In this compelling episode of the "No Grey Areas" podcast, we dive deep into the realms of mental toughness, performance psychology, and the art of owning one's narrative. Our guest, Josiah Igono, former college athlete, strength coach for GCU & the Texas Rangers, and author of the enlightening book "Own the Pieces," shares invaluable insights that transcend the world of sports to impact every facet of life.

The episode explores the power of imagination, the significance of positive stress for growth, and the transformative impact of reframing our thoughts. Josiah emphasizes the role of breathing in optimizing brain function, urging listeners to embrace the adjustments that are an inherent part of life.

Our host, Pat McCalla skillfully guides the conversation, extracting nuggets of wisdom from Josiah's experiences as a performance psychology professional. Whether you're an athlete or not, this episode promises to inspire and equip you with tools to navigate life's challenges with resilience, mental fortitude, and a strategic mindset.

Don't miss the chance to connect with Josiah Igono and enter the podcast's Instagram giveaway for a shot at his latest book, "Own the Pieces." You can also purchase his book at https://www.josiahigono.com/product-page/own-the-pieces. Tune in now to elevate your mental game and own the pieces of your unique journey!

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Host

Today we have Josiah Gono on our podcast. Josiah was a previous college athlete, former strength coach for GQ and the Texas Rangers, a performance psychology professional and author of a new book. We're going to unpack on today's podcast episode

Host

called Own the Pieces. Whether you're an athlete or not, we discuss the mental toughness, how to reframe circumstances in your life, and how to tackle the tricky triad

Host

that will help in so many areas

Host

of your life.

Host

Listen now.

Pat McCalla

Josiah Gono, welcome back to no great areas. You know, you you have the

Pat McCalla

pedigree

Josiah Igono

to be one of the you are back a second time. So you actually came on our show? Yeah.

Josiah Igono

on. You came out with the book

Josiah Igono

That's right.

Josiah Igono

book. nice.

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Josiah Igono

it. Yeah, Well, appreciate you having me on again, man.

Josiah Igono

Thanks for the invite. It's always good hanging out with you, man. Yeah, Yeah, absolutely.

Pat McCalla

I'm going to ask you to bring a little more

Josiah Igono

Ha ha ha ha ha. You know, you just get. Just give me a second, man. I'm getting warmed up right now. Getting warmed up. I don't care what it is, you know? I mean, you appreciate you, all right?

Josiah Igono

So. Yeah, yeah.

Josiah Igono

Own the pieces, man. All the pieces of the book that's written to athletes

Josiah Igono

about mental performance. And even though it's written to athletes, I believe that any high performer or anybody who wants to get better is going to take something from it. You know, when you look at the world of sport and performance psychology, sometimes it's ominous, it's misunderstood.

Josiah Igono

I remember even on the way up here, I was thinking, man, I was like, yo, you know, when I was growing up as an athlete, the only mental performance mental skills training that I had was reading my Bible, right? Visualizing. And just like, you know, studying my playbook that was it. There was no like, you know, there was no there's there's no like, all.

Josiah Igono

Okay, let me let me talk about let me let me think about perfectionism and and confidence and like like that wasn't a thing for us, you know what I'm saying? And so the other

Pat McCalla

part was the coach yelling during the game, Go and

Josiah Igono

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That was that.

Josiah Igono

mental toughness.

Josiah Igono

All of it. Right. And so, so now we have actual words that we have put on it, you know, to describe certain things like perfectionism and confidence and flow states, you know what I'm saying? We have different words. And so the book was written in a way that

Josiah Igono

conversational. It's like you and I having a cup of coffee, right?

Josiah Igono

Yeah, you're right. So I have professional athletes reading it. I have seven year old, you know, kids who are playing club reading it. So that's how it's written. Very simple and digestible. I want to

Pat McCalla

tell the audience for sure, because we have a lot of people in the audience that would go, I'm not an athlete or

Josiah Igono

Yeah,

Josiah Igono

doing, for example,

Pat McCalla

chapter one is focus and performance.

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Josiah Igono

Yes,

Josiah Igono

for me. I

Josiah Igono

Yes. Right. The noise

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Pat McCalla

And I and I read that. And obviously it's focused toward athletes, but I'm going, man,

Pat McCalla

I'm not an athlete anymore,

Josiah Igono

And work out but I looked

Josiah Igono

Yeah. yeah.

Josiah Igono

That's right.

Josiah Igono

and execute the mission.

Josiah Igono

Yeah, I start off the book with focus because if you cannot focus on anything, you cannot do anything for a sustained amount of time. So that's why I actually start with focus.

Josiah Igono

The average individual. There's all kinds of research and data out now. The average individual can only focus on an inanimate object for 8 seconds before he or she loses focus. Right. And it's crazy that's

Pat McCalla

gotten worse with with our culture

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Josiah Igono

Yeah,

Josiah Igono

can be.

Josiah Igono

Yeah that's it's I would there's a double edged sword with focus right. So a lot of people say, my kid has ADHD or I have ADHD and that's another subject for another podcast for another time.

Josiah Igono

But there's a theme we're got to have you on the third time. my gosh, man. The third time you got to pay me for the third time. You I'm saying the first couple, the first two are free, you know what I'm saying? No, I'm just kidding. So when you look at when you look at the where we are as a society, to your question, it's a double edged sword, because not only is there an inability to focus like no other, like no time in his human history, but there's also this welcoming of distractions.

