How is Laurence Halsted passing on lessons of self-compassion to young athletes?
In my work with young athletes, one of the most consistent themes is perfectionism. Perfectionism is a spectrum and each individual moves along that continuum. I find that young athletes have very low tolerance for mistakes. The word “should” is very common in a young athlete’s vocabulary.
My guest in this episode, Laurence Halsted, is a two-time Olympian in fencing. Like my clients, Laurence struggled to cope with poor athletic performance. He harped on the results rather than experiencing joy in competing. It wasn’t until Laurence suffered a major injury just months prior to the 2012 Olympics that his perspective changed.
In Episode 37, Laurence discusses how his work with a sport psychologist helped him focus on a values-based approach to competing. Through this work, he learned self-compassion for himself, which elevated his performance to levels that he never experienced before. Now, through his work with the True Athlete Project, Laurence is using his experiences to help develop young athletes in a more adaptive manner.
So, what was your biggest takeaway from my conversation with Laurence Halsted?
For me, it’s that young athletes are likely to experience their best performance when they are enjoying their sport. In sport psychology, we often talk about how our thoughts affect our feelings and our feelings impact our performance. Having high expectations and being self-critical serve a purpose, but in order to truly thrive, athletes must learn self-compassion in order to maximize their potential.
My suggestion to young athletes is to practice focusing on your strengths rather than harping on your weaknesses. One way to do this might be to keep a daily journal in which you celebrate small wins and keep a gratitude list. Our brains are wired to focus on negativity and identify potential threats. You can proactively combat this by reminding yourself that the good you’ve produced far outweighs the bad.
I want to thank Laurence for his kind generosity and the wisdom he shared with The Freshman Foundation Community.
You can follow Laurence on Twitter @laurencehalsted. You can learn more about Laurence and his work by visiting the following websites:
https://www.sequoia-books.com/catalog/halsted/
To learn more about how mental performance coaching can help your mind work FOR you rather than AGAINST you, visit https://michaelvhuber.com.
Thank you for listening. We’ll see you back in two weeks ready to get better!
[00:00:01] Mike: Hi, Laurence, how are you?
[00:00:03] Laurence Halsted: I'm doing great. Thanks, Mike. Good to be here.
[00:00:05] Mike: Thanks for coming on. I appreciate it. It's great to see you again. I guess I'll start by asking, you know, in your book, “Becoming a True Athlete”, there's a quote in there that says, sport has not come close to delivering on its potential for making the world a better place. So tell me why you think that and what that means to you?
[00:00:27] Laurence Halsted: Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there. Basically, everyone is aware of just how kind of the lofty ideals of sport just kind of the values it can give and what it can be for individuals and for society. But really, what we're seeing at all levels of sport from grassroots youth sport all the way up to the Olympic elite professional level is just ways in which is not living up to those ideals, those values. So the kind of experience of kids doing sport at school where they're kind of ostracized or kept out or feeling less than the kind of, especially in the states that this professionalism, like Elite version of youth sports, like under nine travel teams, kind of making them into mini adults, when they should just be having fun, like up through these kind of talent pathways that just get these young kids to focus only on their sport, when they know they're not going to be professional athletes, the vast majority, and then they drop out with nothing left kind of alongside it all the way up to Elite Pro levels, where people are treated like machines, and then just kind of spat out the other end. And like an Olympics, that's an area where I've been quite concerned about where these kind of massive mega events that take over cities, build infrastructure that are just left kind of white elephants afterwards, huge corruption, there's always a flow of money from private into from public into private hands around these games. So there's just Yeah, in the book, I kind of point to quite a few of those examples. But that's what I mean, they're just all levels of sport where we're not doing enough we've lost touch with sports true value in the world.
[00:02:11] Mike: Yeah. And I think the word, if I had to pick one word out of that response is money. But I don't necessarily want to go down that road here. Because it's a much, much more involved conversation that maybe is a little bit off topic. But I think, money is the reason why youth sport around the world, particularly in America here, at least I'll say in America, because I'm here, and you're not, is just a huge business. And you know, there's a lot of good people doing good work like myself, like my business is a business. But I think a lot of it is intention. And there are a lot of people who are just trying to make money without the best interests of young people at heart and I think that that's the challenge. And so that leads me to my next question, which is to say, in your own athletic experience as a fencer, can you talk about the role of coaching, the impact of coaching is I think that that's also a tremendous piece of that puzzle, that the quality of coaching is substandard, at least here in America, because of the system we have. But like what was the role of coaching and your own development?
[00:03:20] Laurence Halsted: Well, I was incredibly lucky. I started at the age of seven in a Saturday afternoon, kid’s class with a coach there who just happened to be the best coach in the country. And he was a Polish guy who had been in the UK for quite some time. And I followed, I followed him all the way through my career up until my first Olympic Games and he was he still remains the best in the country. He is a real kind of Mr. Miyagi character. So just incredibly kind of warm and fun and easygoing, but technically one of the best in the world and just knew how to get the most out of young kids, seven year olds and Olympic athletes in their mid-20s. So I was incredibly lucky in that respect.
[00:04:10] Mike: So when you were introduced to him at that early stage, would you say that was like, what role did that play in your interest in fencing?
[00:04:22] Laurence Halsted: It was huge. I mean, this was yeah, like I say, the best coach in the country, but he made it just all about fun. For me as a seven year old growing up, it was not about the things you would imagine the top coach in the country to be about just winning. He was all about just the enjoyment of it. And the kind of the mastery actually, even as a kid it was about really mastering these skills and he was very technical. So he'd want you to do things right which could get a little bit of a drag when I just did I just wanted to get on and fight things but really, I just an overriding sense of like, he just wanted me to enjoy he really this is it. He wanted everybody he taught to feel that love for fencing that he had, and it was catching, it was contagious for him. So everybody knows how much he loved it. And that's what he wanted. So that as a guiding philosophy is pretty great for a coach.
