand movement, I feel like they become movement experts and performance experts.

They’re not trainers. Cause I think that’s gotten a different idea. That’s like babysitting. And then, you know, maybe there’s an, a long term strategy and I think everything has its place, but you and I work together. I have the good fortune. Uh, As well as Laird, you’re the head of performance at FitLab and XPT is one of the companies at FitLab.

So to say that you do a lot of different types of programming is, um, I think it’s, it undersells what you do. Um, and one of the many talents you have is pen to paper. I think you really like to measure things, to strategize, you know, it’s just different how you approach things. And, and the other day we were doing an event in Costa Rica and you gave a talk that I thought was really worthy of this time.

Um, and so why did you talk about performance mindset? Because Like what, what, because you’ve really going to break it down. What, what happened or what’s been showing up for you that you were like, this is really worth analyzing and breaking down.

[00:03:19] PJ Nestler: I think a few things that one, that the reason that I think you mentioned, I like to put pen to paper, my brain works in frameworks and systems.

It’s how I understand things. And it’s how I. It helps me to communicate them. I find that having language for things or step by step approaches is really helpful to then be able to communicate it to other people, particularly the athletes that I used to work with and a lot of coaches I used to train.

Uh, but I got into the performance mindset element of things with, my background is in psychology originally. I went to school for it. And that’s what my degree is in. So I was always fascinated with behavioral psychology and I’ve been interested in that my whole career as a trainer. That’s a lot of what you do.

You need to be able to influence people to do the things you want them to do in order to get the outcomes they’re looking for. But I started working in the sports psychology and performance mindset realm when I was training professional athletes. And you’d see a lot of these athletes that they were the best in the practice room and then they didn’t show up on game day or fight night.

And a lot of times those athletes were just excused like that he or she doesn’t have it. And that was just, you know, the quote you’d hear from people and that never really. One, I was very invested in the athletes I trained. So I wasn’t just going to accept that as like, Oh, cool. This athlete doesn’t have it.

It was like, my job is to do everything I possibly can to help them improve their performance. And if the thing that’s hindering their performance is their mindset and psychology, then I need to explore every Avenue to see how I can influence that. And fortunately for me, my athletes, weren’t. Either capable financially or willing to go see a sports psychologist.

So usually if it was like my NFL guys, we would just refer that out and bring somebody professional in and they would work with them. But a lot of the fighters I trained didn’t have those resources or they weren’t willing to do it. So I had to start exploring, going and meeting with different people in the sports psychology realm and learning as much as I could from them to be able to implement into our training in hopes that it would at least create some, uh, some progress in that direction.

And I think then I started understanding that the, the psychological element was the problem, right? When you have an athlete that has all the physical skills to beat world champion fighters in the practice room, and then shows up against like a average opponent on fight night and completely. There’s nothing more I can do physically to give them the attributes needed to be successful.

It’s the environment is the only thing that’s changed. The stress, the pressure, all of that kind of stuff. So how do we prepare them to deal with that? So that’s what I started diving into. And then it was actually XPT that brought all of these pieces together because I understood that the challenge was how do I recreate the The environment for them, give them tools to help them be successful under higher levels of stress and pressure.

Cause that’s what the fight night creates for them. It’s, it’s very different than going to the gym and just fighting with people you fight with every day. There’s no real pressure there and there’s no fear there, but then fight night for a UFC fighter is there’s millions of people watching. You’ve got all the pressure.

You’ve got the money on the line. This is your meal ticket for the Potentially the next six months until you fight again. And if you lose this fight, you might not fight it ever. A lot of the fighters I had, they were on the chopping block. They, they were one loss away from a new career. So there’s a lot of pressure on them.

So it was like, we think about it as levels of stress. If you’re at, if practice is a level one psychological stress 10, we need to figure out a way to help you to increase the levels of stress, to make it look more like the environment that you’re That you’re going to fight in so that you can then practice those tools and be successful.

Cause you can’t, you can’t go from level one to level 10. Some athletes just do it and they’ve got the tools, but if you don’t, how can we prepare you? And an XPT was a really cool eyeopening opportunity for me because I spent a lot of time with my athletes, teaching them the tools, talking about the tools, but it wasn’t until joining XPT that I was like, this is the environment that I can create.

When I started putting my fighters in the pool or the ice bath, there was real fear. There was real panic. There was real anxiety. There was real failure. There was real. Beating themselves up after failure and fear of not being able to complete things. And that didn’t exist for some of these people. If you go fight for three hours against the best fighters in the world, it’s really hard to scare you.

The only thing that scares you is, am I going to get knocked out in front of 3 million people on TV and lose my entire career and not be able to provide for my family? Like those are real fears that these fighters are dealing with. Um, not being able to breathe at the bottom of a deep pool is a real fear too.

So that was where I started kind of bridging the gap between this and starting to build. A more systematic approach for developing these tools.

[00:08:16] Gabby: Yeah. And before we, you know, kind of embark or you embark on sort of this conversation about performance mindset, I will, I want to say from the top, whether you’re an athlete or just a human being navigating life, you know, male or female, this pertains to all of us.

This conversation. Uh, so we are talking about how using athletics, which is such an exaggerated environment to really sharpen those tools and create that conversation. But what you’re talking about, I think really can support anyone, uh, because people have this, these inner conversations with themselves continuously in life, uh, from morning to tonight.

And the other thing, that I’m curious about is, since I’ve known you, you were single, dating your now wife, and now you have a very small child. You know, barely three months old, what in this part of the conversation, what in performance mindset have you borrowed? Because, you know, to know you from the outside, it’s, you know, you’re pretty dialed in organized.

You’re only maybe going to show the cracks to a few people. Your veneer is pretty, pretty tight and buttoned up. Now that you’ve become a parent, What have you drawn or used more than you realized you would need or just is unexpected in showing up?

[00:09:46] PJ Nestler: I use all of it. I mean the your point about how it applies to everybody and that’s why I’m Passionate about sharing it because I don’t train high performance athletes anymore I I’m fortunate to still go get to work with some of them and consultant And do workshops.

And a lot of the workshops are framed around this type of stuff, but the most, most of the people I interact with are seeking performance in their everyday life, which is for me showing up at my job. And I use the same tactics here when I’m overwhelmed with work and I have to deal with thoughts that come up that I have to be able to reframe and work through and process or my relationship.

My relationship is the most difficult thing I’ve, I deal with. It’s the most challenging to me. It’s the newest thing for me. You know, I, I was single for a really long time. So I’m navigating all of the elements of a new marriage, a new child. So a lot of it is for me, it’s about how I show up in all of these different environments and that’s what performance is.

And that’s how I use performance mindset as the exact same tool that the UFC fighters are using when they. Or walking out to the octagon or all the variety of people that we get to interact with. And that’s why I think it’s so powerful because a lot of this is, I mean, I think the stat, this is from 2016.

I think there was 32 percent of Americans suffer from an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives. I’m sure that’s, it’s probably at 40 percent at this point after the pandemic and everything. Yeah. And that’s a disorder. That’s not like a little bit of anxiety. And that’s a, I don’t want to call it a disease, but a disorder of the mind.

[00:11:19] Gabby: Yeah.

[00:11:20] PJ Nestler: Anxiety is not real. It doesn’t exist in real space. It’s a fear of something that’s to come of what might happen about what if, and we all deal with that. And we all deal with these negative self talk and these thoughts that come up that, that can drastically impact the outcomes that we have in our life, whether that’s your relationship or your parenting or your business, or, you know, small things that aren’t that important.

Like me, I’ll give an example later in some of the things, me trying to beat Mark and underwater swims or whatever the thing is, but that it’s understanding that this is a natural part of the human process. That’s the way that we talk to ourselves. The way that our brain is programmed and hardwired, it’s all normal.

We all have it, whether we’re at a five year old that’s thinking about jumping off the diving board or a elite performance athlete or Laird going to surf a crazy wave. Like we all have this stuff hardwired in us, uh, which means that it’s really low hanging fruit for us to be able to influence and rewire some of these processes to, to create the outcomes that we’re looking for.

[00:12:28] Gabby: I’m just curious. Uh, and then I’m, I literally. Step out of the way and, and have you guide us through your thoughts on this is, have you ever had an athlete? that somehow those moments, those big moments, we know people who can really focus in the big moments and deal with the stress, but did you ever have an athlete that looked at it one way?

And, and again, I, you know, I understand what you’re talking about that real, Hey, everything’s on the line. You got NBA guys and no offense to them, but they’re on a salary that it isn’t quite as do or die as a fighter. Right? Like that’s literally how they can continue on is if they are winning or making enough money to do so.

Did you ever have an athlete that, that somehow switched their thinking about the amount of pressure that they put on themselves in the actual competition? Or was it just adjusting their ability to deal with it? I was just curious if you ever had somebody that played a different game and was like, Oh, wait a second, I can do that.

Even how I perceive that differently.

[00:13:30] PJ Nestler: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think. Both of those things are part of the process, reframing the, the outcome, the potential outcome of this and, um, changing your language about that is part of that process, as well as changing the way that you prepare for and lead up to that.

So that’s all part of it. I mean, if you, if you look at some of the best fighters out there that they’re very playful. Like they don’t, and maybe that sometimes that’s intuitive. It’s just that those athletes just learned throughout their, their career, or they just were born the type of person who had those mindsets.

It’s not that they’ve always. It’s taken the time to, uh, intentionally develop the tools. But when you see athletes, when you see the Michael Jordans of the world, they just have those things. And I know he spent time developing them as well, but, uh, you see fighters that are at the top of the game. I’ll use, uh, John Jones, as an example, in the UFC, you know, he, he was out partying the night before he’s going to major fights and it’s just a different framing of what that fight was for him.

Some of that’s based in their self belief. Some of them just believe that they’re so far above everyone else that it’s, there isn’t that pressure there. Um, and some of it’s in the reframing of, of stuff and trying to, Remove some of that pressure that’s, that’s put on yourself. Um, and there’s a lot of different ways to do that.

Do you

[00:14:52] Gabby: think I’m always interested? I almost feel like you have to be off to be great, you know, like something’s off. Yeah. Or you have something to prove, or you have a chip on your shoulder or. You know, and you may not even, and sometimes it almost can impact how good of a human being you can be. It’s like, you’re really good there.