Josiah Igono

There is a we are as a society, as a world, as a nation, we are welcoming distractions. We got Hulu, we got Voodoo, we got Netflix, we got DirecTV, we got YouTube, we got Twitter, IG, Snap, Instagram, Tik Tok. We got everything, man. And so we are welcoming. There's the exactly. It's all in our hand and we have notifications for everything.

Josiah Igono

Yeah. So, so it's a double edged sword. We have an inability to focus yet we welcome distractions. We love it, We love distractions.

Pat McCalla

Do you notice that with athletes, do you think it's gotten I mean, because again, that's always been one of

Pat McCalla

the keys to athletic performance, right. Is the mental ability to focus

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Pat McCalla

flow state.

Pat McCalla

is it more difficult for them today or is it to sing?

Josiah Igono

It's difficult. Is more difficult. There's more athletes today, especially professional athletes live in a fishbowl. They are being evaluated. They are being watched 24 hours a day, seven days a week. there goes. There goes Messi right there. Where's my cell phone? You're looking LeBron. There goes Steph Curry. Where's my cell phone? Right. It's crazy, man. Like, you know, you go to a World Series, you go to a playoff game, you go to any type of sport performance of magnitude.

Josiah Igono

And everybody's got the cell phone out, man. We're not even watching the game. We're more concerned with capturing a moment to make us look good for social currency. You

Pat McCalla

know what's so interesting about that is my wife and I, we have a mantra, and we started this over 20 years ago, but we keep morphing it a little bit because it means something different.

Pat McCalla

But we are coming back on a road trip and I used to be one of those guys where soon as I got in the car I wanted the kids to go to sleep. I was calculating how many miles my average speed limit. I was making a goal. I was

Josiah Igono

was, yeah.

Josiah Igono

and we

Josiah Igono

Josiah Igono

And

Josiah Igono

on that like like the journey is just right, the

Josiah Igono

that. Yeah.

Josiah Igono

That's right.

Josiah Igono

that. Right. Right. For our audience,

Josiah Igono

Yeah, for sure. So

Josiah Igono

Josiah Igono

in today's game?

Josiah Igono

In the game exactly. Yeah, that's the incorrect answer. The immediate mission is never to win. The the ultimate goal is to win. But the immediate mission is what must I do now and what must I do next? Because if I'm a if I'm a football player or I'm I'm a part of a football team and it's fourth and one and we're in the red zone, we're down by two.

Josiah Igono

The immediate mission is to get the first down to give my or or to get my to get that that ball in position. So my field goal kicker can kick the game winning field goal. That's the immediate mission we got. We got to move the chains.

Pat McCalla

how does that help someone stay focused rather than So we use again, the analogy or seasoning of an athlete

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Josiah Igono

next thing.

Josiah Igono

Because what happens, what happens is a lot of times when we when we look at focus, we are trying to that's why the the the adjective, the key descriptor there is immediate it.

Josiah Igono

And what happens is many people try to look at the whole thing, how am I going to get this degree? How am I going to pay this bill? How am I going to, you know, do X, y, z, A, B, C, one, two, three, fill in the blank. And it's like, no, right here, right now. It's like Moses, right?

Josiah Igono

It's like it's like Moses, right? God was just like, Hey, man, Moses, I need you to do some for me and need you to go to Pharaoh. And and Moses just backpedaled on I can't do that. I'm not like, I'm not going speak about and I love what God told them. And he goes,

Josiah Igono

Hey, Moses, what's in your hand right there?

Josiah Igono

He's like, I got this staff. He goes, Hey, let me show you something. And we know the story. We know what happens next. And a lot of times it's just like, Dude, what do you what do you have right there in your hand? What is the thing that you have to do right now? Focus on what you can do right now with what you have and do the very best.

Pat McCalla

and just say, this is why I love this book so much and I'm going to keep breaking on it. This whole podcast,

Pat McCalla

it's applicable to everyone. It's focused on athletic performance.

Pat McCalla

But again, like you're saying, we're both we're both men of faith. We're both Jesus followers. And I remember years ago when I was in high school and I went to my he was a mentor

Josiah Igono

Josiah Igono

Yeah,

Josiah Igono

woman I

Josiah Igono

go. Yeah.

Josiah Igono

Yeah,

Pat McCalla

immediate.

Josiah Igono

Yeah, immediate.

Josiah Igono

You got to be focused on the immediate.

Pat McCalla

so you wrote a book

Josiah Igono

and,

Josiah Igono

and

Josiah Igono

Yeah,

Josiah Igono

Right now,

Josiah Igono

life. Yeah, for

Josiah Igono

Yeah,

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Josiah Igono

Josiah Igono

Yeah,

Josiah Igono

Yeah. So kill the noise. The noise is what is noise?

Josiah Igono

Noise. Disturbance. It's static, it's interference. It's something that is is, is. It's an interruption, right? That's what it is. And usually noise is not pleasant. Noise is not only external and it's not only the fans and the stuff that's going up. The elements, the people, the boos, the jeers, the temperature. Right. The adverse things that are happening externally.

Josiah Igono

But it's also internal, right? Like, man, I am I good enough? You know, man, this is it that sometimes gets the loudest noise. Absolutely. Exactly. So that's what the noise is. And so when you start looking at the noise, right, it's kind of I call it I call it multiple channels or channels of communication as an athlete. And you have to figure out, you know, those who are listening, they have to figure out what their channels of communication are.

