In this episode, Keith, Tim, and Taylor have a conversation about an ever-present tension in their work: the compatibility of mindfulness and competition. From one perspective, packaging mindfulness for the inherently striving act of winning is counter to the very foundations of this type of practice. Alternatively, helping make mindfulness digestible, accessible, and practical can allow people to benefit in their sporting and everyday lives. Join us for Part 1 of this discussion.
Social Media Mentioned:
Twitter: @mindfulsportdoc
Instagram: @mindful_sport_podcast, @mspe_institute, @mindfulsportdoc
YouTube: Mindful Sport Performance Podcast
Websites Mentioned:
www.mindfulsportperformance.org
www.enduromind.com
Books Mentioned
Mindful Sport Performance Enhancement
Remember to rate and support our podcast, and subscribe to our YouTube Channel!
Very much appreciated,
Keith, Tim, and Taylor
In this episode, Keith, Tim, and Taylor have a conversation about an ever-present tension in their work: the compatibility of mindfulness and competition. From one perspective, packaging mindfulness for the inherently striving act of winning is counter to the very foundations of this type of practice. Alternatively, helping make mindfulness digestible, accessible, and practical can allow people to benefit in their sporting and everyday lives. Join us for Part 1 of this discussion.
Social Media Mentioned:
Twitter: @mindfulsportdoc
Instagram: @mindful_sport_podcast, @mspe_institute, @mindfulsportdoc
YouTube: Mindful Sport Performance Podcast
Websites Mentioned:
www.mindfulsportperformance.org
www.enduromind.com
Books Mentioned
Mindful Sport Performance Enhancement
Remember to rate and support our podcast, and subscribe to our YouTube Channel!
Very much appreciated,
Keith, Tim, and Taylor
Hi and welcome back to the Mindful Support Performance podcast. I'm Dr Keith Kaufman, I'm Dr Tim Pino and I'm Taylor Brown, and we are very excited to be together again having a little roundtable discussion today and this is going to be a truly organic discussion. This is something that has been percolating, I think, for a little while, but we hadn't necessarily planned to talk about this today, but current events happened and kind of pushed us to think more about this, and so we're going to. We're a little off the cuff today, a little improv for us in terms of our raw reactions to something. So, specifically, what we're going to talk about today came out of a really interesting experience that we had in our MSP Institute recently where we were advertising what was a commercial mindfulness endeavor. We were offering a new program, an MSPE meditation retreat, and we had reached out to some folks about maybe helping us spread the word In one of our circles. We got a little bit of unexpected pushback, which was interesting, and the pushback was around this tension between the commercialization of mindfulness and some of the more pure kind of mindfulness ideas that are out there as a philosophy or as an approach, and it really got us thinking at some deep levels and some very practical levels about how do we marry these ideas.
Keith Kaufman:We MSPE are very sensitive to being branded as something like mick mindfulness, which is a term that's out there, sort of this quick and easy answer, this magic pill, this magic bullet for reducing anxiety, reducing depression, improving performance. We very much try to stay within our science and advertise ourselves as a lifelong practice and not a quick fix. We sort of talk about us being anti-perish, shooting in, but at some level we also recognize that the entire premise of our program and of this podcast is talking about performance enhancement. And so can we ever really get away from the idea of, quote unquote, using mindfulness towards some end? And if we talk about it in terms of competition, can we ever really get away from winning and losing as a sought or as a striven for outcome? And we talk a lot in MSPE about the idea of non-striving, the idea of having a process or a present oriented approach, and while I think our intentions are stellar, there is absolutely a tension there and so we want to wrestle with that a little bit today in this episode and talking about can you really bring a non-striving approach like mindfulness, or at least how we think about mindfulness into an undoubtedly striving world of sports and competition, or even if we want to branch it out. We'll see where the conversation goes.
