Why Grit Is Killing Your High Performers And What Elite Teams Do Instead | Dr. Amy Athey

For a really long time, I relied on the grind. And for many of us high performers, the concept of grit speaks to us. But I also term that there's something called psychotic grit. And that's when we grind and we grind, we keep persevering, but we're disconnected from the impact of those consequences, the reality that's before us, the consequences on our own health, consequences on our team, the consequences on the relationships that matter so much to us. Welcome to from the Top with Chad Hesters, the podcast for CEOs, founders and decision makers looking for a straightforward perspective on issues facing global leaders. No fluff, no jargon, just real conversations with people who've made tough calls and are here to share what they've learned. Here's our host, Chad Hesters. Well, hello everyone, and welcome to from the Top. I'm your host, Chad Hesters, and I'm joined today by our special guest, Dr. Amy Athey, who is, well, really interesting background. I'll let her give you a little bit more about it, but she's got several decades of working as a performance psychologist all across, you know, a whole spectrum of people she's helped. She's worked with Olympians and athletes and people in the special forces community and of course, the Fortune 500 and executive crowd. I'll let her give you a bit of an overview here. But Amy, thank you very much for joining us today. Chad, indeed, my pleasure. I'm very, very grateful for this opportunity and I'm excited to have the conversation. Well, great. Well, to prevent me from butchering your very stellar background, maybe you can give us the summary of how did you get to where you are today and what is it that you do? Indeed, it's been a twisting and turning journey, if you will. The short of it is I've been helping elite performers and teams become moment ready for over 25 years. I am psychologist, as you shared. My earliest work was actually in crisis intervention. So when we talk about showing up the moments that matter. I was working early on with first responder community, communities impacted by disasters. So responding to ground zero in support of NYPD and fire, the Virginia Tech community when they reopened after the tragic shootings there in the early 2000s, and then communities in Mississippi after being impacted by Hurricane Katrina. I loved the work, certainly played to some of my strengths. I feel like I can kind of think on my feet and respond in those moments that mattered and yet also recognize it would be a very intense career and was blessed to be introduced to the field of sport and performance psychology by a Good friend and colleague Dr. Jessica Mohler and took off from there. It was a journey. I like to refer to it as across the conferences. If you're familiar with NCAA university sport, I worked in university athletic departments. I also worked with professional and Olympic athletes, as you mentioned, led non traditional efforts to academic performance as chief wellness Officer at the University of Arizona. And then indeed blessed to return to my home state in Virginia where I joined the human performance team at Naval Special Warfare Development Group. So had the opportunity then to work with the professional, if you will, Special Forces operators completing missions that truly only they can complete. And from there had the opportunity to bring that holistic high performance team approach and supporting individual and team performance to private industries. So a few years back stood up athe performance where we deliver that holistic high performance solution with speaking, training and coaching services. Great. Well, thank you for that. I'm sure our listeners are interested in understanding a little more about performance based psychology. I know I am. Can you maybe tell us about the field itself and then maybe your specialization, I mean you've already told a little bit about it, but maybe help people understand where you know? Because I think it's a relatively modern concept, isn't it? Or maybe not, it's a little newer, if you will, when you look at the field of say compared to clinical psychology. So oftentimes fundamentally psychology is about human behavior. So we look at better understanding, perhaps patterns of human behavior, how someone responds in a certain moment. And the clinical side, oftentimes in the medical field we're looking at abnormal behavior or behavior that's really not helping us function in our day to day lives. So most commonly I call it the anxieties, depressions, right? The difficulty navigating perhaps response to trauma, where clinical psychology is helping someone restore their daily functioning. On the performance psychology end, we're taking in that as kind of a different step, a different step further, if you will, and looking how can we help people optimize their performance? So while there may be cases here and there where people are just like getting an acl, someone's going through rehab. And clinical and performance psychologists have the competency to help somebody perhaps regain functioning from say an anxiety disorder or sleep disorder. There's also then opportunities where we look to through mental skills, through interpersonal skills, social, emotional awareness, how we can step in and optimize how we show up in that moment that matters. So oftentimes it's high stakes, high pressure context or performance arenas, highly visible or scrutinized. But nonetheless there are ways that we can