[00:05:14] Mike: Yeah, and I think that personality component that emotional awareness, that communication piece is usually what's missing. Like most of the coaches that we come across in our lives tend to be technically proficient. And a lot of times the technical proficiency is what allows them to grow and develop in their career. But what gets missed a lot of times is the ability to teach somebody instruct them to communicate, how to do things that are developmentally appropriate, but also giving them those really good feelings about like, I enjoy doing this. So if I enjoy it, and I'm getting better at it, I'm going to keep going. So like in the book, you talk about self-determination theory, which is a big influence over my practice, it was something I was really interested in when I was studying sports psychology. It just made perfect sense for me. So those who are listening self-determination theory, posits that if three basic conditions are met for young athletes, which is autonomy, which is the sense of control competence, the sense that I'm good at or getting better at and relatedness, the sense that I have people around me that I can trust them, and I like to be with if those the three things are happening, the athletes gonna want to keep going. And I smiled when I saw it, because it is so near and dear to me. So can you talk about that, like you mentioned in the book. So clearly, you're a student of it as well, like, what does it mean to you?
[00:06:49] Laurence Halsted: Yeah, and I think I mean, as you do, as a young athlete, you don't know what you don't know, that's what's happening at the time. But when I look back, there were absolutely those were the threads that run through my entire career. And luckily, I had this this coach who, who allowed a lot of autonomy all the way through, perhaps too much sometimes. And it's a spectrum is like the, you can give too much. And sometimes athletes also want just a bit of structure to be given to them. But I had to wonderful levels. So just knowing that those three things, that's the recipe for the highest motivation in individuals, and I had those things in spades. So that was a big part of why I stayed so long, and could have had many kind of off ramps that I almost took, and taking breaks in my career we can talk about later but always kept coming back. And I'm still here, not a high level, but I still want to be involved.
[00:07:52] Mike: Exactly. And so and I want to get on to your story and talk about how you progressed through your development and sort of mile stones and markers in your career. And some of the things that happened is I think it's really, it's very fascinating, but it's also very instructive for people who are listening. But in the book as well, you sort of cite the statistics about dropout in sport, youth sport. And that's also something that's, I mean, it's very upsetting for me, and it's part of the reason why I do what I do that 70% of young people in America at the age of 13, or they are out of sport altogether in any capacity and don't intend to come back. And so that's shocking, and why is that happening? Because we talk about the professionalization of sport. At 13 people start and I see this all the time, because I coach kids at age because all of a sudden ages, they already have this language about themselves, like either I'm good relative to everybody else, or I'm not good. I'm not on this travel team, or I'm not doing this. And they just say, well, what's the point if I'm not good, and that's just dangerous in so many ways. Because (a) there's still many years of development physically, emotionally, mentally, that can contribute to a big spike in your capacity or, or the ability to perform that you haven't even experienced yet. But at the same time, it's even if you don't see that the lack of activity, the lack of involvement in competition and the lessons that sport teach us and the physical fitness component of it. It leads to adults who are not active and are not competitive and are not participating in sport and there's a long term lifetime effect of that. So it's really frightening and so much of it to me ties back to the system like your reference. So for you like at seven you started seven like, at what point did you know, or you start to figure out like, Hey, I'm pretty good at this?
[00:10:07] Laurence Halsted: You know, it took some time. I don't, I think I was there about, when I was kind of 13, 14. But never one of the best ones, never won the ones really winning the competition. Just kind of in a group of guys of young guys kind of doing a bit better. And then it was first around, actually 16, 17 was when I really kind of I got my first few results that stuck out that kind of made me think I actually made some gains above everybody else in my kind of age group. So it took a long time. And that was, you need that motivation. You need to have other things in the going for you in that in those times to keep you going. I mean, how glad I am I didn't drop out at 13.
[00:10:59] Mike: Right. But your comment just illustrates, I think helps to illustrate my point, which is to say like a lot change between 13 and 16, or 17 for you. And that was a ramp up if you stop at 13, who knows, and you stop. I mean, clearly you don't get to where you went, which is to Olympics. So there's a lot that can happen. And I think a lot of people just get discouraged when they're not seeing that result, or they feel like maybe they don't belong. And that's I think a lot of times we're led to believe that by other people, and they tell us they're not good enough. And we take it to heart and we and we just sort of fold up the tent and go home.
[00:11:38] Laurence Halsted: And how about how crazy is this system, even if we accept that it just focuses on the results and on the performance of these kids, that it's creating an environment where so many of them leave before they even know which they're going to be the best or not, like we're missing out on all those Olympians and professional athletes who just didn't think it was for them at 13, because they weren't on the travel team by then. Like how crazy is that?
[00:12:04] Mike: It's crazy. And you know, I speak from my perspective, I know you're a parent, but your child, his children are much younger than mine, mines are almost 14 years old. And so I talk about him a lot, because he's a really good case study. He's a tremendous little athlete. He's undersized. He's the youngest kid in his school grade, because we made the choice to keep him on an academic track. And so he's you know, in some cases a year plus younger than some of the people who are in his cohort. And so he hasn't grown yet. But he's extremely knowledgeable, he's smart, he understands how to do things, well, he just physically is behind. And so in that age group, when you're physically just smaller in stature, and aren't as strong and aren't as fast, like, there's a huge gap, because some of the young some of the people that he competes against are, have gone through puberty, and he hasn't. And so it would be really easy to focus on that. And he does at times, like, like, I don't fit here, you know, like, I'm getting beat up, you know, not literally, but like, I'm kind of getting left in the dust sometimes because I'm so on the smaller side, and I tell him like, you got to keep if you love this, you got to keep going because one day you're gonna you're gonna develop physically and then then you can decide. Once you hit puberty and develop physically, then you can decide whether or not you belong or not. Because right now you just have a deficiency that has nothing, it's not in your control. So if you love the game, you're playing, and he plays a lot of them, but if you love it, then just keep working on it. And you know, I try to illustrate that through examples. And as a parent, it's hard sometimes because you get emotional, which is hard. Because even if you're like, if even if you sit where I sit, which is I'm in the sport space, I believe all these things, I think I have a really healthy worldview on how it should go as a parent, even when you know those things. Sometimes it's hard not to get emotional, or take things personally or not get frustrated, because it's your child. And I think I can relate to parents in that respect. Because you know, a lot of people, you know, feel like their children aren't getting a fair shake sometimes. And that is real sometimes it's not just, hey, my kids you know, I'm making this up on my head. It's true, but at the same time, we can't make it about other people. I tell them you've got to just do what's best for you.
