Mental Skills That Hold Up Under Pressure — From Special Ops to the MLB
Jun 13, 2025Most people think toughness means being rigid. Stoic. Hard.
But that’s not how elite performers see it.
Dr. Steven Hayes—renowned clinical psychologist and founder of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy—and Ben Freakley—former Army mental skills coach and MLB head of mental performance—reveal a counterintuitive truth:
🧠 Mental toughness = Psychological flexibility.
In this episode, we explore why skills like mindfulness, values alignment, and attentional control outperform outdated mental toughness slogans. And how these exact principles are used in elite military units, pro sports teams, and billion-dollar boardrooms.
You’ll hear stories from the battlefield, the bullpen, and the therapy room—and walk away with a playbook for showing up under pressure.
Connect with Dr. Steven:
🌐 Website: https://stevenchayes.com/
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stevenchayes/
✖️ X (Twitter): https://x.com/stevenchayes
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drstevenchayes/
🌐 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drstevenchayes
📹 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StevenCHayes-yo7di
📚 Book: https://stevenchayes.com/books/
Connect with Ben.:
🌐 Website: https://www.rsrcoaching.com/
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-freakley-edd-cmpc-a5036bb1/
✖️ X (Twitter): https://x.com/bcfreakley
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/readysetresilient/
Follow me for more:
🌐 Website: www.toughness.com
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paddysgram/
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paddysteinfort/
✖️ X (Twitter): https://x.com/Paddys_posts
TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Ben Freakley: I don't think a person can really reach a full level of toughness.
[00:00:01] Dr. Steven Hayes: When you stand with yourself in a self-compassionate kind, life opens up all these kind of challenges that we're all gonna face. Is it gonna break you, or are you gonna have that combination of flexibility and strength to sort of bend and come back, be focuse,d and move
[00:00:20] Ben Freakley: The moment matters when there is a score to be kept, to match, to be won. It's not a skill unless it holds up under pressure. The present moment is the only moment we have any power over.
[00:00:36] Paddy Steinfort: Welcome to the Toughness podcast. My name's Paddy Steinford, your host, and we have two amazing individuals here. Two huge influencers on my own life, each in their own right. Firstly, Steven Hayes. Who is the founder inventor? I don't even know the right word to use Steve, but basically you developed a new approach to psychological therapy that has led into sport and that I use significantly and a lot of practitioners use as mental performance coaches. Steven Hayes, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us.
[00:01:06] Dr. Steven Hayes: Great to be here.
[00:01:07] Paddy Steinfort: And at the same time, I have a person who I would call a great friend who also was a colleague for a number of years at the Toronto Blue Jays. Head of their mental performance program, but that's not all in his background. It's worth mentioning Ben himself was in charge of mental performance training for special operations forces for a few years, has a military background in his family that goes a long, long way back, and so has a great understanding of the stresses that we can't even imagine in the sports world. Ben Freakley, welcome to the show.
[00:01:35] Ben Freakley: Thanks, Paddy and Dr. Hayes. Always great to hang with your brother.
[00:01:39] Paddy Steinfort: A cool thing worth sharing with the audience before we jump right in is that once I finished working with Ben at the Blue Jays, and we had started exploring the application of some of Steven's work to elite athletes. The, uh, the connection then happened after I'd left where Steven, and for those who are watching, if you've got a video on this, you, you'll see that Steven actually is repping a Blue Jays t-shirt. He's coming to help consult with the team on Ben's request. Since then, and when we all met in different ways, Steven didn't know that I knew Ben and that I had a Blue Jays background.
And he was talking about, oh, you know, I've been with the Blue Jays, and he's like, oh yeah, I used to work there. He is like, oh, you are the Paddy that they were talking about. And so it was, it's a fun small world that we're involved in. I want, I want to jump firstly, Steven, to your work before you got dragged into sports teams like the Blue Jays and others.
You have your book in the background there, A Liberated Mind. It's a seminal work, and I'm not using that term loosely. People talk about being a thought leader in on the internet all the time these days. We legitimately have a thought leader here right now. Steven took an uncommon approach to psychological therapy and has turned it into it probably, it's maybe not the most common approach nowadays, but it is a very widely accepted and widely used approach.
So I'm curious, Steve, what led to you being able to be schooled in a certain way in psychology and then be like, nah, this isn't it. There's something else going on here for the people that I'm trying to help.
[00:03:09] Dr. Steven Hayes: Well, I had the great fortune of developing a panic disorder. So, you know, the things that I applied were the things I learned, and they just didn't do the job. And you know, and it wasn't until I kind of turned back to some, uh, things that are in the wisdom traditions and so forth where I got some traction and I thought, wow, that's so weird. That's not what's in the mainstream at all. And at the time, you know, talking about mindfulness or attentional flexibility, emotional openness, values, all that stuff would be woo woo. And so, and that's what you mean
[00:03:38] Paddy Steinfort: When you say the wisdom traditions? You mean like mindfulness Eastern?
[00:03:42] Dr. Steven Hayes: I do philosophy, I do. And it's not just Eastern. It's in all of our, uh, religious traditions, mystical traditions, et cetera. But you know, and I wanted to sort of understand why that happened with me.
And I spent 40 years, as I say, usually what I say is trying to hack the human mind and come up with the 20% that does the 80%. And we think we've been able to do that. And so from the time that I really, it impacted on me to the time I put it out there for people to apply is almost 16 years. And in that time, we worked out what are the real processes that make a difference and the reason why it's called acceptance and commitment therapy.