kind of prepare and then execute with certain skills in that moment and then most importantly, also learn from them how we iterate over time. So both those tools and fundamentals matter in helping to optimize one's performance. Well, that generates about 1,072 questions on my end that I have. Is this so fast? But let me maybe start with, you know, you've got a lot of material that's out there. One of the things that I found kind of interesting was this idea of the modern performance gap. And I noticed you've talked about that before. Would you share with us a little bit about what is the modern performance gap and why is it modern and how does it affect people and maybe just kind of unpack that a little bit? Sure. I mean, I think you can kind of see it in the headlines where you'll hear of executives taking a leave of absence due to burnout or overwhelming anxiety. You hear it language as team dysfunction. Or perhaps in transitions, you see a lack of efficiency, productivity and these performance metrics that are inconsistent. In sport, we would talk that about kind of that one and done athlete. Right. Like they'll have one amazing game and yet they're unable to sustain that and soon they're out of the league. So when I think of the modern performance gap, I see many of the ills, if you will, problems, challenges that we've seen in these other performance domains. And yet the solution hasn't quite caught up to it. And so, for example, if you look in the field of sport or even in special forces, if we rewind back to the 80s, we were realizing that there's number of factors that impact how somebody is able to execute what they're called upon to execute. Earliest on, we looked at the fundamentals of sport X's and O's. Do you know the biomechanics that's needed to say, hit that baseball or to execute that play? Then along the way we realized, wait a minute, there's something to strengthen conditioning, there's something to building muscle to prevent injury, to be able to have the explosiveness needed to execute that swing or that play. So we started taking a look at bringing specialists in. Now it's common knowledge that we have strength and conditioning coaches working with athletes and teams. Why? Because that additional element that's so needed fast forward. Over time, we have come to recognize sleep matters number one, performance enhancer. We recognize hydration, fueling, supplementation matters, we recognize mindset matters and how we show up. So it's not just the performance domain skills that are being trained or that we're preparing so that we can be ready in that sport moment. But certainly it is the holistic, the whole human and then which we're preparing and training for. So yes, it helps us prepare and be ready, but it also mitigates that burnout. Special forces invested in this human performance, this holistic approach, primarily because we are invested, our country is investing millions of dollars in the specialized training for these high like these phenomenal operators. And that's not something that can just be onboard another one tomorrow and then they step into that role. That is a very significant investment and we need to take care of that investment. So once the data started coming about that that it's more than just the performance domain skills that impact the outcomes once then we started seeing, hey, the impact of this approach is significant in sustaining careers. One study is that MLB players who embrace this approach worked with a performance psychologist. That human performance team extended their careers almost by two years. So once we started seeing that, you saw this gold standard model pop up sport and special forces in private industry, I haven't quite seen that same evolution yet. And I think that is our charge Athey performance tries to make that accessible so that we move away from the siloed approach of like, oh, you need some stress management, let's give a day workshop on that. But really kind of taking a look at what can we do, what tools and what fundamentals can we offer to help leaders and teams not only show up in a single moment that matters, but sustain that over time. Yeah, that's super interesting. I'm assuming that there's some kind of model here that includes all the aspects of performance for humans. Right? I'm assuming that because there always seems to be a model for everything. But the first thing that came to my mind as you were talking there was the weighting of competencies or functions that a human might need in a role. Like, you know, a special forces operator has a set of skills and performance standards that look different than a Fortune 500 CEO. They look different than an Olympian, perhaps. So when you look across all those populations of high performers or people that are expected to perform at a high manner, are there similarities that they almost are all going to have to be able to do? And you address that first and then you have to kind of tweak their sort of their special attributes that are designed for the job they're in. How do you think about the competency model, if you will? Yeah, I mean, I think there's some core tools or fundamentals that Cut across performance domains. In my book coming out moment ready, I title that the four C's. So when we look across high performance, what we see and what we can take away for our own moments that matter is that first and foremost, those elite performers show up composed. They're able to regulate their energy so that it really facilitates that performance rather than