Keith Kaufman:How do we feel about the commercialization of mindfulness, the proliferation of mindfulness? I think we're all in agreements that it's a great thing that more people are aware of mindfulness and we want to help spread that word. But as we spread the word, as it gets proliferated, do we run the risk of watering it down? Do we run the risk of falling into this mick mindfulness trap, of really getting away from what mindfulness truly is? So I think, to kick off this conversation, I know we've joked on some previous episodes that when it comes to current sport events, tim is not our resident expert, he's our resident reactor. But when it comes to the philosophy of mindfulness, tim is the man. And so I wanted to kick it to you and kind of get your gut reactions to this question, this tension.
Tim Pineau:Yeah, yes, and even on the micro scale. I can even feel the tension in my ego.
Keith Kaufman:I feel like being stroked of, like oh yeah, I'm the man of mindfulness Like, oh no, I don't want to.
Tim Pineau:I don't like that. I like that that you said that Tensions abound. Oh, that's the thing I think paradox is abound when it comes to mindfulness, and so sometimes I think it's just you know the essence of a Zen koan, right, like you exist. Sit with this idea of paradox, and I think that's one way to look at this. Maybe this idea that competition is a fundamental, like a necessary part of life, not just sport, right, like to zoom out and think about evolution, you know, like survival of the fittest, it is competition for survival that is what drives the success of species, right. And yet I'm like, I'm really fascinated about like evolutionary biology and you know, in the past, like 10 or 15 years, like a lot of evolutionary biologists have kind of proposed alternate theories of evolution. That that really kind of show it's actually not about competition, it is about cooperation.
Tim Pineau:Evolution is driven when like systems become more complex and pieces of systems cooperate to overcome a single dominant force. Right, because the ultimate result of competition is one winner, which would mean no biodiversity, right, so it's it's like actually embedded in our survival is perhaps in some way non-thriving, like it's it's the capacity to cooperate, not to compete. And I think, when you know, when you talk to people about like, what is, why is sport a good thing, certainly when you start to parent about what they think it teaches their kids, you know it's like I want them to, to be strong and resilient and, like you know, be gracious winners and be good losers and like, but know how to compete. Because we live in a world where we have to compete, I mean capitalism. Right, like we have to compete.
Keith Kaufman:It is just a necessary evil, or maybe that disclosing a bit of my own judgment by calling it a necessary evil.
Tim Pineau:You know. And so, yeah, I think to some extent, you know, we try to bring mindfulness into that world and say like, oh, there's a different way to approach this. You know, you don't have to just strive for the win. In fact, if you can let go of that and focus on process, to not be motivated by shame or the fear of failure, but instead be motivated by, kind of your enjoyment of what's happening here and now, in the moment, it actually ironically makes the win more likely, and that can be really enticing for athletes, because of course, they still want the win, you know. So it's like okay, so here we are bringing in this non-striving philosophy, perhaps simply reinforcing the secret agenda of striving. I'm like, oh yes, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do all this, let him go, and then I'm going to win and that's going to be great.
Tim Pineau:And I think here's some of the tension, right, like to what extent, even if we are teaching people about mindfulness which I think is a good thing to what extent are we also contributing to what might actually be a misperception that, like competition is just necessary, it's a necessary part of all this right, and so to actually not allow for this more complete or comprehensive kind of letting go and the kind of insight that might lead one to enter the monastic life. You know, not that that's for everybody, but this idea of like, actually I don't have to participate in the job market, I don't have to have a family, I don't have to do all the things that, like a lot of us like not just think we should, a lot of us want to do. I think there's, you know, those things are, can overlap, but like a lot of things that people just walk around thinking that's an expected part of life and you're like huh, I could actually make a different choice, completely let go of this idea of competition.
Keith Kaufman:You know, because I think you know a mindfulness teacher, a mind, a resvan.