I was just wondering, because I’ve seen it a lot. That’s why I’m always in awe of somebody who’s truly great at this thing that they do, and that somehow they’re still like a, uh, you know, like a, no, I hate the word normal, just like a decent human being. Right. Because people, I don’t think they realize also what it takes sometimes.

And you could correlate this to a CEO, an entrepreneur, whatever. Sometimes the amount of energy that it takes to get that stuff done.

[00:15:47] PJ Nestler: Yeah. I think, I mean, it’s very rare that you find someone who’s Literally the best in the world and excelled in that space. That’s also well balanced across their whole life.

Yeah, it’s, it’s very rare that that’s the case. Um, and that doesn’t mean that you can’t be excellent at what you do and still be well balanced. I think that’s a. A goal for a lot of us, but even when working with athletes, there’s, we talk about balance. We talk about a holistic approach, but the reality is there’s certain times when you have to be selfish.

You have to be focused. You have to be, you know, your family has to take a backseat to your training camp. If you want to win this next fight and be. One of the greatest fighters of all time. And I think what we talk about a lot at XPT is making sure you understand what you really want. And do you, do you want to be the greatest fighter of all time, no matter what, or do you want to be one of the greatest fighters of all time, who’s also financially stable, has a healthy marriage, has a good relationships, and sometimes there’s a give and take there and it may stop you.

You may be in the top 10 and you had the top 10. Talent to be number one, but the sacrifices to the rest of your life, you aren’t willing to make. But yeah, I think, I think people in that space, I mean, they just think differently and that can make it really difficult to connect with people. I think about this when I listened to Jordan Peterson talk.

[00:17:11] Gabby: Oh yeah.

[00:17:12] PJ Nestler: You know, the way that he. It reminds me of when I’m talking to somebody about fitness and health, and they’re so lost. And it’s like, I just want you to know what I know, because I know the things that will help you to get the goal. But the questions you’re asking me, I can’t even fathom. Like, we just talked about this last week.

How was it? The things we’re talking about are way up here, and you’re asking questions down here, and it’s like, It’s hard to comprehend. It’s hard to find ways to connect to people in these different levels. And I almost feel like that when he talks, he’s just so intelligent that it must be difficult when you’re communicating with people who just.

can’t comprehend.

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and I only bring that up because I think we certainly celebrate outcome. And there’s a lot of glory around that. But for people to understand everything has a give and a take. And so to your point, and, and, and I’ll have you, you know, get into this kind of collection of ideas that you’ve put together based on all of your learnings and experiences, but that For people to be really clear about what they want, because if your goal is to live a life that represents who you are and the things that are actually going to make you feel good, because people think maybe think, Oh, if I’m, uh, the best, or I have a lot of money, I’ll be, I’ll feel good.

And that may not be the case. Um, it may be to have a rich relationship and, you know, be there or, or whatever that is. So I, I also want to set the table with that because I think a lot of times people don’t really analyze that. And think, what are truly the things that are going to make me feel fulfilled?

Um, it doesn’t mean happy every minute. It doesn’t mean that certain things, everything is hard to a certain degree. And, um, and I don’t, I actually gotten to the place in my life where I don’t even want to say it’s hard. That’s what it is. It’s like training. Is it hard? No. It’s training. Relationships, cohabitation, is it hard?

No. That is what it is. Right. And so if you ask me, like, you’re at the framing stage of like, Oh, I’ve got to sort of learn some things here. I still obviously have to learn. But now I don’t react to any of that because I’m like, Oh no, this is what this is. And even taking away the notion of hard and easy.

It’s like, you’re doing that, that’s what it is. And, uh, and sometimes that’s helpful because then you. You expect it. You don’t respond when you feel that feeling of pressure or work or irritation or whatever it is. You’re just like, Oh yeah, here it is. So

[00:23:24] PJ Nestler: there’s a good quote that I really like on that. I have it written on the board in my gym.

If you want it, work for it. It takes what it takes.

[00:23:32] Gabby: That’s right.

[00:23:33] PJ Nestler: And I just like, I like to say that a lot because it’s just, Oh, we’re going to have to sit in traffic and drive this thing. Yeah. Well, do we want to go there? It takes what it takes. And it’s kind of to your point of just changes your perspective on the thing that you’re looking at.

And, you know, it’s not hard or easy. It’s just, here’s an outcome that I want. And it takes what it takes to get there.

[00:23:54] Gabby: Yeah. And I think there’s less room for sadness and anxiety and all these things when we When we find the ways that we want to put ourselves in those situations, because I just think it’s working on yourself and living closer to the things that we think we’re scared of, or we’re in, or make us uncomfortable.

I actually think leaning into them in healthy ways. It feels like it’s the only way, at least from my point of view. So, PJ, I understand why you wrote this and, and you’ve really organized, um, just a really interesting conversation around performance mindset. So I’ll, I’ll just kind of let you lead and I might interject here and there.

[00:24:43] PJ Nestler: Thank you.

[00:24:43] Gabby: Yeah. Thank you.

[00:24:45] PJ Nestler: I think some of the stuff I like to say early for people to understand the context, like you already made this point of, uh, the performance mindset, not being just for athletes and a lot of this development and why we shared it. I mean, nobody in Costa Rica was an athlete that we were sharing it with.

And it’s about, I like to say that. The emotional control that you have of yourself, like your control of your emotional state and your mental state. It’s a superpower. If we know that 40 percent of people are struggling with anxiety disorders and we know that we’re. heavily programmed towards negative thinking and that there’s strong correlations between negative thinking and failure in, in a variety of different circumstances, then that’s a superpower for us.

And most people are so emotionally reactive that they’re not even aware there’s an op an option here. And that’s what a lot of this performance mindset is there to do is help you to create space. I think, uh, Victor Frankl has a quote like, uh, between stimulus and response, there’s a choice and most people don’t know that most people’s completely overlapped.

I’m triggered by this thing in the, you know, this guy who cut me off and therefore I’m angry and I’m going to flip him off. There was no conscious thought in there. It’s just like this thing happens. I have this feeling, I have this behavior and it stimulates that response. But I think teaching people that there’s opportunity there to create space, to make different decisions that create drastically different outcomes in your life in all of these different areas that are important to you is a really powerful thing that I’d like to share.

And I like when I put this language together, it was really through the development of working with athletes and teaching them. Trying to take language from sports psychologists and deliver that through training, then getting into XPT and realizing that there was so much, I mean, we talked about this a lot in terms of mindset, like when you do this type of training, when you leave here, you would become mentally more resilient or more mentally flexible or different terminology there.

But for me, often those things are difficult to share when there’s not a system of how to do it. So that’s what I was trying to put the language. You love those

[00:27:06] Gabby: systems, pj? Yeah. It needs to be a system. ’cause I love it.

[00:27:11] PJ Nestler: I think once you can create that framework, then people can figure out where they are and they can actually.

intentionally train it and practice it versus if you just do a bunch of things, you might also get this outcome, but we could get you there a lot faster if you, if you have an intentional approach. And I think I give the analogy of it’s like, uh, well, we’ll get to that. We talk about some of the things we’re doing, but the other really cool thing about it too, is that Peter Tia talks about how, as we age, there are things that we’re naturally going to decline.

We’re going to lose physical skills and qualities and, and. Fortitude and we’re going to lose cognitive function and performance. Those things will naturally decline when we’ll do everything we can to slow that decline, but they’re going to decline. Emotional control and regulation does not have to. And in fact, for often for people, it will get better because you have more wisdom and we have more patients and we have, you know, we’ve been through more life experience.

We’ve

[00:28:10] Gabby: been tempered

[00:28:11] PJ Nestler: or many people just don’t, I mean, how many people just live their lives emotionally volatile their entire life and they. They didn’t even know there was a choice to be able to control that. And it changed their outcomes. They’ve been through five marriages and they don’t know why, because it’s everyone else’s fault.

And you know, that’s, that’s. I think those people are more, there’s more of them than not in the world. Um, so I think that’s a really cool thing. And then as I looked into the whole sports psychology, mental toughness, mental resilience space, you start to realize that most of what’s out there is complete BS.

We have the wrong roadmap when we look at training mental toughness or mental resilience or becoming more resilient because. We look at those elite athletes or teams or military and we interpret what they’re trying to do. And then we think we can use that. So if we, let’s use an example of, uh, every sport movie you’ve ever seen where the new coach comes in and lays the smack down and it’s like, remember the Titans, they do these crazy camps and everyone’s throwing up and they’re crazy conditioning.

And it’s like, Wow, that’s what you need. You need someone to come in and just drill sergeant and be disciplined and take no bullshit and all of that. And often we look at that and we’re like, that team was successful in spite of that, not because of it, because all we see is the example of the one that worked.

But how many coaches came in to a scene and they were an asshole and they were a drill sergeant and they drove people into the ground, and And they weren’t successful,

[00:29:49] Gabby: right?

[00:29:49] PJ Nestler: If that was the roadmap for success, then everybody would, you’d start to see more people having success in that, in that way. Um, or if we look at military, people look at Navy SEAL, you know, buds and they think that’s mental toughness training.

So I’m going to do things that look like that. And I’ll become more mentally tough. That’s not. To develop mental toughness, that’s to select for it. That’s a weeding out process. Exactly, which is very different. That that’s literally we’re going to take all of the eggs and we’re going to throw them at the wall and see which ones don’t break.

And that’s a very different process because the ones that break might be the best athlete on the team, but just didn’t have the right skills, the right preparation, or even the right Approach to the purpose or the outcome you’re trying to create. And that person broke and that could have made you the most successful team, but you lost three of those top players because they weren’t tough enough.

Um, so we have the wrong roadmap with that. And that’s why people just do, they just mimic the stuff that they see. And they think if they go to some three day, uh, Navy SEAL bootcamp thing where they’re crawling around in the water and they’re freezing cold, that they’re going to become more mentally resilient.

Um, And doing those really hard things is a prerequisite to becoming more mentally tough and resilient, but not a guarantee of that outcome. You could easily do that stuff and just become better at suffering in this one environment and go home and still flip your zero control over yourself. Uh, so I think that’s, that’s the missing pieces.

Like doing really hard things is a really important part of the process. Uh, and if you do a lot of really hard things for 10 years and across varied environments, you’ll become more mentally resilient just by nature of doing so much. Just like if you didn’t train at all and you just start doing fitness, you start pool training and running and lifting weights and doing yoga and you start doing that.