somehow disables it. Really too much of that emotional energy. We've seen, you know, our favorite athlete, right, Our favorite coach ending careers by being so dysregulated that they act out in a way that is the deal breaker. There's many cases out there, prominent one, you know, coach punching a player on the sideline, ending their career. And in that moment, certainly if they had regulated their energy right after that happens, I'm sure they could take it back. Just like perhaps you and I in our daily, you know, if we are too quick and that emotion takes over and we hit send on that email or on that text message, we've all been there or even said the words, and you're like, gripping through the air trying to retrieve them. If we are not regulating that energy, it can really undermine our ability to show up in that key moment. The flip side of that emotional regulation is actually something that's not talked about as much I see in private industry. Yet still, I think is kind of resonating when we think about engagement. And that is not having enough energy, right? So the motivation that waxes and wanes because just like in sport where you can be flat, and if anybody's an athlete out there and has concrete on their shoes, they feel that flatness that can happen in the fourth zoom of the day or the next meeting that you have to roll into. So how can you regulate their energy so that it's in that optimal zone? The second C, if that cuts across performance is high. Performance can show up with clarity. So they're really able to discern through the noise, which can be external and it can be internal. All that you're thinking about perhaps the notifications going off on the phone or the computer or the phone ringing or all that's happening in the spreadsheet before you certainly an example of that. I was working with special forces and observing a training operation. It really did not, unless you had military experience. I did not recognize the amount of noise that perhaps on the radio, the ground force commander is trying to discern through multiple channels, multiple call signs, and so recognizing that in when to respond and then also what's critical or prioritized in that response. So I Use the cue of what's important now to redirect and be clear and respond with clarity in that moment. The second C, connect certainly with the people around you, but also with your purpose. And then the fourth C I refer to that cuts across those performance domains is performers are able to respond with courage. And I highlight the criticalness of courage over confidence. Confidence waxes and wanes. If you've ever looked at a major league baseball player, I guarantee you they're coming off of a high, a hot streak, and they can go in there and whiff at one pitch and just like that, they can lose that sensation, that experience of confidence and yet courage. When we are uncomfortable, perhaps we don't have all the data we would like and we kind of have to lean into a bit of that uncertainty or ambiguity. What discerns in those moments is that those elite performers can take that courageous action, ask the question that maybe no one else is asking, perhaps lean into that crucial conversation or that maybe through conflict brings your team together. It is that courage over confidence that really separates those elite performers. So those are four Cs that I see that cut across. Certainly the fundamentals to sustain the ability to be moment ready also cuts across. And regardless of the performance domain, the performance domain expert partnered with the human performance expert really is where you see the change come about, if you will, in the training and development of being moment ready. That's excellent. Well, let me back up and say on this podcast we've done a lot of discussion around what it means to lead and operate in high ambiguity, high stress and very dynamic environments, which I think no matter what you do for a living, basically summarizes the world we live in now. But your four Cs, what strikes me as interesting about that is that in order to be able to do those, as you mentioned earlier, you have to have gotten some sleep and you probably have to have some decent nutrition and be able to have this foundation to be able to even regulate yourself and have courage in the moment. And like, is this idea of like wellness as a leader, is that relatively new? I mean, is that something that's shown up in the literature and the academic world? I mean, were people talking about this back in the 50s and 60s, or is this part of our better humanity? Less so. Less so? I mean, the idea of well being and wellness is a foundation for life fulfillment, whether it's health span, lifespan that's been around linked to performance. I think initially it came about if you look at, say for example, Chief Wellness Officer position, those titles really has its earliest beginnings in medical schools where they saw medical residency, they saw the need for the care of the physicians who are providing the care, Whether it's mitigating burnout or tragic outcomes such as deaths of despair and suicide. So early on, I think you saw it gain traction when we saw some of these negative outcomes hitting the more debilitating or tragic outcomes that have such a painful cost. And then you've seen it certainly gain steam through, say, Covid, where we all were such abruptly exposed and impacted by what it means to carry and respond to the multiple demands in our lives, when all of a sudden we're having to pivot and learn new technological