But when you apply it in outside of psychotherapy, you call it acceptance and commitment training. Neither case it's act. The reason why it's made that tradition is in sports and high performance and all that is, it turns out the processes that get you in trouble mentally are also the processes when you flip 'em, that empower you to live a high performance kind of life and really get there in business or relationships or whatever you're trying to do sports. To be able to sort of bring it. So that has been wonderful to see.
[00:04:47] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah. And, and and as you say, the, the processes themselves, the processes, excuse my accent, are the thing that really separate this from the traditional, and I'm using air quotes for those who are just listening. Traditional psychology of change your thoughts, feel better, think better, and it, there are no solid things we can point to and say, I can do that and I can repeat it, and anyone can do that, 'cause it's a process of thinking. I will dig into, into what those processes are more into the show, but Ben, just a little bit on your background as well. It's, it's not the same as having a panic disorder and trying to learn and hack the human mind on, on the go. You yourself. I mentioned a number of things in your background there.
I didn't mention you were a, a soccer coach for 10, 12 years. Is that right? How many years was that a part of your 15. 15. There you go. I'm underselling you. So, 15 years as a head soccer coach of a, of a college program. There were a number of things that were going on for you as a coach, as you've relay to me over the years that you're like, this isn't this, isn't it? Like I feel like there's something else that needs to be taught here in order for these guys to actually be able to go out and perform well on the soccer field. Is that, is that a fair summary that tries to align with that?
[00:05:59] Ben Freakley: It's, it's a great summary when I think my hunger was anytime I would go to a coach education program. There's a lot of talk at the beginning on how holistic player development is technical, tactical, physical, and psychological. Well, we got lots of education around how to technically, tactically, and physically develop players, but I was, I always left wanting more on what is it that is not seen that has so much influence over behaviors.
So I'd say 20 2008 was like a defining moment for me where I was really unaware of my values as a coach. I wasn't really clear on. Who I really was and what I was bringing in 2010 when I changed and went to a different university, there was a sports psych program, and I said, I'm doing this. And so I was getting my master's degree in sports psychology while also being a coach and starting to change some of my approaches to coaching.
Really trying to dig down deep into what type of psychological and even emotional. Elements impact performance. And so that, that was kind of, uh, you know, what kind of set me on this journey.
[00:07:16] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah. How much, like I mentioned, I did mention in the, in the background that you have a military background in your family. Before I go ahead and ask a question about that, do you wanna give a little more detail as to like, when I say that, it's not just the Oh my, you know, 'cause I have a military background in my family, my dad, my grandfather was in the Army Reserve in Australia while World War II was going on. Now, that's, that's kind of a military background, but not really. Yours is a little more serious than that. Can you, can you give a bit more depth on that for the audience?
[00:07:46] Ben Freakley: Yeah. Well, I wanna say it's, it's a really proud part of my family, a proud tradition. Both my grandfathers served in World War II. I barely knew my dad's dad, but from time to time my dad will tell me stories. I mean, he was an an infantryman during World War II and, and fought at the battle of the Remagen Bridge. And you know what's neat about that is there's a big chunk of the Remagen Bridge at Fort Benning, Georgia, and my father spent 37 years in the military. He retired as a three-star general. He is my hero.
The greatest leader I've ever met and when my brother William, who's in Special Operations forces commissioned into the Army, my dad commissioned my brother at that chunk of the Remagen Bridge that my grandfather fought for my, I have another brother, Sam, who served, went to West Point. My brother Will is still active duty right now and deploys regularly and when I left college coaching, it was for an opportunity to work with the Army Rangers and Special Operations forces and start to really learn from those guys about kind of redefining mindset and how important that is for the work that they do. So that's kind of how that world has come together for me, and I never served.
I wanna make that very clear. But I have the greatest respect for those guys that do. And yeah, I'm proud of that, that heritage.
[00:09:12] Paddy Steinfort: That's a really cool story. I, I don't think you'd ever told me about that. Your dad commissioning your brother at that, at that part of the bridge, and it gave me chills, and I'm sure there are some listeners who shared that experience just now. I asked you to paint that so that people knew that this is a legit connection to military history, tradition and mindset even that you have. As a prep for this question of how much of your early coaching as a soccer coach, when you're trying to instill toughness or that mental side, as you mentioned from coaching clinics, you're trying to instill that into players.
How much of that was informed by a traditional view of what toughness is from the military, and if it was, has it evolved since then? What would you describe as toughness now?
[00:09:56] Ben Freakley: Definitely evolved. Thank God it's definitely evolved. Steve is the godfather. I know we're still looking for the right appropriate name for Steve. I'm gonna say godfather of third wave therapies, and where I am now as a coach is in John Cabot Zen. Great quote that you can't control the waves. You can learn to surf. Steve's work is about helping people learn to surf. And in the beginning, when I was a coach, I defaulted to who had coached me and whatever their go-to talk on toughness was.
That was Bible, that was it. That was it. And I had been around one coach in particular, a Marine who was and is a really tough dude. But this is highly individual and taking a one-size-fits-all all approach into toughness. Without considering life experiences like Steve's been vulnerable to share with us, I don't think a person can really reach a full level of toughness. I think the first time you and I met in person, Paddy, I was talking to a group of Blue Jays players on mindset. We called that a collection of rock-solid, non-negotiable beliefs. Well then, I learned about the work that Steve's doing and we could define that rock solid set into six researched and defined core processes that to, and Steve hit me with this right between the eyes the first time we got on a Zoom call.