If you do that for 20 years, you will be much more fit in a lot of different areas. But if your goal was to improve your VO2 max and you just start doing yoga and strength training, You could do that for 10 years and your VO2max is going to maybe improve this much when you went from sitting on the couch to just moving and then we’ll just not improve at all because you’re, you’re using the wrong modality.

What you should be doing is much more intentional training to improve your VO2max and therefore we have a path to that. So that’s why I was trying to work to create more of a systematic way of doing it. So when we do these really hard things. What are we actually doing? What are we trying to accomplish?

What lessons are we learning or what skills are we practicing? And then how can we build a step by step process to refine that skill and then build the next one and the next one on top of it. Um, and I mentioned that, that the process helps us to create space. So as, as we think about some of the, we’re going to talk a little bit about self talk and self limiting beliefs and these negative thoughts that we have.

It’s important for people to understand that everybody’s hardwired that way. Okay.

[00:32:47] Gabby: It’s to keep us alive. Yeah. I think, I think the forgiveness, that’s why I do like biology. I that’s what frustrates me a little bit sometimes about some of the new narratives about people trying to rewrite what biology is.

Cause I also feel like when we have a connection with biology, it gives us a roadmap to our natural selves like, Oh, I do have the impulse. To shove anything and everything in my mouth, any chance I get for it because that was set up for when food was scarce or females are more prone to negative emotion than males.

And that could be because we’re here to protect typically tribally children to be hyper alert. We’re physically more vulnerable, whatever the myriad of reasons are that were so if you’re in a partnership and. And you think, oh, well, he never worries. And why do I always feel it? Well, it’s also biological, right?

So it’s these things like you’re talking about getting a relationship with some really normal traits and not thinking what’s wrong with me. It’s like, no, let’s start off with like, no, this is all really normal. So what do you want to do about it? You know, and I think that that’s the difference. Instead of people, we get into our own world and we think we’re the only one that feels that way.

And it’s like, hey, listen, this is typical human behavior 101. You’re right on time. Perfect. Now our job as we get older, more mature. Is to do some of the things that you’re talking about.

[00:34:13] PJ Nestler: Yeah. I think biology is, I think we try to outsmart our biology a lot and it causes all kinds of problems in our physical, mental, emotional health, all that stuff, and it’s a really important part of the process.

And I think I use the terms conscious or intentional a lot, because that’s really what I aim to do in a lot of areas, understanding that my natural response is to go eat a. fat, salty food because that’s biologically what I’m going to be designed to do when I’m hungry is okay and it’s okay to understand and it’s okay to subside to that sometimes.

But if my, if the outcome I’m looking for is weight loss or improving health markers, then I can be more intentional and know that, hey, Sometimes that hardwired process is not serving me. And if it’s not serving me, what can I do to change it and be more intentional about the approach I have? Um, and that’s the same thing here.

Like there’s many times that your negative self talk is there to keep you alive and you should probably listen to it, but there’s also all of these processes in the body you mentioned keep you alive as your biology, like that’s what your biology is designed for is to Help you survive and procreate not to help you thrive in the variety of areas where you want to thrive.

So that’s where the intentionality comes in of just what is the thing I’m doing? And is it helping me serving me to get the outcome I want? Or is there an opportunity there for me to reframe it or change it or work on it so that I can get that approach? I, there’s a quote from a famous psychologist, Carl Jung, that’s until we make the unconscious conscious, It will direct our lives and we’ll call it fate.

And that’s really what I think underlies a lot of this stuff is you’re just bringing some consciousness to it to say, is this serving me? And if not change it,

[00:36:09] Gabby: but

[00:36:11] PJ Nestler: I think removing the judgment from it and being like, Oh, I’m so mentally weak. I always beat myself up or I always fail. And then I say these things, we all do that.

And it’s, I’ll give a bunch of examples of how I do it. Yeah. Constantly on a day to day basis and I have more awareness of it and I work in certain areas to change it. Yeah. So I think once we have those understanding of the elements of performance mindset, then we have the options to start. leaning into different areas.

So some of the language that I like to use, uh, that I borrowed from a very, a variety of either books or sports psychologists, or even just regular psychologists. One of them that’s, I think a really good thing for people to comprehend is, is the zone of resilience and zone of resilience is basically, if you imagine a straight line is like my baseline homeostasis.

And then when I, When I face some kind of stress, it knocks me off my baseline. But we’re talking more of psychological, emotional stress here. So, traffic. knocks me off my baseline. If that stressor is so strong that it comes outside of my zone of resilience, then it’s going to be very, very, uh, difficult for me to bring myself back and to, to regulate.

If I have a broad zone of resilience, then anything that knocks, even if it’s a very strong stressor, but it still comes within my zone of resilience, that means I have much more control and I am able to bring myself back. and I have the tools to bring myself back. So as we think about that zone of resilience, we have tools that are designed to help us in both areas.

We have offline tools, which is a variety of different techniques that help us expand our zone of resilience. They change our relationship to stress. They change our, the way that we think about certain things, or they build this evidence pile of who I am as a person that allows me to, to not be knocked so far off my baseline.

Uh, And those are things like meditation, doing a variety of different hard things, whether that’s physical exercise or pool training or ice baths or all of this different stuff. And we’ll give some more examples. And then we have real time tools, and those are tools that we can use in the moment to help us to bring that back down.

So whether I’m way outside my zone of resilience, I’m going to need a lot of really, really refined real time tools, if that’s the case. And it’s still going to take me a while to get back and regulate. Or if I’m inside my zone of resilience and I have a really sharp tool that I’ve practiced a lot, I might be able to come back to baseline like this.

It might be someone cuts me off and I go, and I’m triggered. And then I go,

and I’m good. And that was my combination of three different real time tools. I just use right there with a breath, a breath technique, uh, a mantra. And I use this tool to help me reset to baseline. So I use the term tools a lot because I really like developing a broad toolbox in all of the areas that we talk about and then learning how to use the right tools for the job.

And that’s another challenge with, with some of this stuff that I found in, in, uh, so called experts is a misunderstanding of the use of these different tools. Uh, uh, example I give all the time. There’s a. Show limitless with Chris Hemsworth and that whole series, which I thought was really cool. But there was a woman that was coaching him on breath and mindset stuff in one of the contexts.

And she gave him a tool, which was a four, four, four, four box breath protocol. And she told him to use it. When he was with these fire got fire department guys, they were running in and fighting a fire and I was like, that’s such a classic example of a misunderstanding of an offline tool trying to be applied in real time.

And that’s clearly somebody who’s never really trained people who have to perform in these conditions. Because if you run up a flight of stairs. And try to do a four, four, four box breath protocol. It’s not going to happen. Now you do that with a loaded down with fire gear and trying to fight a fire and the psychological stress that’s going on.

There are zero people in the world that are doing that, but that’s something I found even exploring breathwork is this was in the, it was literally called tactical breathing and it was written by a Navy seal and it was talking about, this is a breath protocol that you should be doing to in these real time environments.

Um, And I guarantee you, even the person who wrote that wasn’t doing it. Because that’s a really good offline tool to down regulate and to build. To control your mind and all that. But as you know, we have, we have a lot of techniques that are specifically designed to help you in that context. And, um, it’s just a misunderstanding of where those tools apply.

So I really like that language around offline and real time tools and what we’re doing. Because when we go through the process, we’re going to talk about with, uh, rewiring our self talk. There’s elements of that that are offline and there’s elements of that that are real time. If you’re

[00:41:15] Gabby: running into a burning building in real time, what does your breath look like?

[00:41:20] PJ Nestler: So the breath, you’re loaded

[00:41:21] Gabby: with weight and this is an unfamiliar environment in his case, like what, what happens?

[00:41:26] PJ Nestler: The breath technique that we teach a lot is a power breathing, which is, if we have really high levels of physical stress, just, just, if we said that, I’m not mentally stressed at all, but I need to run up four flights of stairs carrying fire equipment and then do something physically.

There’s no way I’m going to do really slow breathing there. I need to, I need to match my breath to the intensity of the physical activity. And then if we said, well, you’re going to, when you get there, people are going to start shooting at you or you’re going to have face a fire and have to pull someone out or something crazy like that, where we now have the element of fear.

Psychological stress, the impacts on the body are very similar. So even if you said you weren’t going to run up those stairs, but when you open this door, people are going to start shooting at you. The breath techniques that we would use in that space to get control are very similar. And it’s that downshift protocol that we teach a lot in the ice bath and, uh, for people when they’re, you know, Dealing with stressful environments, which is a super intense breath pattern first.

So we do that fire breathing to get control and then quickly into power breathing, which is and then start to slow exhales down. And that’s where we can down regulate if we have the opportunity. Yeah. So if, if I was about to, uh, you know, I’ve talked with Paulie about this and some other special forces guys, when they’re preparing to enter a building.

They might, and those are like much less intense breaths because they didn’t actually just run up a flight of stairs there. So they don’t need that really intense breathing, but it’s a couple fast, forceful clearing breaths that are going to help down regulate. Yeah. And get that focus. Yep. Bring that focus in.

Yeah. Get that stress response down one notch, just so they’re at the right level. If they’re entering a building, they want to be at a certain level of stress. They’re not calms and meditation before I go in there. Um, so it’s, it’s understanding the context for these different, uh, these different tools and then being able to apply them.

But that’s one that we teach a lot in the ice bath is those three steps of down regulate. We call it the CNS downshift, which is get control, get nasal and then get slow. And uh, that protocol is a great one because you can implement it in a lot of other areas. And then you can learn how to go up and down, you know, the, maybe you’re just doing the nasal and the slow, if you don’t need that super high intense fire breath pattern.

Um, but that’s a lot of what we, what we try to practice and educate people on. So they have the. Uh, availability for the tool based on the level of stress,

[00:44:00] Gabby: right?

[00:44:00] PJ Nestler: So we talk about matching the real time tool. If you’re at a level zero stress, you could lay down and do 10 box breathing and be calm. And it could be a great meditative state.

If you’re at a level two stress, maybe you could now do four, four, four box breathing. If you’re at a level five box, breathing’s probably out of the picture. Now you’re doing some,

and if you’re at a level 10, you’re going to need a different strategy.

