On this week's episode of the Building Championship Mindsets podcast, Dr. Amber Selking explores the importance of taking thoughts captive, submitting them to a higher truth, and replacing negative or unhelpful thoughts with positive, constructive ones. Taking thoughts captive is essential for aligning our mindset with our true identity. Intentional practice can fortify our mental resilience, similar to how athletes build strength and endurance physically. Dr. Selking shares how engaging in mental performance training can foster a mindset that promotes excellence and resilience in various aspects of life. 

About Building Championship Mindsets

Welcome to “Building Championship Mindsets. | the Podcast!” From the LockerRoom to the BoardRoom, our purpose is to help individuals, teams, and organizations understand and leverage the power of Mindset and Leadership to drive results and achieve sustainable performance excellence. 

As a leader in the field of sport and performance psychology, Dr. Amber Selking has been fiercely devoted to optimizing human performance in people and systems throughout her entire career.

Dr. Selking is the founder of Selking Performance Group, a leading performance consulting practice that helps individuals, companies, and sports teams achieve sustainable results. She has served as the Mental Performance Coach for professional & collegiate sport programs across the country including the Denver Broncos, LSU Football, ND Softball, and Notre Dame Football during the winningest five years in program history! She is the Chief Culture & Leadership Development Officer for Lippert, a global, publicly traded manufacturing company whose corporate vision is to change the model of work, demonstrating that business can and should Be a Force for Good in our World. She has also served as an adjunct professor in the Mendoza College of Business at Notre Dame. Dr. Selking holds a Ph.D. in Educational and Counseling Psychology from the University of Missouri, a master’s degree in Sport and Performance Psychology from the University of Denver, and an undergraduate degree in Management Consulting from the University of Notre Dame. At ND, Amber played soccer for the Fighting Irish before an injury ended her career, after which she founded Notre Dame Christian Athletes (NDCA) in the ND Athletic Department. She currently resides in South Bend, Indiana, with her husband, Aaron, daughter Elleeanna Belle, and their Doberman Pinscher, Rockne.

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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to building championship mindsets, the podcast.

This is your host, Doctor Amber Sulking.

Where we are in season 15 entitled Sports, Psych and Scripture.

This has been one of my favorite seasons and quite frankly, one of the ones that I've gotten the most feedback on and engagement from our audience on social media, from so huge props to all of you out there that are really leaning into this season and exploring either your faith or science in new ways.

Right?

Because the reality of it is we're not all on the same faith journey.

This is, this, this specific season is looking at the christian faith in the Bible and how it lines up with what we know in brain science.

And so for those of you that aren't really on a faith journey or haven't really explored it or thought about it in a long time and are leaning into this, huge props to you.

For those of you that really think science is, is bad and wrong and out there to undermine what God wants to do in the world, props to you for leaning in and actually learning from some of the science and seeing how connected these things actually are.

And, you know, one of my motivations for doing this season is I think our world is in such a state of division, right?

Is, you know, there's racial division, there's gender division, there's political division, there's socioeconomic division.

And what I love about the human brain is that it comes in, kind of stands in the gap of all of those different things.

Because in all of those different things, we're all human beings, right?

And so what I love about this season is it's another place where there can be division, right?

Faith and science.

And just like all of those other elements, there's a lot more connection than we might initially think.

And so in this season, we're really diving in to understand just one sports psychology principle and one scriptural principle and seeing where those things line up, right?

And so today we're going to dive in.

But before we do, just quick again, high level of what we're all about at the selfie and performance group, we're here to help individuals, sports teams and business organizations really understand and leverage the power of mindset and leadership to unleash consistent performance excellence.

And we do that through one on one performance coaching.

We have an incredible team of performance coaches on our staff.

You can check them out.

Sulkingperformance.com dot we do keynote speeches for organizations or for schools across the country, around the world.

And occasionally we do some organizational consulting as well.

That's not usually our niche.

But if we find the right group to work with, we certainly can do that.

But I have pretty high expectations of organizations I work with on a consistent basis.

Because on a day to day, I have the honor of serving in two incredible organizations in full time capacities that I get to do this stuff in a very real and meaningful and deep way.

I get to serve as the men's performance coach and high performance consultant to head coach Brian Kelly and LSU football, and then serve as the chief culture and leadership development officer at Lippert, which is a global publicly traded manufacturing company.

And so it's hard pressed when I say it's not really our niche at salking performance group.

It's because it's what I do every day, you know, in organizations.

And I have been so spoiled with such incredible leaders who truly get it of a top down, bottom up and contextually relevant approach to high performance that unless organizations and the senior most leader is really, really bought in to what the journey is going to take, we don't do that.

We do keynote speeches and that one on one performance coaching.

But the other thing that I just want to throw out there as an ask is that, listen, I do this podcast as a labor of love.

We're in season 15.

I haven't had a sponsor yet, mainly because I've been too busy to go out and search for one.

But, man, it would be helpful from a financial perspective.

So if you think what we talk about on this podcast is meaningful to you and you want to bring that to the world, but also that our audience would be good to hear whatever product or service or business that you have to offer, and that we align philosophically.

