On this week's episode of the Building Championship Mindsets podcast, Dr. Amber Selking discusses the powerful impact of gratitude, drawing insights from both sport psychology and scripture. Practicing gratitude can significantly rewire our brains, enhancing our happiness and fostering positive relationships. By engaging in activities such as journaling about what we are grateful for, we train our minds to focus on the positive aspects of our lives, which can help combat anxiety and improve overall mental health. Listen to discover how integrating gratitude into your daily routine can transform your perspective and performance in both personal and professional settings!

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, Dr.

Amber Selkin.

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

In this season, we are diving in to look at the intersections of where science and faith actually come together and bolster each other in how we understand them.

And again, the purpose of this is to just expand our ways of thinking and understanding.

I know that everyone's on a different season and journey of faith and perhaps you might even be a different religion or no religion at all.

Take heed, this is not going to be overwhelming, but it does pose us a challenge to how can we see that things are often more similar than they are different?

And in something where science and faith are, you know, historically seen as opposites and things that don't connect and maybe even go against each other, as we start to understand and see where they intersect and overlap, we can say, wow, there's actually a lot more in common here than different.

And I think there's a lot of aspects and elements in our world like that today.

And so hopefully this is a challenge for all of us to learn to think differently about things that we might have had a preconception about.

And then if you are a Christian, hopefully this helps you grow in your faith and bolster it with some science to support some of the beliefs that you have.

And if you really like science, maybe this can open your eyes and mind to explore a spiritual side of your life and being.

Because, you know, the field of positive psychology actually shows us that spirituality is a really powerful and important component to living a life of positivity, of happiness, of joy, of hope, of peace.

And so I really hope this challenges us to explore spirituality in a new and creative way as we integrate it into how we operate on a day to day basis.

At the end of the day, that's what the Salking Performance Group is all about, right?

We are here to help individuals, teams and organizations understand and leverage the power of mindset and leadership to drive consistent performance excellence.

And so Our website is www.selfingperformance.com and you can find a ton of free resources, but also tap into some of our performance coaches if you are interested in doing one on one performance coaching or interested in a keynote for one of your organizations that you might be leading.

We do a lot of annual sales meetings, kickoff meetings, leadership retreats and get togethers.

So if we can serve you in that capacity, if the topics of mindset or leadership and high performance are things that you're thinking about or would like to bring to your people.

You know one of the things I always say when people are like, oh, so you're like a motivational speaker?

And I'm like, no, that would make me want to stab my eyeballs out.

I teach science.

I just happen to have a lot of energy, so it comes off as motivating.

And one of my intentions with keynotes is not just to inspire your people, but to really allow them to leave with tangible tools that they can apply to their lives, either from a mindset standpoint or a leadership standpoint to, to help them deliver their best when it matters most.

Right.

To deliver quarterly results if that's what you need to deliver greater customer service to manage change better, as maybe your organization is going through a change or you're working on a merger and integration with a new acquisition.

What would that look like again?

How do we show up as individuals better to that collective experience?

That's what these keynotes can hopefully provide to your organization.

So if that's of interest to you, shoot me an email directly.

Doctorsalkingperformance.com and then again, if anyone might interested in joining us as a financial partner to the podcast, we'd love to chat with you about that.

So doctorsalken@selkie performance.com so with that, let's dive into this week's topic looking at the sports psych topic of gratitude and the scripture Philippians 4:6.

So we know a lot about gratitude.

There's been a lot of really good research done on it in both sports psychology applications of gratitude with athletes and coaches, but also out of the field of positive psychology.

That's where a lot of the research actually comes from.

And what we know is that gratitude can fundamentally change how your brain is wired.

Increasing elements of happiness, joy and positive relationships by a statistically significant amount.

And so if you've ever heard or read the challenge of like, oh, do a 30 day gratitude journal, I want you to know that this is not just a soft and fluffy make you feel good activity.

Here's why.

Journaling and gratitude over a 30 day span is really powerful.

Because when you start out, you're like, okay, it's day one, what am I grateful for?

And you have this really profound thought.

And then day two, you get something really wonderful.

And then let's say you make it through seven days of every day, you found something that you were really grateful for.

After that you're like, well, I was really grateful for my marriage, I'm really grateful for my neighbors.

And you start to have to look for things that you're grateful for.

And so what does that do?

It sets you on a mission every day, and you have to start to scan your day looking for things that you're going to write down that night that are different than what you've written down the last seven days, 15 days, 20 days, right?

And so you are actually training your brain to think in ways of gratitude, in ways of Thanksgiving.

You're setting an intention early in your day to scan your environment for good things versus bad things, things that you could be grateful for versus things that annoy you.

And what do we know from earlier in the season of this podcast?

Our thoughts are like bicep curls for your brain.

So every time you start looking for something that you might be grateful for later on, when you journal that in your notebook, it's a bicep curl for your brain, and it's starting to rewire your brain and therefore build what repeated thoughts build what Mindsets, Right?

Which is what we learned about earlier in a different episode.

And then as you build mindsets of gratitude, what did we say a mindset is?

It's like an Instagram filter on your brain.

So now you're showing up to your days, to your moments with an Instagram filter of looking for things that you might be grateful for.