[00:44:29] Gabby: Yeah. That level five, you’re going to see me at family dinner. Now. Do you guys want seconds? It’s funny all your offline training now that you have a family, isn’t it kind of fun how you can. You can show up as a person sometimes using your athlete, but you can’t muscle it.

You know, they wrote a book years ago called leaning in and I was like over lean in. I was like, Oh, you’re going to lean into your relationships and your kids. It’s very hard to do. So it’s more about controlling yourself. in those moments to deal with all of it. You’re not going to, uh, overcome everyone.

[00:45:09] PJ Nestler: Yeah.

[00:45:10] Gabby: You’re, you have to be malleable. I do want to make one. I just have a question. So I’ve, okay. So I’ve been with Laird 20 over 28 years, right? So we have such different, as you can imagine, not only male, female, but given Laird’s occupation and his development. And even the sport I chose, right? There’s a net between my opponent and myself.

I see when Laird gets kind of aggravated or stressed, he needs to have the full response. Like his window is, I think, huge. And he just goes like, rawr! And then he’s, oh, it’s done. But he can’t, like, I can’t afford that much emotion. I’d need to go take a nap. Like he, if someone cuts off or just it’s, it’s all very lean, like pushes into all of it.

And then it’s over just, it’s like a huge, sorry for the analogy, wave breaking, the water comes up. It’s. retreats and it’s done. And so the other thing to remind people, I think, is we all have different emotional capacities. I think I have a very low one in a certain way, uh, meaning when I feel it, I feel it deep and long, so I can’t get over it as quick.

So I don’t allow myself maybe to feel it as big because I can’t get past it as fast. So if someone cuts me off or if someone, I see someone where I’m like, I could get seriously aggravated. It would take me so long to get over it where Laird can just say, get in there and get out. No problem. So I think it’s also, when you’re building this infrastructure, it’s knowing yourself to go, you almost can’t afford to react too much because In my case, I can’t get over it.

If that makes sense. Yeah. Uh, do I take it more personal? Do I, am I actually meaner than Laird in a different, deeper way? Maybe. Um, so I think it’s also kind of knowing that when we talk about that window of flexibility, um, you know, I, I’m really careful to, to not get too aggravated cause I’m not so resilient against that emotion.

[00:47:20] PJ Nestler: Yeah. It takes me out. I think your, your point there is, which is really important is that your zone of resilience can be context specific. Yeah. So if, if it’s a. If there’s something for Laird that he can literally go to level 100 and come back to zero, that means that whatever that thing was, his zone of resilience is so broad that he has the tools to go up and right back down.

Whereas maybe in that instance, my relationship, for example, is very, I have a very different zone of resilience when it comes to patients and, uh, some relationship stuff than when I’m dealing with physical stress. So I need to understand that and have some self awareness on where those things are. And to your point of.

Being able to be aware of that and maybe create different choices before I get there.

[00:48:06] Gabby: Yeah

[00:48:07] PJ Nestler: Knowing that I don’t necessarily have the tools or the bandwidth to

[00:48:12] Gabby: I just don’t have it from that I don’t have the capacity. But what I do have is enough Consciousness or awareness to go you’re not even allowed To this is it’s not worth it.

It’s not life and death Period. Yep. Don’t bother. Um, so that took me a long time to understand that, especially living with somebody who is so different. It’d be like living also with a person who almost isn’t impacted. Like people who are just like, Oh, well, it’s okay. It’s no big deal. That’s a different version of that almost where it’s like, does anything really ever really bother them?

No. Or you have a person who can be like, Oh, that guy’s an idiot. And then they’re just like, okay, you know. It’s crazy. So I think it’s also important to understand yourself during this whole process because Like we’re sitting here with Justin. He never, he’s, I mean, I don’t know if he’s crying on the inside, but he hardly ever seems to get offended at G you know, you and I are more serious.

Like we take ourselves serious. It’s serious. So within that, it’s not only as you’re trying to improve yourself, understand who you are.

[00:49:20] PJ Nestler: Absolutely. You know, I mean, that’s what the whole process is. It’s all about self awareness. Yeah. That’s what, that’s what this entire thing is. Self awareness without judgment.

Yeah. And then. Opportunity to have conscious tools to practice in those spaces. And you have conscious tools that you implement to prevent you from going to that point. because you understand the outcome of that. And Laird has different tools that he uses because he goes to that point, but he comes right back down

[00:49:46] Gabby: and

[00:49:47] PJ Nestler: those are different people responding differently to the same stressor.

[00:49:51] Gabby: And I’m not, I’m not, and the other thing I want to remind people is I have designed a person that I’m aspiring to be every day with traits that I am hoping to teach. Touch occasionally and that I would respect and admire and I feel like in the day of light, I could stand by, um, versus also who I am. I’m, and so a lot of my decisions, I will yield to the person I’m trying to become versus who I am more naturally.

And that’s not being not my authentic self. It’s that I know I feel a lot happier, better, more peaceful, prouder when I try to move towards the person I’m trying to become versus just my impulses. Which they’re not great.

[00:50:41] PJ Nestler: Yeah, one of the things I can’t stand when I hear is like You have to accept me as I am, you know, or or This whole mindset around like if you can’t love me at my worst It’s like yes, you should have unconditional love for who you are as a person But also if you’re not striving to be something different, then that’s that’s an excuse.

It’s a rationalization for like I don’t have to change. I don’t have to be anything better. I don’t have to strive for anything and that’s That’s a, an excuse. It’s a, it’s a way we rationalize to stay. It’s the same thing when people are like, I’m happy being, and like, it’s great if you’re so, if you have such good self worth that you are happy, but that doesn’t mean those things are not mutually exclusive, you can be happy with who you are as a person and still want to strive to have better health and better things that, you know, and that’s the example you just gave.

And that’s what my whole focus is. It’s the person that I ultimately want to become the person, the person I want to show up as in these different environments. And that can be slightly different. Like I want to be authentically true, but the person I am at work isn’t the exact same person I am at home.

[00:51:49] Gabby: No.

[00:51:49] PJ Nestler: Um, it shouldn’t be so drastically different that the attributes are, you know, conflicting. Um, but I think that’s where a lot of this stuff comes into play. And as we go through the process, It’s understanding that every single thought, action, behavior, those are all votes towards where you’re headed, towards the person you’re going to become.

And that can be, I think, a little bit scary for people and debilitating, but also really empowering. Because you get tons of opportunities. So when you screw one up, you can let that one go and go, and all right, I screwed that one up, but I just got to keep winning the majority and that’s going to keep me on this path.

So I’ve got more opportunities the next time, the next time, the next time. Um, but I think it’s also something for people to remind themselves that everything, everything matters.

[00:52:42] Gabby: Yeah.

[00:52:43] PJ Nestler: There is no such thing as like. When I’m at work, I’m going to be this person and then at home, I’m going to be this lazy piece of crap who just numbs myself with TV and alcohol and all the other stuff and like, that doesn’t work because then you’re, you’re losing the majority of the votes and then thinking you’re going to show up as this like confident, resilient person in this other environment.

And, uh, that doesn’t work if you lose the majority of them. So it’s, it’s. As we go through this process and that’s something that’s been really helpful for me because we’re talking about self talk and thoughts You’re doing this thousands of times per day so if you if you get Hyper focused on one of those that you really screwed up.

It’s just gonna deteriorate the rest of them But if you could say hey I’ve got thousands more opportunities just the rest of this afternoon to keep showing up as the person that I want to be or that I want to become then It’s very empowering to be able to make that choice

[00:53:36] Gabby: and

[00:53:36] PJ Nestler: get those little wins and start to stack them and build momentum.

[00:53:39] Gabby: Because beating yourself up is, is beyond self being self accountable. And that’s where people, I think, be self accountable and then get up and show then something different. Don’t just sit there and hammer yourself because that it doesn’t, it doesn’t move you in the direction like you’re talking about.

So I appreciate the self accountability and then, yeah. mobilize, make a different choice, do it different.

[00:54:08] PJ Nestler: Yeah. It’s, it’s the, uh, realistic breakdown without judgment.

[00:54:14] Gabby: Yes.

[00:54:15] PJ Nestler: It’s, it’s looking back at that thing going, Hey, I failed there. I screwed that up. Why did I screw that up? I’m going to be realistic. I screwed that up because I was, I was being mentally weak in that moment.

I let, I let that feeling overtake me and I made a poor decision. Okay. Now there’s no judgment there, but I need to hold myself accountable to that. I’m going to, I need to change the way that I do that. And I’m going to have another opportunity this afternoon to do it differently.

[00:54:41] Gabby: Yeah.

[00:54:42] PJ Nestler: And that the judgment is really where it doesn’t help.

[00:54:45] Gabby: No,

[00:54:45] PJ Nestler: you know, that’s where it starts to fester and it builds. And then you start to think about who you are and it actually unwires the process we’re about to go through in the opposite direction. Um, So I, we can jump into that. The. There’s a slight distinction between like mental toughness, mental resilience, and grit, and we don’t necessarily need to Get deep into that right now, but I think it’s important for people to know I’m going to use the terms a little bit interchangeably today, but there is a distinction between like toughness is being able to show up in these diverse environments and still create an outcome regardless of what happens in that environment.

And then resilience is more about my ability to withstand and bounce back. Um, and then grit is a little bit more about my ability to consistently show up and persevere and do things time and time again. So there’s obviously a lot of overlap between those, and we’re not going to dive into one versus the other, but I think it’s important to Again, language is a big thing to me, like having language for what we’re doing, because when we start getting deeper into training, there are elements of this person’s really mentally tough, but they’re not very resilient.

So how do I lean more into this one than that one? But for the context of this conversation, what we’re going to talk about will help in all of those areas. And it’s, it’ll take you 98 percent of the way there. And then if you’re, you’re at the 2 percent mark, you can dive deeper into the, the literature and the thought process behind that.

Uh, but we, when we talk about self talk, we mentioned that a bunch, it’s estimated you talk to yourself like a thousand times per minute. And I don’t know how they estimate that it comes from a book, uh, how champions think, which is very, a lot about self talk and we’re programmed towards the negative.

We’re programmed to think I can’t do this. I can’t do that. This is going to go bad. I’m going to fail. So it keeps us safe, keeps us comfortable, keeps us alive. But we know that that is not necessarily, we have so many systems in the body that are designed to regulate their governors on our performance.

