S05E171 - From Gym to Life: Unleashing True Potential via the Right Confidence
Can overcoming challenges in the gym transform your life outside of it? Coaches David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic believe it can, and we unpack the pivotal role confidence plays in both fitness and coaching. We share stories from our CrossFit community at Bison and Brock's Taekwondo classes, highlighting how confidence transcends physical achievements and prepares us for real-life scenarios. Join us as we spotlight the inspiring journeys of our interns, Keith and Tara, whose preparation and communication skills are crucial to their growing confidence.
Reno's remarkable shift from triathlon to CrossFit and bodybuilding serves as a testament to building confidence through experience. Discover how focusing on the process rather than results can lead to small victories that fuel larger achievements. Reno's story underscores the powerful connection between fitness, mental toughness, and life success, showing that confidence isn't just about what happens in the gym—it's a mindset that permeates all aspects of life. We also tackle strategies to combat negative self-talk that can undermine confidence and performance, emphasizing the importance of mental resilience.
Confidence isn't just about seeking external validation—it's about finding purpose and balance in oneself. We explore the emotional highs and lows of athletic performance and the need for athletes to maintain humility and resilience amidst success and setbacks. Learn how mindfulness and realistic self-assessment can help athletes harness confidence as a tool for growth rather than relying on external approval. We wrap up with an exploration of coaching culture, urging coaches to prioritize the service and well-being of athletes over personal recognition, thereby fostering a positive gym environment that champions authentic confidence and growth.
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S05E171 - From Gym to Life: Unleashing True Potential via the Right Confidence
TRANSCRIPT
Speaker Names
David SyvertsenHost
00:05
Hey everybody, welcome to the Herd Fit Podcast with Dr Sam Rhee and myself, coach David Syvertson. This podcast is aimed at helping anyone and everyone looking to enhance their healthy lifestyle through fitness, nutrition and, most importantly, mindset. All right, welcome back to the Herd Fit Podcast. I'm Coach David Syvertson. I'm here with my co-host, dr and Coach Sam Marie, and today we're going to talk about confidence. We're going to talk about, you know, when Brock goes to karate taekwondo on Saturdays, they preach about confidence all the time at that young age, right before he breaks the board and they say like and he yells out confidence and he snaps the board in half and I love it. It's like one of my favorite things about going to watch him and it got me thinking one day recently in relation to CrossFit, because I go to that class and I watch Brock, obviously, and just have fun watching him do his thing with his tongue out of his mouth always. But also I kind of have a lot of respect for the guys there that run that operation over there. But also I kind of have a lot of respect for the guys there that run that operation over there.
01:06
It's mayhem at all times with a lot of kids. They have a lot of different levels, but they're really good at wrangling these little kids that have so much energy that literally just want to run into walls all day and getting them to like meditate, you know, and getting them to listen. There's something about that Taekwondo culture that almost scares you to the point like I better behave or else, and it gets them to really concentrate on things and believe in themselves. They had these kids fail a lot and then they go out and they get it done and they just leave different. I feel like Brock always leaves that room different than he enters, leaves that room different than he enters, and I try to relate that to CrossFit Bison that one of my goals here as a coach is to always help open the door to someone, building their confidence.
01:57
You know, I think that carries more into outside the gym than your good friend time, like the confidence that you can get from just the day-to-day stuff of overcoming these difficult tasks that we throw at you all the time. I think that can make you a more confident person. But on the flip side, if you feel like you're losing a lot at the gym, if you feel like you're not accomplishing things, it can diminish your confidence outside the gym as well. So I have been made at a point for a long time now that that is one of my goals when I coach. It's not just giving good cues. I want to build, help build confidence. I can't do it myself. You have to kind of put the initiative to build your own confidence and be aware of how, what you're feeling and all that. But I do think the door can be opened by a crossfit coach, crossfit community, crossfit program. Even so, sam, what is the samory definition of confidence?
Sam RheeCo-host
02:56
I have two definitions. Let's go. One is that the one that I pull from surgery, and that is preparedness. When I'm prepared, I'm confident, and I can relate that in a lot of different ways, but that is not necessarily what the general definition of confidence is, Because I have seen many people in many situations be extremely confident and I'm sure we'll talk about it extremely confident, and I'm sure we'll talk about it and they have no clue that they should not be confident in that situation or have people who should be extremely confident in a situation and they carry no confidence with them. And that's the more general type of confidence that I think we should be talking about, because that is a mix of a lot of different situations and factors and feelings and emotions. Yeah, and I think CrossFit is really helpful in a lot of ways of evaluating and building confidence.
David SyvertsenHost
03:52
Yeah, and it's definitely a program that's aimed at building confidence. If you really dumb it down, especially with how much we record and how many times we try to beat things right and beat scores and all that good stuff, the Bison Benchmark Workout is all about building confidence and ability to overcome difficult tasks. To me, confidence is belief in yourself or belief in whatever you're confident in. You know it could be your business, your family, your relationships. You truly, bottom of your heart, believe that you can do this. And I want to talk about confidence from an athlete perspective, which that's kind of like the low hanging fruit. But I also want to talk about confidence in coaches, the belief in yourself as a coach, because right now we have two interns that are almost done, keith and Tara, and I knew they would be. They're both home runs, they're going to be rock star coaches, and that's coming from feedback from members of Run Gym, not me, not you, not Liz.
