Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): As we record today’s episode the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics are taking place today. We have an impressive performance psychologist joining us who has consulted Olympians. Let’s welcome Dr. Amy Athey (Guest). Thank you for being with us today.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Thank you both. It’s great to be here.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We really are so excited and…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Thank you.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): the timing of the Olympics and your experience is so cool Dr. Athey is a licensed clinical and performance psychologist and national leader in performance psychology leadership Crisis Intervention and developing non-traditional mental health and wellness programs for organizations for over 20 years. She has consulted with NCAA Champions professional athletes sea level Executives and US Special Forces as well as served as a leader in scaling wellness and Performance Services and contributing to the field as a performance psychology subject matter expert Dr. Athey has delivered over a hundred and thirty Publications and presentations on high performance strengthening teams and wellness Solutions and was named a fellow in the association for Applied sport psychology as national leader in high performance and Wellness. very impressive incredible

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Tell us a little bit more. Do this career?

 

Amy Athey (Guest): We were just talking when I paused and reflected back, it’s really been one of those winding Journeys. I actually was a Collegiate athlete myself. I played basketball as an All-American basketball player at Roanoke College and if I had only heard of performance or sports psychology during that time, but I actually was a business major in undergrad and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Okay.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): I’m dating myself a little bit but the internet came about right at the time of graduation and for an internship I was stuck in a closet doing spreadsheets and that highly quantitative analytical space just wasn’t a great fit. I am a people person. I appreciate the role the relationships have in our lives and whether that’s in the pursuit of your athletic dreams or your professional career and another

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Industry I needed to be out of that closet if you will, so I actually joined the Americorps service program out of undergrad. I had an opportunity to work in inner city Baltimore with at-risk youth, their families, children who had lead poisoning and I came just to appreciate the role and the service of being there for others who are looking to make changes to improve their lives whether those are vast changes or micro changes. I really loved serving in that capacity. So went back for my Graduate Studies first a master’s and then the doctorate and

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Really was incredibly grateful. I have to give kudos to a very good friend and colleague, Dr. Jessica Moeller, who is speaking at the Olympics as a USA sailing sports psychologist.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): So we’re gonna give a huge shout out to them today as they are racing for a Podium spot,…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): so exciting

 

Amy Athey (Guest): but she introduced me to the field of sports psychology. She was ahead of her time and had already completed her Master’s in kinesiology at College Park under the training of Dr. Brad Hatfield and I learned a ton and at that point in my graduate training it became

 

Amy Athey (Guest): A Perfect Blend of my personal Journey, the space that Athletics held for me and all that it gave me as well as now kind of coming into this new training and career field in athletics. So that’s where I got my start. I had a pit stop in my career working with Crisis Intervention if you will love that work and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): What?

 

Amy Athey (Guest): disaster psychology. Although it was really challenging and reflecting on whether or not I could sustain that for a 30-year career. The work is incredibly intense although rewarding and so when I came into college athletics,…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Holy cow. Yeah, I can imagine the crisis intervention can feel very heavy at times depending on you…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): it was a blend where I could still use those Crisis Intervention skills. Unfortunately you…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): what you’re dealing with…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): we have crises and Athletics those things happen,…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): but that’s also a critically important thing for people and…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): but certainly that wasn’t the sole focus of my role. So yeah,…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): for society and being able to help people in these super high stress environments whether it’s sport or…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): that it’s been an amazing journey working with high performers in sport, military in business.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): business or in the military. There are moments where you really have to make sure your actions are what you want them to be intentional and take things to the next level. So it tells us a little bit about what it was like when you’re coaching this Olympian or this top tier pro athlete or someone in the Navy Seals. What does that look like and how are you helping them take their performance to the next level?