They keep us safe. We have them physically. We have them mentally. And they’re all there to say, you’re not going to be able to do this thing. So we’re going to keep you within the zone of comfortable. And that’ll help keep you alive for this time period, acutely, it, it actually deteriorates our health over time, as we know, when we seek comfort through food and all the other areas, we end up fat, sick, and weak, and we die at a much earlier age, and live a pretty poor life, uh, but in the moment, it’s the most comfortable, and that’s why it’s difficult to do all these other, uh, uncomfortable things, so if we know that, and we know that That language is going to be there because people don’t know this.

Sometimes it’s just, they think it’s along for the ride. I’m hungry. I must be hungry. I must be starving. My body must need food. My brain can’t function because I don’t have an eaten in two hours. And these are all language that we deal with on a day to day basis until we understand that this is normal, but it’s not necessarily right.

That voice, that narrative is not always. Accurate. And it’s often not because it’s being overprotective. It wants you to eat right now because it’s afraid that you might never eat again. So the fact that you can get up and go to the fridge and grab a pint, you know, a pint of ice cream is like, that’s salt.

Let’s get this nutrients in because we need it. And then also lax on the couch because exercising is hard. So all of that language is built in to keep us in that space, but it’s not helping us thrive in that space. And as we go through. This language becomes kind of a self perpetuating feedback loop. So we have self talk, which is the words that come up, the things that we think, in any moment, all of that that’s happening in our head is self talk.

Those words, those thoughts create emotions. So that talk leads me to feel something. Let’s use anxiety as an example because we already mentioned it. I am, let’s say I showed up here and you’re like, we’re gonna do this pool training. And I’m like, I’ve seen some videos of that. That stuff’s crazy. I mean, I don’t know if I can do that.

I’m not a very good swimmer. That was an example of self talk and a self limiting belief. And now I’m starting to feel anxious. Now I’m anxious about coming here because, and I’m actually feeling that. And those feelings then create physical responses. I start to, my heart rate’s increasing a little bit and I get sweaty and I get dry mouth and I’m fidgety and all of that is, those are physical responses to The feeling of anxiety and then those physical responses create behaviors.

So maybe I don’t show up or I, I don’t like I quit and don’t do the pull training or I find a way to avoid it or whatever that behavior is. Uh, a really good example I use of this is like giving a speech. If you had, if you’re. Self talk is like I’m going to screw this up and I’m going to look stupid and then you’re that builds your anxiety and you start to feel those sensations and then you start to forget what you were going to talk about and you get dry mouth and you stutter your words and you’re All of the, you’re getting the physical responses of stress and then when you go to perform your behavior is you actually forget what you were going to say and you completely blank and you stutter and you perform really poorly and then that feeds right back into, I knew I was going to screw this up and then that cycle continues.

So I think that process, that happens all the time. That process is always happening, recognizing when it’s serving us and when it’s not serving us. And this self awareness of this is a big part of this, the biggest piece of this puzzle. So we know we’re all doing it. So let’s accept that. And then let’s not judge it.

And let’s say, where am I doing that where it’s not serving me? And then I think the most powerful part of it is when you start to rewire any part of that process. You can create positive momentum. The same cycle will happen, but it happens in a positive outcome. And then you do that and you build momentum in the right direction, which is the outcome you’re trying to create.

So that feedback loop is really important. I think I said this at the beginning that Uh, this is also from how champions think he says, while, while the relationship between negative self talk and excuse me, between positive self talk and success is imperfect. There’s an almost perfect correlation between negative thinking and failure.

Of course. Uh, and if we know we’re hardwired to think negatively, then we know that again, this is a superpower I can, I can hack into this system. And rewire this or reprogram this in a way that’s going to be more effective for me. Uh, and that’s what the process that I tried to create so that that was the whole, a lot of that was understanding.

I had five, 10 years ago, I was developing like, okay, I know what’s going on here. I know what some of these tools are, but how do we actually rewire this? How do we actually change our self talk? How do we actually. Create, uh, this process in a positive way. And that was a lot of what I try to develop some systems.

Uh, and Perla was a big part of this too. She was, she does a lot of this in her own life and her and I worked together and said, what have you learned through therapy, psychology, training people? What have I learned through reading these things, talking to sports psychologists, working with military and athletes and like, What are the similarities that we’re seeing and then what’s a process to go through that.

So we developed this rewire process and I use that acronym rewire because it makes it easy to remember. And this is what we went through at XPT and I, I encourage people to recognize. Which is step one of that process, recognize the negative self talk. So in a moment of failure or a moment of fear or a moment of anxiety, recognize the words, the language you’re using before, during, and after that.

And we use the pool as a really good example of this because people have real fear and they fail and they fail at the task. And some people get bogged down on the whole, like, well, it’s not failure. It’s learning. We don’t have to get lost in that space that what I mean by failure is yes, you learned from that, but like you had a task to accomplish and you didn’t accomplish it.

Something stopped you. And often in the pool, it wasn’t your physical capability. You didn’t pass out and fall to the bottom of the pool. You mentally at some point said, I need to breathe. And you came up and you stopped in the middle of the pool. And the task I gave you was to go there and back without breathing.

So you failed on that. Something made you come up and do that. And maybe it was your brain saying, you need to breathe. But the reality was you didn’t need to breathe because you didn’t pass out. So you had enough oxygen. You could have done another stroke or two. So you weren’t really at your physical limit.

So it’s recognizing that, and that’s why the pool is a great, uh, space for us to practice this. Because we can, we can put people in those scenarios to create that self talk.

[01:03:30] Gabby: And it’s objective. Yeah. I love that because you and I are not objective as a, let’s say in the moment, if you’re sort of in charge of that space, but the water, it’s not personal.

[01:03:41] PJ Nestler: Yeah.

[01:03:42] Gabby: It’s you and you.

[01:03:44] PJ Nestler: Yeah. And I think that’s another great part of it is there’s no input. So that’s where you’re really the only talk you’re getting. There’s no music. Well, if you’re in a cool pool, like here, we have some music, but you’re not listening to a motivational soundtrack and your coach is cheering you on.

You’re literally, I told you what to do, or you told them what to do. They have a task and now you’re underwater and the only thing you have to listen to is your own soundtrack, your own narrative as you go. Which can help you or hinder you. I got this from, uh, Dr. Lenny Wiersma, who was one of our, um, he’s a sports psychologist and helped us a lot in the shaping a lot of this.

He says, uh, your mind can either be a weakness or a weapon, but there’s no in between, so it’s either serving you and helping you or it’s hindering you. Most people it’s hindering you because you’re not aware of it. So, um, the pool makes you aware and that’s what this recognized does. And this process, this rewire process is an offline process.

So we had people, we gave them journals and we encouraged them to go start going through this process and writing this stuff down, thinking about a recent failure, writing down the words that come up, the language that you’re using before, during and after. And maybe that in the pool was, uh, I’ll give my example of when I went to swim with Mark as you know, Mark and I are children.

So when we got to Costa Rica, we went down to the pool and I. They went to walk on the beach. I swam some laps and then they got back and Mark decided to see how far he could swim underwater, which turned into me, Mark and Aaron competing for who could swim the furthest underwater. Instantly before we did that, I thought I haven’t been pool training as much as Mark has been.

I know I can swim 50 meters underwater, but that was a while ago when I was free dive training. I just swam a thousand meters. These guys were sitting on the pool, so I’m kind of tired. That was self talk that was going on before it, before anything even happened. Uh, and then I actually failed on the first one.

I got to the other end of the pool and when I pushed off, my goggles pulled down and the water shot in my eyes and I quit. And I beat myself up and I’ll give the examples of kind of this process and more in real time that we went through. So starting with recognizing that, then the next step is after they go through the recognition, it’s exploring the underlying beliefs that cause that.

So if we use the example of the speech, I’m going to screw this up and people are going to think I’m an idiot. Okay. That’s the self talk. But what, what’s underlying that? Um, I’m not prepared for this. I’m not an expert here. I’m, I’m a phony and people are going to find out that I’m a phony and then, then I’m going to lose my job or whatever it is.

Like those are the beliefs I have about myself. It could just be, I’m not prepared because I didn’t study yesterday and now I got to come and talk about this thing and I didn’t prepare myself. Or a lot of times it’s a, it’s a true belief to my core of I’m not an expert. I’m not the person who can do this.

I don’t speak well about these things. Uh, Perla has this fear where she, this isn’t her first language. So she gets worried about talking in front of people because she’s great if this, if she’s speaking Portuguese, but when she’s speaking English, she’s afraid she’s not going to have the language or think quick enough.

And that’s a belief that underlies. So it’s exploring those, writing those down, starting to uncover those. And then the next part of that process is to win those internal conversations by finding evidence to the contrary. So in the context of the speech, now I can start to think about, all right, I think I’m going to show up and screw this up because I’m not an expert and because I’m a phony.

What evidence do I have that that’s not the case? Well, um, I did that podcast with Gabby and I spoke pretty well on that. And then I gave that speech for that other group and there was only 15 people, but I, I did really well. People were cheering for me. So I’m starting to think about these other things that help disprove that or I read tons of books on this material.

Like I am. I’m maybe not an expert, but I’m more well read than the people I’m going to talk to. So you start to build that evidence. And this is where doing hard things comes into play because you have to have an evidence pile to choose from. You have to be very, very mentally resilient to be able to do this when you don’t have evidence to rely on.

But if you go do a ton of different hard things in a ton of different environments, then when you face this other stress, you can look back and go, this is nothing. I can do this. I’ve done X, Y, and Z. We had a woman who came to us and we were doing a husband and wife and we were going through a lot of this information and.

She was saying she couldn’t do the ice bath because she’s not good in the cold and she’s not meant to, she’s not tough enough. And she’s not one of these fitness people that does these things. And, and I asked her, uh, don’t you have four children? And I was like, you know, we’re going to go in this ice bath for two minutes.

Like how long was your first labor? 27 hours. How long was your second labor? 19 hours. And we went through that process. I was like, okay, so you’ve labored for a collective almost a hundred hours and you think you don’t have this. Physical toughness to sit through a cold water for two minutes. And it was like, uh, yeah, you know, and you’re, and that’s one piece of evidence.