Tim Pineau:I remember talking to her this years ago but we were talking about like, make mindfulness and just like how popular mindfulness was getting. And I think, in contrast to this belief of like, well, hey, and the exposure to mindfulness is good, right, like, the more people that can even be exposed just a little bit, the better, she made the point that like there is a difference between mushrooming and blossoming, you know, and we this idea that mindfulness could be blossoming in the world. It's really wonderful, but really it's kind of like mushrooming right now and like mushrooming in this really kind of uncontrolled way, which does create a lot of space for the mic-mindfulness, you know, and for people to decontextualize it and, you know, and I think, to package and sell mindfulness, you know, to put it in the capitalistic system or the commercial system. I mean, I think this is the pushback that we were getting right.
Tim Pineau:Someone's saying like actually, I think that doesn't feel quite right to us, we don't want to participate in that. And when we got that pushback, I was like I get that that actually makes sense to me, like I have my own kind of internal struggle around that and like and like, because I don't think mindfulness is a thing you can just package up and sell Like I think it is part of a bigger philosophical system, maybe a spiritual system. I mean, I think, really more from like the Buddhist lens, you know, and like right, mindfulness is one part of the Eightfold Path, you know. So here we are. We have all these interventions about like mindfulness.
Tim Pineau:But when you like, take it in its broader context and like what does mindfulness actually mean? What does it look like in terms of how you live your life? I think there's like seven other parts of this. You know potential philosophy that you could also use to really influence your decision making and figure out what your priorities are, and like what it means to live a good life good and quotes, I guess. So like, yeah, I think when we try to like take it out of that context and not include this, the bigger picture, I do think we're missing something and I think we kind of, maybe kind of delude ourselves into thinking like oh yes, I can absolutely teach mindfulness in a competitive environment, when in fact, when you like you zoom out, you realize like oh, there is a, there is actually attention here. That that you know, I guess it's before myself kind of some at moments rubs me the wrong way.
Keith Kaufman:Well, and I'm dying to hear what our resident coach thinks of what you're saying. I'll kick it to Taylor in one second. I just I do want to make a distinction, because this is something that we've talked a lot about in the last couple weeks. Tim right, since we got that push back and it was, I think, both of us we had slightly different takes on it. I think both of us were like, oh, this is interesting.
Keith Kaufman:I don't think either of us were pissed or something, but I think I felt a little bit like, well, how does it help to retreat from the world? How does it help to just say, no, we're not, we're not going to help, we're just going to kind of take our ball and go home? It's like and you said what you just said a moment ago like well, no, but I get it and and, yeah, I get it too. But it speaks to both sides and I think, I think, to be fair, I love and I mean I love listening to you talk about this stuff. I always learned so much when you, when you, explore this. But you're also not suggesting to be clear that we shouldn't package it in some ways or that we shouldn't bring it into competition right, like you're saying.
Keith Kaufman:Sometimes it rubs you the wrong way and yet you're going to go talk to your lacrosse team about how to implement MSP techniques and to bring it into another season and you blow and you and you see how, when they get it, how that really makes a profound positive impact on their performance and on their lives, and so it is incredibly complex to nuance this out right like it. You know, I think we try so hard to walk this line between the contextualization, like where where does this come from, but also trying to make this digestible and integratable into our real world experiences in a way that can still have a profound impact.
Tim Pineau:Yes right like because, yeah, I think anytime you find yourself in some sort of like categorical box is absolute, like no, this can't be, like you've probably made some mistake a little bit, you know.
Tim Pineau:Like that because like that to me feels so antithetical to at least how I understand this, like this philosophy.
Tim Pineau:So like, yes, even if there is attention, right, it's still true that competition is really important. These particular people, right, and maybe kind of at some point along this journey I imagine, like people coming to see, like oh, I actually really want to let go of my desire to compete at all. Like okay, like that, I think that could be like a truly liberating thing, and perhaps part of the journey to get there is to really embrace mindfulness as a competitor. You know, like that's how you're going to learn about it and that's where you're going to integrate it in your life. Because, at its heart, this is an experiential practice and if you present it in a way that just turns people off, so they never experience it Right and they're never going to deepen their understanding of it. Like, yes, like I and I mean I, I love working with the athletes I work with and like I myself, feel very much attached to their outcomes and get really excited when they win.
