This is a nice video and I’m glad to see a therapist talk about this. I am a professor of neuroscience and psychology. I was a Division 1 wrestler and have been wrestling and a coach for 33 years. I started BJJ about 5 years ago. I disagree with the notion that practice builds confidence. Some of the highest level athletes lose confidence and they practice constantly. Sports psychologists don’t hype people up with words like he suggests. I was fortunate as an undergraduate in psychology to take a sports psychologist with Shane Murphy, who was the sports psychologist for the Olympic ski team. Like a good therapist he doesn’t tell them what to think, his clients talk about their thoughts, feelings, fears, anxiety etc associated with their sport performance. Of course these stem from much deeper roots. It’s definitely not bullshit. As far as I know, John doesn’t have any background in psychology. And I think that is obvious how he feels about it. He also does not have a PhD. He dropped out of his PhD program at Columbia but has a Masters degree from Auckland in New Zealand in Philosophy. He talks a lot about what it feels like to be “under the lights” or “on the big stage,” but has never competed before. In my experience as a competitor and coach, you get more comfortable with competition the more that you do it. Ben said a few things like “dad” or “girlfriend,”- a common fear of failure of disappointment. Why are you afraid of losing? Do you then feel like you are a loser-outside of the event? A lot of people are so afraid to compete because they are afraid of losing. So they don’t and come up with a million excuses as to why they can’t do it. Yet, we see some people with one hand or one leg win major championships. I am sure they didn’t just win because of confidence. There’s so much to this, and hearing more from those who have competed at a high level is quite useful. We experience the world through 5 senses. You can’t really know what it feels like if you haven’t experienced it. I was coached to just compete as often as possible so that it felt more normal. To face it head on. You just don’t get prepared to compete in a gym. And you don’t know that unless you put yourself out there and take a chance of losing-you know you might just win. Both are ok.
Thank you for your comment Joseph. As i was writing the script for this video I felt I could have gone on forever about how to solve the problem because it is individual and often does stem from something else as you stated. I would love to hear you (as someone who has competed at a very high level and as someone who is educated in psychology) and John sit down and talk about this. John would have a lot to learn from you! Blessings!
@@danielchu you’re the therapist, I am just a sensory systems and neuroendocrine guy. Good luck getting Danaher on the show to talk about psychology with academics