Understanding is the booby prize, meaning this has to be a philosophy and kind of a way and a way of living. Yeah. And when you adopt this and when you practice this, your ability to be there for more of your life. Is possible. I didn't know any of this when I was getting in. I didn't know what I was missing when I was a college coach. All my talks were about, you gotta be committed, or definitely don't think about that. Or definitely, hey, be positive. You know, Steve and I were joking that affirmations are great as long as you don't need them. So
[00:12:16] Paddy Steinfort: I think I saw some something. One talk. Steven, it might've, it might've been, it definitely wasn't your TED talk 'cause you weren't as this blunt, as blunt as this in that one. But something to the effect of, you know, those things are great until they're not. They work until they don't. And then then what? And that's really where your stuff picked off, Ben, you just mentioned, or you use the term third wave therapies and even for me, having done some study and research in the area, I didn't quite get what that meant until I read it multiple times and really contrasted previous approaches to what we are talking about now. Steve, do you want to give a little more context as to what it means to. As a third-wave therapy. Like what? What are the first two waves?
[00:12:59] Dr. Steven Hayes: Well, the first one, these are in the evidence-based treatments, was really to try to apply principles that came from animal learning lab. They're really great stuff and you can do a lot with it. Just rewarding and punishing and extinction and so forth. But then you gotta deal with the human mind and so. The second wave was how do you do that? And so cognitive therapy combined with behavior therapy produced cognitive behavior therapy second wave. But the problem is some of the stuff that came in was common sense, but it, it turns out not to be really critical.
You know that, for example, I. It would, you'd try to find what negative thoughts are and detect 'em, challenge 'em, dispute 'em, and change 'em. It turns out that's a risky business. Sometimes works, but it doesn't work the way it's drawn up and it, it puts you right on the edge of the cliff because you're now focused on what's weakest about it.
You, you're creating new potential neurobiological pathways to exactly where you don't want to attend and you start fighting with it. Your mind is pretty good at fighting back. I mean, there's a reason why even kids cartoons have, you know, goofy on one shoulder with horns and Goofy on the other shore, with a shoulder, with a halo, because even little ones know that there's like these mental fights going on, and that may be the last thing you wanna do when, especially if you're into something where high performance, where you may have milliseconds, you know, you, you don't have time to disappear into the chatter. And it produced, uh, something that I think sometimes was actually, I. Either inert or, at time,s even harmful.
And so third wave, digging down to the process, what is really going on here? And it turns out it isn't what you think or what you feel, it's how you relate to what you think and feel. And being able to sort of take that bend, focus on the present and in there. What are the qualities that you wanna put into your next moment there? What Ben? Not sure we'll get into this calls about living your legacy. What is the thing you want to have reflected? Yes. Reflected in your next little bit of behavior? And can you build the habits around that? And so it is toughness. It is strength, but of a different kind. And meant toughness doesn't mean rigidity.
You know, a rigid tree splitters with the wind, you know, but you wanna have, you wanna be able to have that strength to come back, but also the resilience to take. Those waves to take those hits, to take the time where you're injured or you're, you're on the bench or you're into a, you know, you've had a losing streak or you got in a batting slump or something, or you know, your girlfriend just dumped you or you had a scary diagnosis.
Maybe there's something going on physically. All these kind of challenges that we're all gonna face, is it gonna break you or are you gonna have that combination of flexibility and strength? Sort of bend and come back, be focused and move. And it turns out that that's true. Whether you're dealing with anxiety, depression, substance use, or the challenge of physical disease or run the company or succeeding in high-level sports performance or being in the special ops, you know, they're pretty good evidence that some of these same pro processes predict.
How people get through a military training and click off their performance goals and move up through the hierarchy in a way that keeps them in balance and prepared to the next thing. And so it's finding its way into all these high-performance areas, and I think that's a good thing for people.
[00:16:13] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah, I mean, you mentioned a couple of things there that I wanna quickly touch on. One is the word processes, which we'll circle back to 'cause we've said it enough now that we have to actually dig into it. But before we do that, that you mentioned that the application of this work to a number of different fields, clearly, uh, myself and Ben from a sports performance background. There is, uh, Ben also from a special operations field, and, and you mentioned the application of it there, there was a, I think there was a great study, and it may have been through Jon Kabat-Zinn's, uh, lab a while back, but it was with Navy Seals before they deployed to Iraq.
And I mentioned this in a training, training exercise we did this morning, which is why I. They did this with a group before they had deployed to Iraq and, and it was optional. They didn't enforce it on anyone, but the amazing things that they found at the end of it were just really mind-blowing and did reinforce again the application of this, this work. One better decision making, better memory, and better task performance for those who took part in the program versus those who didn't. And even more mind-blowing was when they came back that more of them came back. So, without being too crude, there was more chance of survival. Deployment and less cases of PTSD upon return, and this is all statistically proven out purely from the group that did the mindfulness-based stress reduction versus those who just went about their normal preparation for deployment. And I just wanted to reinforce that because it does speak to the. It's not hypothetical. This actually applies.