Sure. Now maybe she’s thinking, Oh, wait a minute. I have all of these others. So you’re starting to build that evidence pile and, uh, winning that conversation so you can start to reframe that self limiting beliefs in that self talk. Um, so that’s why you’ve, you’ve got to do a lot of different challenging things and put yourself in environments, not just physically challenging.

The versatility of that is important. I could go do hard workouts, and still show up as a piece of shit in my relationship. Freak

[01:09:26] Gabby: out, yeah.

[01:09:27] PJ Nestler: Then that’s not gonna, that’s not gonna be the thing. People do this in ice baths all the time. There are people who do an ice bath every day and they’re mentally tough and resilient and they do five minutes of cold water.

It’s like but then they’re not resilient in any other environment. They’re just good at doing ice baths. The stress of that environment has drastically dropped and they’ve adapted to it. And that doesn’t make them more mentally resilient. But if they do that and they learn breath techniques and then they go apply those in the pool and then they go do a hard workout and then they have a hard conversation and they still.

Use all these same tools then you have this big evidence pile And then the next thing you run into if the stress is your child screaming at you and I like I can do hard bike Sprints so I can do this. Like maybe that doesn’t make sense If you go, what about when I what about when my wife was screaming in my face and I knew I was right in this conversation But I still showed up and I I led with Pat with compassion.

[01:10:27] Gabby: Mm hmm.

[01:10:27] PJ Nestler: Remember when I did that? So I can do that here. Uh, so that’s what that, that evidence pile is important for. So you can win that conversation and then you start to reframe that. So you, you have this, like these examples of times that I’ve done this. So I’m starting to conflict with and contradict my self limiting belief.

And then I can start to reframe that language and rewrite it and rewrite that narrative. And there’s a few different ways to do that. When you’re struggling with anxiety and you’re thinking about, you know, So the worst case scenario, like what if this goes wrong? And then this, and then this, and then this, you can reframe that into what if it all goes right?

And what does that look like? And what does it feel like? And you can, I will encourage people to even write that out and then start thinking about what did you do differently? What happened differently during this thing? What were you thinking differently when you made that choice and that choice and that choice?

And that’s helpful for people cause they can start to have a different outcome and perceive a different outcome.

[01:11:27] Gabby: And it also gives them something to do. I think. You could say, Oh, reframe it. But for you to be that directive and say, no, what if it goes right? And make them go down that rabbit hole a little bit.

It gives them something to do, which is also very, very helpful. It’s very directive. And that’s why I like the fact that you use the word tools because sometimes when you’re at a loss, if you have something to grab for a real concrete tool that almost is like, just do this. That help gets us into the location that we’re looking for.

And it’s so helpful.

[01:12:01] PJ Nestler: Yeah, it’s, it’s, uh, I, I use the analogy of like the anxiety and the thoughts can become a snowball

[01:12:07] Gabby: and

[01:12:07] PJ Nestler: they build that self perpetuating loop builds into this big snowball and you have to stop that snowball at some point. And if you can stop it, then it can give you the opportunity to redirect it and build momentum the other way.

But you, if you don’t stop it, it’s really hard because it’s building and building and building. And you’re trying to like insert things that are not giving you an opportunity to stop it. Right. And when we get into the real time application of this, I’ll give you more examples of like that instant thing that you do to stop it.

But they, uh, and you mentioned also, um, you said something that I wanted to,

[01:12:44] Gabby: Oh, just talking about something to do. Because I think it’s sometimes again, that biology. And like you said, it’s either working for you or against you. It’s either a weapon or it’s so this in a way, all of life has so much gray, but these are some times that it’s very black and white.

Either you’re moving in this direction that supports you or you’re not. It’s not like, Hey, you’re doing pretty good.

[01:13:09] PJ Nestler: Yeah.

[01:13:10] Gabby: It’s usually not like that.

[01:13:11] PJ Nestler: Yeah. That there’s not much of that gray area. Oh, you said giving you something to do and believing you have that. And that’s an important point is the belief of your effectiveness of using the tools is a huge part of your ability to use them and belief comes from practice, but when I know I have the tool.

Then I’m much more likely to be okay because I have, I’ve got the tools for this and it reframes that stress and it puts me back in balance and expands my zone of resilience all in the same time in that moment as we, as we reframe this, um, what distress is that I’m facing. I’ll use this example too with, uh, in my relationship.

And when Pearl and I first started dating, she had gone through some. Difficult relationships and she’s like, I’m not ready for a relationship. We have a great friendship and professional relationship. And what if, what if this doesn’t work out and that gets deteriorated? And like, I don’t want to potentially give that up.

And, uh, I said this to her often, there’s actually a country song called what if that I sent to her and I was like, what if it all goes right? Cause we only have to be right once. Right. What if things work out and we’re the right match for each other and we found each other at the right time and the right approach and we’re both in the right mindset to make this thing work.

And we ended up getting married and we have a kid and we do these things. And part of that was for me too. I had the same, I had different fears, but what if, what if she’s controlling and she, you know, changes my lifestyle and I’m very independent, like I had those same thoughts. So it’s, it’s applicable in all these circumstances and you’re just reframing that thought.

And another way to reframe language is. Uh, think about how your language would change if you were coaching somebody that you loved. Yeah. Or how a coach that you love, that you respect from your life would speak to you. So when we’re in the pool, we talked about beating ourselves up and judging our performance.

When you come up from the pool and you failed, or you do this thing and you didn’t show up how you wanted to, and then you go right into like, Oh, I’m such an idiot, I’m so mentally weak. I’m such, I’m not going to use the terms that I use in myself often. But. I’m such a wuss. I’m such a failure. I can’t do this.

I’m a phony. I talk about this and I can’t even do it. That’s not going to serve you. And if you had your eight year old daughter who did the same thing, you would probably say, that’s okay, honey. Hey, let’s take a deep breath. Shake that one off. Come back over here. Let’s refocus and let’s try it

[01:15:41] Gabby: again.

[01:15:42] PJ Nestler: And that’s probably the language you would use or a coach would use.

And it doesn’t have to be so compassionate, like some people are a little more motivated by a little more strict language. It’s just about, is this serving me or not? There are times that being a little bit strict or a little negative self talk actually creates the outcome you’re looking for. So it’s not that there’s a right and wrong with this.

It’s just, is it creating the outcome that I want? Is it helping me? Is it serving me or hindering me? Um, another great thing in this context is where we start to insert things like mantras. So as you think about reframing this language and what you did differently, I say, what is one thing that you could say to yourself or one thing that I could say to you if I’m coaching someone?

Because usually a coach’s input can be more powerful than your own. What’s one thing I could say to you in that moment that would make you think that other outcome was different, what was possible or that would create that outcome. And this is another journaling exercise of coming up with mantras and thinking and they’re situation dependent and they’re very individual.

Uh, another piece of advice I got from Lenny Wiersma is, uh, don’t, when you’re coming up with these mantras or this positive self talk, don’t listen to yourself, talk to yourself. What that means is use second person language instead of first person, because our subconscious mind is much more susceptible to the input from others.

Then it is from ourselves. We go back to evolution. Like, well, I care what you all think about me because if you survive, it doesn’t really matter what I think about myself. It matters what you all think of me. Cause if you don’t think they’re at the same thing, I’m going to be ostracized from this group and I’m going to, I’m out, I’m dead.

Yeah. So we’re very susceptible to language from other people. So I’ll use that language. A lot of my mantras are in the second person. So instead of saying I can do this, I’ll say you can do this or you’ve got this PJ, you can do this. I’m just talking to myself. Uh, so I have a bunch of different mantras that I use in, in various circumstances.

One of them is, uh, you can do this. You’re built for this. You train for this. That’s, that’s where I go back to that evidence and I’m like, what? Yeah, I can show up in this difficult scenario because I trained for this. I do this thing in my daily life. This is who I am. And I’d say that to myself, this is who you are.

And that’s me reinforcing that person I want to become. That’s who you are. So this is an opportunity to show up as that person. And that’s another way of reframing the language, but also I’ve reshaped the stress. That’s a growth mindset approach. Like this isn’t this debilitating thing that I am forced to deal with.

This is an opportunity for me to either overcome it. Or learn

[01:18:29] Gabby: as I work

[01:18:30] PJ Nestler: through

[01:18:30] Gabby: as you’re going through another thing I learned, and this is different because let’s, let’s be clear, physical stress, no matter what is easier than emotional and personal stress, interpersonal relationships, worrying of the future.

This is harder. Something about physical stress is sort of really straightforward. Uh, it can kill you, but it’s also, there’s something really straightforward to me about it, but is. is when you’re kind of, you know, working it out in the moment. I think there is something, um, in the personal side, for example, we can, we can try again in the, in the physical, like come back over here.

Let’s recover. We’ll get situated. Try again. You can also do this in the, in the moment personally. You could be in a work situation or a personal dynamic and you could start one way, your first try, your first rep. It didn’t go great. You actually have the ability, I think, to say, you know what, I’m really sorry.

That’s not how I meant to come at you or how I meant to react. I’m going to, I’d like to redo this. And so I just want to encourage people as awkward as that sounds. Uh, you can, I think it’s a very powerful thing that you give yourself the, the, uh, sort of permission because what happens is I think we enter into dynamic with a partner or kid or something and then all of a sudden we’re just locked into that gear instead of saying and we’ll just be like fine I’m just going to blow this whole thing up right now and I’ll deal with the pieces later.

I’ve seen that in my own life. Laird tends to do that more like I’m, I’m digging my hole I’m just going to go now to China like he just goes like oh we’re in the I’m just going to go all the way, you know, but also to remind people you can pull back. You can go, Hey, you know what? Let’s, let’s, let’s start again.

And, and just remind people too, that even in that exact moment, like in a physical task, Hey, you didn’t get the time you wanted. Come back. Let’s start again. I think you can do that personally.

[01:20:36] PJ Nestler: Yeah. I think it’s, I mean, there’s one thing I say a lot in the gym, which is make every rep count. And like we said, everything matters.

If you showed up in that scenario and you didn’t do what you wanted, you have the opportunity to, Hey, Let that rep go. Yeah. Get the next rep right. Yeah. And, and even if that’s in the same conversation, Pearl is great at this. She’ll often show up in a conversation where we have a disagreement and it’s like in the middle of it she’ll stop and I didn’t like how I showed up in that.