04:51
I've had people come up to me after Keith's whiteboard talk and be like dude looks like he's been doing this for years and there's probably a lot of reasons behind that. It might be because he's already planning out this Friday's whiteboard talk here on Sunday afternoon Again, what is that called being prepared? Right, all right. Others are, you know, sport background. Tara works with people all the time with her physical therapy line of work and she taught college students. So A she's smarter than most people, including the two guys sitting at the table. True, very true. There's a skill to talking to people. Some people have it, some people don't, and that's okay. We all have strengths and weaknesses. I think she's very skilled at talking to people, great listener, looks you in the eye, she's smart, she's quick with her responses.
05:39
But I do remember the first time I've seen them talk in front of a group and this is about I don't know two months ago. They were not confident. You know, there there's a lot of different thoughts in your head that take you away from what you're doing in that moment, and that is, to me, what leads to a lack of confidence. You can say lack of being prepared, which is fine. First time talking in front of the class, you can't prepare for that. We've both been there in those shoes, so have all of our coaches.
06:09
But just having different thoughts in your head and not truly focusing on the task, that creates a lack of confidence. Lack of confidence will come up in terms of defining it and what to be aware of with yourself, but from a coaching perspective, they're night and day different. How they simply talk to a class, the tone of their voice is different than it was even just a few weeks ago, because every single time they get a little more confident and they hear less of the outside voices. So I want to look at this from both lenses today A coach building confidence your ability to do your thing and an athlete's confidence and how they can both carry into the gym and then outside the gym. Let's talk about Reno for a little bit. I love Reno.
Sam RheeCo-host
06:54
He's a very confident person.
David SyvertsenHost
06:55
Reno is one of my favorite. I shouldn't say that. Let's edit that out. No, I'm just kidding. He's an OG Bison guy.
07:03
His life has changed immensely since he walked into Bison and he came in. I remember him coming in and he was not unfit, but he wasn't. I wouldn't categorize him as like a very fit person and he actually kind of dove head in. But he always had a great attitude. He always kind of came in with like, what are we doing today? All right, he would always listen, he'd always try hard, he would pursue intensity. He even came back a few times and did the same workout twice a day for a while.
07:32
But if you, if you showed people what Reno is now which is a guy that is like you know, chiseled, rich, strong, great attitude, fun guy to be around, great presence around the gym and you showed those same people Reno when he first walked in, that would be one of those things like that's the same person. Now you could talk about the physical component, but I think his confidence has grown immensely since I knew him. Now I don't know Reno well enough, but I think every gym has this person Does well outside of the gym. Successful guy, okay, changes his body could start doing things that he could have no shot at doing seven, eight years ago again. Every gym has this person. Do you think CrossFit made him a more confident person?
Sam RheeCo-host
08:21
yes, but that wasn't the only thing that made him more confident.
David SyvertsenHost
08:23
Yeah, absolutely that was not the only thing. But now, does outside life make him more confident in the gym? Because I want to get this, this feeling, to everyone out there that's listening, that wavers with confidence. They can feed each other. What you do in the gym could feed your confidence outside the gym. What you do outside the gym could feed your confidence inside the gym. And and I want us to be on the same page that this is not I want to be more confident in the gym. This is I want to be a more confident person because it's going to help me in all areas of life and they could feed each other.
Sam RheeCo-host
08:56
Yeah, I think the fact that, reno, when I first started with him, or when he first started here, he was a triathlete guy, yeah, and he did a ton of training on that side, which builds a different body type than what CrossFit or bodybuilding or any kind of strength training does. I mean the guy was literally just swimming and running and biking hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles, yeah, and you see, those guys, they're thin Like, they're optimized for long, you know, lower intensity, longer duration, cardio, like very aerobic, and we've heard what's his face talk about it all the time. The triathlete, the trainer, we interviewed him, dylan Casey, no, he's the biker, forget it. Anyway, triathletes are different, right? Oh, alondra, no, the pro guy, the guy that we went to his hotel and we interviewed, oh Hinshaw, yeah, Chris.
09:59
Hinshaw Sorry, I was blanking, anyway and you know that's a totally different sort of mindset modality training and then he kind of flipped off of that and he's no longer doing triathlons, I think, and he's really gone, gotten into bodybuilding, bulking up, doing CrossFit, yep, and he always had his. Like, most people have their own base personality, right, right, like that doesn't change for people. But you can use that and leverage off of it. Karina always had enthusiasm for everything he did. He always goes into every. He's like the big Labrador, he's so frisky he just jumps into it. Yep, he always goes into every. He's like the big Labrador, he's so frisky he just jumps into it. He has no fear and he will do or try anything. But the fact that his capability at CrossFit increased as he really focused on it increased his confidence within the gym and I think when you can take away small wins, like at a gym, you can leverage that into different situations where you can feel that those small wins leverage you into different other wins.
David SyvertsenHost
11:08
Yeah, and to build on that situation even more is, you know, reno's gone from the Ironman and he had very competitive times in Ironman. He did it at a pretty high level higher than most and then he gets into the bodybuilding field and I think one thing that he can learn from a confidence perspective is that it's a process. You know I'm huge on I think we both are we're process over results, like focus on your process, focus on your process, stop worrying about the result. And Reno saw what him focusing on a process could do for any sort of goal he has. His goal shifts from this side to that side. So now that he's approaching a side that he had never touched that bodybuilder, that aesthetic looking thing, right, he knows that if he stays to a process he can overcome.