[00:17:47] Dr. Steven Hayes: Well, you know, these measures of psychological flexibility, they, you know, this is not woo woo, this is, it actually predicts these trajectories and we've done programs, pre-deployment, post-deployment, and measuring during a deployment, and you can predict what the trajectories are by the psychological flexibility skills. I mean, the, the samurai's were meditators and there's nothing kind of woo woo about, you know, being able to bring the attentional flexibility into the moment As a a person in the military, unfortunately, it's been hard to get into some aspects pre-deployment, less so post-deployment because the Veterans affairs here in the US.
As adopted, act as a mainstream. Even the chaplains in the military, you should know all the military chaplains are offered training and act. Act, uh, motivational interviewing and problem-solving therapy, the big three. And it's because when they came together, joint chiefs, et cetera, looked at it and they said, you know, they gave the chaplains the task. What are you gonna do? And they said, well, here's one that really resonates with what we're trying to do. And many of the deployed folks will go to their minister or priest or a mom or whatever, rather than to shrink because you go on a list and stuff. So, but what we've shown is that PTSD, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, all of those kind of cul-de-sacs.
But not just that. Being able to click through your performance goals and be able to move up through the ranks and really be there for the people you work with and, and have that kind of emotional maturity to be a leader in a way that allows the people around you to be whole human beings and be lifted up by your leadership style. All those things are predicted by these same set of skills and processes.
[00:19:28] Paddy Steinfort: Right. And so again, set of skills and processes we're gonna, for those who are sick of the teasing, using those terms without telling us what are they actually are. We'll get into that. You mentioned one, and I mentioned it with the study, we've mentioned mindfulness there with Samurai being great warriors. That's part of the six processes, right? But let's just lay them out real briefly. In as few words as possible, and then we'll dig into which ones both perhaps Ben and I have found most effective for the high performance.
[00:19:56] Dr. Steven Hayes: Yeah. Real quickly, you need to back up from your mind enough, you can see what kind of judgmental, critical thoughts you're having and make some choices about whether or not you're gonna be guided by that. You better be enough. Open up to what your body's doing, motion's doing, history's doing. So you have the access to your thoughts, feelings, memories, bodily sensations in a way that's open and not running away from your own history. You'd be able to bring your attention fully to the present moment inside and out.
That's usually what people are talking about, especially with mindfulness training and contemplative practice does that. But to do that from this point of consciousness that connects you in consciousness to other people who's a person behind those eyes? And then to be able to take that attentional flexibility and focus on what's important by choice, what do you wanna be about?
What do you wanna reveal? How do you want to be in the story that you're writing with your life's moments? And can you build habits around that? So those six, you can chunk 'em as being more open, aware, and actively engaged. But if you, and that's now we've got three, but if you want on,e being more psychologically flexible,
[00:20:56] Paddy Steinfort: I really like using this as a categories of training as well. And that flexibility would. Is an easy transition into working, particularly with athletes, dancers, any other kinesthetic-based performers, because you can say, you know, does it help to be more flexible? Some of them might say, it's not the first thing that I'll train, but yeah, it's good. It prevents injuries, and also it may give me more power on my swing or more range on my move.
And so it's a really tangible example of if you do this, here's a way you can imagine that your mind will be able to work better, and you do. We'll come, we'll circle back in a second. Metaphors. You've really opened the door to that as well. In my own practice, Ben, I was about to call you freak. If, if, if you hear me calling him Freak during the rest of the show, it's because that's his nickname.
That's the only reason. Freak the, of those six processes, like which one to, to you is the most tangible, like. Immediately rubber meets the road When you are working with an athlete, particular fan if, or a high performer, if they're not used to doing these sort of processes, they're more used to saying, I'm just gonna visualize and feel good, and you're like, let's do something a little more practical.
[00:22:04] Ben Freakley: Before I answer that, I want to go back to something that, that Steve said that I would say for me is the only thing I would hope would come across from me on this talk today. Steve called 'EM skills. And in my world, my go-to with people that I work with is, it's not a skill unless it holds up under pressure.
The reason that athletes. Take ground balls. The reason they throw bullpens, the reason they scrimmage in football, the reason they practice a chip shot for hours upon hours, upon hours is because when the moment matters, when there is a score to be kept, a match to be won, it's not a skill unless it holds up under pressure.
Here's what we say with the Mental Performance Department at the Blue Jays elite performers can skillfully regulate their attention and their emotion under pressure in any environment. That's what this is about. These six core skills, these psychological skills that Steve has spent a lifetime working through in his own life, the only way out is through he went in to go out, are ones that we've put in front of Steve, and we've tried to make them accessible for our audience.
We all know that the language we use of the people that we work with is everything. You wanna get somebody to buy in the language can't sound woo woo. Steve, we have a, you know, an act they call it, we call it a cognitive diffusion. We just call that let go with a baseball player. You know, Steve talks about acceptance. We call that composure. Our mantra for that is embrace the stuff. Stuff stands for situations, thoughts, unforeseen circumstances, feelings and failure. Avoiding that is a surefire way that more of it is about to come in a bigger wave. This is why we have to learn to surf. I would say common knowledge is not common practice, and what I mean by that is my number one go-to Paddy would probably be, do you know how to land in the present moment?
Do you know how to fully be right here? Aware that your stomach is saying. Something's wrong. I hate what just happened, but not going internal. And Steve said it. ACT approach where you are going into your cognition's, emotions and sensations, debating them. Exploring them means you are not externally focused.