[00:14:30] Laurence Halsted: Yeah, that's why it's a system problem not on individuals or individual groups.
[00:14:34] Mike: Yeah, it's a system problem what and what's happening here in the US is that when the system fails us we then go out and we just we buy into the system even more in the sense that we pay for more services if we can right so there's create this gap between the haves and have not’s. So if I need if my kids small, I send them to a trainer if my kid is struggling with this conference, I send them Mike if my kid is, you know, skills are developed to go send to personal instruction. And it's great that you can do those things. It's an investment in your child, but at the same time, it's like you know, then what, then it becomes about money and professionalization and a return on investment. And it's not about fun anymore. You put your kids to work at 14 to go meet with their trainer when they should be out in the schoolyard running around.
[00:15:25] Laurence Halsted: Yeah, I think half the reason I stayed in it, when I wasn't getting any results was I just got to hang out with my friends and go to some cool places without my parents.
[00:15:38] Mike: So tell me, okay, so that's a good segue, you opened the door. So your parents were both open Olympians and fencing? Correct?
[00:15:45] Laurence Halsted: That's right.
[00:15:45] Mike: So talk to me about the relationship you had with them. As a fencer, as somebody who was doing the thing that they were elite at and probably loved as much as you did like, what was your relationship with them in that space?
[00:16:00] Laurence Halsted: Well, it was very different with both of them, I felt a lot of support. I didn't feel all that much pressure from them, for the most part, except in competition with my mum, she was fine. She was too nervous watching me she would never be anywhere near she'd be in a different room. She couldn't, couldn't watch that was perfectly good for me. My dad, he wanted to be right there. And on the peace, we call it by the side of the peace with me. And he just couldn't control his kind of facial expressions, his emotion when he saw me winning or losing, especially when I was losing or losing touches. And he couldn't control it and I hated it. So pretty early stage, I think I was 13 or 14. About then I banned him from coming to competitions with me. So he was just that was it, he couldn't come anymore or if he did come, please, he had to drive me then he was in a different room he wasn't allowed to watch. And that was, I don't remember it being that much of a kind of issue. It was just a decision I made like you can't, I don't enjoy you being here. It doesn't help me, you can't come. So it was obviously tough for him. Like he knew too much to be there and so he suffered a bit from that.
[00:17:15] Mike: That's really interesting. And I think, you know, the fact that he respected that it sounds like is a pretty incredible thing because it's hard not to want to help. And I'm very good at personally not doing that as much, except in egregious situations where I feel like, particularly, the coaching is not very good. And I do get upset. And I have to sort of tone myself down, because I feel like the kids are being done a disservice. But in, in your dad's case, it sounds like he got it, because that's a lot of pressure. Right. And, and one of the things that I see in my practice working with young people, one on one is the, across the board, the presence of perfectionism, and in some form or fashion at some level, it's garden variety in most cases, but it's there. In some cases, it's really, really pronounced, and it's a source of anxiety or stress. But the reason why I think that is kind of what you were describing, which is to say like, you're my parent, and I just want unconditional support. And when, as parents, we make faces, or we react negatively to our performance, or we say something that is critical in those moments. It's taken as you don't love me unconditionally. It's taken as you're more concerned about me being a performer than just me being happy. And it hits hard. It's it cuts deep for a lot of kids that I don't think parents realize that they're doing it. And if they do it, and they realize it for me, like as a parent, like my thing is like, if I do something that I that I regret, I will apologize for it. Like, I shouldn't have done that I shouldn't have done that I reacted Emotionally, I can't take it back. But understand that, you know, that's my fault. And I think that that's something that's missing, because the pressure comes from that, like, oh, I want to perform for my parents, I want to show them that I can do this, or I want to show them that all the money and time that they're investing in me is being returned to them in the form of them being rewarded with a smile on their face because I won, you know, and there's a lot of living vicariously to children. You know, whether you are an athlete or not parents, like it's a reflection of a parent and so they want to see their kid win. So they could say, hey, my kid won, whereas they're not going to go tell their friends like Hey, Johnny had a great time. Like it's not as cool as telling your friends that he won a medal or trophy. So you banned your father. And now like, as you're moving up through the ranks like so who, you know, who are you relying on then for that? Was it that coach you, your support that coach you had reference early on? Was he with you at that point and teenagers?
[00:20:16] Laurence Halsted: He was still there. I was at the senior club with him. And also at the same time, another kid joined that Saturday afternoon class. And we he was basically the three of us follow, we will, he was in the two Olympic teams with me as well. So we, he was my closest rival, and my best friend for that entire time. And we just pushed each other with the help of this group. Brilliant coach, we kind of pushed each other onwards and onwards, all the way through the ranks really. I mean, there were there were others. We had squad members, like team members and some others, but they were the support. They were the people that kind of made the biggest impact on me. It was early on it was around 15 when we started traveling internationally, neither of my parents would come with it was just the coach in us, us. Vince's that was that was brilliant.