skills at the same time of homeschooling and navigating, perhaps medical care conditions. So that I think in those around 2020, I think it was like one of the fastest growing positions being hired was chief wellness officers because of the huge systemic impact there. Are you seeing sports teams? And I mean, obviously they are, because you've been working in that field, but is this kind of come mainstream where, you know, professional sports teams and the military and organizations at large in society are starting to integrate this, or is it a fad that's going to disappear in the future? Like, where are we in the continuum of this being assimilated as a normal kind of operating mindset? Yeah, I think what you see in private industry mirrors the evolution, if you will, that we saw in sport and military. You know, I mentioned early on the holistic approach kind of growing in sport. Well, the reason for that is all of a sudden you had data, and the data was very clear. The data was very clear. In sport, when you had a chronic sleep deprivation, things like tennis serve accuracy or free throw shot accuracy was just in the gutter. And yet if you provided some intervention, whether that's education, whether that's screening, whether that's providing some support to troubleshoot sleep problems, or even just adjusting bedtime schedule. Like, so you're gonna set a regular bedtime, not even worrying about getting more sleep, just set a regular bedtime. Well, when all of a sudden we paid attention and we provided support and intervention around that, what happened than when we saw the performance metrics improve accuracy or shot percentages go up, what you saw in sport is, like I mentioned to you, slowly, those members of the holistic human performance team were added. You also then started the adding of the technology component. Right. So I was at University of Oregon during the influx of all the cognitive training technologies or perhaps sleep monitoring devices that are very commercially available now. So Many people have a ring or a watch band or some type of health monitoring device. So how do you use that data to affect behavior change, which is at the end of the day what this is about, right? If you just have the data and you're just acknowledging it, it's really not a vehicle for optimizing wellness and performance. So now what you've seen is you have the performance domain expert at the seat of the table, but you also have these other experts, as I mentioned. That's most commonly because the physical coach so could speak to recovery and physical activity and what's most critical there. Remember, in sport strength and conditioning, people think of it as bigger, better, faster, stronger, but really it's about injury prevention. If you're going out and you're executing such high demand physical activity, do you have what is necessary in your conditioning and your strength, your system, to be able to do that and not get hurt? You also see then the performance dietitians at the table. You see someone with performance psychology competency at that table. In the private industry, what you're starting to see is that through training, this is becoming not seen as like this add on, but going back to the investment in the performance, which is what happened in sport, people started seeing, wait a minute, our injury rates went down, which means our return to play improved. They saw those performance metrics improve, as I mentioned earlier. And so now I think what you'll see in private industry is also that same trend where the data is very clear. If we want to optimize performance, we can't just focus on the performance domain specific training and development, but rather how we can help this human optimize or team of humans optimize in that matter. You and I have had a previous discussion before, but I have a military background and I've got into the endurance sport world, but when I was less gray and less fat, you know, earlier in life. And one of the things I've noticed about being in a senior executive role is some of this might be age, but the endurance that's needed to show up mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually. As an executive, it's a different kind of tired than going out running a marathon tired. And the comment you just made really resonated with me about being physically ready to be able to go do the job and think about recovery. I don't think we talk enough about this in the business community. And what does healthy and physically ready and what does recovery look like when you've just spent three days at some shareholder conference, which you probably spend most of the time sitting in a boardroom or a chair, but you're exhausted, right? It just wasted after it. So maybe the question to you is when you think about what does performance look like for an executive in the business world, what are some things that they have to address and prepare for and what does endurance look like for them? Is it more emotional endurance? Do they have to be physically, does it help to be in better shape? And I mean, I know it's a really far reaching question, but hopefully you understand where I'm trying to get to that. Absolutely. The first thing I would take a step back and just understand, when we think of the human system and readiness, we want to understand, what is that allostatic load? Allostatic load is defined by think of all of those things you just mentioned that are kind of you're carrying into that board meeting. So it may be social load. Perhaps it was