On this week's episode of the Building Championship Mindsets podcast, Dr. Amber Selking focuses on the sports psychology principle of "thinking right" and its connection to the scriptural guidance found in Philippians 4:8-9. Dr. Selking explores how our thoughts significantly influence our emotions and physiological responses, ultimately affecting our performance in all areas of life. By choosing productive thoughts—those that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy—we can create a positive mindset that transforms our experiences and interactions. 

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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Check out our EBooks! "A Dream Come True: the Buzz on Greatness" “Winner's Circle" 

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

This is your host, Doctor Amber Selkien.

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

In this season, we are diving in to see the correlations between brain science and the Bible.

And listen, I know all of y'all aren't christians, and that's okay, right?

The point of this is that we are going to learn to look at something from two sides of, and in this case, it's science and faith.

And so I'm gonna bring to you a different scientific principle paired with a scriptural principle so that we can just see the connection between things.

I think now more than ever in our world, we need to be able to stand in the gap and have meaningful conversations.

And to me, there's nothing that I think the world thinks is more opposite than science and faith.

And so I think this is a really cool way in the world that we're in today to just take a peek and see that oftentimes there's much more similarity than there is difference.

So, again, at salking Performance group, we are all about helping individuals, teams, and organizations really understand and leverage the power of mindset and leadership to unleash sustainable performance excellence in organizations, in sport teams, and quite frankly, in every group that you're a part of, including your family and your community.

And so I would welcome the opportunity to hear how you've applied some of our principles.

So if you have read that and are applying it, let me know how it's helping you.

If you would be interested in doing one on one performance coaching, or even having me in to deliver a keynote to your organization, reach out to me directly, drsalkingperformance.com, because again, it's about how can we hear information, understand it, and then apply it to our lives.

That's my whole hope and intent for doing 15 seasons of this dang podcast.

If any of you are podcast hosts, you know that this is a labor of consistent love.

And I have the opportunity to serve as the chief leadership and culture officer at Lippert, which is a global publicly traded manufacturing company.

And I'm the mental performance coach for LSU football, have the chance to travel down to Baton Rouge from South Bend, Indiana, every fall, every weekend in the fall, and weekly during the off season to bring sports psychology to life in college football, and then to bring these leadership principles to life in the organizational setting.

So I haven't had any time to get sponsors for this podcast.

If you are interested in sponsorship, shoot me an email.

Also, we'd love to feature your organization on here if we align philosophically about high performance and life in general.

But I say that because this is a labor of love, and the labor behind it, the love behind it is that I love to see people's lives transformed.

And I firmly believe that we can be transformed by the renewing of our mind and that sports psychology holds the keys to unleash that type of transformation.

And so today, I want to talk about the sports psych principle of thinking right.

And then the scriptural principle that we find in Philippians four, eight, through nine.

So here's what science tells us.

One of the most important processes that we have in the field of sports psychology is this.

So what we know, if you've listened to my podcast before, if you've ever heard me speak, if you've read the book, you know.

Right.

This process is one of the most core and fundamental elements of what we teach about mental performance.

Okay?

We know that our thoughts affect our emotions, our emotions affect our physiological response.

And physio just means body, right?

So this is things like your heart rate, your muscle tension, your visual field actually expands and constricts on this process.

Your hormones change in this process, and ultimately, how our bodies are, are going to determine our performance in the moment.

Right?

And when I say performance, don't get distracted and think, oh, when an athlete steps on the field or a salesperson steps in front of a client.

No, I mean, every time you show up to a moment, whether it's sitting down to work by yourself and cranking some things out, whether it is stepping on the big stage or whether it's simply showing up at home to your family, how are you showing up?

What this process tells us is that thoughts start that process.

And guess what?

Who controls your thoughts?

You do.

You get to choose and control your thoughts.

Now, I know some people say you can't choose.

You can choose what you're thinking about on a moment by moment basis.

And when we say, hey, think right.

I was honored to be mentored and trained by doctor Rick McGuire, who's like a grandfather in the field of sports psychology.

And he would always say, it's about thinking right.

Sports psychology is about thinking right.

And what he means by that is choosing right thoughts that generate right emotions, that generate right physiological responses that deliver a right performance.

Some people might say, positive thoughts, will they give you positive emotions, positive physiological response, positive performance.

You could replace that word with productive.

Productive thoughts.

Productive emotions.

Productive physiological responses to deliver productive performance.

Don't get lost in semantics on this.

You picked whatever words you want.

But at the end of the day, it's about choosing thoughts that create emotions and physiological states that allow you to show up and be who you want to be and deliver what you want to deliver in the moment.

And so that's what science tells us.

Well, what does scripture have to say about that?

So it says in Philippians four, eight through nine.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me, put it into practice, and the peace of God will be with you.

Check that out.

Could that not be more aligned?

It was crazy.