11:53
Because I feel that most people that do not accomplish the goals that they want to accomplish whether it's aesthetic performance, healthy lifestyle they don't believe in themselves when it gets hard, because anything worth pursuing that is really difficult. That if you prove to yourself at one point that you can do something like that, no matter what goal comes your way, you've already conditioned this response to hey, I'm going to overcome this little moment. Right here. I hit some adversity. I've already overcome adversity in my life with this other goal. I'm going to carry that experience into this one and that is where I think, if you focus on your I sound like Rafi right now. If you can really be present with your mind on why does your confidence waver up and down and how much does that affect the quest for your actual result. That's where I think you can overcome these obstacles. But you have to be present with those thoughts. You can't just pick up I failed again. I didn't get to my goal. This person's hitting their goals, I'm again. Oh, I didn't get to my goal. Oh, this person's hitting their goals, I'm not. It has much more to do with that ability and understanding what a failure truly is, and being prepared versus not being prepared. You need to know that stark difference when pursuing any sort of goal, and that is that in and of itself can build your confidence.
13:11
Now let's talk about some pros and cons of having a little too much confidence, because we've seen both we coach a lot of people and maybe we've experienced this ourselves that if you're too confident, I do think there are pros to it. The outsiders will say there's a lot of cons because people are threatened by confident people. Just from my experience, they don't like it when someone's too confident themselves. Whether they're justified in feeling that way, thinking that way, saying things about them, is another discussion. I don't want to get this into a moral thing of like, should you care, but there are pros and cons. I will say this I would rather work with someone that's too confident than not confident enough, because that's again like I said on a previous podcast life will usually bring that person down, especially crossfit.
14:00
Like you could be the most confident dude in the world, a girl in the world, like I'm just like, all right, we'll wait till the open. You know that's why we have a lot of situations over the years like, oh, that person is cocky, they're not squatting well, they think their scores are this, but they're really that. I'm just like the open's coming. Like they'll find out. Like let them find out the real way, not your opinion way, what are? And again, you could reflect on yourself as a coach. Just don't throw anyone under the bus or your own personal experiences, crossfit or not, of having a little too much confidence and a negative, of what that can actually do to you in a negative light.
Sam RheeCo-host
14:34
Most of the time when I see someone who's overconfident, it's a lack of knowledge. They just don't know. Yet there's that curve, you see, with people in terms of confidence, where they don't really know what they're into. So they feel very confident like, oh, I've watched, I could hit an 80 mile per hour fastball. I've watched them, they can do that. You just swing the right and then you start and so you're very overconfident with that because you don't really know what it involves. Then you get to do it and you're like whoa, this is a lot harder than I thought. And then your confidence level goes way down and then you keep working with it and then it comes back up again.
15:09
And I think for most people, when they well, some personality types are just listen, they're always going to be that way, yep, yep, and and I think we all know that person who just always thinks that they can do everything like, and you know, in the face of reality. But I think for most of us, when we first come into almost any situation, if, if we haven't had the experience, we'll be like, yeah, yeah, I could do that, I, I could snatch uh, experience was my word. I still have the experience, yet I can snatch 135. I'm just as strong as that guy does. Look, watch him. I can do that. And then you get into it. And that's like he said when reality starts.
David SyvertsenHost
15:48
Yeah, I think a con to too much confidence is, I think a key mark to any successful story is humility. So if you have too much experience, that could mean that you don't have enough humility to really, you know, open the doors to what you actually need to work on and reality. And usually that does come from a lack of experience. And I think a pro to too much confidence is it can open some doors that you normally wouldn't open, meaning we have people that will not walk into this door ever because they're not confident enough. Right, I think? In my opinion, it takes a certain level of confidence, maybe some ambition, to walk into a CrossFit gym such as this one. True, and I know for a fact that there are dozens, maybe hundreds of people in this Midland Park area that if they had more confidence, they would come here and this thing would change their life. But because they don't have that confidence, they won't even open the door. So I like someone that is confident enough to at least open the door and look in, maybe even confident enough to take a step in without anyone holding their hand and then which most people have to do at some point confident enough to actually take this on this difficult task to do at some point, confident enough to actually take this. On this difficult task, I think there's a certain level of confidence to anyone that comes to a gym such as this with a really hard workout because, like you're, like, hey, I know I can get through it. It's going to suck and I'm going to complain about it the whole time, but I'm confident enough that I can get through this and then go carry on for the rest of my day. That is confidence right there. So to say that, like hey, everyone that comes across the channel, we all struggle with confidence issues. I think all of you guys are confident enough. Now can we leverage that into other areas of your life?
17:23
I had someone tell me that you know this is the time of year where a lot of people do yard work and he goes, he goes. I had so much work to do in my yard leaves, mulch, sticks, grass, everything and it was like an all day thing. And he goes. I just kept approaching every little task like an AMRAP of a workout. He goes. He took this and he goes and it gave me all the confidence in the world that I could do all this physical stuff. And he goes, these workouts. It actually gave me the confidence that I can go take this on, where, if I didn't have that workout background, that AMRAP background, that daily WOD background, I probably wouldn't believe in myself enough that I could take this on. I would quit and then I get frustrated because all this work is not done.