[00:21:07] Mike: Yeah, I'm sure it was. Because you get that sense of autonomy that you're, that you want and you're able to have be yourself and not feel like you're performing on the stage. But as I was reading in the book like, it sounds like there was a certain point where maybe your focus, your emphasis, your way of thinking became very results oriented to the point where it was having a negative impact on your ability to generate the results that you wanted.
[00:21:38] Laurence Halsted: I mean, all the way through, really, I mean, I enjoyed the process. But in competition, it was a real kind of paradox. I loved competing for a long time that that was why I was doing it, the feeling of competing, but I also suffered terribly when I lost it was so wrapped up in doing well, even though I wasn't winning competitions much at all in those younger years. I was just really suffered from every time I lost. So I was really, it was wrapped up in getting results. It was all about the results. Actually, it wasn't all about it. I was still doing it for these other reasons. It was fun I was with my friends. But for sure the results weighed so heavily on me that I would be kind of devastated after every loss. That was that was my mindset, right up until my mid-20s.
[00:22:26] Mike: So what caused the shift in your perspective?
[00:22:33] Laurence Halsted: That's a longer story really. It started in the in 2012, with an injury. So this is really where it kind of came to head. And it wasn't that I took on my mindset, particularly because I noticed that there was something wrong with it. It came out of necessity that the Olympic year came by I had been working for six years professionally for these Olympics in London in my hometown. And the first training session of the year, in 2012, I tripped over and broke my wrist on my sword arm, broke a little bone in my wrist, and had two surgeries and four months out of technical training. And just had a really dark experience, a dark time with kind of seeing my teammates all training preparing for the Olympics, potentially taking my spot that they had been mine for six years. And I had to figure out how to kind of get out of this funk get out of this place because I still had a shot. Our Olympic selection was in June, I was going to be coming back from these surgeries to training around May. So I didn't have long but I had a shot and I started working with a psychologist then who was hadn't come across her before but she was connected to me by Team Manager. And she, the work we did together was that was really it. So many of the seeds for that kind of shift of mindset shift of approach. We basically but it was It wasn't about performance at the start. It was about how do I live my live day by day in this really challenging time in a way that I can be proud of myself, because I knew I didn't want to be I was resentful. I was bitter to my teammates, I was being I was not a nice person to be around in those days. But that's not how I wanted to be. So she helped me kind of we worked on my values and what I value about being in this kind of world as an athlete, and then helped me kind of just Yeah, live a bit closer to those values day by day. And that that was just the start. That was the start point. And then there's a natural kind of progression from there, which is actually if you're living by your values and you're competing by your values There's no, it doesn't make sense to be hard on yourself or to be upset if it doesn't go your way. Because that's sport, it's sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Actually, if you give it everything you've got, and you, you really have stuck to your true to your values to your game plan as much as you can, then that's why you don't need to suffer. That's why you don't need to feel the pain, if you lose. And that kind of came as a natural progression to that work. And it was just revolutionary for me, my entire approach, my mindset had shifted 180 degrees almost.
[00:25:36] Mike: Well, that's great. And I mean, you mentioned in the book, I'll use her name “Katie Warner”. I don't know Katie, she's in my field. I think that that's amazing to hear. Anytime someone tells me that they worked with somebody in the sports psychology field, and not only worked with them, but had what I would consider to be as good a result as we could have gotten, which is this normalization or shift to bring in perspective back to competing and to sport, that ironically enough, a lot of times allows us to perform at our best, because there's an understanding of what's really important and we can be ourselves. And when we're ourselves naturally, and we feel good about ourselves, we're going to perform the way we want to so having somebody to walk you through that is really important. How long were you out from the injury, like out of competition altogether? And how long did you work with her during that span?
[00:26:42] Laurence Halsted: Yeah. Well, I was out injured for four months, came back in May, ended up getting selected for the Olympics, but not as the in this kind of full capacity, I was selected as a reserve for the team event, not in the individual event, there were two events in fencing. So not my entire kind of dream about being there. But I got to go and get to compete and I was working with her for that. So I guess about eight months in total, all the way up through to the Olympics in August. So it wasn't a huge, long length of time. But it was intense, we would meet every week and talk on the phone a bit as well, because I was still struggling in between times. So it was quite an intense period. But yeah, I mean, not just transformative to my performance, and my experience of sport, then, but to my life, as well as that work I did, then there's kind of have ripples of x all the way through into this book into my kind of how I work now. So it's pretty amazing how the impact it can have.
[00:27:47] Mike: Yeah, and that was 10 years ago now. And you still are very clear on the value that she provided to you in that process, but also as part of your life. And I think as somebody who works with young people, I think that's the greatest reward for me is to be able to work with somebody and have them tell you that you helped them and have them sort of just remember you for being someone who cared about them. And I think that the fact 10 years later, you're still able to sing her praises, because of what she did to help you in your life, and that's why I do what I do. I'm sure that's why she does what she does. I'm curious when you got started, like when you got hurt. Did they just say to you immediately, like you're hurt, you need to talk to somebody, or was there something where they it took a little bit of time, and they noticed that you just weren't in a good headspace? And then after kind of seeing you down or depressed maybe then they referred you like was it like a matter of fact, like as soon as you were injured right after they said you need to start working with this person?
[00:28:50] Laurence Halsted: No, I was a bit more the second, but you said just took a bit of time realized that I wasn't dealing with it very well. It was pretty obvious to everyone around I was not a nice guy at that time. So I'm very grateful to our manager for making that link because she I've spoken have since spoken in this in between them to a whole bunch of other athletes in different sports who've had very similar experiences with Katie and she's a special person for how she works. And really what she did for me is just inspire me with what is possible through working with your mind, which was kind of amazing to say I was in my mid 20s already kind of verging on the Olympics before I even realized just how much power there is in working with your kind of mentality and with your psychology and that's what she did. She opened my eyes to it and showed me just how much there is to gain.
