Speaker 1: Hello, everybody, Happy New Year, my friend. Welcome to twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two and the fourth season of this podcast series
Speaker 1: Loves Someone with the Lilah, where I have the privilege
Speaker 1: of having long and lovely conversations. I think we'll add
Speaker 1: a little joy to the lives of those listening. In
Speaker 1: last season, Oh my word, I had some phenomenal guest
Speaker 1: like TV and movie director Dallas Jenkins, the creator of
Speaker 1: The Chosen series, and Lee Isaac Chung of Minari Fame.
Speaker 1: Several folks who worked tirelessly to make lives better for
Speaker 1: people sat down with me, like Katrina McGhee from the
Speaker 1: American Heart Association. Oh my goodness, what a hot ticket.
Speaker 1: That lady is always on the go, always trying to
Speaker 1: bless others. Carrie Peterson of Mercy Ships, Jennifer Perry from
Speaker 1: Foster Moore, and Frank Siller, founder of Tunnel to Towers Foundation,
Speaker 1: who walked hundreds of miles in honor of his brother
Speaker 1: who was lost in even We also had Annie f Downs,
Speaker 1: who pinned the book That Sounds Fun, and the phenomenal
Speaker 1: artist and author Charlie mckasey, creator of the Compassionate characters
Speaker 1: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. He
Speaker 1: dropped in to talk to us, and we even had
Speaker 1: football legend Kurt Warner, who shared the unbelievable journey that
Speaker 1: took him from a supermarket stocking clerk to an NFL superhero.
Speaker 1: And then there was music. Music, music. We talked to
Speaker 1: Lee Bryce, to Tim McGraw, to Amy Grant, to Pink Pentatonics,
Speaker 1: Lauren Daegel, Billy Ray Cyrus and Fire Rose, the incrediblee
Speaker 1: talented Idina Menzel, Norah Jones with her sweet, sweet voice,
Speaker 1: Michael Bubley who Mr Boubley, oh so charismatic, Kelly Clarkson
Speaker 1: who was absolutely adorable, and Rob Thomas. Superstars one and all,
Speaker 1: but more than that, they are people, people with families,
Speaker 1: with friends, with hopes and dreams, Talented, beautiful, perfectly imperfect,
Speaker 1: people who've experienced victories and defeats, love and losses, and
Speaker 1: who take it all and pour it into the music
Speaker 1: they create that we love so much. YEP, was pretty phenomenal. Here.
Speaker 1: I love someone, and hopefully the time we spent together
Speaker 1: brightened a year defined by uncertainty and the longing that
Speaker 1: we have vers stability. That's my goal. I can't bring
Speaker 1: you the stability. I can bring you joy in the
Speaker 1: stories we tell. I'm going to try and do the
Speaker 1: same this season. We're kicking the year off by recognizing
Speaker 1: the importance of maintaining and bolstering our mental health. Today's
Speaker 1: guest is going to help us by sharing some tools
Speaker 1: to manage and overcome negativity from a method developed by
Speaker 1: a renowned mental conditioning expert and advisor to some of
Speaker 1: the world's most elite sports performers, Trevor Moad. Some months ago,
Speaker 1: we were working towards setting up this interview with Trevor,
Speaker 1: who was eagerly anticipating the release of his second book,
Speaker 1: Getting to Neutral, How to Survive and Thrive in a
Speaker 1: Chaotic World. At the time, what I didn't know is
Speaker 1: that Trevor was fighting an aggressive cancer using all the
Speaker 1: tools outlined in his book to maintain a positive outlook
Speaker 1: and live his life fully each a Sadly, Trevor has passed,
Speaker 1: but leaves behind an incredible legacy that will continue to
Speaker 1: help people to learn how to harness the power of
Speaker 1: neutral thinking to navigate the twist and the turns of life.
Speaker 1: With me today to impart some of Trevor's wisdom, is
Speaker 1: Andy Staples, his friend and writing partner. On both books,
Speaker 1: Trevor wrote about the power of neutral thinking. What does
Speaker 1: that mean? What does that even look like? I'm as
Speaker 1: eager to chat with him as I'm sure you are
Speaker 1: to listen in, especially if you've been dealing with a
Speaker 1: lot of negativity. We'll be back to do just that
Speaker 1: right after I give the proper credit to one of
Speaker 1: today's podcast sponsors. Everyone has the power to change the world.