18:03
These are things that I think are our pros of having confidence. What about pros and cons of not having enough confidence? I just gave the obvious one of like hey, you're not even going to start this stuff because you're too scared. But let's say you have a member here that they're working out, or a coach they're coaching a class and they really do struggle with, like that internal lack of confidence. They don't want to put themselves out there. They're constantly doubting themselves. What are some things that that could eventually lead to?
Sam RheeCo-host
18:36
I think that it can lead to like a self-negative feedback loop and those are the kind of things that we, as coaches and as athletes, we need to break so and I've seen that I, literally two weeks ago, worked out next to someone someone I love, yep, and we were both doing the workout and it was pretty hard and about I would say, three quarters of the way in, both of us like just kind of fell apart on it.
19:03
You know, like I don't remember, I don't want to, I don't remember exactly, but we are supposed to do something unbroken or keep going, and both of us broke. I remember watching her next to me and we both just couldn't like keep going. We stopped and we took this big ass rest and then we kept going at the end and she was so down on herself she's like man, I really that that was terrible and I couldn't hang on and I couldn't hang on to the barbell and I couldn't like do another rep and I said, yeah, but you know what that taught us, like when I took away from that was I needed to slow my pace down a little bit before that and I needed to get to that part of the workout and know that that was a learning experience.
19:49
You could either look at that and be like I suck and I can't do that and I really shouldn't be doing that again, or you could look at it as that showed me how I could do better the next time. So a failure which that essentially was could either build you up or bring you down, and some of that is the mindset that you bring into it, and some of it is like what happened that day, or maybe outside experience, but a lot of it is really your own mind and are you using these experiences to build yourself up in terms of confidence or not? And a lot of people will spiral. They'll feel like something didn't go right and then that kind of makes them avoid that situation and then they continue to decrease in terms of how confident they feel in that situation.
David SyvertsenHost
20:32
Yeah, that's a good example of, or I have a good example of that exact situation the open workout, 24.2 last year, one with the rowing, the jump rope, the deadlifts that Aaron beat me in. It's not so bothering me, it's not, but I remember kind of falling off my pace about eight minutes into a 20 minute workout and because I started falling off pace, my confidence in myself just dwindled and I actually, because of my confidence dwindling, mid workout I slowed down even more. It wasn't like my body couldn't handle everything or even like maybe holding close to the pace but not quite being there, but because I knew I was going down, I actually started to almost borderline give up. I'm like I'm not going to hit my goal. I'm just not good enough at this. I still suck at double unders when it gets to high volume and these voices in my head diminished my confidence to the point where it actually capped my potential on that workout.
21:31
I think the biggest con to a lack of confidence all right, assuming that you've actually come in here as an athlete is that the second you realize that and your example earlier, you learned in real time you're not that athlete, you can't do that. You kind of just shut down, you become a turtle, and there's a lot, I would say there's dozens of athletes that I see in this gym I'm big on. You will go as far as your mind wants to take you. There are physical requirements to hit certain scores and abilities and weights and movements, yes, but once you're I think most people I would say 9% of people in this gym they don't reach the potential and I think it's mental Always Because they don't know how to handle the adversity in the moment. You might reflect on it later on and be like, oh, I should have done that. Well, guess what? It's over. You lost your shot.
22:19
So your job now is that preparing and building yourself, your confidence that the next time, that kind of moment where I fall off pace and I can't hit that goal, that you don't beat yourself up. You now create either a new goal in your head or you're just going to say I'm not going to let this slow me down even further. That's really tough. I struggle with that Once I start losing. In a workout I lost to Alex. We went head to head in a workout and I started to lose to him about I don't know six minutes into a 12 minute workout or 14 minute workout and I slowed down even more after he passed me and I was just like man, I got to stop doing it. I got to find a way to get that edge back. But that's like a lack of confidence in myself in that workout.
Sam RheeCo-host
23:01
That happens so often both to me and to others, like I'm in a run workout and if I pass someone, I know I got them Like they're going to slow down and they're not going to keep up to pace.
David SyvertsenHost
23:12
I mean that's a competing strategy that some coaches will talk about.
Sam RheeCo-host
23:15
I've heard Matt Frazier talk about that Get ahead of them, get ahead of them. And you see that and that's happened to me Someone beats, like, starts getting ahead of me on reps and I'll just slow down because I can't keep up. So my final result is just not as good because this guy just like went faster than I did. That is a huge part of finding mental toughness, because this is not Listen. We're not asking people to be tougher than who they are, right, like listen, you just can do what you can do. I'm not asking you to like push through the pain, right, right, or, or, you know, dig even deeper, listen, dig to where you can. But if you do slow down or you do like get beat or you do feel like you can't keep up, don't somehow fall off what you know you can do. And that, I think, is where the confidence part of things can play such an important role.
David SyvertsenHost
24:10
And now that I'm just reflecting on that situation, it's does our confidence. And this is where the times we live in now in social media, where everyone can maybe in some case everyone does know what you're doing every day based on how active you are on social media, do the opinions of others and what you think they think about you because most of you guys never actually confirm what others think about you it kind of creates narratives in your head oh, these people think I'm awesome, these people think I suck, these people think I'm cocky, these people think I'm blah, blah, blah, whatever right. Does that dictate your confidence? That's where I get nervous about this with a lot of people that I'm close with is that their self-worth is fully dependent on what others think about them. This workout example of you passing someone if you're the one that gets passed, does your brain immediately go into man, I'm losing. Or it's like oh, these people are going to think a certain thing about me. Or in the CrossFit Open, you want it to be top 10%. You weren't even top 20% Is your first belief. What are they going to think about me? I used to be this caliber athlete. Now I'm down here. What do people think about me.