Tim Pineau:Like, of course, like I want. I want that for them and, at the same time, like I also want for them, in any moment, to be able to be like you know what I don't want?
Tim Pineau:to do this anymore. Like, I want that for them too. I don't want them to center their well-being around winning. Like, if this is how they're gonna choose to spend their time, I wanna help them do it in the most helpful way possible, and I think that by starting to like be exposed to some of these ideas like maybe they will come to see that like, oh, perhaps this is no longer how I wanna spend my time, not because it was wrong to spend their time that way. Right, like, not this retrospective of like oh, I've made this terrible mistake and dedicating all this time it was like no, they grew and changed and they chose to dedicate their time in this one way and they came to understand themselves with the world or whatever, in this different way and then, in that moment, decided, I think I wanna make different choices, but those experiences, of course, were still important to leading to that moment where they decided to make the different choices. So, yeah, it did.
Tim Pineau:And it's so hard because we live in this like reflexively comparative world to be like well, if you're saying they should do it this way, then you must be saying the other way is bad or wrong, and like that's part of the paradox Like, no, it's not better, it's just different and at different moments, what is most helpful for us may actually be different, right, and it takes a lot of attunement and awareness and, I think, courage, right Self-assurance to decide oh, this thing that I was really leaning on as part of my identity and well-being, maybe I don't want that anymore. Like it'll be a really scary thing. How do you empower someone to be able to do that If they come to a point and realize kind of the imbalance that's kind of associated with being like a top-level competitive athlete doesn't really feel good to me anymore.
Keith Kaufman:Do you think that what you're saying is connected in some ways? To put it in competitive terms, like in order to really win, you have to be willing to lose, right? I mean, you're kind of talking in a way about non-attachment. You're talking about choice. You're talking about the capacity not that competition is bad and monastic life is good. You're saying, in order to really be well, maybe that's too strong. One way to really actualize yourself as a human being is to realize that all options are on the table and you have to be willing to lose in a way to really allow you to reach that potential.
Tim Pineau:Yes, yeah right, you know it's this very Buddhist idea.
Tim Pineau:Like, all conditions are workable, you know like there is something because suffering is part of life, right, because that is the kind of primary mode through how we learn, right Like we can't actually spend our lives always trying to win and never trying to lose and like never trying to suffer, right Like we have to meet the conditions as they are here in the moment and I think if we can do that, even the worst conditions imaginable right Like may ultimately be part of our growth. I mean, I know I've talked in the podcast before about kind of what's happened in my life in the aftermath of losing my daughter, Like just terrible, you know, like an experience I wouldn't wish on anybody, certainly not an experience I'm grateful for.
Tim Pineau:Glad that happened, you know, and I see the way that that suffering kind of has enriched my life, has made it more vibrant, has made me more compassionate and empathic and attuned to others, to myself.
Tim Pineau:I take so much better care of myself now, like some of the things that I remember teaching people and writing about when I came to mindfulness, I am like I realize now only in the aftermath of that suffering. I didn't even really understand, I thought I understood them, but then I experienced them in this way, via this suffering, and it's like, yeah, you need to have that experience, you need to be willing to lose, you need to be able to embrace that suffering, that failure, Because if you yeah, if I really like the way Pema Shodran talks about this and on perfectionism or denial of struggle, or like wanting to only be successful, it is she calls it like an aggressive denial of life, because to live is this fuller picture, with the ups and the downs and the wins and the losses, and to say I only want part of it, well, you can't have just part of it, right, and it's actually, yeah, this it's an evocative way to put it this aggressive denial of being alive.
Keith Kaufman:Or I mean you said wants, need, I only, can allow or I only need there to be part of this. I think it's. I think aggressive does a lot of work in that quote. Right, it's a lot of people are totally intolerant of of that kind of suffering, whether you're talking about in your personal life or to bring it back to sports for a moment, like on the field. It's so threatening and we've talked a lot on this podcast about the culture of fear. I mean, I feel like what we're talking about is perhaps it's roots is this intolerance for anything other than perfection, the win, success, a linear process which is completely unrealistic for how an athletic career or any experience in life is gonna go.