Speaker 1: Mercy Ships as an organization dedicated to that mission and
Speaker 1: is sustained entirely by the generosity of volunteers and donors
Speaker 1: like me and you. They're an organization comprised of floating
Speaker 1: hospitals staffed with physicians, surgeons, medical personnel, and hundreds of
Speaker 1: other volunteer positions from administration to galley cooks, traveling to
Speaker 1: some of the poorest countries in the world to provide free,
Speaker 1: life changing surgeries. They make the world a profoundly better place.
Speaker 1: You can visit them at Mercy ships dot org to
Speaker 1: see how you can be a part of all that
Speaker 1: Mercy Ships does. Give go or pray. There are so
Speaker 1: many ways you can help Mercy Ships help others give
Speaker 1: go or pray that's Mercy Ships dot org. Mercy Ships
Speaker 1: dot Org. Andy Staples, Welcome to Love Someone with Delilah.
Speaker 1: I am honored. I've been on a lot of sports
Speaker 1: talk radio shows. I have to say, this is the
Speaker 1: one radio show I never thought I would ever be on.
Speaker 1: So I am honored. My mom, I used to listen
Speaker 1: to you all the time. Thank you. Tell me who
Speaker 1: was Trevor Moad Tell me about Trevor and I'm sorry
Speaker 1: I didn't have a chance to meet him. Yeah, Trevor
Speaker 1: should be the one here talking to you right now.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately he passed away in September after a fight with cancer.
Speaker 1: That is part of the book that we wrote together.
Speaker 1: We we've written a couple of books together, and so
Speaker 1: I met Trevor. Trevor was a mental conditioning coach, which
Speaker 1: you've heard of sports psychologists, You've heard of coaches, but
Speaker 1: I had never heard of a mental conditioning coach. And
Speaker 1: still two thousand eleven when I I covered college football
Speaker 1: for Sports Illustrated, and I was looking for some other
Speaker 1: story to do about the University of Alabama football team
Speaker 1: because there we pretty much written everything, and so I
Speaker 1: heard that they had a mental conditioning coach working with
Speaker 1: the Alabama football team and and shound out it was
Speaker 1: Trevor and gave him a call and we started talking
Speaker 1: and end up running a story about him and just
Speaker 1: kind of following his career after that. But but what
Speaker 1: Trevor did was he would help athletes be their best
Speaker 1: selves mentally, be the kind of people who could you know,
Speaker 1: if you were a cornerback on the football team and
Speaker 1: you gave up a touchdown, he'd helped make it where
Speaker 1: you could play that next play without freaking out. Or
Speaker 1: if you're a pitcher who just gave up a home run,
Speaker 1: he would help you figure out, how do I throw
Speaker 1: that next pitch, how do I get my mind in
Speaker 1: the right place to throw that next pitch. And he
Speaker 1: would work with these guys in their off seasons when
Speaker 1: they weren't practicing, And I wound up being kind of
Speaker 1: the one of the best friends of Russell Wilson, who's
Speaker 1: now the starting quarterback of the Seattle Seahawks, who's won
Speaker 1: a Super Bowl and done pretty much everything you can
Speaker 1: do in football. What Trevor did was was try to
Speaker 1: help those play years be ready for any situation they
Speaker 1: might face on the field, be mentally ready and it's
Speaker 1: different from being physically ready. You can lift all the
Speaker 1: weights you want, but if your mind is all over
Speaker 1: the place, you're going to struggle. That was his job.
Speaker 1: And then a few years ago Harper Collins asked him,
Speaker 1: do you think you could translate this to the average person,
Speaker 1: to the to the non elite athlete, and he said absolutely.
Speaker 1: He said that this stuff is universal. Now, this is
Speaker 1: something that can help everyone because we all go through
Speaker 1: lots of stressors in our daily lives. We all deal
Speaker 1: with things. Life throws all kinds of curveballs at us.
Speaker 1: And so if we could look at the world the
Speaker 1: way these elite athletes do, then it would help us
Speaker 1: make better decisions. It would help us live better lives.
Speaker 1: And so that's where our first book, It Takes What
Speaker 1: It Takes, came from. And then the second book that
Speaker 1: that's about to come out is called Getting to Neutral,
Speaker 1: and Neutral Thinking was probably I would call it Trevor's baby.
Speaker 1: He he came up with this concept because his father.
Speaker 1: We have to go back to his dad. His dad
Speaker 1: was the guy named Bob Moya who was a nationally
Speaker 1: known motivational speaker. He was one of the original authors
Speaker 1: of Chicken soup for the soul. He preached positivity and
Speaker 1: always having a positive outlook, positive thinking well Trevor, and
Speaker 1: this used to make him feel bad when he worked
Speaker 1: with athletes because he would try to convince them to
Speaker 1: think positively, and an elitiate athlete doesn't want to be
Speaker 1: told just be positive. They've their BS meter just runs
Speaker 1: a little too hot for that sort of thing. They
Speaker 1: want to know why everything is going to happen. They
Speaker 1: want to know how this works, Why does this work.