[00:29:47] Mike: Yeah, I'll tie it back. I'll tie it back to self-determination theory and the motivation and the work that I do, which is to say if somebody if so if I'm connected to somebody who's not truly ready to do the work, it's probably not going to be a success, right? A lot of times it needs to be the athlete who comes forward and says, I need help. And I'm ready to invest in this because like you said, it can be an intense process. If you're meeting every week, which you know, I will do with athletes. We're working on stuff, I'm sure she probably gave you things to work on, she probably gave you homework, and she forced you to think about things you probably didn't want to think about, because it was going to make you mad or make you sad, or make you, you know, whatever. And it was going to take up time. But that work, doing that work, putting in the extra effort, and really trying to understand how to apply it is such a big part of sports psychology. And when the client or the subject is not, like doesn't believe they need to help, it's really hard to make the kind of impact you want to make as a professional because there's not buy in, right. But if the motivation is there, and somebody wants to be better, not just a better performer, but a better person and really take control of their life, then you're going to get somebody who's really invested in which it sounds like you are, which is really cool to hear. And coming out the other side of it, you know, having read the book, it seemed like once you sort of maybe when you got through that first Olympics and you performed, you started to really like embrace that different perspective on sport after that 2012 Olympics is that a fair understanding of the way things went down?
[00:31:32] Laurence Halsted: Well, yeah, but there's some extra important bits of miss to that story. Because that year was so stressful, I actually ended up taking a year off after the 2012 games, went traveling for an entire year, ended up meeting my now wife in Denmark, and moved in with her. So I never went back to the UK or never moved back to the UK. That year became two years. So I actually took two years off from competition was doing a bit of training at the time. But now I was kind of I was doing work I was I worked as a kayak guide around the canals here in Denmark, like completely different lifestyle. And then saw my team was still doing well got this kind of fire coming back into my belly and I thought I'll give this another shot for Rio, I think we could do something special. So then I set myself up, I had two years till the Olympics, and I could really kind of approach this from, I was going to be doing my training in Denmark, not with the National squat in the UK, I was basically going to be running my entire program myself and this autonomy piece again. But I was I was doing it on my own terms. And with this new approach of I'm going to do this because I for the joy of the joy of kind of seeing how good I can be. And I wasn't going to accept any of that same suffering and pain just for losing a competition or losing the fight, it was going to be I was going to live, I was going to do it for my values, and enjoy every bit of it. So there's that it all kind of combined. And those two years were definitely two of the best I've ever kind of competed my performance just I think it's skyrocketed, and it was far more enjoyable. But I was just free, I felt free of that anxiety free of that. The fear of losing the fear of not being good enough, there just wasn't there anymore. I could just I was free to focus on my game plan, how I wanted to compete, and it just made all the difference.
[00:33:34] Mike: So what are those values? Like, what are some of the words you would use to describe those values? Like when you ultimately got to the point where you weren't really understood what was important to you? Like, what are some of the words that you would use to describe those values today?
[00:33:51] Laurence Halsted: Yeah, so I've done the exercise twice now. I did it with her as an athlete, I've done it again, a couple of years ago in my professional life. So you know, it's like integrity and learning mindset. I remember variety was one of my values back then kind of experiencing with variety of what life has to offer. So it was things like that, I think, definitely the kind of team element of it. We are individuals, we're a team, but I was always in team. I love team sports as well. So I love that kind of relational aspect of being an athlete. So those were some of the values that I drew on.
[00:34:29] Mike: Yeah, I've been through that exercise myself in my life in a couple of different capacities as well. And I probably did it the first time, you know, eight or nine years ago, and I still lean on it today in terms of like, what's the most important thing to me? And I mean, for me at the time, it was I just wanted peace in my life. Like I just wanted to be at peace with myself and I wanted to be at peace that was like a goal for me all the time like and it actually comes out in my work because when I talk to athletes, what they tell them I tell them sometimes is if we make things simpler, and we take things out, sometimes that's more effective than trying more things and putting more things in. And I think it's confusing at first, sometimes it's like, well, because everybody thinks they need to do more and work harder. And I said, sometimes it's just a matter of looking at your life prioritizing and simplifying and taking out those things that aren't serving you well. And that's because we get so caught up, there's so much to get caught up, caught up in and I do that now, like when things aren't going well for me, and I don't feel good about myself, I'm like, what can I subtract from the equation because it's just causing me stress that I don't need, and it's not aligned with what I want to accomplish. So just take it out. And I think that that simplicity is really important. And I think it's important for anybody to know what their values are, because like you said, the behaviors are going to be consistent, they're going to be principled, you talk about stoicism in the book, and I am a devout stoic, I've become very connected to the philosophy of, hey, this is what we're dealt in life. And we've got two choices, we could let that dictate how we're going to behave, or we can just look at it for what it is, and move forward based upon what we value. And I think it's a really important thing for people to understand what it is not that everybody has to be a practicing stoic. But it's such a strong philosophy for athletics, because there is 90% of what's out there. We can't control, we only control certain things like our attitude or effort, or behavior, preparation, all the other stuff is outside of us. And so if you're going to react, every time a referee makes a bad call, or your coach does something you don't like, or it starts raining outside, like, you're going to be in a whole hell of a lot of trouble.
[00:36:49] Laurence Halsted: Yeah, you're quite right. They've stoicism is the closest thing of to a philosophy that the athletes could benefit by and, and I think, as I say in the book, combining it with some aspects of Buddhism and meditation and compassion, then we really something somewhere quite special.