Tim Pineau:And, and this is why I think that you know, mindfulness needs to be kind of taught in its broader context, right, cause you can teach someone the mental training piece, the, you know, the attentional training piece, try to bring in the acceptance piece, and then you hit this wall of like, yeah, I just accept, accept that you might lose, okay, but why? Why? Why would I accept that? Oh, because the fear is like, takes up a lot of space. Yeah, okay, but like. But that fear motivates me, like I don't really want to let it go Like what Like, and if I can try hard enough and I can avoid that like why, you know, why wouldn't I? Well, you can't avoid that. Well, why can't I avoid it?
Tim Pineau:Because life is suffering, first, noble truth, right, because it is part of our reality, it's not just part of sports, it's not just the.
Tim Pineau:You know the fact that like, oh yeah, good batting average still means you miss the ball most of the time. Like, yeah, I think that's a helpful data point, it's a helpful analogy, but it's like, oh no, because the nature of our reality is that there is suffering, there is this kind of pain, right, and that is actually the fundamental way that we learn how to be human, how to be a good human, whatever that might mean. Right. And that the irony, right, the paradox in like that you know, if you kind of follow the four noble truths, you know that like there is this path of the cessation of suffering and that path involves the acceptance of suffering. Like how can the cessation of suffering be so integrally, you know, integrally related to the acceptance of suffering? Like that's this kind of wild paradox that we just have to be able to sit with, but I think it only, at least for me, right. Like that's how it all makes sense, like in this much bigger spiritual context, not just like I'm teaching you how to choose where you put your attention.
Keith Kaufman:Well, I was just thinking, our MSPE team, in full candor, is in this mode of exploring what we call fame, our fame profile. So we've done a lot of work in MSPE, around you know, obviously training, mindfulness and wondering, well, what's impacted by MSPE and what's impacted by this mindfulness training. And so we've identified these four crucial factors that we think MSPE really impacts and also our key mental skills to have in pressure situations. And so fame stands for flow, anxiety, mindfulness and emotion regulation. And so we've, in the past, always relied on other people's measures to form kind of a fame battery that we've advised people using and we've been having this really fun time as a team playing with and developing our own fame measure, like one comprehensive measure of these four factors that we feel are reflective of our understanding of these concepts and the underlying science and I say all of this to give a tiny bit of backdrop that our colleague, Carol Carol Glass, asked a really interesting question of us, which we had a fun conversation about, which is, of these four factors, which ones would we expect to change first in a dose of MSPE? Right? So we've got flow, we've got anxiety and mindfulness and emotion regulation.
Keith Kaufman:And concurrently, we just read this really interesting article that looked at kind of the cognitive benefits of mindfulness and the emotional benefits of mindfulness and looking at how there is kind of like a Venn diagram here. In a sense there's some overlap between, like John Kabat's definition, which obviously incredibly impacts our work, has been kind of a root of MSPE. I would put that a little bit more in the kind of cognitive camp in the sense of how do we pay attention to paying attention right, A particular way of focusing, which I think there's a lot of potential for concreteness there and that forms the root in many ways of how we talk about this with athletes and how MSPE works. But then there's this other side, which I think we also have tried to capture in fame, which is the emotion regulation side, which I think is you know, Tim was talking about the Buddhist perspective on this but it is this sort of interesting depth of almost like having emotions and not being attached to emotions. That is really hard. That is really really hard and in some ways a much deeper question than just how we pay attention.
Keith Kaufman:I think how we pay attention there's a Venn diagram. I think there's overlap, I think there's connections, but we talk about things like coming back to the breath and doing meditations and so much of what we teach in MSPE, and I think there's great value in that. And yet some of the emotional piece, what underlies that, which is so central to competition, right Like competition brings out so many powerful emotions and so many messages, and we've got so in the weeds in this conversation, talking about the role of language and how we even understand things in our brain, and I absolutely think there's a harmony between mindfulness and competition, particularly in this more cognitive way. I think where you run into more trouble and where it gets hairier is where you get into the depths of true non-striving and what it means to let go. And there's a level at which you get which I think is kind of what Tim was getting at where you eventually end up in like a monastic life which is obviously not compatible with what we think about as competition.