Speaker 1: You can't just tell them just be positive, because they're
Speaker 1: gonna say you can't. I'm not gonna believe you unless
Speaker 1: you tell me why. So I just I have to
Speaker 1: interject something real quick here. Don't you think that applies
Speaker 1: across the board to all of us? Oh a hundred?
Speaker 1: That the idea of neutral thing thinking was just Trevor
Speaker 1: watching these elite athletes. Michael Johnson, who won the gold
Speaker 1: medal in the two hundred and the fos at the
Speaker 1: ninety six Olympics in Atlanta, the guy who wore the
Speaker 1: gold shoes. He was one who helped Trevor kind of
Speaker 1: formulate that neutral thinking concept by just explaining what his
Speaker 1: thought processes were going into a race, and he had,
Speaker 1: you know, three things that that he would say to
Speaker 1: himself every race, and one of one of the things
Speaker 1: was I'm a bullet and he just he it kind
Speaker 1: of centered him. And so and Trevor, you know, watched
Speaker 1: Russell Wilson as he developed in his career, and I
Speaker 1: talked to Vince Carter, who was a great NBA player
Speaker 1: who played until he was in his early forties, you know,
Speaker 1: so just a guy who, you know, physically he didn't
Speaker 1: have what he had when he was twenty, but mentally
Speaker 1: he made up for it. And so Trevor gathered stuff
Speaker 1: from all these guys and he kind of noticed they
Speaker 1: all had kind of a commonality, and that was they
Speaker 1: were very non biased in the way they thought about
Speaker 1: stuff when we're making a decision in the heat of
Speaker 1: the moment, especially in game, and he would ask him,
Speaker 1: just pepper them with questions, Okay, why why do you
Speaker 1: do this? How do you do this? And basically what
Speaker 1: they do is they go to the facts to the
Speaker 1: truth every time they face a critical choice. Now in
Speaker 1: their world, in the elite athlete world, that credit they
Speaker 1: might have half a second to make that critical choice,
Speaker 1: so they they've dealt with a lot of stuff in
Speaker 1: practice and in our own lives. Will face critical choices
Speaker 1: that we have half a second to make, will face
Speaker 1: them that we have, you know, two weeks to make.
Speaker 1: But the way you need to look at it is
Speaker 1: the same, and that is go to the facts. Go
Speaker 1: to what you know about that situation, you know, not
Speaker 1: how you feel about it. And that that that's the
Speaker 1: part that I think Trevor felt bad because he was
Speaker 1: moving away from when his dad taught into something different. Now,
Speaker 1: if you go back and listen to his dad talk,
Speaker 1: they were actually saying a lot of the same things.
Speaker 1: And I told Trevor that at the you know, near
Speaker 1: the end of his life and at up trying to say, look,
Speaker 1: you think you're moving away from this, but you guys
Speaker 1: were pretty close together on this deal because his dad.
Speaker 1: His dad also passed away from cancer, had a much
Speaker 1: longer fight, had about a five year fight. And I
Speaker 1: remember listening to one of his dad's last speeches that
Speaker 1: he gave, and you know, he was talking about people
Speaker 1: coming and saying how are you doing? And how you
Speaker 1: answer someone who says how you doing? And he said,
Speaker 1: I'm upright, I'm on the side of the pavement and
Speaker 1: with the audience not knowing what he was fighting through
Speaker 1: at the time. But that's a new Those are neutral statements.
Speaker 1: Those are not I'm good, I'm great, I feel this,
Speaker 1: I'm sad. It's hey, these are the things that are
Speaker 1: going on right now that I have to celebrate. And
Speaker 1: so that's where the basis of neutral thinking comes from.
Speaker 1: Trevor actually figured it out. He and his um, he
Speaker 1: and his wife went hiking on Camelback Mountain in Phoenix
Speaker 1: one day and I didn't know this, but you apparently
Speaker 1: should not leave for your hike any later than say, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, seven o'clock in the morning, because it
Speaker 1: gets really really hot up there if you if you don't.
Speaker 1: And so they left a little too late and they
Speaker 1: were just, you go, covered and sweat and panting, and
Speaker 1: they wanted to yell each other because it couldn't remember
Speaker 1: who who decided to you know, who had to do what.