What is my mission right now? What am I here to do? So I'd say it's con Steve. We call it contact with the present moment. It's be here now. The present moment is the only moment we have any power over and our mind loves to be a storyteller and a time machine Doc Brown will pull up in the DeLorean and say, get in and let's go worry about the future, Marty. Which is why the Samurai,
[00:24:58] Paddy Steinfort: Is that why you said land in in the present moment? Because you're coming in, in, the DeLorean is
[00:25:02] Ben Freakley: coming in.
[00:25:03] Paddy Steinfort: Okay. Right.
[00:25:03] Ben Freakley: Does a dude, does a performer know? How to fully land in the moment. Do they know we intuitively, yes, there, there's some stress, but what makes it hard? Well, the relationship between pressure and performance makes it hard when the game or when life speeds up.
The biggest derailers of performance are anger or anxiety, the things going on in my head or the emotions. So, do I know how to get present? And then if I were saying another one. I would say Steve called earlier and enact its values with us is live your legacy. What do you want to define you? You know? Is that one mo?
That mo moment was awesome. Does that define you? That one moment was terrible. Does that define you? What does define you? And then third, we call it full send. If I am working with an athlete in the moment and a quick return to the moment strategy, it's gonna be something along the lines of embrace the stuff that just happened, contact with the present moment, grounding myself, and then full send thinking time is over. Military is great about this paralysis plan.
[00:26:14] Paddy Steinfort: Well, same for those. For those who aren't in,
[00:26:17] Ben Freakley: There is a time for thinking. There is a time for training and there is a time for doing. And if you're in your windup saying, should I be throwing this curve ball? It doesn't matter. It's gonna suck. When you step into the box, when you step into the rubber or when you are about to get on that helicopter, it is time to trust the training. There is no more paralysis by analysis. It's, this is what I'm here to do. I'm gonna execute full send. No, like as you're clicking the send button on the email, you're not like just half clicking. You're like clicking. And that's that. Steve, you mentioned offhand almost, because I'm sure you've shared this thousands of times, but for our listeners, I often with guests, we'll ask them to share a sweaty palms moment or what I call a sweaty palms moment, which is the 10 seconds before you jump.
Right. I, I know I'm gonna do this. It's almost worse if I don't do this and I need to be fully present for me to do this properly. 'cause I'm either cutting someone open on the surgery table, I'm walk out, perform in front of the. I am stepping up on the mound in game seven. Like there's all sorts of circumstances that are, this is a moment where it's full scene and I can't be anything else, but that produces physiological responses, sweaty palms being the most common, and that's often a time where people recognize how important this is.
Either having mastery or at the time, sometimes people talk about, I didn't have mastery, and here's how it worked out. You mentioned panic disorder, which. I know features early on in that, in that book I mentioned, is that your sweaty palms moment where you realized, all right, this isn't it for me, or have there been other times you also gave a great Ted talk. Were you nervous before that?
[00:27:55] Dr. Steven Hayes: Oh, well that's actually a really good moment then. Thanks for the full send phrase then. 'cause I've actually used it in some trainings and people say, what look, I get to look like out of, what is it, gen Z or something, because, but yeah, before I did the first TEDx talk, I was gonna walk down into the hell of my own history and where I hit bottom there.
If you see the talk, I do a screen there, which is the kind of blood curdling scream that happened only three times in my life when, when I. Caught in a machine at work, working in an aluminum factory, making tinfoil, and almost got chopped in half. That moment where my panic disorder sped me down to the point where I didn't think I had any way forward. And then the TED talk where I was gonna produce it on purpose, and before I get up there about five minutes before I got in front of my, I can't do this, I cannot do this, I can't, you know, and it's because I was gonna on purpose, it wasn't the performance thing, visit the lowest point in my whole life. I was gonna walk down and I wanted to do it not as a performance.
I wanted to do it to be true to myself and to put into the room, you know, what does it sound like when you hit bottom? Because a lot of people are listening to me. Everybody's got their hit bottom moment, everybody. Nobody gets through life without those kinds of challenges. But I was gonna try to do it in that way.
And you know, my wife God lover, got right up in front of me and said, just be yourself. And I. Sucked it up and I went out and I did the scream and I, I, you know, I did the talk and you can judge it yourself in terms of, all I was really trying to do was not the performance. I was just trying to be there fully in the moment.
Letting that 40 years of work or that moment, 35 years worth of work out in the service of others who I know are gonna need to be uplifted by it if I can do it. Yeah. So I came there with an intention, and it was definitely a sweaty palms moment that required me to. Kind of just let go and to show up and to focus on what's important and of a full cent do it full set up.
And you know, one thing I do wanna say about these six things, when you ask about which one's most important, here's one thing I wanna say. Here's what the research shows. All six are important. Why be? Because even though coming in fully into that present moment. But how do you do that? Or we're back to these other processes. You disappear back into the chattering monkey mind. You start running away from your own history, your own stuff, you know, you can't do that. You can't come into the present moment you put on the clown suit and have to be what your mind tells you. You have to be, you know, this kind of ego based thing. You can't come into the present moment.
And if you forget why you even wanted what you wanna do when you get there. What's a freaking point, you know, if it's not about some sort of values-based journey where you can put your competence and skill to, to do something that's worthy of your life's moment. So it's like six sides of a box. If you pull a couple sides out of any box, you don't have a box anymore. You got some floppy thing.