Yeah. What I said there or you know, Can we, can we start over? Can I try this again? Yeah. And it’s like, And that can be difficult for me. I have a, I’m probably a little more like you want to win. You want to win? Yeah. I’m very, uh,

[01:21:20] Gabby: I’m quick to anger and I have, I’ve

[01:21:22] PJ Nestler: got all the reasons and I go into all that in my mind.

It takes me a little more. I have different tools for me to show up the right way. And it’s harder, much harder for me in the moment. But what I’ve gotten a lot better at is stepping out of the moment and coming back quicker Versus just letting it deteriorate for four days at a time.

[01:21:39] Gabby: Yeah,

[01:21:41] PJ Nestler: I think I gave that example in Well, let me finish this rewire and I’ll go back to exactly how I went through this But the last step of that is to execute so you’ve got

[01:21:53] Gabby: there’s all that there’s always

[01:21:54] PJ Nestler: that yeah You’ve got to go and take action You have to do do one of the things take one step in the right direction because you could do all of this stuff in your head and But if you don’t prove it, if you don’t complete that feedback loop with the activity, the action, you’re not going to build thought and the belief and all of those things.

You’re not going to completely rewire. You’ve started the reprogramming, but if you don’t act on it. It just stops there. And then the next time that loop kicks in, it’s going to go over into that negative one. So once you act, you complete that loop and you just start the momentum and you don’t have to finish everything.

Just take one step in the right direction. That’ll start that process. So as you go through that cycle, so that’s. Uh, recognize the thought, explore the underlying belief, win the conversations with, by finding evidence to the contrary, reframe the language into a positive way, using some mantras, using best case scenario, a lot of examples we gave there, and then execute

[01:22:53] Gabby: that last

[01:22:54] PJ Nestler: piece and take action.

That’s that whole offline process that I’ll encourage people to journal and go through and practice and do in different situations. Uh, And, and you’re building that kind of neural circuitry that rewires this because that’s the stuff is all developed to happen without you thinking about it. Your thoughts, your breathing, all of these are unconscious things that happen without you exerting conscious control, but you also have the option to exert conscious control and then practicing it, start to rewire it in that neural patterning that happens when you do things over and over and over again that makes them habitual.

So that when I’m in the moment, maybe the next time I face that stress, I actually make the right choice without even I go back and go, Whoa, that was crazy. I didn’t even respond to that 10 years ago. And it’s hard to recognize, you know, cause you’ve made such marginal improvements. It’s really hard to recognize until someone else goes, the PJ that I knew 10 years ago would have punched that guy’s teeth out.

[01:23:54] Gabby: And

[01:23:55] PJ Nestler: now all of a sudden you like take this different path and, and. You know, it’s those little marginal improvements that you’ve made over time that’ll help you recognize that. But then you can take that process once you’ve done it and you’ve refined it and you’ve built that evidence pool. You don’t have to do this all the time.

Then you can do this in real time and you could take that rewire process and go a little bit faster. So it’s the same thing. Recognize that negative self talk in the moment. I did that swim. I, the talk to me was water came in my eyes and I went, Oh, I’m not gonna be able to see I want to, I won’t be able to complete this.

And you know, it’s not a perfect rep for me. I came up and I quit. Then I beat myself up over it.

[01:24:37] Gabby: And how much crap did the two boys give you on the other end? None at all. Oh really?

[01:24:42] PJ Nestler: No. They’re just like, Oh, what happened? Stupid goggles came off. I got water in my eyes, but I was beating myself up

[01:24:48] Gabby: and

[01:24:49] PJ Nestler: then I’m like, and I looked at that.

And I said. Okay, I got to win and reframe, reframe this language. Let that rep go. I didn’t complete that. I didn’t show up how I could. I could have closed my eyes and kept swimming. There was a lot of things I could have done to do differently to, to be the person that I say I am. Because that little thing that went wrong caused me to go haywire.

So I’m like, Hey, okay, I’ve got this. I can do this. I can get to the wall, push off. If the goggles come off, I’m swimming straight. That’s weird. I’m just going to keep swimming until I reach my physical limit and I can do that. So I’m reframing this language. I’m like, you can do this. You’ve done this before.

You’ve swum 50 meters underwater. So this, this was a 25 meter pool. So I went 25 and turned around and Mark and Aaron were getting to like halfway back. So they’re getting 75 meters. So in my head, I’m just like, You can do this. You know you can get there. This is an opportunity. We weren’t competing. We were kind of competing.

You guys are

[01:25:48] Gabby: always competing. But in

[01:25:49] PJ Nestler: my head I was like, I’m not going to leave right now on that one. Because this is an opportunity for me to just rewire. And I just want to do this. I don’t care if I beat them. I just want to prove to myself that that thing was not going to limit me. That’s not the person I am.

That was just a bad rep. I’m going to let that one go. And I’m going to complete it. So I’ve win and reframe that conversation and then execute, then do the thing and prove to yourself. And that’s what I did. I went there, I pushed off, I came back, I got about halfway about where they were finishing. And I was like, Okay, I probably could have gone a little bit further, but I’m okay with that performance.

And I could, we could have stayed forever and kept doing that. Of course, then Mark did it and went the whole way. So in my head, but I was like, okay, I’m not really here to compete with Mark. That was my opportunity to beat myself. To, to compete with myself on that one thing, to reframe this thing was an opportunity to not let that failure define me.

And really the way that I, the language I used, I don’t care that I failed. I care that I quit because I had the first opportunity. The first thing that went wrong, I took it, took that way out. And like people do in the pool, sure. Hey, get to there and back. And where do they come up? On that wall.

[01:27:07] Gabby: Yeah. The metaphoric wall.

Yeah. I always say that’s, is it really a wall? Why is that the end?

[01:27:13] PJ Nestler: Yeah. It’s not your limit. It was just the most convenient place for you to quit. And as soon as you had the convenience of.

[01:27:21] Gabby: You just, someone

[01:27:22] PJ Nestler: gave you a way out and you took, yeah,

[01:27:24] Gabby: I, I, the other day I was training in the Kauai pool and it’s bigger, it’s wider and I haven’t been training.

It’s been cold here. I’m a, you know, I have my princess moments. And so I was like, uh, training and I thought, oh, I warmed up a bit. So I was opened up, you know, after about 15 minutes, you, you know, you can go further. I think everything seems to be opened up. So I thought, oh, I’ll end my training with a five banger, you know, just freestyle.

And when I, I got there, I, I was like, Oh, you can do six, you know, cause I felt it. I was like, you have, you can do sex. And I was like, why am I doing this? This is stupid. I don’t really want to do this. Why am I doing this? It’s uncomfortable. And then it’s that quick exit from your brain. That’s one thing that the pool has really taught me is either I push myself on the shoulder, like, Oh, you’re being so silly, you know, or get out of your head, get out.

And I think that that has also been really helpful because when everybody talks about, Oh, be in the moment and be present. It’s impossible. Turn the chatter off. Like you talked about a thousand times per second, even if it’s half that. So I guess my point is, is this what you’re talking about? We’ll also give you this skill sometimes to just jump out of the, of the, of the circle itself and they’ll hold them among the talk.

And we’re not our thoughts and that it’s true. And so what I have learned is in those moments when I’m really doing good is when I stop altogether. And it might only be for 10 seconds, but I jump out of my own thoughts and literally just do the thing, whatever it is. Um, and, and something else that really shows up for me when you talk about this and as somebody who has Only lived a little bit longer as a very, I’m a very prideful person.

I will admit this, I have said this many times, Laird is the one who taught me to apologize in my relationships, because I didn’t want to ever be wrong. I wanted to be so conscientious to do everything right, to talk right, to treat people right. I didn’t, I didn’t want to be wrong. I didn’t want to be called out for doing it wrong or saying it wrong.

Um, and that was something that was really hard for me to look at. But what I’ve learned through all of this and like what you’re talking about is to, to create that runway, to create that space. Between the stimulus and the reaction to yield, to not react, to not have to be tough or correct or right, or in any way dominant is actually to be the strongest.

And once we start to view it that way, to let our partner win, I put that in quotes, to let the person who took your parking spot that you’re waiting for with your blinker on, and they zoom in there to let them win. You can get out of your car and go, Hey, Did you not see me? I think it’s okay to stand up for yourself, but to, to not only not react, but to kind of what we perceive is let everybody win around us, especially on the personal stuff I think is.

Really the deep strength and then to kind of get excited about that. Like I was so silently strong for myself. I let them be right. I let them yell at me and I didn’t respond or whatever the million things that happened. I think that that starts to show up too, which then makes you weirdly stronger when you have to go publicly speak because you’re like, you’re developing yourself in a way that gives you a metal.

interior metal to deal with real stressful things, physical or emotional, because you take all of those practices. And that is something when I heard you talk about this, I was like, yes, and it’s people realizing that the space is the strength. It’s that choice. It’s that decision. And it’s really, really powerful.

And it’s quiet. Nobody’s like, good job. You’re a tough guy. But it’s the real stuff. And, um, and I see it in all the people that I genuinely respect.

[01:31:36] PJ Nestler: I love that. And I think you mentioned doing the difficult thing. And I think that’s a really important point for people. What I recommend on this process is like, once you go through this is Then you have to start implementing it in a variety of circumstances and gradually increase the stress in those circumstances.

But doing the difficult thing doesn’t mean doing the thing that looks the hardest. And often, um, actually someone, uh, Carrie Walsh said this to me when we were talking about being a professional athlete. And she was like, to be a professional athlete, you have to do all the hard things. Hard workouts are not the hard thing for a professional athlete.

For people like us who’ve spent our whole lives in the physical space, hard workouts are our comfort zone. It’s not hard for me to show up. I love it! There’s days that I don’t want to do it. And then those are days I can lean in, but the hard thing for a, for an athlete is the recovery. Are you doing the stretching?

You’re supposed to be doing the corrective exercise, the, and that’s where I think that hopefully people listening to this don’t think that this is an opportunity to go practice this, to be this dominant physical person and crush a Spartan race or whatever. You can do those things. But the hardest things for me are those moments.

It’s letting that guy win. In that parking space or taking a deep breath and letting somebody else step over this thing and screw it up. Um, maybe it’s, uh, not eating chocolate. There’s so many moments that I, I mean, I haven’t eaten candy in two months only because I was when Jackson was born.