Keith Kaufman:And so it kind of this tension that we're talking about exists in how far do we want to go? Because if you take it far enough, they do start to diverge. The question becomes do you need to take it that far? Which I think is the impetus for this entire conversation and sort of well kicked us off this unexpected resistance we got. It's like, wait, you're saying you're not willing to promote anything. We're talking about a meditation retreat. We're talking about giving more people an experience with mindfulness, with meditation.
Keith Kaufman:And no, no, no, we don't want to touch that with a 10 foot pole because that feels commercialized. And it's like, okay, if you take it far enough. I get that. That's not where I tend to reside with mindfulness, but I can understand that if you take this concept out far enough, eventually you get to that point where, yes, they are incompatible. And yet I can also see how it sort of depends at the level of which. We're talking about this. And I don't know, Tim, maybe I stole some of your thunder. I don't know if that's what you were gonna get at, but I mean, in a way, totally I don't think it's a good.
Tim Pineau:like, again, we see the paradox, right, like it both is and is not compatible. It depends on how you look at it. And yeah, in some ways I think depth is a good. Maybe it's like a good framing. Why do we compete? I would argue.
Tim Pineau:Like we compete because we believe in the illusion of a separate self. Like that again, like what's the philosophical or the spiritual context? Like why does it even make sense to pit one person against another or one group of people against another? Because we fundamentally, on some level, believe that we are separate from each other. And therefore like because, again, our minds are naturally kind of comparative and analytical. Like one person or one group can be better or superior than another. Again, like what is potentially valuable about? Like offering this broader context, because mindfulness the Kabat-Dyn's definition right. Like being able to observe here, in the present moment, non-judgmentally, yeah, that is how we look at the world. But then there's the question of what do we see when we look at the world in that way?
Tim Pineau:I think this is where the depth piece comes in. Like you can look at your experience as a competitive athlete with this non-judgmental present moment lens and start to recognize things like, oh, wow, I have these really strong emotions and when I let these strong emotions dictate the choices that I make, right, like, actually at least all these negative outcomes, things that I would say if you were to ask me like, do I want it to happen? Absolutely not. And I realize, oh, I can create some distance between myself and these reactions and that creates this capacity to choose and therefore being more engaged in the process actually allows me to facilitate some of the outcomes I wanted in the first place. That is a fine level to be at.
Tim Pineau:That I think you can see clearly with mindfulness. But you look at another level deeper and another level deeper and you start to see like, oh, I on some level believe that it is a separate self that is having these reactions and making these choices, when, in fact, how do I even define this capital S self? I feel so differently in any given moment and from whatever perspective you want to look at it, from whether it's that fun fact of like every cell in our body turns over within seven years, or like are we our memories, when we can have false memories and reconstructed memories? Like are we like? What does it mean to be the person that I am? And I mean I think humans have been noodling on this for a millennia and I don't really come up with a convincing answer as to why we are fundamentally separate.
Tim Pineau:And even look at physics right, like take a microscope and look deeper and deeper and deeper, you've got solid mass right and that's made up of molecules that fit together, which is made up of atoms that fit together, and atoms are mostly empty space.
Tim Pineau:So the experience we have of like solidity when you look deeply enough is not solid in any way that we experience to be, and I think the same is true of ourselves. And so if we take mindfulness, this is how we look at things, and then we see this, the what we are looking at right, and look deeply enough, we realize that competition is kind of silly because we're not separate. And it doesn't mean we can't play sports right, like I have really fond memories of in my crew, days like playing ultimate Frisbee on our off days, you know, and we were, I mean, just hyper competitive with each other, but I just loved playing. And I would have loved playing even if we didn't keep score, and I feel like I would have pushed just as hard right, even if there wasn't this like oh, and one of us is gonna win peace.