When I was going through five years of grad school, I would read the science, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, is that Romans?

Wait, is that Philippians?

Holy smokes.

Is that psalms?

Is that Ephesians?

It shocked me to understand that everything we know in science is in the Bible.

And again, and I think this is important for all of us, because the athletes and clients that I have a chance to work with, some of them, faith isn't relevant to them, but science is really meaningful.

So we start there, and if they ever have questions and want to explore a little bit more, we can show them where the scripture is.

And it's like, huh, I didn't know that.

And we know from the field of positive psychology that spirituality is a really important component in people operating at their highest level on a consistent basis.

And I mean, delivering great performance, but also being in a positive emotional state and generally happy.

Right?

And so when we're able to show that to more scientific minded clients, that's.

That can be, you know, an opener to a new layer of transformation.

To them, whether it's Christianity or any other type of spirituality that this might encourage them to pursue, I certainly believe that this is truth, and I believe that truth can transform.

And on the flip side of that, I think we have people whose faith is really important to them, but they've been raised to say, faith is fluffy and soft.

And all of a sudden, when they learn the science behind it, they're like, holy smokes.

This is real, quote, unquote.

And it gives them even more conviction and more passion and more purpose in pursuing this transformation that it can, can occur from the mental, emotional, and spiritual level.

And so track with me again, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, pure, lovely, admirable.

If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.

Right.

Think about these things, put them into practice, and the God of peace will be with you.

Thoughts, emotions, body's response, which allows you to show up and be who you want to be and deliver what you want to deliver in the moment.

To me, that's the definition of success.

Can we show up moment by moment, day by day, whether the last moment was a good moment or a bad moment?

Can we show up to the next moment and be who we want to be and deliver who we want, what we want to deliver in the moment?

That, to me, is success.

And when we learn to think right, when we learn to apply Philippians four, eight through nine to our lives, all of a sudden our thoughts are in a better place.

Our emotions are in a better place, our physiological responses are in a better place, and we can indeed deliver the performance that we seek in that moment.

Whoo.

This gets me jacked up.

I love it.

I am so excited for this season to continue to bring this to you.

And like, you know, every season or every episode, at the end of the episode, we have some championship mindset training.

So something that you can do to apply what we just talked about to actually help weave this into your life.

And so guess what your championship mindset training is for this week?

It's think right.

Think right.

Choose right thoughts.

Choose to think about what is true, what is noble, what is right, what is pure, what is lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy.

And again, if this faith thing isn't for you yet, take Philippians four, eight through nine off of it and think about things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy.

And when you catch yourself thinking about stuff that's just false or wrong or that you made up, choose to think about what's true when you're thinking wrong things about yourself, about other people, about the world around you.

Think right, think about what is pure.

If you find your thoughts drifting into negative, pessimistic, anxious, evil, vile, sexual thinking, listen, I work with college young men.

There's a lot of young men that struggle with out there with that.

And when we can have these conversations about where their minds can go and how dirty that can get or how bad that can get quickly, whether it's from video games or relationships or how they're thinking about substances.

Man, we got to understand that we have power inside of us when we learn to choose to think right, to put our minds on things that are pure, is what's going on in your mind on a day to day basis.

Admirable.

Would you want that written in the newspaper?

Would you want that sent out in an email to your company or text it out to your boys?

Think about what you're thinking about and then choose to think about things that are admirable.

And what do you have to do?

If you recognize that you're having a negative, unproductive, impure thought?

Change it.

Change it.

And follow Philippians four eight and just think what's true.

Noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy.

Think on those things.

That's your championship mindset training for this week.

Because when you do, you're going to have a sense of peace about you that allows you to show up and be who you want to be, but also who the world needs you to be.

So that's our challenge for this week.

And again, I want to hear about it.

Follow us on all the social media platforms.

We're on champminsets on X and Instagram.

We're on Selkien performance group on Facebook and I'd love to hear about it.

Send me an email, doctor selkien@selkienperformance.com.

jump on our website, check out all the free resources that we have.

Grab our book winning the mental game off of Amazon or wherever you buy your books and apply this stuff.

This is why we do the podcast.

This is why it's here.

And man, I cannot wait to hear the stories of transformation when we learn to think right, to fix our minds on things that are excellent and praiseworthy.

Because the peace that comes for that is like no other.

And little by little, when you, when I, when those around us start to choose right thoughts and apply this to our lives, this is how we're going to change the world.

We change the world by changing ourselves.

We transform our own lives by renewing our mind.

Sports psychology holds the keys to help us do that.

And I love that we are on this journey to apply it together again.

If there's anything I can do or my team can do to serve you in one on one coaching keynote speaking, please let us know.

Send me an email again drsulkingperformance.com and I certainly can't wait to hear from you.

Thank you so much for tuning in today.

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

This is your host, Doctor Amber Selking.

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