25:25
If that makes your confidence waver up and down, I think there needs to be a awareness and be a plan to get away from that thinking, because you're never going to be that person that everyone always believes in, that everyone always likes, that everyone thinks you're on a pedestal right. You're never going to be that person. But you're also probably never going to be that person where everyone thinks bad about you. I think we do get worked up a little too much about what others think about us. Example someone has a bad workout, for whatever reason. They get so upset and like sometimes like I don't think they're upset about the workout. I don't. I think they're okay. If no one in the world knew that the person had a bad workout, I don't think they'd be upset. But they're upset because others know the scores on the whiteboard, the scores on the website. The people in the class know. That's why they get upset and I think confidence is too dependent on what others think about you.
Sam RheeCo-host
26:15
I can think of at least five athletes right now who have a tremendous amount of anxiety If there's a workout up there that they think everyone thinks they're good at, whether it's a gymnastics workout or a strength workout or a lift workout and I know in my heart some of them will not show up because they're afraid that they won't put up some insane number because everyone is expecting them to do that. And I have also seen some of these athletes they won't put up some insane number because everyone is expecting them to do that. Yep, and I have also seen some of these athletes they come in and they did not put up the number that they thought was appropriate. So they said, oh, just write work.
David SyvertsenHost
26:51
Yeah.
Sam RheeCo-host
26:52
And they just couldn't take it Right. And, first of all, nobody cares Right. But they think that, yeah, and their confidence, as you said, is built on the fact that they think. Perception People think a certain way about them.
David SyvertsenHost
27:07
And that's why I know I have a reputation of like you love the competitors and you give them so much attention and you're their favorite athlete. Blah, blah, blah. That's why I actually will go over the top sometimes on the podcast, even classes, like guys, no one cares if you kill the workout. Now I don't want to diminish that someone's confidence. If you crush a workout, put that shit out there, I don't care, be proud of it Again. I said earlier in the podcast I would rather someone be too confident than not confident enough, because I think life will eventually take care of your abundance of confidence. And so if someone crushed a workout and that makes them feel proud, puff their chest out, you know, put that shit in caps lock and post all awesome, I love it, cool, like, like if it's going to make you feel good.
27:51
But if you're doing, if you're putting everything out there and you're puffing your chest out because you think everyone's impressed, that's where, again, it's the same discussion. It's just the other side of it. You can't let the thoughts and beliefs at least your perception of their thoughts and beliefs dictate your confidence in yourself. That's where I think that's a bigger issue now than it was 10 to 15 years ago, because of the world we live in, because everything we do can be put out there for others to see and again, especially here, your name's on the whiteboard always. So, yes, everyone's going to to see. And again it's up and like, especially here, your name's on the whiteboard, but you know always. So, yes, everyone's going to come in and you want to be honest with you. Yes, some people do come in and say, hey, what'd she get today? What did he get today? They like doing that and like that is that is a some people do care, you know, but it's more a short-term thing.
28:40
We take short-term issues what did you get in today's WOD, bro? And we make it something that defines our confidence in ourselves for days, for weeks. If I asked everyone in the gym who had the best score last Wednesday, I bet not one of you knows. So are you a long-term thinker? Are you just always about satisfying that moment? And if you can remove yourself from always satisfying the moment of your ego, of your pride, of your so-called reputation, I actually think it could boost your confidence.
29:11
Because when I do hear members, coaches, athletes, talk great about others, like how much they love them, how much, how humble they are, how great they are. It's always a long-term thing. It was never about a WOD on a Tuesday in November. It was always just about who are you, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. It's not about the scores, but I think we're a very short-term society now. We care so much about the moment what did someone think about me today? That it really does overshadow and kind of overtake the confidence we have in ourselves, and it's a dangerous situation.
Sam RheeCo-host
29:52
I think the question we should be asking ourselves is our confidence helping us become better, right? Or is it actually detracting from our ability to perform? Or is it actually detracting from our ability to perform? I know I can think of a couple of people who left our gym because they couldn't deal with a confidence blow, that they were just not what they thought people were expecting from them or what they were expecting from themselves, right, I feel like you need to use either a high confidence level or low confidence level to motivate, to boost you, to move you, to get you to a better place in terms of who you are, how you perform.
30:32
Listen, when I coach, I don't sit there and have a super high confidence level. I'm not like, oh, I'm so awesome and this is going to be the best, but I'm not sitting there like, okay, sometimes I say I suck as a coach, but at least I'm going to do the very best I can, and I know that I'm going to prepare the best I can, and my preparedness for coaching that class directly correlates to my confidence about how I'm going to do, and I think that should be how most people I feel like should take their confidence level. It's not that you're using your confidence level to like boost you. Your confidence level should reflect what you think you can do and how you're going to do, and sometimes, if it doesn't go the way you want, that shouldn't hurt your confidence level. That should be, if anything, a way for you to reflect and say okay, now I know what I can do to become more confident because I'm doing better the next time.