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Yeah, it’s a great question. It’s evolved over time really the role of sport performance psychology in these high performance organizations. If I go back to the earliest points of my career in the early 2000s many of us were really paving the way to find jobs to find opportunities to serve in athletic departments. We had the Elite organizations like the usopc we had Some organizations that were truly those innovators and really looking for the next.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Kind of a new way of helping people optimize their craft but in the early 2000s, it really wasn’t like it is now on LinkedIn you pop up and you see a mental performance coach or a sports psychologist opportunity in the early 2000s. I would argue that many found Sports psychologists because of problem incidents, right an athlete was arrested for a DUI or there was a highly visible highly critical negative outcome that you needed. We wanted to bring in resources for fortunately we have evolved and we have now come to a point where it is. Not just a reactionary service or Pursuit.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Really where we have evolved now in high performance organizations such as an NCAA athletic department or a Navy SEAL Team group. It is seen as a core component of an interdisciplinary Human Performance team. We have recognized early on that strength and conditioning coaches are needed. Why yes, many will say we need Elite performers to be stronger and more explosive. The reality is we also need to prevent injury and so if we’re tasking athletes or seals with these incredibly demanding eye pressure us physical challenges and we need to ensure that they can sustain that performance over time. So strength and conditioning came on the scene. We have strength and conditioning coaches now that are certified in that profession.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): We also then came to appreciate the role of supplementation hydration. So we saw the growth of the performance nutrition field and also certified registered dietitians who have gone to specialize in human performance and working with athletes in our special forces. And then certainly we recognize the mental component that comes with performing in these moments that matter and sustaining that performance over time. So now what you have, I think when I first started there were 65 power 5 schools. Maybe half hat. This is the early 2000s. Maybe half had one sports psychologist. When I entered the Pack 12 after my journey from the ACC. I think the FTE which is a full-time equivalent number of positions

 

Amy Athey (Guest): On average was barely over one and that was heavily weighted because USC was a front-runner with always having the resources of a number of sports psychologists.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): They were that kind of the first on the scene with that. When I left the Pack 12 and transitioned out as Chief Wellness officer that number has significantly grown and now there’s probably 2.8 to early low three FTE average in what used to be the Pac-12. So it has certainly grown and is a critical contributor to the human performance service team.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): and sports psychologists are trained to be able to provide coaching and mental health service. So if you think of high performance on a continuum a lot of people like to ask me. Where are you a clinical psychologist, or are you a performance psychologist? I’ll give props to renounce Sports psychologists the suspect Dr. Sean McCann whose quote is at this level. It’s all performance. As someone is going through a divorce. We’d like to think once you step across that line. We leave that thing humans aren’t like that. We bring our whole selves to what we are doing. And so if you’re dealing with an adjustment issue, if you’re dealing with a clinical disorder, like sleep apnea depression and anxiety disorder.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): We treat that differently than we do recovering from a hamstring strain or an ACL repair. So as Sports psychologists On more of the clinical ends. We also look to help with adjustment transitions. We’re talking a lot about the Olympics now, but what’s really challenging oftentimes for Olympic athletes is what happens when the Olympics end. For another four years. There’s this ramp up. Complete Focus attention your life is driven to this moment and then like that.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): And so, they serve an important role not just in the execution portion of performance, but also in helping what we call after action. what and how we learn from that performance could be long-term.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): So yeah, I’ve loved being part of the growth of the field. It brings enormous pride to see this being now for high performance organizations rather than just if something bad goes wrong and we’re seeing the impact of that. We have statistics now not just for performance optimization and knowing that preparation mental training AIDS and optimizing your performance.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): But I think even more significantly and certainly for those corporate athletes out there in your career sustainability. We have data from Major League players who worked with a performance psychologist on average lasted two more years in the big leaks and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, that’s quite a significant amount of growth.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): those who had not had service. So whether it’s optimization performance sustainment over the career.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I mean from not that long ago it really though. I mean not being even a thing or…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): It’s just really exciting to see…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): or barely being used and…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): how far the field has come and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): that has access to that and…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): the young talent and the Innovative thinkers coming together now and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): and it’s crucial in their performance.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): it’s just going to continue to grow.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): It is critical. And so yeah, tell us a little bit so you have all this past experience. And then now this has led you to find the performance.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Not that long ago. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Yes.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): 

 

Amy Athey (Guest): yeah, so along my journey I’ve received inbound requests for speaking events or helping kind of augment or contribute to training programs or even provide some coaching for corporate executives around ways that they could optimize their performance, strengthen their leadership skills or help them optimize their teams. And so at the start of this year made the decision to kind of pull together really how I’ve always worked even though it’s been internal to organizations, but really have found to be the most impactful and that is bringing and making accessible the holistic interdisciplinary performance team. To those corporate Executives and their teams and I recognize that.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Every organization team or leader may be at a different spot and their needs for that. There are some who are looking to have that kind of Deep dive knowledge or kind of just at least plant the seed and so we do offer those speaking events around high performance, whether that’s preparation execution or how you can optimize your team and continue sustaining that high performance over time. We have some Executives and their teams who are looking to kind of take a little bit deeper dive and build out training programs, whether that’s a large Enterprise company who has an existing training department.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): If you will, they have already po programs or they have other leadership development programs. We are able to come in and augment they’re offering smaller to mid-sized companies. We really enjoy the co-creation and working collaboratively with