[00:37:07] Mike: Yeah. And that resonated with me, because I'm also a fan of the Buddha and I'm a fan of Buddhism, and I'm a fan of having all of my athletes try mindfulness meditation. Not it doesn't stick for everybody. And that's okay. But I think there's so many misconceptions about meditation and mindfulness about what it's supposed to be. And you know, that results oriented mentality comes out in like, Oh, I'm not good at this. That's not the point. The point is, is to practice becoming aware of what you're thinking and feeling, so that you can accept it for what it is, and then make good logical choices based upon what's happening. And I preached that awareness. It's so huge. If you're not aware of like you, almost we were describing before about yourself, like, you would have these emotional reactions, but you didn't almost sense like, it seemed like you almost didn't even know that they were happening. It was almost like these automatic sort of autopilot like, fits of rage or anger, when you didn't perform, and you didn't even realize that you were doing it. And I used to be that way too. And now when I get angry, I'm compassionate with myself. But I also know that it's happening, and I'm not happy about it. So what am I going to do? I'm going to stay angry, or am I going to try to calm down, cool down and take a breath, have a sip of water, whatever it is. And that's that there's so much value in applying that in athletic competition.
[00:38:28] Laurence Halsted: Yeah, you're quite right. I guess I knew I was having these reactions, but they felt like you said, automatic, it felt like because I cared about doing well. And I cared about the sport. If I lost, I should feel terrible. That was just a logical step. For me, there was no awareness of any anything beyond that this, this situation leads to this feeling. That's how it is until actually Katie again, was the first person who ever told me, you know, you don't have to feel terrible if you lose. And I remember her saying that still and just kind of looking at her like skeptically. I'm not sure. And then it took a bit of time, and she kind of betrayed me and then through this values work and just struck me that that was there was that simple, that's it. It wasn't even seeing that that wasn't absolutely inevitable that you'll feel bad if you lose. So yeah, that that kind of awareness raising and just choice. It's absolutely I mean, it is central to what athletes need is being able to choose wisely to what's happening right now. And the best tool we have for that that's mindfulness meditation.
[00:39:37] Mike: Absolutely. The number one tool, and then you start to couple it with other strategies. And then you really got something and it's, that's probably the most fulfilling part of my work is when I start to see athletes be able to like, integrate strategies and do them in real time. And when I start to hear from them, or I see them do it, or they tell me like, oh, I did these things and it worked for me and I knew when to use it, and it's helping me it's like, like you said, like, your game, your, your, your fencing, like, ability went through the roof when you started to apply those strategies. So, as a segue, tell me about the 2016 Olympics and how it went for you how you performed like, just like what was the outcome for you?
[00:40:27] Laurence Halsted: Yeah, so I mean, this is where I didn't win a medal or anything I, I competed in a way of performing in a way I was proud of. But this was just such a stark difference for me, it just sums up the change in mindset. So I was in my first match in the round of 32, against a Chinese guy. And I went eight or nine nil down right from the start, he was super aggressive, and like, that's his style, but he just stayed pummeling me. And I just distinctly remember there was not an ounce of there was not just not a gram of anxiety or fear in that situation, which is kind of crazy. You're in the Olympics, it was my debut in an individual biggest stage in the world, TV’s are on you. All my friends and family are watching, and I'm about to get whitewashed. Your sensors should be going wild. And there was none of that it was all just channeled into, okay, how do I figure this one out? Like super like all on the challenge? Like, I need to sort this out? What am I going to do? What am I going to do in every moment, I need to do this and try this, I need to try this and none of that fear that kind of clouds and, and like burns you up. And so I mean, in just a few years earlier, I would have been a complete mess, I would have been a nervous wreck at that point. And would have bailed out. I mean, I came right back into the match. And I got pretty close to him. He ended up beating me anyway, that was too big. But it was just it was just a night and day that experience of competing there.
[00:42:05] Mike: Yeah, and that example that illustration, like it just it highlights for me how important it is to have those values. Because in that moment, you are valuing like my ability to take on this challenge and cope with adversity. That was what was important to you. How do I handle myself with dignity and continue to stay level headed and take it one point at a time versus thinking like, oh, I'm a failure. Like, I'm getting embarrassed and what's everybody gonna think for you. It was about, hey, how do I as a person, live my values in this moment, and that's really cool. It's really cool. Because if you look on you know, listening, I was never an athlete at your level. And I think sometimes when you know you're in it, you expect the most out of yourself, you want to win, obviously, we all want to win when we compete. But as an outsider looking in I go, you made it to the Olympics. Who the hell goes to the Olympics? The smallest percentage of the athletic population in the world go to the Olympics, and you got the chance to compete. And I would imagine, it's hard to keep that perspective, when you're getting beaten, I know in your first match individual match ever. But if you can remind yourself of that, it could actually be a benefit. Like, hey, I'm here, I got here for a reason. Like, it's gonna be okay, no matter what happens, like, let me just go compete and have some fun doing it. And that's a hard thing to teach anybody, because whether you're in the Olympics, or you're playing high school sports, it still feels like the most important thing in the world. And when you don't account for yourself the way you want to, you feel some embarrassment. And so you know, it's that's what I'm teaching as well as like, you can't control that there are cameras around, you can't control that it's the Olympics, you can't control it. Everybody thinks this is like the most important thing in the world. All you can control is how do I go about and attack the next point. But that takes practice that does not happen naturally. Your brain is not wired, biologically to do that, first of all. Second of all, even if you understand that to be true, intellectually, to do it in a high pressure situation, is not something you can do unless you practice it, we're practicing it right.