[00:30:57] Paddy Steinfort: I think it's a great point and I, I like to use the analogy of when I'm. If you're a strength coach and you're working on building someone's strength, you don't do it at the expense like you need some core stability. You can be as strong as you want in your upper body. You've got a floppy set of abs, like good luck being an elite athlete. Or likewise, you can be super fast, but if you don't have flexibility, you'll tear your hamstring there. There needs to be a balance. One of them might be more important in a given context than a given moment.
[00:31:21] Dr. Steven Hayes: Yeah, exactly.
[00:31:21] Paddy Steinfort: But training all six is the important part so that you're prepared and all these,
[00:31:26] Dr. Steven Hayes: I really like that definition of skill you're using Ben, but think about it, when you're in a, in a high-performance thing, the difference between really being able to function at that level and functioning at a lower level can be tiny. And you've got all this training to bring your physical self in. The mental training is often, either
[00:31:44] Ben Freakley: It's the separator
[00:31:45] Dr. Steven Hayes: or Yeah,
[00:31:46] Ben Freakley: It's the competitive advantage. All things being equal, Steve, it is the competitive advantage. And Paddy, you know, the whole point of strength and conditioning is to tear. It is to tear. Muscles will not grow back stronger unless they tear. Steve, you nailed it. We're all gonna have these rock-bottom challenging moments. Steve, you, you're doing such a wonderful job with your work normalizing that this is an everybody thing, right? It's not a one in five. We've talked about this before. It's not a one in five.
People have challenges where learning psychological skills would add value and move them forward in their life. This is a five-in-five thing. We're all gonna have these rock bottom moments. These are the psychological tears in our work. As the muscle tears are in the field of strength conditioning, and if you avoid a tear or pretend like it's not there in physical, well, it's just gonna get worse.
Mm-hmm. And so these are really healthy confrontation skills and, and one or psychological skills. And one thing that you've confronted our team on, which I loved. You know, was there were times where we were stuck in prioritizing some of these and looking at them as a hierarchy or a linear, but it's not, there's a reason. It's called a Hexa Flex. And for anybody watching the podcast, all lines connect.
[00:33:11] Paddy Steinfort: Just Google it. Google it, you'll see 'em a hundred different diagrams. Yeah. And say the same thing.
[00:33:15] Ben Freakley: Right? And what we've done in, in our world, Steve, is instead of calling it psychological flexibility, we called it mental toughness. Because that, that's the, the term that's thrown out in sports so much, which is, here's a guy about to be in pressure. In pressure, or now experiencing pressure 'cause things didn't go well and what set of mental qualities does he or she possess that it's gonna allow them to have the. Fastest possible turnaround.
Whether they have to perform the next mission the very next night after they've lost a comrade, or whether they have to go out and play the very next night after going, oh for four. Do they have the mental skills that allow their abilities, and I'm not gonna say natural abilities because they work their ass off for these skills. Do they have the mental skills that clear a pathway for those abilities to come out?
[00:34:20] Paddy Steinfort: Second ago you, you're talking about the TED Talk, you shared your wife's advice to just be yourself. Right? And which is one of the things that I really appreciate about this approach as opposed to trying to teach cognitive behavioral therapy stuff, which I wasn't trained in, but I used to use as a regular football coach. I found to be disingenuous at times because I would talk about controlling your thoughts and thinking positive, even though at the exact same time I was not doing that thing. So I'm trying to convince people to do things that I'm not capable of doing myself a hundred percent of the time. And whereas this approach asks of the coach or of the practitioner or of the leader, if you are going to talk to people about being flexible, like you probably need to be flexible yourself.
I remember specifically talking about or reading. An analogy where you said, trying to specifically dictate which way a session should go is the antithesis of being psychologically flexible. If the person you're trying to help wants to go somewhere else and you're like, no, no, no, but I, in my head, this is what we need to talk about right now.
And I'm explaining that more as context for this question for you. Freak as a leader now in charge of a staff of a growing number of staff of mental skills professionals who all deal with professional athletes and coaches and front office staff, what's the equivalent of a sweaty palms moment or the ability, the moment where you are challenged as a leader to act in line with what you're actually teaching, which is act like. How do you find that helps you as a leader? I love when I ask a question and the person on the other end looks up.
[00:35:57] Ben Freakley: Yeah.
[00:35:57] Paddy Steinfort: Because it means there's a good question or they don't understand what the fuck talking about.
[00:36:01] Ben Freakley: It's a really good question. And there are sweaty palm, uh, moments. You know, we.
[00:36:08] Paddy Steinfort: Part of it might, it may not have to be sweaty palms. It could just be like, how does this help you as a leader? Let's do that.
[00:36:12] Ben Freakley: No, great. Great. One of the ways it helps me as a leader is another favorite Steven of mine is Steven Rolnick, and Steve Hayes already mentioned Dr. Rolnick well, or mentioned his work in motivational interviewing. And I think being able to hold things lightly is, you know, as a leader, wanting to have an agenda and structure and itineraries. Showing up and then hearing on a team call, for example, Hey, my mother-in-law might not make it. Well, that changes the call instantly because the most pressing thing in the moment is not task orientation, which is probably my default. What are we here to do? Let's get some stuff done, but somebody's hurting and to.