 

Amy Athey (Guest): corporate partner to build that

 

Amy Athey (Guest): That training program and then there’s some Executives who recognize that their specific areas that they really want to work on and we know Behavior change takes time and that coaching service really helps, the way I have always explained it to the elite performers. I’m certainly not an expert on…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s a very very impactful and…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): what it means to be in a Navy SEAL and…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): clear a room. I’m not an expert in pole vault or…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I think you…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): it’s not just these high impact organizations like professional sports and…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): being a football quarterback, but I do have this expertise from my research and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): the military that can benefit from a holistic approach to enhancing and…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): then clinical, practice that hopefully we can collaborate and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): optimizing individuals’ performance.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): share together and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): You’ve got,…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): not only the expert in their performance domain.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): a financial analyst that essentially is influencing millions or…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): They’re the expert on them and through that collaboration. Hopefully, then we cut their trial and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): potentially billions of dollars depending on the scale of the business or…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): error,

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Executives who are you…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): exponentially and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): shaping strategy for companies that impact entire Industries.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): so we have in that collaborative coaching process executives are able to

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I mean, there’s obviously different scale depending on the business and organization and even nonprofits are making a difference in people’s lives and communities there. There’s always a ripple effect that can be felt for better or worse with the performance of individuals. One question that we’ve been having this conversation is in these high performance organizations that the organization itself.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Work with someone like me, work with our nutritionist performance coach, physical coach for Recovery planning and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Has a very vested interest in maximizing the performance of individuals and the sustainability of that performance over time.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): oftentimes what they’re seeing is like,…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): But the reality is in the workplace a lot of organizations don’t have that intentionality,…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): they’re very smart, very action-oriented, very driven individuals, but they find that the service really enables them to make those changes and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): or maybe they don’t have the resources or maybe it’s just too much. Maybe the organization isn’t as sophisticated or…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): sustain those changes that they’re looking to make in their lives,…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): advanced yet.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): more effectively.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): What do you say to the people leader or…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): So it’s exciting to make it accessible to the Private Industry…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): even the individual team member?

 

Amy Athey (Guest): because as I mentioned we’ve seen the growth and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): To help them better own the performance of their team or…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): the impact and these other performance domains like Special Forces and Sport.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): even themselves. Maybe I’m just sitting here listening to man now, I’m aware of this vacancy and resources that could benefit me. What should I do?

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Absolutely. It’s a great question. I think sometimes we don’t give enough credit to the impact that we as individuals have on our team and on others, you mentioned Community the ripple effect. It is a present I talk about with leadership. There’s a lot out there about changing culture. I appreciate the need to change cultures at times if they are dysfunctional if they’re just really undermining the pursuit of those goals or misaligned with the individuals or teams values But what I hone in on when I’m speaking with people leaders, especially is let’s pay attention to climate. so you may be a lead of a Sales team for example, and you may not have the resources to hire. Someone like me or our team.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Nonetheless, there’s a time that you can do just in the interactions you may have with the individuals or as a collective in the team in a group environment. And whether it might be as minuscules as pausing before you hit that send button on that email and taking a breath and maybe just throwing and drafts for another 10 minutes and coming back to it. Maybe it is how you respond to criticism or conflict or just even challenging different thoughts within that group environment. How you respond in those moments that matter are not always the ones that we’re seeing on TV right now, the Olympians most of us are not moments.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): My God.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): That matter could be when you come home to your child. After a really long day of feeling beaten down in the world. The four-year-old doesn’t really care.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Or fully even understand what your email is. correspondence was so what I say to people leaders is don’t underestimate the impact that we can bring in these moments that matter that. aren’t always the highly visible highly spoken about kind of headlines and so we come back to Three core. Performance tenants if you will to help performance leaders in those moments that matter the first one we are foundational to cannot perform. If not, Wellness is a foundation of performance. So if you’re looking to engage in that with that four year old after just kind of feeling beaten down on the day. I’m really curious what your wine down routine is in your transition routine from work to home.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): How do you decompress even if it’s a 10 minute train ride, even if you end up stuck on the bridge because there’s an accident and now you’re delayed another hour. What is your wine down routine that’s optimal and ideal? And in sport we do this if there’s a rain delay, we have a delay routine. We then have a stretch routine. So now the rain delayed that lightning again you got another 45 minutes you got away and we also have a shrink routine believe it or not. There have been teams that are late to the World Series because there were traffic jams and they were late getting to the field. And those athletes still had a warm-up schedule. So for you, what is your wine down routine after work? What does that transition routine look like? How are you going to adjust if you’re stuck in traffic, how are you going to just get home and it’s a zoo.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): So Wellness is a foundation of performance. We look at active recovery for that obviously sleep is critical. But other active recovery strategies we look at how are you taking care of your fuel link nutrition supplementation hydration, we take a look at how are you honoring your spirit growth and your mental health? Basically that holistic piece that we were talking about earlier, the second performance tenant. We like to talk about what got you here won’t keep you here. So for those people leaders the reality is you are working and living in a dynamic condition. And depending on your industry. It may be incredibly fast-paced. I mean my heart goes out to those in Tech with this whole AI I think I feel like there’s another and again I’m of the generation. I dated myself with not having the internet in college, but