Speaker 1: That made him late and and made it where they
Speaker 1: were both you know, physically exhausted. And he's sitting there
Speaker 1: looking at the gearshift and he sees the end and
Speaker 1: he goes, that's it. Neutral. We gotta get to neutral
Speaker 1: right now or we're gonna, you know, we're gonna be
Speaker 1: yelling at each other. And that's he realized, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is this is how I need to brand this. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think when when he taught it to athletes,
Speaker 1: it was a very natural thing. They understood, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: a picture. If I just gave up a hit, I
Speaker 1: can't think it's the end of the world, because the
Speaker 1: next hitter is coming up right now and I have
Speaker 1: to try to get him out. But I think in
Speaker 1: our own lives, I don't know if we we feel
Speaker 1: that way to lie. I think you know, when when
Speaker 1: something bad happens, we tend to just a lot of
Speaker 1: times we'll go into a hole and say, oh, no,
Speaker 1: this is awful, and only if I'd only done this,
Speaker 1: and if I'd only done this instead of just saying,
Speaker 1: here's what's going on right now, here are this, here
Speaker 1: are the next steps I need to take to either
Speaker 1: solve this problem or make it better or change my situation.
Speaker 1: And it's it's a hard thing to to get yourself
Speaker 1: to do, but once you start thinking that way, you
Speaker 1: find the world becomes a much easier place to deal with.
Speaker 1: As you're speaking, it's bringing up so many thoughts for me,
Speaker 1: and so many places, really wonderful places that I have
Speaker 1: been taught or heard the same message in different language.
Speaker 1: Because in a twelve step program that I belong to,
Speaker 1: they say first things first, So you think about what
Speaker 1: is the first step I have to take. I got
Speaker 1: fifty tho things to tackle, but first things first. When
Speaker 1: I'm caught up in that like Christmas or you know,
Speaker 1: the holiday is coming up, or this is coming up,
Speaker 1: or my kids have to do this, this, this, and this,
Speaker 1: and to get them into school, you know, after the pandemic,
Speaker 1: I had to get their shot records, and I had
Speaker 1: to do this, and I had to do this, and
Speaker 1: I get so frustrated. I'm like on a hamster wheel
Speaker 1: at three o'clock in the morning. But when I remember
Speaker 1: that first things first, okay, and and that's that's mentally
Speaker 1: shifting to neutral. Like you just said in Mom and
Speaker 1: Dad World, I think that's one of the best places
Speaker 1: for it. I've got a twelve and a ten year old,
Speaker 1: and I think back to anybody who's got kids that
Speaker 1: are close in age. You can remember when they were
Speaker 1: under five and just what it took to leave the
Speaker 1: house when you have a couple of kids, or God
Speaker 1: bless those families that have three or four or five
Speaker 1: kids and they're all young and they're trying to get
Speaker 1: him out of the house. You have to be able
Speaker 1: to think this way. And I think that's when we
Speaker 1: were at our best. That's naturally how we think. Is Okay,
Speaker 1: I have the bottles made. Do I have a change
Speaker 1: of clothes? Do I have a change of clothes for
Speaker 1: each kid? I have have the diapers? The diapers are here,
Speaker 1: the diaper bag is packed, and and so you're just
Speaker 1: starting and the U c l A women's basketball coach
Speaker 1: Corey Close told us really good story, and I realized,
Speaker 1: I'm shifting from mom and dad world of basketball. But
Speaker 1: they had they actually studied our first book. She had
Speaker 1: them during the pandemic when they couldn't get together and practice.
Speaker 1: She still wanted her players learning things that could help
Speaker 1: them on the court, and so she had her players
Speaker 1: study our first book. And so they studied neutral thinking.
Speaker 1: And so fast forward to the first season they play
Speaker 1: after doing that, and they were playing against Oregon. They're winning,
Speaker 1: they were winning by a lot, and then Oregan comes
Speaker 1: back and all of a sudden, the're not winning by
Speaker 1: very much at all, And there's a time out and
Speaker 1: one of their captains addresses the whole team and she says,
Speaker 1: don't worry about anything else. Ask yourself, what is the
Speaker 1: next right step. That's it. Take stock of this situation
Speaker 1: and find the next right step, which I thought was
Speaker 1: brilliant and we actually made a chapter out of it.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I know you talk about,
Speaker 1: or Trevor talked about and you wrote about, is catalog
Speaker 1: young or um really being clear on what your core
Speaker 1: values are. And I know so many people who don't
Speaker 1: even have a clue what their core values are. You
Speaker 1: meet me, you spend an hour with me, you will
Speaker 1: know what my core values are, what my faith is,
Speaker 1: what my family means to me, what my career means
Speaker 1: to me, what my mission is on the radio every day,
Speaker 1: round the podcast every day. But I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't have a clue what those core values
Speaker 1: are that make them tick, that motivate them, that get
Speaker 1: them up and get them going every day. And I
Speaker 1: love that that you talk about identifying those and owning them.