David SyvertsenHost
31:34
What is your purpose? Yes, that to me can be something we can all athletes and coaches, maybe especially coaches, but athletes too that we just kind of like hammered a couple people or feelings at. And again, I've been there too where I've put my self-worth on my scores. So I want to make sure that that's out there. I have done it before and I'm present with it. I see it from the coach lens where I'm like it's bad if you do that. It's going to be very bad If your self-worth is what you score. You can believe me or not, but eventually you will find out. That's the truth and I had that experience as a coach. But having a lack of confidence or too much confidence can center around.
32:17
What is the purpose? What is your purpose as a coach? Your purpose is to help people to be selfless, to be humble, to increase the quality of the class and really help someone get the best hour of their day out of that class, right there in some cases. If that's your true purpose, it should actually help you stay centered with your confidence. Because I will say, a coach that lacks confidence can't take over the room, doesn't want to give cues, is afraid to give advice to someone that's a better athlete than them is afraid to coach a muscle-up even though they can't do a muscle-up, it can take out the wind of the sail of the entire class. You can really actually lessen someone's experience as a coach if you're not confident of that class.
32:57
So what's the purpose? The purpose is never teach a muscle-up. The purpose is never to show a muscle up. The purpose is never to have the best time or look a certain way. The purpose is to go there and help in any way you can and I think if you go in with that purpose every single time, you're going to be more confident coaching that class.
33:15
If you're an athlete and your purpose is to go in there and just get your best workout, your best like you be smart, you be healthy, you be fit, you make your life better, you're going to walk out of there confident. But if you keep walking in there and saying my confidence is going to be dictated by what other people think about me, even though they're probably not thinking about me, same thing, coaches. If your confidence is going to be on, how many people like your class? How many people laugh at your jokes? How many people are going to make a post to you on social media about how good of a coach you are. You're barking up the wrong tree and you need to kind of recenter your focus of what is your purpose. If you pursue your purpose every day, that is going to be all the confidence you need in either one of those environments.
Sam RheeCo-host
33:54
Let me ask you can you think of a situation where you went into a workout as an athlete with an extremely high level of confidence and how that turned out, and then one where you came in with a really low level of confidence and how that turned out?
David SyvertsenHost
34:08
Yeah. So semifinals. When I made semifinals the other day I had games, aspirations and then the program came out and I was like, wow, no max lift. Well, there's a workout before the max lift and I was really excited. I remember texting people I'm like I have a shot. I said it. I was like I have a shot. I came in 29th out of 30th people. Second to last, I got murdered in every workout.
34:30
The first workout was bench press and rowing. What is my best movement in CrossFit sport? It's rowing, and I had like 500, 1've benched my whole life. I'm like, oh, I am going to shatter this workout. And there was a work. I had 30 reps of bench press at 185, not a crazy weight for me. But I've also never done a workout like this before and I was thinking I could probably be top five to top 10 in that workout in a division with Sam Dancer. I got murdered in that workout to the point where I was embarrassed. There was a lot of people that showed up to support and I got to a point. I think the the 30 bench press took me like seven minutes. I was failing reps left and right. I'd never failed bench press before, never benched the failure.
35:17
I, my confidence, got crushed that night. It and I was. I had such high hopes. I had high hopes for that weekend. I and I had such high hopes. I had high hopes for that weekend and I just got annihilated.
35:25
And there's no way around it. There's no hiding in sport and can that diminish someone's confidence? Can you come back from that? To me, it's all about why are you competing, what is your purpose and can you take the good with the bad, and I've always been. I will say I'm confident and I'm very good at that. I can take the good with the bad. I will not get too happy about my good, I will not get too upset about my bad, and that has developed over the years. But how do I maintain my confidence after a certain event like that, right, like, how do I wake up the next day and take on the workouts that I wasn't planning to be as good at and still take it on? And I say, like that's, I think that's the the background of playing sports my whole life and how much I pay attention to sports. Now, like, you will lose more than you win and it's the only way you're going to be successful.
Sam RheeCo-host
36:19
So then, how did you approach the rest when you knew you went, went in so high, got crushed. Now you're like really low.
David SyvertsenHost
36:26
It actually gave me like a bit of an edge, like a little bit of an attitude toward it, like almost like all right time to buck up here, time to suck it up, like don't be a little bitch, you know. Like because again, this is where being a coach helps. I've seen that crush people to the point where, like they almost give up, to the point where, like they're like 50% of the normal self because you had a bad workout and I, internally, I look down on that a lot. I think that's a bad trait that some really good athletes have, that they have a bad event, they can't overcome it and now you're never going to reach your potential. You work all year, like years, like honestly, I could say I've been working for something like that for 10 years. You're going to piss on that and it's all for nothing if you can't go into it and try as hard as you can. And so it gives me a little bit of an edge when my confidence but that's like the whole like bad times create strong men, right, good times create weak men.
37:13
I think there's a bigger fear with myself and others that when you're on a good run, you have a few really good workouts, you get crushed. You know, like my best open workout ever was 18.1. I came top 20 in the world, beat Rich Froning. The next week I came right back down to earth when they had the one rep max clean after a workout and I remember like that was just because I'm not very strong and but I still remember I was like on a high for a whole week. I was like man, I'm there, like I can do this, and it might actually sometimes too much.