[01:33:16] Gabby: Yeah.

[01:33:17] PJ Nestler: I noticed that I was going to that.

That’s, that’s my thing.

[01:33:20] Gabby: Well, it’s a stressor of relief.

[01:33:21] PJ Nestler: Stress relief when I’m not physically training, I’m eating a lot more candy. So the less training I’m doing, I, the more candy I eat. And I was just like, I want to prove to myself that I have conscious control over this. That doesn’t mean I’m never going to eat candy for the rest of my life, but I was just like, I’m cutting it out a hundred percent and I’m just not touching it because, and the hard moment for me is when I’m sitting there and nobody else is there and there’s no, there’s nobody else who cares.

Nobody in my life gives a shit if I eat that Reese’s or I don’t. But in my mind, I’m like, this is an opportunity for me to do the hard thing and that’s hard for me. And those little moments that happen often are much harder than that one hard workout that I did on Monday. And that’s for a lot of people.

And that’s where I like, I think that it’s really something that I appreciate when you see somebody who, you know, As an alcoholic or a gambler, compulsive gambler or addicted to porn or addicted to all of these, these different things that they use to numb themselves and they lean into that, like that is really, really difficult.

Yeah. Especially when it’s something that’s socially acceptable. Smoking weed or something that where it’s like everyone around you does it. Nobody cares that you do it and you’re still have the mental fortitude and accountability to lean into that and to overcome every one of those little triggers that happens all day long that gets you to want to eat that candy or take that drink or watch TV.

Um, so I think those moments are, are those are the people that are the mentally that are mentally tough is when the, when you have the. self control to be able to implement across all of these circumstances.

[01:35:00] Gabby: Yeah. And, and the other thing that also I’ve learned, I’ll just share some quick, easy ones. When I’m in training and I boff it, let’s say I don’t do it.

I have more of a sense of humor, like, Oh, that wasn’t good. And then I’m like, okay, let’s go, Gabby. Like, I will talk to myself in that directive way. But it’s instead of like, I’m just like, Ooh, yeah, no. Cause I used to have teammates. Like you do something weird and they’d be like, what was that? You know, but it was better.

[01:35:30] PJ Nestler: Yeah. Yeah. It’s bringing humor. It was

[01:35:32] Gabby: like, okay. Yeah.

[01:35:33] PJ Nestler: A little self deprecating humor. Yeah.

[01:35:35] Gabby: And then, and then with my partner and let’s say with Laird or, um, I just, sometimes if we’re getting into it, I just remind myself, I just say the word love. Cause what am I trying to be? Just trying to be loving. And maybe that’ll guide me.

easier. And, and with my kids, what also has really helped me is because we’re worried. So we react because we’re fearful because we care and we don’t want them to be hurt ever is they’re going to be okay. I will be going something, especially with my, with Brody or any of them. And it’ll something will be going on and I can feel myself self starting to get wound up or worried.

Like, is she going to be always like this or whatever? And I just tell myself they’re going to be okay. And sometimes those mantras like you talk about really simple, really personal that put me into the mindset of that, that macro mindset that I’m trying to see things at, like this is going to be fine.

And a great analogy I heard is somebody said, if, uh, I’m trying to remember what book I read it out of, but it was, you go to the tee, you’re at the first hole, you’re going to play golf. You drive it, you snap it into the bushes, you flip out. Why do you flip out? Cause you think that’s how the rest of the round’s going to go.

But if I came up to you and I whispered in your PJ, you’re going to have the best round of your life. You wouldn’t react. You’d be like, okay, next shot. And I always really appreciated that because that’s really the reaction is because it means, Oh no, this is how the whole thing’s going to go. And that’s not the case.

[01:37:09] PJ Nestler: Yeah. You start to, I mean, that’s, that’s anxiety, right? Oh, well, if I did this, then what if this, and then this, and then,

[01:37:15] Gabby: yeah. And now I’m going to be out four hours on a golf course

[01:37:18] PJ Nestler: in hell. And then my, these guys aren’t going to invite me to come back with them because I’m the weak link of the group. I mean, the, the amount of that stuff that happens in those narratives is, is so crazy sometimes.

And it’s funny, like when you start journaling these things and you

[01:37:31] Gabby: go, what? We’re insane.

[01:37:33] PJ Nestler: Yeah.

[01:37:33] Gabby: We’re insane.

[01:37:35] PJ Nestler: And then you just, I love to take the context of imagine you give telling someone else that imagine you telling that to your daughter or to your loved one or to someone you coach, And you’re like, I would never say something like that to those people.

But we say it to ourselves constantly, but I think having the humor is another great part. I mean, these are all,

[01:37:56] Gabby: well, that’s come some humorous, easier also when you fall on your face so many times that you’re just like, Oh God, okay. Like it’s fine. And the other thing is when you talk about the public speaking, I’ll just offer one more.

Um, if I know I do my homework, like I try to always be prepared for things, but if I I just say to myself, do the best you can. Just do your best. So as I’m going up and getting ready to talk to people, just do your best, be yourself and do your best. And literally you kind of feel like that’s a good starting place.

[01:38:32] PJ Nestler: Yeah. I love that. One that I use a lot in speaking is just help one person. And I know like, cause I, there’s many times where I share things that I’m like, well, wait a minute, I’m going to talk performance mindset. There’s a sports psychologist in the crowd. He, what if he thinks I’m not, what if something I say is incorrect?

It’s going to be,

[01:38:53] Gabby: and it

[01:38:54] PJ Nestler: Might be incorrect just in his understanding of it. But this is my understanding based on all the information that I’ve gathered. And I believe that there’s at least one person in that audience that’s going to listen and is going to get a benefit. I’m just going to talk to that person.

And I don’t have to worry so much because there will always be the next person above that can be potentially judging what you’re doing. And I’ve done that many times where I’m presenting to a group of a hundred people that don’t know anything about health and performance. But Dr. Andy Galpin’s there.

And I’m like, what could I say to impress Dr. Andy Galpin? And then I’m like, if I focus so much on impressing him, there’s going to be a hundred people who are lost in this conversation. Right. If I deliver to them, the funniest part about that too, is when you deliver it and then they come up after and a guy like Andy Galpin goes, I’ve never heard someone break that down so simply.

That was really awesome. Yeah. And you’re like. Because you just focused on these people. Like, yeah, I don’t speak the scientific language that he speaks. So if I try to impress him, I’ll probably fail there and fail here. But if I just focus on the people I can help with the things that I’m saying, it’s helpful for me because then I don’t have to be the expert.

I can screw it up. I don’t have to be the world’s best presenter. I’m just here to share information that might help a few of you.

[01:40:05] Gabby: I also last night, um, Brody was being incredibly rude, you know, just, it’s like a sport for her. She just comes home and she acts annoyed. So I, I, I was like, and I thought I’m not going to solve this by confronting her, you know, the junior in high school.

It’s like, you know, but what I did is I, um, we said goodnight and then I went out to my room and I had this thing still inside. So I wrote her a note and I just said, you know, um, those questions that I asked you were more than reasonable. And, um, You know, it’s just a displaced amount of attitude. It’s unnecessary.

That’s all I said. No emotion. And, and so what I did was I stayed in love. I didn’t freak out, but I did speak my truth, whether she heard it or not. I felt better. Right. But I guess that’s the point too, is within all of this is still, we have to be who we are because that’s the only way we can really actually navigate it because the more we know who we are, then we can.

You know, navigate this path. And you’re really, really good at that self awareness and sort of knowing how you like things. Um, and I really, you know, I really appreciated this when you, when you shared this talk, that’s why I wanted to have you here today. But I also, um, I’m so excited to see in all the other ways, Because for me, you’re just getting started.

Like, I appreciate that you train all the athletes and you’ve written all this programming, but I actually think that you’re just getting started in being able to put together systems for people on things that are complex and also really, really common. Um, so I, I just, I really appreciate you, PJ,

[01:41:44] PJ Nestler: a lot. I appreciate you and having me here to share some of these thoughts.

[01:41:48] Gabby: And maybe just direct, direct people, remind them all the places they can find you. So they can, cause you do a lot of stuff on your social media and talk about a lot of different modalities and training and breathing patterns and, and just a lot of things around self care.

[01:42:04] PJ Nestler: Yeah. Best places to find me is either my personal Instagram, which is coach PJ Nestler, uh, or XPT life.

Everything, the vast majority of my thoughts and systems that I’m trying to implement, all of those things we do through XPT. So that’s really what my, uh, mechanism to share a lot of this with the world.

[01:42:24] Gabby: Okay. And then, uh, on the rewiring side, it is reminding people that it may feel like a really big mountain, but you’d be surprised with a little bit of practice, um, using these tools off and online, how quickly you can start to make changes.

And be careful of the people in your life who don’t let you. So, for example, Laird was a very difficult young person. And we’ll go back to Kauai and guys will be like, well, you know how Laird is. And I’m like, you mean 40 years ago? So also, I just want to end this by reminding people, if you’re making the changes, try to make sure that the people around you are also allowing that.

Because there’s nothing kind of worse than you are consciously making changes and people try to keep throwing you back into who you are. And we have to be mindful not to do that to each other. So I just want to bring that up because I’ve seen that too in real time. So our kids change, our partners change, we can change, like our bosses can change, like people can change, employees can change.

We PJ Nestler, thanks for your time. Thanks for listening everyone. Thank you for listening to this week’s episode. If you want to learn more, there is a ton of valuable information on my website. All you have to do is go to GabrielleReese. com or head to the episode show notes to find a full breakdown with helpful links to studies, research, books, podcasts, and so much more.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out and send them to at Gabby Reese on Instagram. And if you feel inspired, please subscribe. I’ll see you next week.

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About Coach PJ Nestler

Meet PJ Nestler, a human performance specialist with over a decade of experience preparing top athletes for competition. His life mission is to help athletes and coaches realize their true potential.

With a passion for sports and a commitment to excellence, PJ has become a leader in sports performance training. He has trained dozens of athletes from the NFL, NHL and MLB and has worked extensively with over 100 fighters, including multiple Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Champions and Top 10 ranked UFC fighters.

Through the application of his progressive training philosophy and unique approach to every situation, Coach PJ continues to raise the bar for fitness professionals. He has emerged as a sought-after expert in human performance and trainer education.