Josiah Igono

But what I one of the things I wrote in the book is that for an athlete, there should only be three channels of communication open the communication between me, my coach, me, my teammates. I mean, what you see on that last play? I do, This is a fastball. Is it firm? Is it moving like a man? How does he get out in that of his routes?

Josiah Igono

You know, You know, can you you know if he good from that, you know, is her is her jumper good. Like like what does that look like. Right. So communication my teammates and then communication with myself positive self-talk whether that's affirmations whether that's me praying whatever the case may be those are the only three channels that should be open.

Josiah Igono

And a lot of times we get into satellite TV mode, right? And we got all the channels we're flicking through all the channels, seeing what's going on. And I talk about this in the book, you know, when we were kids, it's like you go you go to your friend's house and this friend has all the lights on. He's playing PlayStation with you, He's texting, he's on his computer.

Josiah Igono

Right? He he's doing all he's doing something on the iPad. He's watching TV on another screen. Right. And there are all these channels of communication open. There's all these kids and it's like, dude, it's too much. And when you kill the noise, it gets in killing the noise. You know, it's it's it's it's couched messaging, but that's where all of the mental skills come in.

Josiah Igono

Right? The progressive, the most relaxation, the affirmations, the positive self-talk, the the, the focal points. Right. All of those things,

Pat McCalla

you know, from that that's in chapter one. The rest of your book has so many of that and you're the king of acronyms, by the way.

Josiah Igono

Yeah. The rest of the

Josiah Igono

anxiety with that.

Josiah Igono

kill. Yes, right. How you just

Josiah Igono

Right.

Josiah Igono

your coach, your teammates. Yep.

Josiah Igono

and your self-talk.

Josiah Igono

Yeah. But I encourage our

Josiah Igono

Yeah. What would be. Yeah,

Pat McCalla

a great question for them to wrestle

Josiah Igono

what if you only had one?

Josiah Igono

you know. I mean, what if you only had one channel of communication

Josiah Igono

you have, you're, you're in dire straits and you got to figure some stuff out.

Josiah Igono

Who are you calling for? Some people that's, you know, it's going to make them sweat for other people, it's like ups, you know what I'm saying? You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. yeah, for sure. Yeah,

Pat McCalla

And that's that's why when people are in dire straits and you've been there. I've been there. That's why that's some of the most life transforming moments in our

Josiah Igono

life.

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Josiah Igono

Yeah, spend

Josiah Igono

That's right. The true God

Josiah Igono

you. Yeah,

Pat McCalla

that's not it. So

Pat McCalla

jump for a jump in a chapter three then, and

Josiah Igono

in

Pat McCalla

that anxiety and I know

Pat McCalla

this is going to drop after you.

Pat McCalla

But tomorrow, while we're sitting in the studio,

Josiah Igono

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Josiah Igono

and stress. Yeah.

Pat McCalla

Let's land here for a moment, because I know for sure there's not a listener that doesn't deal with us because we're human,

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Pat McCalla

ever before.

Pat McCalla

Like you said, you got all these different all this noise going on.

Pat McCalla

Unpack that a little bit. The Tricky

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Pat McCalla

that?

Pat McCalla

Unpack that a little bit. The Tricky

Josiah Igono

Yeah. I call the trig, I call the tricky Triad because obviously there's three things there

Josiah Igono

and many people conflate those terms.

Josiah Igono

They, they use them interchangeably. And I think that once you I'm big on definitions because if you don't understand definitions and you can't understand concepts, and if you don't understand concepts, it's really hard to talk big picture. So when you start talking about the tricky triad, especially for an athlete or a high level performer, you got to know what's going on.

Josiah Igono

Because if you if you know what's going on, then you can diagnose it, you can call it out and then you can solve it, right? So I think I don't know if it was Einstein or some famous mind said that when you understand the problem, that's half of the battle, just understanding what the problem is. Right? So yeah, exactly.

Josiah Igono

So, so we have to understand what the problem is, right? What is the thing that we're dealing with. So when you look at stress, stress, you know, for all intents and purposes here in this conversation is how much tension something is under. That's what stresses, whether it's cognitive stress, whether it's physical stress, it's how much tension something is under.

Josiah Igono

Tension is not necessarily a bad thing. However, tension can also destroy you if you're not if it's too much. Right. So when you look at, you know, stress, if I go to the weight room and I stress my bones, my ligaments, my tendons, my muscles for Yeah, for a certain amount of time, right. They're going to get stronger like any time a bone Ben's osteoblasts are sent out, the bone becomes calcified, it becomes thicker.

Josiah Igono

And that that bone, my bones become thicker. Right? And they become ultimately stronger. Stress is not a bad thing. As a matter of fact, when you start studying stress, the different types of physiological psychological stress you stress, as we know in science, is positive stress. As a matter of fact, any organism, it's arguable that any organism, if it is to grow, it has to be under some type of stress so that it can grow.

Pat McCalla

great point. Any organism

Josiah Igono

Yes.

Josiah Igono

Yep. Yep. It's tension as the childs is in the baby as the child is in its mother's belly. What is it doing? Over time? It's growing and it's causing more tension, causing more stress for the mother. Until that child leaves the womb. Right. So anything that you any when you start talking about stress, stress is is not necessarily a bad thing.

Josiah Igono

In science, we call it you stress. You stress is is it's positive stress. It's stress that promotes growth. Too much stress could crush you or worse. Right. So stress is not necessarily a bad thing. We just need to understand, you know what I'm saying? Like what's happening, You know, when you start looking at cognitive stress, right, Dr. Carl Dweck or Dr. Carol Dweck, rather, I'm sorry, she is the the, the the founder and she's the one who made the term growth mindset popular.