the interpersonal conversation you had with your spouse or the last minute text message of somebody forgot their uniform or you heard the diagnosis of a loved one. That social, emotional load you carry with you into that room. The other piece of it is the cognitive load. You mentioned the executive performance. It is primarily cognitive and then interpersonal, social, emotional rather than physical. When we take a human performance team, we understand the performance loads that you're under and then we take a look at how do we support that. So absolutely, across performance domains, sleep matters. It's the number one performance enhancer. But what can we do for active recovery for you going into that boardroom? What could micro breaks look like for you? What would your physical activity plan be to most help support you in meeting the demands that you have before you? When we think about the performance, nutrition, that's about energy. So yes, you mentioned the cognitive load. It takes energy down to the cellular level. We want to understand how does fueling, hydration and supplementation support that energy. Why is it at 2pm all of a sudden we hit a wall? There's a number of factors there. One of them could be, what are you eating for breakfast? There's another factor there with your stress hormones and your sleep schedule and certainly even your development as a human. I can tell you, both men and women, understanding their hormonal profile and where are they is critical because we're trying to understand our energy systems and how we can best use that to respond to those demands. So again, the executive performance, it is unique. But this is no different than when a human performance team takes a look at. Okay, I need to understand what is this endurance swimmers load and need to be able to be ready. Wait a minute, how does this look different than perhaps the running back or perhaps the 100 meter sprinter on the track team? So it does have to be very specialized to what is the performance at hand? And even further, I will take a step further and say individualized and understanding who is the human who's being called upon to meet those demands. It's fascinating to me what you do for Lane. One of the things that I like to do here on this show is to put our guests in the hot seat and ask them for some real world examples or stories that you're either proud of or you were terrified by, or that just might help communicate for our audience a bit of the practical application of what we've been talking about. Is there anything that you'd be willing to share that from many of the different domains you've worked in that our guests might find interesting? Oh goodness. I have two. Just one is just a takeaway message really. You know, I had the privilege of working with Oregon, the Rose Bowl Championship football team, and the night before, Coach Kelly at the team meeting had all the guys stand and have them repeat after him. And it was the statement of pressure is what I feel when I don't know what I'm doing. But I don't feel pressure because I know what I'm doing. I think it's a helpful reminder. And he had them repeat it. But it's a helpful reminder that when we show up and we are ready, it is we fall back on that preparation. And much of the performance domain is often the focus for that preparation. But while it is necessary, it is not sufficient. And so many of those guys who were ready to show up and execute on the day in their moment that matters, they relied on all of the X's and O's, their fundamentals, the high performance, teaming skills. And they had the performance mindset needed to show up in that moment that matters. So it was truly the holistic piece. I'll share back a bit of more of my personal story. I had the pleasure of. I was just incredibly grateful to be able to learn, as I mentioned, from some Navy SEALs and while on a training mission where really I was in the role of observer, I was there to learn. And these were guys who were on a jump trip, jumping from planes and having to land specific time on the specific mark. And we're taught by truly the world's best. So after one of the runs, the guys come over to me and said, hey Amy, you want to go? And I Was relieved because I was told on the first day on the job, there's two ways to get fired from this job. Jump out of a plane or jump out of a boat. So I was perfect. I was like, oh, man. Like, thank you. Would love to, but I really can't. I don't have approvals to do that. He said, oh, no, we're going on our own diamond time on Saturday. So right then and there, I'm on the hot seat. And the words came out of my mouth with, okay, sounds good. And then I had this moment of what did I just commit to? So that was probably like on a Wednesday. Thursday. We were meeting at the airfield on Saturday. I was fortunate that one of the instructors also canopied many or tandem many private on that Saturday. So I had the opportunity to tandem with someone who had over 20,000 jumps and over 11,000 tandems. So right then and there, I recognized, hey, if there's ever a time to do this, it might be this one. But nonetheless, what I was reminded more so was that when I was around 26 years old, I was reminded that I was average and I developed the fear of flying. So since 26, I never stopped flying, but it was not always pretty. And so from the moment I said yes, I knew I had to start working. And the opportunity it gave me was amazing. And that from that moment, I started using all of which I teach all the time. And from the moment