Not pay to give that the respect and dignity that it deserves. You miss out on Steve's other passionate work in his book, pro Social, that all of this, you and you have grouped more and more people trying to live these six different skills. It can take a group to a team and a team to a tribe. And so I would say I deliberate. We talk about our individual values as a team. So much so that we've built out our own competency model. So in baseball, baseball loves the five tool player. As mental skills coaches, we said, what's a five tool mental skills coach? What would they need to have that makes them elite? And relationships feel subject matter knowledge.
So do you, do you know your work as a practitioner, but do you also know of the sport? Approach, which is blending this, a blend of being person-centered, motivational interviewing, and act. Kind of bringing these theoretical orientations together in session when you're with a player, and then get better.
What are you doing to better yourself? And on the far left column, or all of our team members, top three values. That you can always see in front of you, this is what Paddy cares about. This is what RAF cares about, this is what Ben cares about.
[00:38:30] Paddy Steinfort: You know, that's super cool, man. For those who can't say I'm grinning from ear to ear, well we to, to know that this is happening in a team that I left behind who I care a lot about. That's significant. And also, can I point out that what you described there as the five tool mental skills, if you just refer, remove mental skills, that's, that's what's a five tool leader. Like, who is good at working with other humans and leading? It's the ability to have feel. It's the ability to build relationships.
It's the ability to be a, so, like, if you're a leader of something, you probably better know your shit, otherwise you're not gonna be very good. But there's also the, the parts of approach and, and of self-discipline and humility to get better. All five of those I heard, I'm like, wow, that's like, forget about the job that you and I do. That applies to any leader out there.
[00:39:19] Ben Freakley: We had so much fun. You know, we've got you, you started something. I mean, I'm really, my relationship with, with Steve started, you know, when you were teaching me and you and Raf and I were talking about it, and then it has become of all the things out there for me, this makes the most sense.
And you're right, it's an approach that is repeatable, but we have worked into our mental skills, language. We model and teach, we model and teach the skills that help high performers get tough. Train to win, make an impact, be a pro, and thrive. Those are the spaces that we live in. And so if I hear a team member ruminating, I might jokingly say, we model and teach, and that could bring them back into it.
[00:40:07] Paddy Steinfort: Love it.
[00:40:07] Ben Freakley: Fuck, I'm being such a hypo right now because it is natural. To disappear into the future. There is one letter separating warrior and worrier, and it's a default to go into worry mode. And these skills help you stay more in warrior mode. What am I here to do? That's super cool. How do I remind myself of that? And I really, as a leader, I a lot of times try not to be the leader. And just when we're having team calls, zoom calls, when I'm working, I'm just, I want to be present.
[00:40:45] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah, I mean that's a, it's really cool as a, I think we spoke early on about, very early on, as you say, when we were starting to talk about incorporating this into the program as Right, I was being facilitators of psychological flexibility, that that was the job of a coach or a leader is not to, I, I will teach you some stuff, but more than anything, you are gonna learn and you're gonna learn about yourself and how you work around being flexible 'cause we're all a little different in that sense. You mentioned warrior there. I love that little catchphrase. I'll probably steal it from you. Thank you for that. But it's interesting, we talked about the six processes, shrinking 'em to three and then shrinking 'em to one being psychological flexibility.
If you could gonna sum the the whole thing up. And a warrior that we had on this show as a guest on another episode, who is a former Navy Seal, was a Navy seal trainer who took them through. It may have been 20 years. So he knows his shit when it comes to toughness living it, but also trying to teach it, train it, and, and I asked him the question of what's toughness?
And he said, very easy. For me, it's psychological flexibility. And I asked him after the show, wow, you've read Steven's Worth? Like, who's, who's Stink Hayes? And so it's reassuring to me that like someone who doesn't even know your work still comes to that conclusion having lived and breathed it 20, 30 years. That toughness really isn't just about being tough, it's about being able to be flexible and live it as opposed to just talk about it, but not really live it yourself. And with that, I want to, I wanna try and wrap it up with, I, I could talk to you two forever. We have done previously and I, I'm hopeful we'll do it again, but I mean, actually specifically Ben just mentioned there, the application of this to team level dynamics rather than individual toughness.
Yeah, whole other conversation, which I'd love to talk more at another time, but for now, I wanna wrap it up with this. If I always ask guests where people can find them, which we'll do at the end, but what's your hope? And specifically, Steve, because this is a lot about your work. And the application of stuff that you discovered through your own scrapes and bruises and now have taught thousands who go on to teach thousands, what do you hope to achieve with this work moving forward?
[00:42:52] Dr. Steven Hayes: Well, it goes back to the earlier part of the conversation, which is that we're all human beings, and the cul-de-sacs we get into are shared. You know, we're walking around with these secrets, but the big joke jokers are all the same secrets because everybody's living the same journey. Just the way our mind is arranged will usually sort of have us do things that are logical, sensible, reasonable, and pathological.
I mean, if you just do what your mind tells you to do, you're gonna get in trouble. And we don't come with an owner's manual. And so you can use Western Science to kind of distill this thing down. This hack that we're talking about, these processes, there's just six of 'em. You can learn 'em, but there's other things you can add.
And then listen to the cool things that Ben's, and so on. But then everybody's watching everybody else. You know? It isn't just the individual level, it's the team. It isn't, you're just teaching. You're also modeling. So if you're not instigating modeling and supporting these processes, then you're not doing your full job.