Josiah Igono

She developed it, right? Dr. Carol Dweck Yeah. Dr. Carol Dweck Yeah, she's, she's awesome, right? And when in one of the areas that I believe that she studied greatly was the anterior cingulate cortex, which is an area in our brain that's responsible for, you know, error detection and, you know, responses and things like that. And when you look at like little kids, right, little kids when they're learning something for the first time, you know, they're in there and they're just you're gripping that little pen with that pencil, that crayon with their whole hand.

Josiah Igono

And they're just like, you know what I'm saying? That area

Pat McCalla

so natural for us. But they're working so hard

Josiah Igono

Exactly. And they're stressed. They're there's there's like, there's like cognitive like and then I kind of figure this out. My kids, when they're doing homework and they're frustrated, I look at them, I'm like, Good, good. That's cognitive stress. That's good.

Josiah Igono

That means the neurons are firing. You know what I mean? Since they're firing, that's good. And then you look at something like fear.

Josiah Igono

Fear has everything to do something that. That. Right? Yeah. Part of tricky trap. Yep. Yep. Fear has a component of there's there's immediate and present danger. Okay. The thing about fear, unlike anxiety which I'm going to talk about here in a second, fear typically in

Pat McCalla

this because I think. I think even I probably think of fear and anxiety as being the

Josiah Igono

You're not you're not. Okay. Yeah. So fear, fear there's imminent an immediate danger present.

Josiah Igono

And typically this is the kicker right here. Typically with fear, there is a physical object.

Josiah Igono

With fear, there's a physical object.

Josiah Igono

at a rattlesnake or a boulder or a cougar. Yeah. Like, dude, you better be afraid.

Josiah Igono

Yeah. And that's something that God gave us, right? Like, you know, in terms of, you know, having biases and protecting ourselves from danger and this, that and the third. Right. So when you look at fear, if somebody if we're in a crowded place and somebody pulls out a weapon like, Hey, everybody hit the ground, yeah, dude, that's cause to be afraid because there's a fist

Pat McCalla

into the fight. Flight or freeze, right? That like

Josiah Igono

so, Yeah, sometimes. Yes, that's what we're seeing. Yeah,

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Josiah Igono

Yeah. Yeah. There's danger. There's danger. There's a 90 mile an hour fastball coming in my head. I'm not going to sit there and be like, come on, let's go. I'm going to duck, dude, Because there's immediate danger.

Josiah Igono

There's immediate danger, right? And it could harm me. Or worse. We live in Phenix, man. There's snakes and scorpions. If I hate snakes, you know what I mean? And if a snake jumps out, there's cause to be what? Afraid? Because there is an immediate present danger. Okay,

Pat McCalla

immediate, present danger.

Josiah Igono

That's right.

Josiah Igono

There's a physical object. There's a physical that can harm you.

Josiah Igono

Or worse. Okay,

Josiah Igono

anxiety has everything to do with an imminent event. Right. That has not happened yet. There's an there's an there's an event that is forthcoming, imagined in our mind that hasn't happened yet. And

Pat McCalla

I remember in chapter three, you really unpack this in this book

Josiah Igono

Yeah. Yes. It

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Josiah Igono

Yeah. It hasn't happened,

Josiah Igono

I call it, not to be, you know, funny with words, but I call the fear of a fear that hasn't happened.

Pat McCalla

The fear, The fear that

Josiah Igono

hasn't even happened yet. Or she might say, no. Well, do you have an answer yet?

Josiah Igono

the plane might go down, it might crash. Does everything book to ticket yet or they might cut me. They might release me for the team. Do you understand that the coach actually likes you? And they have plans, long term plans for you? Yeah.

Josiah Igono

Anxiety is a killer, man, because it's an imagined event and the thing about imagine if you look at the word imagination, I'm not going to you know, I'm not going to get into imagination right now.

Josiah Igono

But when you look at imagination, imagination is neat. It's neutral, It's neither positive nor negative. But we can make it positive or we can make it negative. I'm going to have to ask you a question. What's the difference between anticipation and anxiety?

Josiah Igono

Not a trick question. This is just a philosophical discussion.

Pat McCalla

Well, anticipation would I would usually think of that as a positive thing.

Pat McCalla

It's I'm hopeful. I'm anticipate that she's going to say yes, I'm anticipating that I'm going to come across the finish line in first place. I'm an artist that I would usually am I right? I would usually think that as a positive thing.

Josiah Igono

You're you're now you nailed it before you're so glad because I took your test.

Josiah Igono

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Josiah Igono

I think I got it. Yeah, yeah. No, that's. That's good. That's good. Yeah, that's good. Good.

Josiah Igono

So. So anticipation. There's typically like there's, there's positive feelings in associations, you know that they're come with that. Right. So on you when you were a kid the night before your birthday or the night before Christmas. I can't wait. Right. There's anticipation.

Josiah Igono

But guess what? Has it happened yet? No, it's all what? It's in our head. It's imagined. It's imagined. It's an imagined event. man. I think Mommy and Daddy are going to give me a bike or they're going to give me that PlayStation game, or I think I'm going to get this for Christmas. It's all in our head, man.