Taylor Brown:So in that example competition, there was still competition there. You were competing your hardest, right, but you weren't doing it because of the winning or losing. You were doing it because you enjoyed the experience of running around and throwing a Frisbee and trying to do it in some way better than your friends, or there's just the challenge.
Tim Pineau:Actually, I mean, I don't think this is just a kind of a word problem, a semantic word play, but I think what you just described and what I'm thinking of changes competition into cooperation, right? Well, we're not keeping score when no one's trying to win. I need them to play just as hard as they can, and I need to play just as hard as I can Because that's part of what makes it fun. It only works if we're all doing it together and it doesn't matter whoever quote unquote comes out on top. It is this cooperative endeavor to show up and do something that we love, and I try to teach that to the athletes.
Tim Pineau:Right, when you come up to you know, are they on game day and you're like I hate my opponents, you know I want to kill them, I'm angry at them and it's like, well, you can't do this thing you love without them. You actually really need them to be off doing their thing, training as hard as they can, so that when you show up, you can really like flex and like get to this edge. That feels really good, I think myself, having been an athlete right, I like to say I still still an athlete. Like, I love that feeling of pushing myself. It just does feel good. And if you're going to do it in an environment that involves some sort of like interpersonal piece, you need other people doing the same thing and I would argue right. That doesn't have to be a competition, that can just be cooperation.
Taylor Brown:I resonate with that. And why do we compete? And it's because it drives the process. And, like I, we, we train all year round for one six minute race in the beginning of June, and it's it's the day that we're going to be competing, and it's the day in, day out stuff that we actually spend the most time doing, and that's kind of what we really enjoy the process of getting better, the process of making improvements in these skills, the process of getting fitter, the process of doing it with each other and pushing each other very, very hard. And you know, sometimes, though, it's like well, why are we doing all this? And it's to go and and and see if we've done it better than anybody else. But then that gets to your, your statement about the self and being separate, right.
Taylor Brown:And when you were saying that I was thinking okay, Tim, are me and you separate, are we? Are we two separate things here? Can I actually come on and and you know what, tim, you take the day off? I'll just see the rest of your clients because we're the same Right.
Tim Pineau:Well, and I think again, this other paradox between the way that we kind of consciously experienced the world versus perhaps what you know we might call like, the more this more like fundamental reality of interconnectedness, that like we live in a world that shows us separateness. In the same way that, like, even though we know theoretically not just theoretically, like we know actually right that atoms are mostly empty space, I still can't like magically put put my hand through a wall without making a hole.
Tim Pineau:you know, like the experience is of separateness, even if I know on some fundamental level, like it's actually not it's this wall in my hand or not solid in the way that I experienced them and I think this was one of the things that like really came to resonate with me kind of in the aftermath of of my loss was like like, oh, wow. Like my experience as a separate self is very much contingent on the conditions I'm in, and the conditions that I'm in because I have relationships right, because we all have relationships like, are contingent on the well-being of those other people that contribute to my conditions, whether it is the bus driver when I get on the metro bus, right, do they smile at me or not? Right, like to the mood of my kid. You know, whether my spouse and I are having a fight like, like my pain or my happiness or whatever is fundamentally and inextricably connected to these other people. And it's easier to see when you think about it, like these immediate relationships.
Tim Pineau:But, of course, if you buy into this idea like, oh, okay, these immediate conditions in my life, well, every single one of those outermost data points have also this other set of immediate conditions that branch out right and will eventually touch every other human being, every other living thing. Right Like this, there is this in the way that atoms are empty space. Right, there is this fundamental reality that's very hard to see with our naked eye. Right Like everything is interconnected and so my pain and suffering is actually the same as yours in some like really kind of basic, primary way. It's like, yeah, we live in a world where you couldn't come see my clients, right, but I don't have to make judgments about like, oh, if I have $5, I'm going to give four to this person that I feel closer with and only one to you, because I care more about this one person's well-being than yours.