I'd certainly welcome the opportunity to chat with you about that.

And on all of those things, you can reach me directly, Doctor Selkinselkinperformance.com.

but with that, let's dive in.

So we are in season four, and today we're going to be looking at.

Not season four, I'm sorry, episode four.

And we are going to be looking at the sports psychology principle, understanding the difference between the brain and the mind.

And then scripturally, we're going to be looking at two corinthians, two five.

And so I remember year one down at LSU when coach Kelly introduced me to the team as our mental performance coach, and we were able to share with our guys fundamentally what is applied sports psychology and how can it help us win?

Right?

That was literally the title of the presentation.

What is mental performance and how does it help us win?

Because that's really what we want to know, right, as competitors is whatever we're doing, reading, learning, how's it going to help us win, right, in whatever field or endeavor we've chosen.

And so we were working with the guys, and how I tee it up to them is that applied sports psychology or mental performance is like the weight room for your brain.

I asked them, who in here goes to the weight room?

And every single one of them raised their hands, right.

Why?

Because they want to get bigger, faster, stronger, so that they can go out and dominate on the field.

Well, mental performance is like the weight room for your brain.

We want everybody doing mental performance training because that's how you get bigger, faster, stronger mentally, so that you can go out and dominate on the field, in life, in whatever it is that you choose to do.

I tell them that clinical sports psychology, where you're working with a licensed psychologist, is like the training room for your brain.

Okay?

And then I said, hey, raise your hand if you ever go to the training room.

And pretty much almost all of them did, whether it's because they've had a severe injury and they've had to work back from that or because they just need to go get their ankle taped.

And so clinical sports psychologists can do that for you.

I'm in the weight room.

I'm the weight room for our brain.

And we want everybody getting bigger, faster, stronger.

And so we taught them what we've talked about so far in this season, right?

We taught them about neuroplasticity and how their brains can grow and change.

We taught them about how their thoughts affect their emotions, which affect their physiological responses, which drive their performance, and how repeated thoughts build mindsets, right?

And then we talked about this notion of choosing right thoughts and being able to control your thoughts.

And so we were at that stage in the conversation when, again, imagine sitting in a full team auditorium.

All of your teammates are there, your coaches are up behind them.

And one of our young men in the front row raised his hand.

He said, and again, think about the courage that it takes.

This is year one.

You've got a brand new head coach.

They've been there for only a couple months at this point in time.

When we introduced mental performance to him, and he raised his hand, he says, doc, I hear you.

I really appreciate this, but, like, I've seen some shit and I've maybe even done some stuff, and I'm just.

I'm struggling with this idea that I can control my thoughts because sometimes it feels like I can't or I don't.

And I said, first of all, I appreciate your courage.

Secondly, I know that sometimes it feels like we can't control our thoughts, but you can.

And here's how.

And so, pulled up the next slide, literally was the next slide, because when you start learning this stuff, and it's sequential in nature, right?

I've tiered this season out so far in these first four episodes in a very logical, sequential way.

Right?

And we were right here in this conversation as a team.

And so the next slide was showing them how do we actually choose and control our thoughts?

And we're able to do that because what we know from a scientific standpoint is that the brain and the mind are actually different.

The brain is the two to three pound mass that we all have under our skull, right?

As human beings, animals have these brains, right?

And so we have this brain as a human that weighs two to three pounds.

It's this fleshy, physical mass that we have.

But we also have a mind, and the mind is the spiritual side of being human.

And when I say spiritual, I don't mean religious in this context, okay?

A spirit is what makes humans different than a whale, than a grasshopper, than my beautiful Doberman Pinscher, Rockney Mulligan.

Right.

Like, a spirit is what sets humans apart.

And so how I want you to think of this is the mind sort of hovers above the brain physically, just to give you kind of a visual of what this could look like.

And it's the mind's responsibility to really control what our thoughts are doing and how they're doing it.

So we can't always control which thoughts try to come into our brain, right.

We've all been driving down the road on a beautiful sunny day, singing one of our favorite songs on the radio, and then all of a sudden, some random thought comes out of nowhere and hits our mind.

And we're like, where in the heck did that come from?

Right?

So we can't control which thoughts try to come into our brain, but through our mind, we can control what we do with that thought once we're aware of it.

So if you've read our book, it's called winning the mental game.

The Playbook for building championship mindsets.

If you haven't read our book, please check it out, because it truly is.

A playbook teaches you how your brain works, how it impacts how you show up, and then gives you tools and strategies to train your brain, just like you train your body or your craft.

But play number one in the playbook is awareness, because you have to be aware before you enhance, you have to be aware of the thoughts that are entering your brain before you can really control them.

And so once we become aware of what we're thinking about, it's the mind's responsibility to take that thought captive and ask ourselves, hey, is this thought helping me or hurting me right now?

And if it's hurting me, what do you think we should do with it?

Release it and replace it with a right way of thinking.

And it's the mind and the brain interaction that allows us to do that.

So some people just think thoughts come out of nowhere.