[00:44:17] Laurence Halsted: That was exactly what the point I was gonna make is that it's not easy to just live by your values in a situation like that and kind of choose, it's not even the case that you're really choosing. I want to be like this. This is how I want to be I mean, this was, it was happening in seconds or minute, max. And a lot was going on. So actually, you're basing it on all the training that you've done the way that you've lived your values for the years before then, or at least a at least a good chunk of time, months before so you have to put the work in with like anything sport, you'd put the training in, so that when you get to that situation, your body and your mind you're just kind of aligned to this is how I do it. I had some I had some strategies that helped me along the way. I had mentors that I used for every kind of reset. They were all tied to my values to my kind of mindfulness, my attitude. I had, yeah, I had these strategies for focus in and I'd done I'd had a mindfulness practice. So there's all this training that goes into it that the, I mean, it was so much of it was linked to those values of how I wanted to be. And I've done the visualization, visualize it, and things are going wrong. How do I deal with it? So there's so much you can do, I try to say the same things to young athletes that if you're not working with your mind, there's just so much that you can do before you even step onto a field of play? It's worth doing.
[00:45:42] Mike: Yeah, I love that. Because that's like, at the essence of what it is that we do in the work. Like what you were doing is stuff that I do. So you're an Olympian, and you do it, and it worked for you, like I'm doing this stuff with, with people at a much lower level. But if now, when they start to see the value of it, and not just in sport, in life, when things get stressful with your family, when things get stressful for school, how do I talk to myself? What do I want to happen? How do I reset myself? You know, I'm going off the rails here. How do I get back on track? Those mantras, what am I saying to myself? Like, you have that and you're able to use it in real time to get back to where you want to go. So like to hear you say that makes me feel good. Because I think a lot of people don't realize that that's the type of thing that has to go into the practice. So talk to me about now, the Olympics are over, you're obviously you were very proud of the way you accounted for yourself and how you formed. Did you know right after, did you know, before the Olympics, or at what point did you know you were going to retire?
[00:46:46] Laurence Halsted: Yeah, so I went back to that project, that NNP project, knowing this was going to be two years, qualify or not win a medal or not, I was gonna hang up my sores at the other end. So I could use that time to prepare what came next as well, which was invaluable.
[00:47:03] Mike: Okay, so tell me, tell me about that. What kind of, what kind of work were you doing? Were you working with Katie on that in terms of like, starting to think about the transition out of sport? Are you doing that on your own?
[00:47:47] Laurence Halsted: And more on my own, I'd moved to Denmark. So I actually wasn't working with Katie in that, in that period, we had another team psychologist who really helped us actually you know, in a team sense, another brilliant psychologist, but I was doing most of it kind of on my own just using my network, and especially here in Denmark, kind of repairing things here. And I got, I got a chance to work in a club fencing club here as a kind of performance director and athletic director, and then took on a role in the Federation, kind of as the national athletic director. So really kind of lucky positions to get and, and it kind of flowed from there I was, I was very lucky with the timing of it and just got, I was able to stay in the sport as well. But I also got involved with this amazing charity that was born in Tennessee in Chattanooga, Tennessee, called the true athlete project. And that's just been that's been I'm still there. Now, this is six years later and that's been a just an incredible journey with that organization.
[00:48:20] Mike: Yeah. So tell me tell me more about that. Because I've learned a little bit about that starting to read your book. But can you tell me more about what that is, what they do and what the mission is?
[00:48:31] Laurence Halsted: Yeah. So it's back to what we first discussed was this sport as a powerful force for good, which we're just not, it's not living up to it. And we want to create a more compassionate culture of sport and a more compassionate culture through sport. So it was born out of the way actually out of the Muhammad Ali center forum for athletes and social change. Founder, Sam Parfit, kind of envisaged this organization that showed that performance and well-being and making a social impact, they can all be part and parcel of just training as an athlete. And it's not the fact that you do your training to get better at sport. And then you might do a mental health workshop once a year. And maybe you'll go that you get better, you might go back to a school and take some photos, like that's your social impact. But no, actually, all of these things can be part and parcel the same, just developing us as humans. So I got involved in the mentoring program that we have matching elite kind of Olympic level athletes with young aspiring kind of committed athletes from 15 years up, and we take them the mentor and the mentee on a pretty special journey, a year long journey, kind of teaching them both in some of these kind of techniques around performance psychology and mindfulness values, and also community responsibility, things like that. And it's just been an absolute joy to kind of to be involved with the charity in this program. So that's why I wrote the book it was that's basically a distillation of our entire approach our, it was in a manifesto for this organization. And there's been a pleasure as well.
[00:50:16] Mike: Well, it's funny you say that because at one point, when I was reading the book, I'm on an incessant note taker. And I always when I read, regardless of what I'm reading, even if it's for fun, I usually have a pen in my hand. I don't know if it's some sort of, you know, disorder, but I just feel the need to interact with what I'm reading. And the word I wrote down at some point was manifesto, like, this is a characterization of the values of this organization coming through, in what you're writing. And I think that that's really cool to be able to do to write a book, but to write a book about you something you care so deeply about, and to have it as a blueprint for something you want to go do, right that you're doing that you want to make the world a better place. This is how we're going to do it. And I dig that a lot. I think that's awesome. And, you know, when I was reading a book, or started reading a book, I just couldn't help but think how much you know, our values in the space are aligned. And I think to tie it back to your own career, right. Like, I would imagine that knowing what you valued, and having a game plan for exit out of sport, and having something having the opportunity to do things that you really care about, and make an impact made that transition out of sports so much smoother than it would have been if you just were forced out, or that you didn't have a plan?