Tim Pineau:It's like, oh, that, like that decision is based on some like faulty assumptions about what I'm, what I'm seeing and experiencing, and not fully recognizing that actually, no, in some very real, you even knew that money, you know, like helps me in the same way that giving this other person who's maybe closer to me, like that money. Maybe it's got a weird example, but but yeah, so it's like it is both. Of course, we are separate. We live in this world where we have separate bodies, and yet I think, underneath that, we're actually not separate. Well, and I think this is.
Keith Kaufman:I'm mindful of where we are in our time and we have to wrap this up. I was just going to say, you know, it really struck me, taylor, when you were saying you know we trained this whole season for for one six minute race in June and and you were talking about for a moment there, the joy that you see in pushing yourselves and the experiences that you have throughout the competitive year, and then you step back and say, but why are we doing all this? Right, and I think it gets to this question of why do we compete? And maybe the way we square the circle, at least for right now, in wrapping up this conversation, is, I almost found what you said to be a little anticlimactic in a sense that like, well, wait, we compete because of the journey. We compete because of that pushing ourselves and the camaraderie and the I guess you know sort of the connectivity that Tim was talking about, the cooperation.
Keith Kaufman:And there is this other piece, this outsized piece, the power that that six minutes in June has to determine my value, or whether this season was a success or a failure, and to think about that for a second, that that how much weight we give to that one outcome when there's been a year's worth of experience, a training, year's worth of experience. I think, in a perfect world and maybe this is this sounds a little bit crumbaya, a little bit too idyllic, but that's why we would compete. We would compete because of that year, that experience of being a part of the team and pushing our bodies and coordinating amongst everyone in our boat and doing everything we can to to push ourselves and see how we grow, see how we learn and and yes, we want to win and yes, we want to perform well on the water for those six minutes. But those six minutes are not going to define us. Those six minutes are not going to determine whether we are a success or a failure, or our year's success or a failure, and I think that's where their space for mindfulness, I think that's where their space, both on this cognitive level and ultimately on this emotional level, to look at things differently. But that is not the lexicon, that is not.
Keith Kaufman:I think the way that that we often think about sports is is what you were saying, taylor is. Is that really what it comes down to? Is those six minutes, and those six minutes will define our season. I don't know. I know I said I want the last word, but I guess I'm curious for one second like dude, does that fair? Did I mis characterize you at all? Is that?
Taylor Brown:I'm not sure I can respond to it in one sentence.
Keith Kaufman:I need like.
Taylor Brown:I need a lot of time. I'm going to process it. I'll probably come back and send you guys another voice memo about what I collect all my thoughts on all this. But no, yeah, I think you're right on base there. Yeah, more to come, I guess more to come.
Keith Kaufman:Well, in your defense, taylor. Tim and I had a little bit more time to prepare for this and spitball on this. Literally, we signed on and said, oh, taylor, this is what we're talking about, so you've done great in terms of just being thrown into the fire. I will just say very, very quickly I know we got to wrap this up.
Keith Kaufman:If you want to connect with us, the MSP Institute, you can do that on our website, wwwmindfulsportperformanceorg. You can also connect with us on Facebook, instagram. You can connect with our podcast on Instagram at at mindful underscore sport underscore podcast, and we also have our wonderful YouTube channel where we've got all of our free meditations that various guests have fled over the years. So check that out. You can connect with me, dr Keith Kaufman, on Twitter, at at mindful sport doc, and same handle on Instagram. We're still out there mindful sport performance enhancement mental training for athletes and coaches. We are very much welcome you to check out our work rate and review our book and our podcast and, if you're so inclined, you can go to our bus route home for our podcast and we have ways for you to support the work that we're trying to do at this point. So check all that out and thank you so much for listening. Thank you Taylor, thank you Carol, thank you Tim, and thank you to to everybody who contributes to this. This is so much fun for us to do.