A kind cashier that checks you out getting coffee in the morning, or one of the construction guys that happened to wave at you while you were driving by, right?

Instead of just aimlessly flipping on your phone while you're at a complete stop.

Still, of course, in your car, you have your eyes up, you're looking, and you realize, like, oh, that guy just waved me.

Oh, cool, right?

You're grateful for people in that moment, for someone that carries a bag for you.

I was getting out of the car, and I had a ton of stuff the other day, including Eliana in, like, four bags, as you can imagine, of my stuff and her stuff.

And someone was like, hey, let me grab that for you.

And I was like, wow, thank you so much.

Like, I'm so grateful that people are willing to jump in and be helpful to a total stranger.

Like, again, you start to look for that versus, you know, looking at.

I was sweating because I was carrying all this stuff, you know, And.

And so your.

Your Instagram filter starts to change in how you see the world.

And what they found in one of the studies is that actually 30 days of journaling things for which you're grateful can have a lasting impact of up to three months on your mental health.

And general sense of happiness.

And guess how much that costs you?

$0.

That is the other thing I love about sports psychology and human performance is you don't need tools and stuff, you know, like, you know, things that you have to buy to make it work.

And it's not like hockey or football, where you have a lot of equipment that you have to get in order to play the sport.

Winning the Mental Game, which is the title of my book, by the way, you can get it on Amazon or off of our website, but winning the Mental Game, it takes you and you.

And the good news is you wake up with your brain every day, and if you can figure out how to use it and train it, as simple as writing down something that you're grateful for at the end of every day, man, you can have a massive impact in how you show up and experience life around you.

So what does scripture have to say about gratitude?

Well, in Philippians 4, 6, it says, do not be anxious about anything.

But in every situation, by prayer and petition, with Thanksgiving, present your request to God.

All right, let's break that down a little bit.

Do not be anxious about anything.

Okay, let me ask you, when was the last time you were anxious about something?

If you're like me, it could have been 15 minutes ago, right?

Where you're worried about, how's the meeting going to go tomorrow?

Or are things getting in order?

We're leaving for the month to spend the month in Baton Rouge.

And so we leave in four days.

And so thinking about all of the stuff that has to get done, you know, that can start to build anxiety.

So be anxious about.

Do not be anxious about anything.

Okay, how do we do that instead?

In every situation.

So in every situation, that might start to bring on anxiety or stress or, you know, just heightened energy, in all of those situations, go to prayer and petition petitions and ask.

Right with prayer and asking.

Okay, with Thanksgiving, so coming.

Not just asking for stuff, but with a joyful heart.

Right With Thanksgiving.

Man, I am so grateful to have a beautiful little girl and a husband that I get to travel with and have to pack for a full month for.

I'm so thankful for that.

Now, can you please help me find a couple windows that we can get this done and not forget anything present your request to God.

And so it's showing us here that gratitude, Thanksgiving is actually an anecdote to anxiety.

It helps us combat anxious thoughts, anxious feelings.

And so when we do this right, we are thankful.

We let our requests be known.

Well, what starts to happen in our brain, we're going to learn this in a future episode, right?

Is that our brain starts to think more creatively, it starts to problem solve.

It starts to through that Instagram filter on our brain of gratitude and Thanksgiving we can plan a month long trip versus out of stress and frustration.

Also, you know, packing for a month trip in light of having a full time job.

Right?

That's a lot.

And all of us are going through stuff like this on a day by day, moment by moment basis.

Gratitude is an anecdote to help us navigate those things with more peace, with more perspective, with more creativity which ultimately will lead us to higher performance in little things, quote unquote, like having to pack for a trip or big things like having to present a final case in litigation, or having to go through a merger and acquisition, or having to navigate some really challenging health situations with family at home.

Do not be anxious about anything.

But in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God.

Science shows us that gratitude has a big impact in how we see the world and how we show up on a moment by moment basis.

And Scripture certainly supports that as well.

So this week your mindset training is every time you find yourself about to become anxious or anxious about a situation, really really big, important things to really really small things, take a deep breath, say a quick prayer, put it in context of something that you're grateful for and things that you're thankful for in your life and then put your requests out there to God.

Ask him for a different way of thinking, a different way of problem solving, healing.

But come at it through the lens of gratitude and see what impact that makes in your life and in those lives around you.

Thank you so much for tuning in to this week's podcast looking at the intersection of sports psych in scripture that is is gratitude and Philippians 4:6.

I hope you were able to take something away from today and if you were, please share it on social media.

We're on X and Instagram, at Champ Mindsets, on Facebook and LinkedIn at Selfie Performance Group and you can find us on TikTok as well.

But hit us up and let us know how you're applying this to your life because we are on Team Follow back and we'd love to be connected with you.

And then again, if there's any way that we can serve you through one on one performance coaching, through keynote speaking, or through joining us as a financial partner on this podcast, send me an email directly.

Dr.

Selkinelkingperformance and then we've got lots of resources on our website.

Also a link to our book, Winning the Mental Game.

And you can find all of that on our website@selkineperformance.com thank you so much for tuning in.

You've been listening to Building Championship Mindsets, the podcast.

This is your host, Dr.

Amber Selkien.

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