[00:51:30] Laurence Halsted: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I got lucky again, that I could choose my exit, I didn't get injured and just slam out. So that was a benefit. But that I mean, what comes through in our approach is and we try and teach younger athletes is actually those times where you are most fulfilled in your life is when you get a chance to give back to others. So even young athletes, our kind of 15 year old mentees in this program, they're encouraged to start some kind of community project in their year of mentoring. Because when you look back at your career, all of me and my friends, it's not those top results. The results, the medals, they're quite nicely, you can remember them sometimes. But the things that really were valuable in this long career of ours, those are the relationships that we built, those times, we got to give back to people, experiences we've had and this kind of personal growth. So really, this is this is what sport this is on a practical level, this is what sport can do for individuals, those things, that's what the value sport has nothing to do with the results, you can get all of those things, however you perform. That's what we need to get back to that system needs to adopt. Now, we've gone far, way too far into the business model the results, when it all costs model, we need to come back to this values based approach. And that does the thing. That's the stuff that really, that we really can gain. And, yeah, a bunch of my friends, they've won Olympic and World Championship titles, and many of them. And it's not that that makes you kind of fulfilled in your career. It's all those other things.
[00:53:05] Mike: Yeah, you know, I've heard it said so many times, and this is my own personal experience. When people look back on sports, in the vast majority of cases, they think about the people that they were with, right, the friends that they made, the time that they spent, you know, on the trips, or in the locker room, or you know, the things that you did outside of sport, as people as friends, as opposed to thinking about like that play or I won that medal, right? You're thinking about the memories that you know, the relationships, and everybody gets that in sport, regardless to your point of the outcome. And I think that that's really important. That's what we should be promoting. So how does the true athlete project like what sorts of things are you doing as a charity as a group to spread the word?
[00:53:54] Laurence Halsted: Yeah, so I'm the Director of this mentoring program, but we have programs at all levels of sports. So we work with schools and community clubs and national federations. We work with kind of whole organizations as well doing workshops for their coaches, for their athletes, even for their staff. We do mindfulness classes for athletes, kind of online mindfulness classes, and quite creative stuff as well. So we yeah, we try and go where there's need we've just started we just made some online courses based on the content of the book so that we can get it a bit further out. Our approach is really is really personalized. It's very kind of live and quite emotional based, personally based, but obviously there's limitations to that. So we've made, we put some stuff online so more people can just hear about it. I know a lot of people aren't going to read the read a whole book for they might do a kind of easy to engage with course.
[00:54:56] Mike: Yeah. And so I usually do this kind of stuff after the fact in post-production, but like, since I have you, I want to make sure I have it. Like, what's the website? Where is our website? They get people who go through what's the address?
[00:55:08] Laurence Halsted: Yeah, thetrueathleteproject.org. This letter was the first all that stuff. And I'd encourage people, even if you're not looking for a program, just go and check it out. The language we use, the mission that we're on, often people come to, they come to the website, and they just kind of feel this sense of relief that it can be done another way, and that there are people out there who also believe that in doing things another way.
[00:55:33] Mike: That's really important to me, because I do I know some people in my community where I live who we share, there's one person in particular that I know, in my own town, who was a professional coach for many years in the NFL. And he and I are very much aligned on philosophical approach to youth sports, and what it's there for just like you, you and I are, we're very all similar. And we kind of talk about it in that vein of the way you just described it, which is like, it's almost like a secret society, like we can talk to each other. But it's like, how do we like, we're in the vast minority where most people, you know, they don't know where to go for that message, or they don't, they think maybe they're wrong for feeling that way. Like, maybe I'm the crazy one, maybe I need to adopt this one at all cost, but it doesn't feel right. And I think that's really, it's important to get the word out, because I think there are probably more people, they just don't know what to do. And they just get co-opted into the system because this is what people tell you, you should do or everybody else is doing it. So I should do it too. When it doesn't feel right. It feels yucky, right, like that's the way I think of it is like it's kind of yucky, like what's going on here. But we just do it because that's what we got, and we deal with it and it's not cool. Like I don't think it's cool. And people to check out the website, because I think it's really important work that you're doing and above. Okay, go ahead. I’m sorry.
[00:56:56] Laurence Halsted: So I was just gonna say one of the things we've noticed is that the people who come to us who get our approach, the quickest, they're the Olympic kind of elite level athletes have had a long career there, our mentors coming to us. They've had their long career and they come and they just kind of feel like they get it immediately, they can see all the ways that would have helped them or that it aligns with the bits that work for them. So that's one of the things we got going for us is that we quickly kind of onboard these super high level athletes. And then there are the spokespeople for this for this missions. It doesn't have to be tapped the whole time. It's these athletes that everyone else can look up to. So yeah, but you're right that's kind of secret kind of feeling about it, it's still there.
[00:57:43] Mike: Yeah, well, I think, you know, you change that one step at a time, right? You just the same way you might approach coming back from a big deficit, you just sort of do the next, you know, right thing. And you know, those little wins accumulate over time, and the message starts to get out. And so I guess the final question, I'll ask you, I ask everybody the same question. It's tends to work really well. So the question I'll ask is, like, if you had to give one piece of advice to someone listening, a parent, a coach, and athlete, all three, like, what's that one piece of advice that you would share with somebody?
[00:58:19] Laurence Halsted: Yeah, and I think it will bring it back to that kind of central message that has come through this podcast and talking about my journey is, it's called self-compassion and lots of people haven't even heard that term before. But it's basically just treating yourself like you would your close teammates or a close friend or family member. And we in the West are really good at loving our neighbors, loving our family and friends and really bad and loving ourselves and it sounds really kind of hippy for an athlete. It's the thing that unlocked my entire kind of performance. That is what people should be, we should be teaching our young athletes is forgive yourself when you make mistakes. You're only human, forgive yourself and move on so that you can refocus on the next thing.
[00:59:07] Mike: I couldn't have said it any better. That's a great way to finish. Laurence, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. I really loved the conversation. I'm looking forward to hearing it back soon and sharing it with the world and hopefully we can get some people to buy into the way of thinking that we have.
[00:59:26] Laurence Halsted: Thanks a lot, Mike. It's been a blast.