Speaker 1: That was a big to Trevor to to have that
Speaker 1: chapter in the book, and it was something that I
Speaker 1: had really not thought about when we were doing the
Speaker 1: first one, and he he explained his kind of his
Speaker 1: journey through that because he'd always been you know, he'd
Speaker 1: always had faith and he churchgoer, you know, since the
Speaker 1: time he was a kid. But he had a moment
Speaker 1: in college where he kind of questioned his faith and
Speaker 1: he wasn't sure am I on the right path? Am
Speaker 1: I doing the right things? And he had a health scare, which,
Speaker 1: strangely enough and sadly it was kind of the precursor
Speaker 1: to what eventually happened later in life. But after that,
Speaker 1: when he got healthy, he re examined his values because
Speaker 1: it given him a lot of time to sit and
Speaker 1: think what really matters to me. And everybody says, okay
Speaker 1: it well it's your family or it's faith. Well, yes,
Speaker 1: that that's pretty universal. Most of us are going to
Speaker 1: say our faith in our family. And but one of
Speaker 1: the other things that really mess for some people, it
Speaker 1: may be your fitness. It maybe you know, you you
Speaker 1: want to make sure you stay in shape, you want
Speaker 1: to make sure you exercise. That may be a key
Speaker 1: thing for you. Maybe artistic expression for some people. You
Speaker 1: you know, you may need an outlet where where you
Speaker 1: maybe you need to pain, or you need to write,
Speaker 1: or you need to do something that that kind of
Speaker 1: fulfills your soul. Every everybody needs to take stock of that,
Speaker 1: and that stuff changes over the course of your life.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like, you know, when when you're married
Speaker 1: and I've been married for for over twenty years now,
Speaker 1: and I somebody told my wife and I and I
Speaker 1: thought this was was really smart. The person you married
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, it's probably not the person you're married
Speaker 1: to now, and you have to make sure that that
Speaker 1: you can deal with that person and that person can
Speaker 1: deal with you. And it's the same for yourself. You're
Speaker 1: not the same person you were ten years ago, fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago, twenty years ago. Your values may be completely different.
Speaker 1: You know, twenty years ago I didn't have any kids,
Speaker 1: My my priorities, values were very different. But now they
Speaker 1: are absolutely my number one priority. They they are the
Speaker 1: thing I value most in the whole world. And so
Speaker 1: it is important to take stock, i'd say, every couple
Speaker 1: of years what matters to me, and then you you
Speaker 1: sort of point your behaviors towards what truly matters to
Speaker 1: you so that you're getting the most out of your life.
Speaker 1: I think one thing that I noted when I was
Speaker 1: going through the notes on the book is that you say,
Speaker 1: or Trevor said that it's important to be honest about
Speaker 1: those values because how many people when they go through
Speaker 1: those changes in life. You know, maybe you know ten
Speaker 1: years ago, fifteen years ago, the most important thing was
Speaker 1: having the Christmas event or the birthday party with your kid.
Speaker 1: And now your kid has grown and you it's hard
Speaker 1: to be honest with you know what. I want to
Speaker 1: focus on me right now? I wanna Yes, I want
Speaker 1: to travel right now. Travel is important to me, or
Speaker 1: learning a new hobby is important, or whatever that is. Um,
Speaker 1: just being honest and without judgment, because we judge ourselves
Speaker 1: the worst. You don't have to post your values on Facebook.
Speaker 1: This is all internal monologue here. This is this is
Speaker 1: strictly between you and you, and so be honest with yourself.
Speaker 1: If you can't be honest with yourself, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: a lot of problems. And so this especially because when
Speaker 1: you determine your values, your values start to determine your
Speaker 1: behaviors and what you what. You're prioritizing what you do.
Speaker 1: So if you can't be honest with yourself. You're gonna
Speaker 1: be like, well, I keep doing this trying to to
Speaker 1: fit this one thing because this is what I believe
Speaker 1: I should be. Well, you're gonna be unhappy because you're
Speaker 1: gonna fel like you're wasting time. You're gonna feel like
Speaker 1: you're kind of pointing in the wrong direction. So, like
Speaker 1: you said, it's okay if one of your values is
Speaker 1: I need more time for me, by all means, prioritize that.