Josiah Igono

It's imagined. Yeah, right. I think the disciples on the on the on the boat Master, do you not care that we perish? How can you fall asleep? There's all this. There's Windsor Contrary. And Jesus in there sleeping, dude, Right? Yeah, right. No anxiety there. But

Josiah Igono

that instance, it's actually a conflation of fear. Right.

Josiah Igono

A present in immediate storm they're they're probably sinking. There's like and there's like dude we're going to die. We're going to die, dude. We're about to die, right? So we have to understand that, you know, you know, when we start talking about anticipation, I give you that example because it's imagined, right? And then the same in the same the same thing that can be said for the positive.

Josiah Igono

It can be taken negative as well. You know what? I got in trouble at school this week and my birthday's tomorrow. Dude, I don't know if I'm a geek in anything.

Pat McCalla

now. Now it's moving from anticipation. More of

Josiah Igono

Yeah, Yeah, dude, my mom and dad are stressed out, man. Dad lost his job, and blah, blah, blah, blah, and I don't know, I don't think we're going to have anything this, this, this Christmas or whatever, whatever the case may be.

Josiah Igono

Right. It's

Pat McCalla

interesting. Just say that you bring up that illustration of, like, a kid with his birthday or something, because what ends up happening right is a lot of the stuff that does happen, these these imaginations, these stories

Josiah Igono

we do things

Josiah Igono

and like, absolutely. Now,

Pat McCalla

this tricky triad that you're talking about, where especially with anxiety, we're creating stories that haven't happened yet.

Pat McCalla

what's your

Josiah Igono

definition? A fear of a fear that hasn't happened yet.

Josiah Igono

Yeah,

Josiah Igono

what we know and what we experienced.

Josiah Igono

Yeah,

Pat McCalla

So.

Pat McCalla

you're working with athletes.

Pat McCalla

But again, there's nobody listening that hasn't doesn't wrestle with this. How do you help people? I read the book so

Josiah Igono

like, know where you go with this, but

Josiah Igono

There's there's first of all, we have to define what they're going through. Like, what is it that you're going through? What is it that you're fearful of?

Josiah Igono

One of the things I always ask players, I'm like, Man, what are you excited about? What are you concerned about? Right. What makes you angry? Because usually when you ask those three questions right there, you get a lot you get a lot of good stuff. Yep. What are you concerned about? About What do you think? Yeah.

Pat McCalla

that's a good one that just

Josiah Igono

I mean, that's

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Josiah Igono

Yeah. Because you start tapping into the emotions, you start tapping into, you know, like extremes. Right? And so to your question, how do you overcome that stuff? You know, I have a there's an acronym that I've been using for years.

Josiah Igono

It's called Brass. BRACA Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things it's not in not necessarily an exhaustive list, but it helps with this stuff. It helps right? When we start talking about cognitive stress, anxiety and fear. Right? And so if you look at the history of brass knuckles. Brass, Right. Brass knuckles were initially used in Greco-Roman times.

Josiah Igono

Some would say some historians and scholars would say during the times of like, you know, the Colosseum, when gladiators would, yeah, man, gladiators would come out and they would, you know, they would fix themselves with all these different weapons so that they can survive. Right.

Josiah Igono

During World War One. In World War two, I believe they were actually given that as part of their military wares.

Josiah Igono

And so if you go and do some simple research, you will find brass knuckles that have knives attached to them. It's crazy, right? For a sport, especially for hand-to-hand combat. Yeah, they're illegal. They're illegal in many countries and many states. I found that myself. I've gone through airports. Yeah, I've gone through airports. You're like, sir, And I'm like, what?

Josiah Igono

And they're holding up my brass knuckles. I'm like, crap, You know what I'm saying? I'm like, they're like, you know, And they take them from me, right? And my you take

Pat McCalla

Time out. You carry around a pair of brass knuckles.

Josiah Igono

I mean, that's a fight. And like I you know, there was a time where I was given this talk so much and then I would show you and I'd show the guys and they'd be like, this is awesome.

Josiah Igono

They pass them around. I'm like, Guys, make sure I get my brass knuckles back, you know? Did the TSA exactly. The TSA agent was like, Thanks, buddy, Good story.

Josiah Igono

But, yeah, you know, and so when you look at what do brass knuckles do, they concentrate the punching power by the person who's doing the work. That's what it does.

Josiah Igono

And it disrupts and breaks tendons, bone, tissue, like that's what it does. And so the acronym is as you are fighting in this fight for clarity. Right? It's a fight for clarity, a fight for peace in this fight that you're having for tranquility and poise. You know, pull out the knuckles, man. Pull the knuckles out, pull out the brass knuckles.

Josiah Igono

And the first thing that you want to do is you want to breathe. That's B breathe. When you look at the human brain and the frontal lobe, which is in charge of innovation and strategic thinking, higher order operation, decision making, all of those things that happen in the frontal lobe, the frontal that the human brain has two primary nutrients that it must have for high at highest levels of functioning oxygen and glucose.

Josiah Igono

When you were a child and you were mad, what did your mom tell you? Hey, take a deep breath and take a deep breath, right. It

Pat McCalla

Was actually really good

Josiah Igono

advice. It's actually scientifically sound advice because the frontal lobe actually receives oxygen. Last.

Josiah Igono

So when we're breathing for extended periods of time now, we're flooding our brain with the things that it needs to function at its highest.

Josiah Igono

When we're not breathing, we become reactive. In short, we don't think

Pat McCalla

isn't it?

Pat McCalla

Because our body's

Pat McCalla

natural with anxiety.

Josiah Igono

Josiah Igono

It wants to survive.