They do what they do, and I'm stuck with them.

You are not and you're not, because your brain and your mind are different.

And quite frankly, that's why meditation is so powerful and important.

Because in the pace and speed of our world today, everything happens so fast.

There's not much space between the brain and the mind.

Is like an analogy, right?

Because we're just, like, onto the next tweet, onto the next phone call, onto the next screen on our computer.

And so what meditation does is actually slows things down and gives you a little bit of a gap so that your mind can become more aware of the thoughts that you're thinking.

Right.

Start thinking about what you're thinking about.

And as you do that, then you get to choose and control whether I hold on to thoughts because they're positive.

Right.

When we thought, you know, in one of the earlier episodes, we talked about how we want to fix our mind on things that are excellent and noble and praiseworthy.

If they're not excellent, noble, and praiseworthy, then we release it.

And when we replace it with a right way of thinking.

And so where do we see this in scripture?

So, here's what it says.

In two corinthians, two, five, we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

That's the mind and the brain interacting.

Right?

We can start to demolish and break down the arguments that are in our minds.

Right?

Have you ever felt like you've been in a battle in your brain with yourself?

Right.

Joyce Meyer has an incredible book called Battlefield of the mind.

If you've never read it, please check it out.

It was transformative in my life, in a particular season of life, that I was navigating some personal challenges and poor life choices I had made and just kind of get myself back to who I knew God had created and called me to be.

But that book was incredibly helpful for it.

But, you know, again, in two corinthians, it says, we demolish these arguments that set itself up against what, the knowledge of God.

Right.

That's that battle that goes on in our minds about who we are and second guessing ourselves and criticizing and condemning ourselves and judging ourselves and worrying about what the rest of the world is thinking about us and how they're viewing us and.

Right.

You just.

You can feel the anxiety even in how I'm speaking right now.

And so many of us, that is our mental state all the time, and that's not how you've been created and called to live.

And so further, it goes on to say, right, that then we must take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ.

Like I just said, you have to take your thoughts captive.

You have to grab ahold of them.

Is this thought right?

Is this thought true?

Is it excellent?

Is it aligned with what I know about myself or what I know to be true in scripture?

That's why knowing scripture is so important, because it gives you other thoughts to think.

So that when we realize, man, I'm not thinking right right now, I can actually release that.

But the most important part, then, is you got to replace it with something else.

Because in the brain, there's no don't.

There's only do.

If you don't want to think one thing, then you do have to think another thing.

Right?

We've all tried that strategy.

Okay.

Just don't think about the conversation with my spouse before I left the house today and then two minutes later, driving down the road to work.

What are you thinking about?

The argument you had with your spouse that morning.

And so if we don't want to think one thing, we have to replace it and think what we do want to think instead.

And that's what it means when it says, we take the thought captive.

We ask ourselves, is this thought right or true?

But then make it obedient to God.

Make it obedient to truth, to what's right.

And again, regardless of where you're at on your faith journey, apply this to your life.

Align it with what's right and true and true about you and who you want to be in this world.

And then you have to do it over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Because just like you go to the weight room to train your body, you don't get to go to the weight room one day and walk out fit for the rest of the year.

You've got to train over and over and over and over and over again.

And the same is true with our thoughts.

If we want to build those right mindsets like we talked about in the last episode, then every time we choose to take a thought captive, to release it and to replace it with a better way of thinking, those are mental reps, and your brain is getting stronger and you are building right mindsets, mindsets that bring life and peace to who we are and how we operate.

That's what we're after.

And it's the brain and the mind and how they are nuanced and woven together that allow us to do that on a more consistent basis.

Woohoo.

I love, love, love this stuff.

I could go on forever.

But I know our expectation is a little bit shorter episodes here, so that you can get this stuff in your mind, in your heart, and then go out and make greatness on your day.

So, as you know, we conclude every episode with some championship mindset training, right?

Something that you can do to apply this into your life.

And so what I want you to do is start taking your thought captive thoughts captive this week.

Start thinking about what you're thinking about, and then bring it into submission to who you want to be.

Align it.

Is this right?

Is this true?

Is this excellent?

Okay.

If not, then how do I make it more obedient to what is right and true in my life right now?

So you'll see the similar mindset training the last couple weeks, but that's.

But this is fundamentally the essence of, of mental performance, is understanding that you get to choose and control your thoughts.

And if you do that moment by moment in alignment with what is right and true and obedient to your identity, little by little, you can rewire, you can renew your mind, and you can therefore be transformed.

And that's what we're after again.

If there's anything I can do to help you, please reach out directly to me.

Doctorselkingperformance.com dot.

Please follow us on all the social media platforms.

We're on X and Instagram mindsets, on TikTok as well, and then on Facebook at Selkien Performance group, check out our book, winning the mental game, the Playbook for building championship mindsets.

And as always, there's lots of free resources on our website, www.selkingperformance.com.

thank you so much for tuning in.

You've been listening to building championship mindsets, the podcast.

This is your host, Doctor Amber Selkien.

And from the locker room to the boardroom, I just want to challenge you to continue building your championship mindset.