Speaker 1: Add that into your behaviors. Build time for yourself so
Speaker 1: that you can have that time to mentally decompress or
Speaker 1: whatever it is you like to do that that makes
Speaker 1: you happy and fulfilled, because that is going to make
Speaker 1: you an altogether happier person. It's hard to do if
Speaker 1: you're especially like I said, empathy is such a great
Speaker 1: quality for a person to have. Even the great qualities
Speaker 1: you have can overwhelm you if you let them. And
Speaker 1: so you just everything needs to be in balance. And
Speaker 1: and so I'm one of those people who I get
Speaker 1: in these cycles where Okay, what can I do next?
Speaker 1: How do I figure this out? How do I you
Speaker 1: know what what's gonna happen ten ten years from now,
Speaker 1: fifteen years or twenty years from now. So you're a
Speaker 1: future tripper, I am, and I have to pull myself back.
Speaker 1: And I said, no, no, no, Well, am I gonna
Speaker 1: do tomorrow? How can I How can I help tomorrow?
Speaker 1: Make my kids lives better, make my wife's life better,
Speaker 1: make my wife better. That that that's the only that's
Speaker 1: the only way you can do it. And because I
Speaker 1: will just get caught looking ahead and not and I'll
Speaker 1: miss today, and it's it's a bad way to look
Speaker 1: it's a bad way to look at the world. And
Speaker 1: and you you don't want to miss anything. I had
Speaker 1: my my twelve year old the other day, said I
Speaker 1: wish we could just skip past this week and get
Speaker 1: right to Christmas vacation. And I said, when you get older,
Speaker 1: you're gonna never ever want to skip past the day
Speaker 1: because you don't get any of that back. But my
Speaker 1: mind will suck me into that place in a heartbeat
Speaker 1: if I'm not careful. Yeah. See, my problem is the opposite.
Speaker 1: I never want to skip I never want to fast forward.
Speaker 1: My problem is I like looking in the rear view
Speaker 1: mirror too much, you know, And and I think that's
Speaker 1: just as um. I mean, you're still missing out on
Speaker 1: the here and now, whether you're future tripping about tomorrow
Speaker 1: or looking back at yesterday with longing or guild tour.
Speaker 1: I wish I you know that could have been, would
Speaker 1: have been, should have been. You're still missing here and now,
Speaker 1: this precious moment. That getting to neutral part of it,
Speaker 1: because part of getting neutral is you do need to
Speaker 1: to take stock of what's happened, but you can't let it.
Speaker 1: You can't let anything in the past or the future
Speaker 1: control your next decision. We're so fortunate to have Andy
Speaker 1: with us today, who helped Trevor with his books on
Speaker 1: neutral thinking and is sharing some tips to help us
Speaker 1: be less reactionary and live more balanced lives. I'm going
Speaker 1: to talk about one of my awesome podcast sponsors for
Speaker 1: just a moment, and then we'll be back to chat
Speaker 1: with Andy just a little bit longer. Hi, it's Delilah.
Speaker 1: If you have been listening to my voice on the
Speaker 1: radio four years, then you know that I have been
Speaker 1: around on the radio four years. Off the radio, I'm
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Speaker 1: how has getting to neutral impacted it? Has it made
Speaker 1: it better? Do you? Do you find your relationships are better? Like?
Speaker 1: How has it personally andy helped you or made life better?
Speaker 1: It got me through the pandemic, It really did those
Speaker 1: early days when we were all in the house, you
Speaker 1: couldn't really go anywhere except the growth restore the pharmacy,
Speaker 1: and nobody knew what was going to happen. I just
Speaker 1: kept telling myself, I'm going to stay neutral. I'm going
Speaker 1: to decide what the next right step is. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do that. And I said that to myself over and
Speaker 1: over and over again, and it kept me from getting
Speaker 1: too sad about the entire situation or too scared about
Speaker 1: the entire situation, because it allowed me to think, Okay,
Speaker 1: what can I do today? Because my kids are stuck here,
Speaker 1: they can't go see their friends. What can I do
Speaker 1: today to try to make this more fun for them?
Speaker 1: You know? How can I help my wife, who I
Speaker 1: work from home and have for years and years, She's
Speaker 1: having to work from home now and and has never
Speaker 1: had to do it before. So but that's that's the
Speaker 1: only thing I could do, was was just think about
Speaker 1: that next step instead of trying to look too far ahead.
Speaker 1: I always the one way I described the whole getting
Speaker 1: to neutral processes, like let's say you you say you
Speaker 1: want to run a marathon. If you say I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go run twenty six point two miles and you're super
Speaker 1: positive about it, but you haven't trained for a marathon.