Josiah Igono

right. You

Josiah Igono

Breathe, breathe.

Josiah Igono

Deep

Josiah Igono

Breathing is the proverbial steering wheel, the brake.

Josiah Igono

And the accelerator for any type of

Josiah Igono

performance issue that you may be facing. You're talking

Pat McCalla

about it because the frontal cortex of the

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Josiah Igono

Yeah,

Josiah Igono

I'm telling you, man. So,

Josiah Igono

so. So, yeah. You got to take a deep breath, man. I think of Dr. Victor Frankel, and many people have read his book, Man's Search for Meaning and Doctor.

Josiah Igono

Yes, it really is. Doctor Viktor Frankl was part of the he was a prisoner in Auschwitz, you know, during the egregious things that happened during Nazi Europe and in Hitler's regime. Right. And, you know, some great insights, man. And I just I believe that God put certain people through certain situations to reveal certain truths that are lasting. And I think that Doctor Viktor Frankl was one of those men and one of those people in history.

Josiah Igono

And one of the things that he said that's so powerful, he said, between stimulus and response, there is a space and in that space is our ability to choose and in our choice, like growth and freedom. Now, what the heck does that have to do with breathing? Many times something happens, somebody cuts us off on the freeway, somebody says something disrespectful to our family member.

Josiah Igono

Sometimes our boss or people at work are just irritating us to no end. And so between that stimulus, we don't leave any room for space, so we become reactive. How could you do that? Why'd you cut me off, man? Screw this. Blah, blah, blah blah, blah. Between stimulus and response, there is a space and many of us don't allow for that space to take place.

Josiah Igono

So we become reactors. But when we can take it, when we can do something as simple as breathing and stepping away, what we're doing is we're creating space

Josiah Igono

between stimulus and response. There's a space. And in that space is our ability to choose, our ability to choose. Now we have options,

Josiah Igono

and in our choice lies growth and freedom.

Josiah Igono

So breathing is so powerful. The are

Pat McCalla

that you know this, but you just perfectly wove this whole conversation into really the core of what our No Gray Areas podcast

Josiah Igono

about, about the

Josiah Igono

is an awesome

Josiah Igono

That's awesome. You just. Yeah, no, that's awesome. Yeah. Thanks, man. He didn't pay me, guys. He didn't pay for that. So. So the

Josiah Igono

so the answer is reframe, right?

Josiah Igono

You start talking about stress, fear, anxiety, the tricky triad. You got to reframe

Josiah Igono

how you frame anything determines how you see anything. So I can have the crappiest, craziest looking picture ever. But if I buy a nice expensive frame and put it around this, this picture,

Josiah Igono

it's going to be looking like a million bucks. Right? But if I have a if I have the best picture ever, and if the frame is like cheap and it's falling like who did what and why are you hanging this on the wall, dude?

Pat McCalla

Yeah,

Josiah Igono

Framing is huge. So I tell athletes instead of saying I can't do X or I can't Y, what we need, what we need to do is say, I can do X when I do Y.

Pat McCalla

I love. This is the part of the book that really another part of the book that really stood out to

Josiah Igono

me say

Josiah Igono

so, I can't throw a fastball, I can't sink this free throw,

Josiah Igono

stop saying I can't stop saying that.

Josiah Igono

What you need to do is say, I can sink this free throw. When I get full extension, I can barrel up, I can hit this, hit this curveball. When I barrel it up,

Josiah Igono

I can sink this point. You're reframing. You're putting in that million dollar frame. Yeah.

Josiah Igono

think say, do think, say do whatever you think you're eventually going to say and whatever you say you're eventually going to do.

Josiah Igono

Your words are so powerful because and the reason why is because your words are the connective tissue between your thoughts and your action.

Pat McCalla

and this goes back to what we talked about earlier,

Pat McCalla

our words. We have so much internal dialog that I don't think a lot of people even realize. Like, again, I encourage our audience start paying attention

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Josiah Igono

it. Like, yeah,

Josiah Igono

100%. You're saying, is that

Josiah Igono

You're very powerful. Doctor Jason Silk and he has a book called 10 Minutes of Silence. I highly suggest you read it. It's one of the I first read when I got into, you know, sport performance psychology.

Josiah Igono

Pat McCalla

So if you just

Josiah Igono

you've got to reframe it and

Josiah Igono

I 800%. I can do X when I do.

Josiah Igono

Why not? If I can do X when I do, why? And what you're doing is you're actually creating a problem solving, you're creating a problem solving situation and you're giving yourself a process oriented solution. In that statement, I can do X When I do Y, I can get in shape. When I do this, I can get in a when I do this, I can barrel it up.

Josiah Igono

When I do this, I can sink this free throw when I do this. Yeah,

Josiah Igono

it's not a you. We have to change the frame, man. So good. You know. So that's the ah the, the a stands for acknowledge

Josiah Igono

sometimes is one of the greatest things to do when it comes to stress, fear and anxiety is to acknowledge that you're dealing with it.

Josiah Igono

Don't try to act like a tough guy like or tough girl like, don't try like, just acknowledge it. This is research, man. This isn't me making this up of the simple, The simple fact that you acknowledge somebody acknowledges something, is stressing them out actually reduces anxiety down right away. Just saying it. Just just saying it. Because what it does is it defends the lion and it takes his claws away.

Josiah Igono

It takes its claws and his teeth away.