37:45
Success can actually give you too much confidence and maybe take a little bit of urgency out. Like I think when you struggle you have a bad event, the bench press row it gives you more urgency. I think when you have some good events, you get too much confidence and you don't have enough urgency. And I think that's where an athlete and a coach, if you're starting to feel like you're getting a lot of momentum, I want you to be happy, I want you to be confident. But the second, you have to be present with your thoughts. If you start losing urgency and even in most situations in life, you're going to have another opportunity, another rep, another at bat, another time to prove yourself.
Sam RheeCo-host
38:41
So you should never take that one opportunity that either did well for you or didn't, and let that hurt you in terms of your next opportunity.
David SyvertsenHost
38:50
Yeah, I mean shout out to Rafi, just like still talking to him a little bit about mindfulness, like you do have to always just know like the result, whether it's good or bad. You know, getting crushed or crushing the workout, right, it's kind of it's still like. That's why I always circle back. It's not that big a deal If you, if you do well or do poorly, I want you to be proud and I'll give you a high five. Get Kristen Torres her first muscle up high five the other day. Awesome job by her. But Monday it doesn't matter. Tomorrow, like now, we have to like work on getting it better and I think that's and that's the result. The result is getting the first muscle up, cool High five. Back to work, and I'm big on that concept Back to work. You know people win competitions. We highlight them. Back to work. Get your first muscle up. Who's next? You know you get your first. You know 100 pound squat clean, cool when we get in 105.
39:36
And that's a way of saying confident that you got the task done. But controlling that confidence to the point where it needs to lead to something else, and I think that that's a huge part of blending the confidence and humility of life and, yes, it comes from experience. What about this perception of confidence and not going to turn this into a gossip fest, but how does your confidence in yourself? Can that affect someone's perception of you? And to the point where you should actually care about that. You don't want to be the person in the room that no one wants to be around because you're too confident. Should you even go down that path? Because we just got done telling people don't care what others think, don't, don't put too much thought into it, but should someone a coach especially? Should they put some thought into how confident they come across to not threaten someone that they're trying to coach?
40:35
I know I'm going to give you a coach example.
Sam RheeCo-host
40:36
When you're done All right. I know some people tell me that Reno is really cocky and annoying and I tell them they don't know Reno. No, that's the reason. Yeah, they don't. They don't know Reno no, that's the reason. Yeah, they don't. And if you don't know someone, it's easy to. If they have, if that person has a lot of self-confidence or is really extroverted or really out there, yeah, that could be perceived negatively by people. And I think the key is do you really know that person, right? I know a lot of people would probably think you are cocky, absolutely. And I'm like you don't know Dave. Yeah, like Dave is not, like he's like the least cocky person that you would ever see.
David SyvertsenHost
41:17
Yeah, I do take my shirt off sometimes when I'm at the gym and I do post videos on my Instagram of me working out. So maybe I'm a cocky prick, maybe that's the case.
Sam RheeCo-host
41:25
You know what, if anyone delved into your head, I think they would realize that that is completely not the case.
David SyvertsenHost
41:31
Right. So I mean I don't want to throw other people under the bus. You can talk about me as much as you want on the podcast in terms of should Dave care enough to never post a video of himself working out or never take his shirt off at the gym, to the point where I should let that dictate my actions, Because I think there's a lot of people that internally battle with this.
Sam RheeCo-host
41:53
What do you do? Because I know you do take off your shirt and you do post it comes down to purpose.
David SyvertsenHost
41:57
Why? Why do I do it? Ask me a question, why? I'll have a conversation with anyone. Why do I post this? Why do I?
42:02
I mean, it's pretty obvious why I take my shirt off in a workout. If anyone wants to try on one of my shirts when it's all sweaty during a workout, let me know. I'll give it to you and you guys can try to work it, see how comfortable it is. But there is I'm not going to lie there are hesitations. Sometimes it's like how could I come across? But what is my purpose? It's what I circle back to what we were talking about.
42:26
Why do I do it? If I believe in it, then that's all the confidence I need to do it. If I start making every decision in life about what others are going to think about it, it's going to lead me down a really dark path and I have a son now. That's going to be something he's going to have to learn at some point and I'm going to help him learn that that the second you open that door and I think we live in North Jersey I think there's a lot about perception in this area. People care about that more than their actual morals and values, because as long as others think a certain way, you're good, like that's all you can. I think it's in my opinion. I think it's a very dangerous way to live.
Sam RheeCo-host
43:00
I have rules about taking off my shirt. Yeah, why? Why? Because I don't want to be that person that You've actually told me not to post certain pictures of you sometimes.
David SyvertsenHost
43:09
I have done that.
Sam RheeCo-host
43:10
I don't like being out there. I just don't. I think there are other people that are better served being highlighted than me. Let's put it, I'm already out there enough Like I'm screw that Right. But I would say this I agree, yeah, there's a purpose reasons One is usually if I'm in a partner wad with somebody like Hawk or Da Silva, who just always takes off their shirt Team no shirts I'll go in solidarity with them. The second is if it's really effing hot and I'm dying, I will take it off Comfort.
43:43
It is very comfortable to work out without your shirt on, but 90% of the time I'm like you know what. I can just live with it. It's fine, and I think for most people, you should live your life with purpose. What you're basically saying is you conduct yourself with purpose for your actions and if other people regard that as cocky or showing off or what have you, you can't control that as long as you know the reasons why you do what you do. Right, why do you take off your shirt? Why are you posting these pictures? Why are you doing these things? If it's because you get a dopamine hit, when people are like oh, dave, you're so great, yep, like, okay, not so great Absolutely. But if you're doing it because you're going to, you know, literally for comfort, literally for performance, or because you're posting because you want to highlight this, that or something else, some point that is really important for you a message, an ethos, that kind of thing, absolutely.