Speaker 1: Guess what, you ain't gonna run twenty six point two miles.
Speaker 1: If you say I'm gonna run, I'm gonna try to
Speaker 1: run twenty six point two miles and you're super negative
Speaker 1: about it, you're like, I don't. Well, of course you're
Speaker 1: not gonna be able to do that. But if you
Speaker 1: actually train for a marathon, and you do it the
Speaker 1: way you're supposed to, where you do a three mile
Speaker 1: run and then a three mile run. At the end
Speaker 1: of the week, you do a six and then work
Speaker 1: your way up to that twenty mile long run, which
Speaker 1: by the way, is very relaxing. When you finally do
Speaker 1: that twenty mile training run, when you get to the
Speaker 1: actual marathon, the whole time, you're just going, well, I
Speaker 1: remember when I was on my twelve mile training run,
Speaker 1: this is how this felt. And when I did my
Speaker 1: fifteen mile training ru and this is how this felt.
Speaker 1: Now you didn't go past twenty in your training runs,
Speaker 1: and by then you're just numb, so it doesn't really matter,
Speaker 1: but it helps you because you can just you can
Speaker 1: go back to the facts. You say I have prepared
Speaker 1: myself for all of this. So when I adopted child
Speaker 1: number fifteen three years ago, that's exactly what I did. Really,
Speaker 1: I said, I'm I've prepared myself for this, and I've
Speaker 1: been through this, and I've trained for this, and even
Speaker 1: though I am in my late fifties, I am ready
Speaker 1: for this. How how could you not be prepared? After
Speaker 1: four you're prepared? Actually, you know you have one, you
Speaker 1: have one, you have two, you have twelve because their
Speaker 1: friends are always over and after six or seven or eight,
Speaker 1: you know. But seriously, that was I had to get
Speaker 1: to neutral because when I would get up in my
Speaker 1: head and I would start thinking, oh my gosh, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be seventy when they graduate from high school.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, bah bah bah bah bah blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, you know, a future tripping or how
Speaker 1: am I going to handle this? Or how am I
Speaker 1: going to handle that? Or what am I gonna do?
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna you know, I'm gonna be done with
Speaker 1: work soon, and how am I going to support a
Speaker 1: kid that needs braces? How strong did you feel though,
Speaker 1: when you said I've prepared for this? I know what's
Speaker 1: going to happen if there's a food allergy. I know
Speaker 1: what's going to happen if they need braces. The food
Speaker 1: allergy cs, the asthma yes, the special medical issues yes,
Speaker 1: the A D H D yes, the modified diets, the tutors,
Speaker 1: the braces, braces, braces, braces, I'm on, I think my
Speaker 1: eighth set of braces right now. Yeah. So, but I
Speaker 1: I understand what you're saying. When you prepare instead of
Speaker 1: freak out, it's a whole different story. And the thing
Speaker 1: is you didn't. You didn't think about it while you
Speaker 1: were preparing. Now, the whole life was spent preparing for it.
Speaker 1: It's true. There's one day you just are a great
Speaker 1: um a great verse in an old old book that
Speaker 1: came out several thousand years ago that said, says, for
Speaker 1: such a time as this, I was born for such
Speaker 1: a time as this, And that can be applied to
Speaker 1: whatever mountain you're climbing. I love you said that because
Speaker 1: so Trevor dedicated this book. Uh, and I think he
Speaker 1: knew what was coming, and he didn't tell most of
Speaker 1: us what was coming, but he dedicated to anyone climbing
Speaker 1: a mountain that's beautiful. Yeah, and I just I'm so
Speaker 1: happy that this is exactly what he wanted to be
Speaker 1: in the world. He wanted people to be able to
Speaker 1: to use these things that that he's been working on
Speaker 1: with these athletes for over twenty years. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think there may have been some fear that he
Speaker 1: may not have been able to get it out in time.
Speaker 1: And he did. Uh, he beat it, beat that deadline.