Josiah Igono

you know, if you if you if you look at it right. I was going to give you an impersonation, but I'm not going to go do. But, you know, you look at you look at you. Look at you look at, you know, all of these shows, right? These reality TV shows.

Josiah Igono

Right. Biggest Loser was a huge hit for a lot of time. All these reality TV shows, there's always this element that's present reality TV shows. One of the key characters is about to have a breakdown. You know, you, Johnny, What's going on? Johnny, who used to get made fun of when I was in the third grade, But this person or Sally, what's going on?

Josiah Igono

Sally We all have this fear. I have this fear of heights. And and what do they do? They bring in Johnny's bully from grade school. You got to face you got to face the person now who. Who's been giving you all this this stuff, what do they do? They take Sally up into a you know, into a prop plane and they basically kick her off and make her parachute to face that fear to insult.

Josiah Igono

And what happens when these contestants face that fear? There's like a release

Pat McCalla

like you said, a defending

Josiah Igono

and yeah, it's like, man, I didn't I didn't think it was. Yeah, I didn't die and it wasn't that bad. And I gave this person way too much power. Yeah, you have to acknowledge that you're going through something and it takes stress down good, right?

Josiah Igono

And anxiety. Right.

Josiah Igono

the S the S stands for survey. So my breathing's right. Okay. My, my, my reframing is right. My words are right. I've acknowledged that I'm doing X, Y, and Z. The S stands for Survey. Survey means to to look around to to to marry. What could be with what actually is what is a survey or do a survey or when they go to a new township, what are they doing?

Josiah Igono

They're looking around. They're saying, okay, we can put a stoplight here. We can put an easement here. We can't put two lanes here because we have a lot of traffic at rush hour and they're marrying what could be with what already is and and what happens what happens is when when we don't survey the land, obviously I'm dealing with athletes here, but when an athlete's doesn't know where his infielders are or his outfielders, when they don't know where the where the defense is coming from or where the inning or the screens coming from, you start playing with tunnel vision and it heightens stress, fear, and it heightens anxiety because you don't know what's going on.

Josiah Igono

And one of the things I talk about in the book is that your brain has several cortical maps. You have a cortical map in your brain for everything that you do, tying your shoe, riding a bike, right? Driving a car. You have a cortical map for throwing a baseball. You have a cortical map for everything. Everything.

Josiah Igono

And then

Pat McCalla

when we've done some of those things many, many, many times,

Josiah Igono

Yes,

Josiah Igono

Yeah, it's automatic. Yeah, it's just automatic. So when you survey what sound effect. That's right. That's right. That's right. And so when you survey what happens is you actually you clarify the maps, you know, if they so so let me give you an example

Josiah Igono

at home right now at your house.

Josiah Igono

Do you know where your bathroom is? Yeah. Do you know your kitchen is you know you're back there. The backyard is you know, are all three of those things are okay now Power outage

Josiah Igono

to 2 a.m., dark power outage. You're up. You need some water.

Pat McCalla

I can get around pretty, pretty

Josiah Igono

well. Do you know where your backyard is?

Josiah Igono

You know your kitchen is You know your bathroom is Why? How?

Pat McCalla

I've just walked it many, many times.

Josiah Igono

That's how our brains are. Our brains have done these things so many times that we know exactly where they are. Now, fast forward. Now you're on the road. You're in you're in a nice hotel. I know. A power outage.

Josiah Igono

Do you know exactly You're not getting around is easy.

Josiah Igono

This is exactly what happens. Yes. Right. This is exactly what happens to athletes, high performers, Anybody

Josiah Igono

who is struggling with stress, fear or anxiety. And they have not taken the time to survey both cognitively and physically what is around them. This is this is science, man. This is straight science right here. Right. Well, if you look at every high level performer during a playoff game, during during any type of like pivotal game or whatever, what are they doing the night before, the day after they're walking around the court, the field, they're seeing what the graveled turf is looking like.

Josiah Igono

You're seeing where the sun is. They're surveying, they're clear, flying this courtroom, visualizing that. Yeah, yeah. So when you start talking about stress, fear and anxiety, these things help to clarify those maps. And when you do all of those things, you breathe, you reframe, you acknowledge, you survey, everything slows down. Yeah. You're able to create space between stimulus and response.

Josiah Igono

You're able to make really good decisions because you now you're operating from a place of poise and a place of power instead of a place of confusion and chaos.

Pat McCalla

you know, and the language you just use, which is so interesting because anybody who watches sports, they know when they when they see someone who's

Pat McCalla

playing really well, they talk about like the game slowed down for

Josiah Igono

Yeah, yeah.

Josiah Igono

Josiah Igono

Yeah,

Josiah Igono

make the right. And I would even argue so because we use that term a lot, right?

Josiah Igono

you know, it slows down sometimes,

Josiah Igono

you know, when you start. Because I've had some really intellectual conversations with people about this concept and I use the term slow down, you know, in a proverbial sense, but at the end of day, a second or still second, an hour and an hour and an hour or still an hour a minute.

Josiah Igono

So a minute. Right. But why does it slow down? Because now we're controlling the narrative. We're controlling what's going on in the situation is not controlling us. So from a spiritual perspective, you know, you know, as a faith, right? We are not physical beings having a spiritual experience on earth. We're not that's not what the Bible says. We are spiritual beings having a physical experience on Earth.

Josiah Igono

We have to deal with time. We have to deal with our our decaying bodies. We have to deal with sin in a broken world while we're here. We have to deal with that in time and space. And but these things help us, right, to be able to do what God has called us to do on this earth. So that's why I call the Tricky Triad.