But the great message is, and to answer your question, is it's relevant to all of us. So you don't have to sort of like, oh, I'm, I'm just doing this. But then this horrible moment when you realize when it's your stuff, you don't do that. Man, don't ever let yourself get in that position where you're, you have to think you're putting on a fake persona in order to help somebody. Something's wrong. That's not right. I mean, if we're really down to the level where it lifts people up, moves people forward, that includes you too. And just because you have a certain number of bars on your shoulder or a certain level on, you know, inside, uh, baseball or whatever, doesn't mean that you're not.
In that same boat. So my hope is that we find a way to break down the barriers, to be more fully ourselves, to be whole and free, and all of these different roles so that the things that you learn, that lift you up, that move you forward in one domain, help lift you up and move you forward in another domain. And we're, we're getting better and better as individuals, as communities, as families, as teams, as nations, as the world, and being able to. Live a life worth living. So let's do it and let's you know, all hands on deck.
[00:44:56] Paddy Steinfort: Let's do it. Super cool, super cool. Freak, what about you? Well, what's your hope as you Well, that, that's mind blowing to, to talk about it at a, let's make the world better level, but in reality it is shrink it to the baseball world.
[00:45:09] Ben Freakley: I was about to thank you for making me answer after Steve. Nice job. Yeah. We'll talk offline after that. A couple things. First, Seneca said, we are often more frightened and hurt, and we suffer more in imagination than in reality. That's the lesson. You know, Mo, most of our, our suffering is, imagine it's when we're worrying, it's when we're fearful.
It's when we're not in these trusting full sin states. Steve talked about being himself. Being able to help people fully be themself. There is a watershed moment in the book 12 Strong, the story of the first 12 operators that went into Afghanistan after nine 11, and one of these operators knows that he's gonna be deploying any moment he gets out of his car and as he's walking toward his house, in his head he is saying, soldier father, soldier, father, soldier, father, soldier, father, soldier, father.
He puts his hand on the door. He says father, and he walks in. He knows where he is about to be and he knows where he needs to be. My hope is that people know where they need to be, when they need to be there. When you're the operator operate, when you're the husband. Husband, when you're the teammate, teammate, when you're the friend, when you're exercising, fucking go all in on the exercise.
We are many things. My hope is that, you know, if we were to only, this is the selfish context. If we were to only define ourself as one thing, we are missing all of the things that we could be. And my hope is that for me personally, knowing my struggles where I failed many athletes as a coach, giving probably really bad advice about how to regulate attention and emotion.
I think a huge opportunity is to educate sport coaches and maybe even just leaders in general on if they train up their own act skills and then you drop them back into their ecosystems. What does that mean to team cohesion and even performance, right? When the coach herself or himself learns how to self-regulate, knowing that if I'm worried about outcomes, then my behaviors, my speech, my messages, that's gonna send messages across the team. Bottom line, I'm interested, and this is where Steve's helping me. I wanna put together really solid programs, act. Like a coach or act like a leader and change those worlds in, in which those people work.
[00:47:42] Paddy Steinfort: Super cool. You, you make me think of Martin Seligman, the founder of Positive Psychology, uses a a watering hole analogy when he talks about his hope for his work and how it can affect communities and wellbeing at a large scale. It made me think of that there where you said Teach Coaches Act and then drop them back into their environment. The analogy is you wanna cure livestock of a certain disease, you can feed each of them a pill or you can just sprinkle some stuff in the watering hole and they're all gonna get it. And that's one of the powers of community and of teaching leaders of groups, is hopefully some of these skills.
And this not, this not only applies to just leaders. It could be just as a good teammate if you are. Part of the team and you come in with these attitudes and you model as well as pass on these things, then it can be super powerful in, in so many ways that we beyond what we can ever imagine. So I appreciate you both for the work that you do and for sharing this with us today.
For those who wanna find you free, where do they find you that you've got ready, set Resilient as a program. I know you set up before we even met. Is there anything else that you want to throw out there? If people wanna find Ben Freakley.
[00:48:42] Ben Freakley: drop me a line, [email protected], but my side hustle is ready, set, resilient. You know, ready is all of the aspects that bring someone into a place of readiness. Set is really, it's go time. Then resilience are these skills that allow us to continue to create, commit, and compete in any circumstance. I love talking about that. And Paddy, thank you so much for letting me hang out with you. And Steve, you got I love you both dearly. You're my homeboys and I really appreciate who you are in my life. Thanks for letting me come on.
[00:49:15] Paddy Steinfort: Appreciate you being here, man. And also appreciate you being the first person to ever share their personal email on the show. That's incredibly. I want to hear all about what you get from that. And Steven, for those who wanna find you, I mentioned the book, A Liberated Mind. There is so many places to track down Steven's work if they wanna get in touch with you directly. What's the best way to do that?
[00:49:34] Dr. Steven Hayes: Well if, if you're gonna do it, Ben, I'll do it. You can send it to me at Gmail. Just my name, Steven C. Hayes. But if you go to stevenchayes.com, Steven to the V and also C Charlie and my dad's name, H-A-Y-E-S, no periods, that word stevenchayes.com. But if you go there and click on yes, please send it to me. I'll send you a little seven item thing about what ACT is, and yeah, you go onto my newsletter list.
It's a one-click opt-out. I, I don't spam people, but I'm to, I would like to have you come along for the journey with me. So I really thank you so much, Fred, for the opportunity to be able to speak to the folks that you serve.
[00:50:10] Paddy Steinfort: Thank you very much for both being here. Appreciate everything that you've shared and look forward to talking again in the future. Thank you guys.