Speaker 1: And uh, I'm so glad he did. I'm honored he
Speaker 1: chose me to to write the words, and and I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm so grateful that that everybody gets to to
Speaker 1: see this and read this. And I mean, it's so
Speaker 1: much bigger than just some sports stuff. Definitely is so
Speaker 1: much bigger than sports stuff because your world is dominated
Speaker 1: by sports stuff. But like you said, when you had children,
Speaker 1: your whole, your whole values, everything changes and you realize, um,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe that that sports are not the end,
Speaker 1: but the means to an end, the means to fellowship,
Speaker 1: to team work, to um grace. You know, you can
Speaker 1: watch any game basketball, baseball, football, and you can see
Speaker 1: what players know the word grace and which ones don't,
Speaker 1: which ones are puffed up, and it's all about me me, me, me, me,
Speaker 1: me me um. So applying the principles you're talking about
Speaker 1: to life, to kids, to raising, to honesty, to integrity,
Speaker 1: to de escalation. You know, when you adopt kids out
Speaker 1: of the foster care system, you have to learn de
Speaker 1: escalation techniques. And I'm not good at it. I am
Speaker 1: not good at it because I have, you know, on
Speaker 1: both sides of my family tree. I gotta temper and so,
Speaker 1: you know, getting to neutral, de escalating, learning how to
Speaker 1: show grace and how to listen and how to come
Speaker 1: up with that next step. If every parent in America
Speaker 1: learned that, if every teacher in America learned that, how
Speaker 1: much better would our lives be? So thank you, thank
Speaker 1: you for that. If our kids would just learn that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they can't learn it if we don't show it.
Speaker 1: We might have to show a little bit better example first.
Speaker 1: But Andy Staples, thank you for spending this time with us.
Speaker 1: Thank you for helping to write Getting to Neutral. I
Speaker 1: think every teacher, counselor foster parent, parent child could could
Speaker 1: read this and and and apply the principles and make
Speaker 1: our world a better place. Well, I I hope, I
Speaker 1: hope everybody gets a chanced to read it, and this
Speaker 1: is this was Trevor's dream to get this message out there,
Speaker 1: and I'm just so grateful that people are gonna get
Speaker 1: to see it. Andy Staples, thank you. Have a blessed two.
Speaker 1: Trevor Mowad was the president of mo Awad Consulting Group,
Speaker 1: the co founder with Seattle Sea Box quarterback Russell Wilson
Speaker 1: of Limitless Minds, and the author of Getting to Neutral,
Speaker 1: How to Survive and Thrive in a Chaotic World, a
Speaker 1: step by step guide on how to successfully navigate adversity
Speaker 1: and defeat negativity by down shifting to neutral thinking. He
Speaker 1: was a highly thought of and valued mental conditioning coach
Speaker 1: to elite performers. A brilliant light who will be greatly missed.
Speaker 1: Andy Staples is a professional writer who worked with Trevor
Speaker 1: to create Getting to Neutral and its predecessor, It Takes
Speaker 1: What It Takes. He covers college football and all barbecue
Speaker 1: related issues for The Athletic and previously wrote for Sports
Speaker 1: Illustrated as well as other publications. He also hosts The
Speaker 1: Andy Staples Show about college football and is doing his
Speaker 1: part to carry on Trevor's legacy. I am so grateful
Speaker 1: to Andy for joining me today and sharing the helpfulness
Speaker 1: of down shifting to neutral thinking. It's so funny. After
Speaker 1: I heard about this podcast, after I became familiar with
Speaker 1: the book, I actually have had several chances to apply this.
Speaker 1: As someone who can be reactionary at times, Okay, most
Speaker 1: of the time I'm reactionary, I can certainly see the
Speaker 1: benefit of restraining and retraining oneself to ask what do
Speaker 1: I know instead of just reacting to how I feel.
Speaker 1: When I take the time to downshift to neutral, I'm
Speaker 1: a lot more effective as a parent, as a boss,
Speaker 1: as a personality on the radio. I hope that you've
Speaker 1: discovered a few gyms in today's conversation that you will
Speaker 1: find useful in your life if you did pick up
Speaker 1: the book Getting to Neutral, which can be found wherever
Speaker 1: books are sold. Life is challenging, especially now, and we react.
Speaker 1: I react. The longer we wait for the seas to calm,
Speaker 1: the longer we're going to be disappointed and discouraged. So
Speaker 1: I'm looking for tools to help me navigate life. I
Speaker 1: encourage you to look for tools that will help you
Speaker 1: remain on an even keel even in the roughest waters.
Speaker 1: As the world gets crazy and if you find that
Speaker 1: you can't well, reach out to somebody else to help.
Speaker 1: To quote from one of my favorite pages in The Boy,
Speaker 1: the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse by Charlie Mackasey,
Speaker 1: what is the bravest thing you ever said? Asked the Boy, Help,
Speaker 1: said the horse. If you need to ask for help,
Speaker 1: do it. Take care of yourself, my friend, and keep
Speaker 1: coming back for more great conversations to brighten your world
Speaker 1: because we've got oh boy, we got a lot of
Speaker 1: great podcasts lined up for you this year. Thank you
Speaker 1: for joining me, and take some time to slow down
Speaker 1: and love someone