Josiah Igono

And those three things help with so many of those things that you deal with when it comes to stress, fear and anxiety.

Pat McCalla

man. Josiah, we could, we could, we could go on and on. I just. I love every time I meet with you, I get fired up, like I said, and motivated and encouraged.

Pat McCalla

I would just really, again, encourage our audience the pieces. It's a great book. We're going to do a giveaway with

Josiah Igono

Awesome.

Josiah Igono

underline or watch notes over on my computer to make

Josiah Igono

You know, I'm on I'm going to all the social media channels. I don't think I'm on TikTok at the time of this recording.

Josiah Igono

I don't think I'm on TikTok, but I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on YouTube, I'm on Twitter. All the major platforms, Instagram. So just say you got two or all things performance you can if you just do a simple search on those platforms for all things performance or. Josiah Ego. No, ego, no. You'll see all my stuff. yeah, that

Pat McCalla

information

Josiah Igono

Yeah, absolutely. To that

Josiah Igono

Yes. Yes.

Josiah Igono

Yeah. Yeah, man. So my mom and dad, they named us after kings in the Bible. One of them was not necessarily a king, but Josiah David, Cyrus and Jacob.

Josiah Igono

And you could you could argue that Jacob had kingly traits and, you know, but. But that's, you know, that's the. Yeah, that's how it started, man. Yeah.

Pat McCalla

Josiah became one of my

Josiah Igono

Pat McCalla

in,

Pat McCalla

Israel's history. And even at a young age, he turned the entire nation back around, and he had a horrible father and

Josiah Igono

yeah, yeah,

Josiah Igono

given

Josiah Igono

And then talked about, yeah,

Josiah Igono

Yoshi Yahoo! That's right. You told me that and I went to go look it up. And you're right. Yeah, you're right. Yeah.

Pat McCalla

So that's why we made our nickname for our son is Yo.

Josiah Igono

Yo,

Josiah Igono

That's awesome, man. Yeah,

Josiah Igono

Such a small

Josiah Igono

like September 9th or something like that,

Josiah Igono

down

Josiah Igono

of appreciate you

Pat McCalla

give somebody some great

Pat McCalla

advice. So. All right. To choose an ally.

Josiah Igono

man

Pat McCalla

you were here before.

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Josiah Igono

You know,

Pat McCalla

if I figured it out the first time or not. I know I'm going to figure it out this time because you said you're going to just

Pat McCalla

do it spur of the moment

Josiah Igono

Yeah. All right, So. So two truths in a lie. So, okay, here my statements.

Josiah Igono

We've been married for eight years. My doctorate is in performance psychology and. And at one point in time, I had a 39.5 inch vertical.

Pat McCalla

I know two is number two is true. And I know you are a good athlete. I'm going with the 39.5 inch vertical, and I think you've been married longer than eight years. So I'm going to say that one's the lie.

Josiah Igono

which one?

Pat McCalla

The first one. You've been married for eight years. That's a lie. You've been married longer than that, haven't you?

Josiah Igono

Yes. Yeah, man. Good man. That's good. That's good, man.

Josiah Igono

Yeah, it's 14, 14, man. 14 years. So you nailed it. Yeah. Had the

Pat McCalla

privilege of what? Before we even knew each other. We met when I moved down here.

Pat McCalla

And you're working at Fellowship

Josiah Igono

Yeah.

Pat McCalla

But I actually saw you play when you were playing for NIU. You were playing up in Montana,

Josiah Igono

Montana in Missoula, Montana. man. Grizzlies.

Josiah Igono

Yeah

Josiah Igono

39.0 man I was I was an average athlete or two below average depending on who you ask. I mean, if my teammates were on the on the podcast, they would they would all say below average, give me, give me crap. But yeah, man.

Josiah Igono

Hey, hey. I tell you what, I tell you what, man,

Josiah Igono

that was one of the most in top, I would say top two craziest environments I've ever been in in my life in Missoula. That was crazy. People don't

Pat McCalla

people don't know because it's skin.

Josiah Igono

it's crazy

Josiah Igono

yeah a

Josiah Igono

I mean, I had little kids flipping me off, you know what I mean? I was about to fight this all stuff that we're talking about right now, you know, between stimulus and response, I had no space. There was no space. I had negative space. You don't say a word. I caught you the one time we all met. One day that I did.

Josiah Igono

I got ejected from that game. I got ejected from that game because, you know, I just lost it. The guy

Josiah Igono

I just lost it, man. Yeah,

Josiah Igono

Apparently I blacked out coming

Josiah Igono

you guys. Yeah. Yeah. Sitting. I'm watching an eight year old kid flipping you off and your dad, you're like, Good job.

Josiah Igono

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Josiah Igono

That was brutal, man. And we lost and we lost that game to man. Yeah.

Josiah Igono

Just say thanks so much, man. I appreciate it. Thank you. I

Josiah Igono

yeah,

Josiah Igono

I appreciate you.

Josiah Igono

Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.

Josiah Igono

I appreciate you. Thank you. All right.

Host

What a powerful conversation that was with Josiah.

Host

So many nuggets of truth that we can hold on to after this episode.

Host

We hope this episode inspired you, and if you want to connect with Josiah, we'll leave his contact info in the description below. Be sure to enter our giveaway on our Instagram account for a chance to win his new book, Own the Pieces.

Host

We'll see you next time

Host

on the No Gray Areas podcast.