my feet hit the floor that morning on that Saturday, I had to work to regulate my energy. I had to remind myself of what mattered most. And actually, what was the cue that helped me be ready for this moment? For me, it was easy. It was, I'm with the world's best. How can I connect with those guys around me and still laugh a little? And then how could I really take that leap out of the plane and take that courageous action? Truly, I had not been uncomfortable in many, many years, but I found that those tools really enabled me to kind of go through that open door. It ended up being an amazing experience. I can't say one that I've signed up for since, but nonetheless, working with those seals, the power of the connection that came. We were in this together. Even though they were, you know, along, truly along for the ride, they just were having fun that day. It was a blessing and certainly one that reminded me that, hey, these tools aren't just for the ones on the metal stand or jump out the planes for a living, but truly, any of us can use them to show up in our moments. That Matter. That's a great story. Well, first, I love the idea that the doctor took her own medicine. Like, that's pretty great. And then it worked like there's no bigger sort of advertisement there than that. But yeah, you know, I think that's interesting is there's a danger that anybody listening to this podcast thinks that this only applies to the elite performers in whatever domain they might be in. But the reality is, like, it's all of us. And I mean, I happen to think you're probably a little bit better than average, but in your own mindset, you were thinking that, you know, that might have been the case and you were able to power through that moment. That's pretty awesome. And that's, I think, an encouragement for the rest of us out there or out here. Well, look, so the last question I want to ask here is any advice for our listeners. Anybody that may be out there in a high stress situation and or job or role, whether it's just being a parent, maybe you're a teacher, maybe you're a firefighter, maybe you're an executive at Fortune 500 company, maybe you're an elite athlete. Like any advice people should consider as they go about their day today. Absolutely. I think my lesson learned is for a really long time I relied on the grind. And for many of us high performers, the concept of grit, you know, it just, it speaks to us. But I also term that there's something called psychotic grit. And that's when we grind and we grind, we keep persevering, but we're disconnected from the impact of those consequences, the reality that's before us, the consequences on our own health, the consequences on our team, the consequences on the relationships that matter so much to us. And so psychotic grit actually contributes to some of those headlines. I was talking to you about burnout and shortened careers, but also, so do like reliance or rigid focus on those results or even the quick hack culture. So I've never worked with the championship coach who had to remind the players in the team that were setting out to win the championship. We were focusing on the components, the fundamentals and the tools that would get us there if we executed them consistently over time. And then similarly, none of it was a quick fix. So it might get you through just today, but in terms to sustain high performance, it really undermines. So what I would leave your listeners with today is there are likely solutions that may now have become problems. Or another way of putting it, every problem was once a solution. And now because this is a very fast paced, dynamic time the current condition in which we have to show up in our lives, whether that's in partnerships, spouses, family, in our communities, or in our professional career, it may be calling for something else. And those fundamentals and those tools can help you get through that and not only just survive it, but be able to show up in a way that really you can be who you want to be in that moment and then you can sustain that high performance over time. So I would say avoid the psychotic grit, avoid the quick hacks, avoid the over like, relentless, rigid focus on the results, and come back to those tools and fundamentals of high performance. Excellent. That's a good word. Well, you've got a book coming out, right? In like next month or July, is that right? I do, yeah. This summer I'm in July. Moment Ready is coming out. I'm very excited about this. I'm really how to help you show up in your own moment that matters. Relaying back those four C's and the fundamentals. And I do so by telling some of the stories of my journey, both personally and professionally. And I appreciate the opportunity to share. You can find more at athyperformance.com or dramyathey.com to learn more. Excellent. You heard it here, folks. Go read the book. Learn how to show up in moments that matter. All right, Shameless plug for me to you. Well, Dr. Amy, thank you so much for joining us today. Such an incredible and very interesting career that you've had and I think there's a lot of people out there that are better because you're here and that matters. So appreciate it and look forward to staying in touch and hopefully your book does great and wish you all the best. Thank you so much, Chad. Appreciate it. All right, thank you. If you're ready to make better leadership decisions and avoid the costly ones, subscribe to from the Top with Chad Hesters on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, thanks for listening.