44:47
Then you should live exactly how you should live and everyone else screw them Right.
David SyvertsenHost
44:52
And that's usually what it's going to circle back to. But let's talk about from a coach perspective, because I don't want to ignore or forget the coaches in this situation, because it's tough. I've seen and heard a story about coaches this is way back there's no one here, nothing has to do with Bison that there was a coach that was a really good athlete in the gym and they used that class to highlight how good they are at at things, meaning, hey, if you want to go demo ring muscle-up, you're not showing off like. You do need to show the ring muscle-up if you can like, if it's possible and you want to, you don't have to do it. That's not me. You don't have to. This is clearly not me. You don't have to. But if can, that doesn't mean you're showing off. Okay, that's what I'm getting to, I see, but I remember someone telling me that they came here again this is a decade ago, almost that because the coach of that class or the coaches in that gym would always demean someone else in the gym if they couldn't do something. Oh no, no, you're not on that level. You're not. You can't do the rope climbs yet. Look, you need to be able to do what I do to do this, or you need to have as much experience as I do to be able to do this.
45:57
If the coach starts getting very egotistical in the class and coming across as too confident, hey, that guy's confident. He can do rope climbs good for you. That can kill the vibe of a class. That can kill the vibe of an athlete, and I do think a coach needs to be very careful especially the one that is capable of doing things at a high level that you are never using the class to inflate your own ego or feeling of self in regard to being an athlete. I want you to feel as confident as possible as a coach, because I think that improves the entire room.
46:31
But perception this is where I do think perception does matter. If there's a coach in that room that loves to tell people their scores, you know, hey, guys like I'm uh, we're doing a 12.3 tomorrow. Back in 2012, I got 11 rounds and I was just four reps of shy, rich frowning and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right, you might actually try to share a message with them that could help, but only you know again what's your purpose if you're trying to make yourself look a certain level because you want athletes to look at you a certain way. That's where I think perception does matter, because coach is different than athlete. You have to be really careful because and that actually has a trickle over into what the culture of the gym will end up being- Absolutely.
Sam RheeCo-host
47:16
The purpose of telling someone any of those things is simply for ego inflation. Right, I'm exactly the opposite. I'm the coach that looks for the 35 pound empty barbell because the 45 is too heavy.
David SyvertsenHost
47:29
I did that with step ups, step ups. Last week I went to every zone. I'm like where's the 20? Where's the 20?
Sam RheeCo-host
47:36
There's no ego there for me when I'm demoing, but absolutely, especially a coach, because you are literally in service to your athletes. Right, that's literally, your only function is to be in service for your athletes. Yeah, literally, your only function is to be in service for your athletes. And if that is, even if anything else is even close to coming into your head as you're in class, boy, you got another thing coming, yeah you're playing with fire and again it's like you might get away with it because you're popular, but it can actually hurt the gym.
David SyvertsenHost
48:03
It can hurt the business of the gym, the membership of the gym and definitely the vibe of the room. The vibe of the room. So I want to wrap this up with just like why I feel this conversation, because we can go in circles in this and you can view this from a perspective easily from this episode alone saying wait, do you guys want us to not be confident or do you want us to be confident? What are you guys actually trying to portray in this episode? Yes, and I. The reason I like to talk about it is I personally want every person to reach as much confidence as possible, and even to the point where it might be too confident, because eventually, I think we all know the world is going to take care of that person at some point in the CrossFit space.
48:44
All right, I don't want to get too much into the outside, the gym space, but I also think mental health has become such a talking point over the past five years and a lot of people are much more confident, hence the word talking about it now and I think because a lot of people are talking about their own struggles and where they struggle with confidence and how much impact that has on anxiety levels, whether it's in the gym, social environments much impact that has on anxiety levels, whether it's in the gym, social environments, work environments.
49:13
I think that's like step one of leading you to any solution of any problem that you have is talking about the actual problem. So if there is a confidence issue and you feel like you either had too much or too little, or you think that they had too much or they had too little, the awareness of where we're at with that, I think, can dictate so much about you pursuing whatever you're trying to pursue by doing any sort of fitness program is what is your purpose, right? How much does your confidence waver and is it really internal or is it external? That's what I want you to get out of this. What is the purpose of you coaching, what is the purpose of you showing up to the gym to work out, and how much of your self-confidence is dictated by internal factors and external factors? If you can go and ask yourself that right now, ask yourself again tomorrow, the next day, where it's something that's always programmed in your head. I think that alone is going to make you a more confident and more successful person.
Sam RheeCo-host
50:13
All of these things are really important for a happy and good mindset, whether, as you said, you're super high confidence level, super low confidence level. If you can take away from every situation a better mindset for yourself, success is that much closer. You can't help but get better. Yeah, all right.
David SyvertsenHost
50:31
Thank you, guys, don't be too confident. See you next time. Bye yourself. Success is that much closer you're. You can't help but get better. Yeah, all right, thank you, guys, don't be too confident. See you next time. Thank you, everybody for taking the time out of your day to listen to the herd fit podcast. Be on the lookout for next week's episode.