 

Amy Athey (Guest): But we are in a very Dynamic changing moment. And that is where these core mental skills are. I really think I use the metaphor ton around As a people leader, what is in a box to regulate your emotion? What is in your toolbox to focus? What’s most important now? We use the acronym win. What’s important now.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Because there is so much noise out there just in our lives now the available noise that can distract us from what’s important now is emotional regulation attention. We also talk about How you bounce back? We talk a lot about mistake management and decision-making quality decision making and then elements of high performance teaming, but the reality is what got you here won’t keep you here and just as we see it in Private Industry with product development. I get a new iPhone release every 10 months. Now, I think or something, if they had rested on The Laurels and throughout the first one and said hey, We’re good. This is the greatest thing ever. They’d be out of business. How do we do that as people leaders ourselves?

 

Amy Athey (Guest): We kind of take inventory of our values and where we want to go and maybe think of one or two very discrete actions that we want or kind of that’s the goal of our behavior. We go out and try it. And then guess we do the whole cycle again, where we take a pause and reflect on what seemed to help us? Where did we mess up or what did we learn that we want to do differently? We use that data. reflect on our values, align our actions set out on our goal and we keep kind of iterating so that iteration is crucial and then the last one which is dear to my heart and certainly I’ve only seen reinforced by the literature and practices relationships are the Agent of Change. No one will get on that Podium at the Olympics alone.\

 

Amy Athey (Guest): You may visibly see one person but the reality is that the support at and they will all say this is tremendous for leaders for high performers who are in this really Deliberate is not even the correct word. But just these intense pursuit of their craft. So I challenge people leaders to take inventory.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Like that, and honestly, it sounds like an individual could kind of go through this Inventory if you will for themselves in their own life their own relationships how they’re approaching delays and setbacks and mistakes and a team leader could take the initiative to prompt their team to do the same

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Who’s in your circle? And I was just watching a video with Simon snack the other day and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And I think you correct me…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): he made a really great point.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): if you’re wrong if you…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): He was like,…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): if I’m wrong here or…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): many of us may have five 10 friends that have s*** really goes wrong.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): if you have more perspective, but there’s benefit from the self evaluation of this…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): We’re calling,…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): but also having a coach or…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): every place I’ve lived around this country.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): a team lead or…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): I can tell you they weren’t always a person I hung out with every Friday…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): or someone who sees outside of yourself to all so provide some thought on…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): but somehow in my life. I came to cherish relationships that…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): how things are going. So,

 

Amy Athey (Guest): if something happened with my kids, I knew I could call this person and it didn’t matter where they were in the world. They would help me. some internet made a point though. He asked how many of those five to ten people on your list you called when you got an award.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): How many of those people do you call when you are absolutely crushed? You crushed that quarter and you’re gonna get your bonus check. But how many people did you call and celebrate those wins with I think a lot of times we hold back, right the fear being judged as being cocky or air again or showing off or rub it in your face and I just really appreciated his point there that for our people leaders for all of us relationships are critical. It’s the antidote for Resolutions and tough times. But I also argue when we celebrate our wins. We kind of put those deposits back in ourselves to the people in our Circle. They’re generally happy for us too. So it is also a gift that you’re giving to them to be able to celebrate you in those times. So

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Long-winded answer perhaps Matt that’s your question. But certainly we’ve come to kind of find the power and those three performance tenants and really are able to share that whether we’re giving a talk helping with a training program or coaching the corporate athlete.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Careless and see how they can implement this better in their workplaces, especially maybe those smaller organizations that don’t have a specific person already a lot of this. So thank you so much for your use today and…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Absolutely, the self-reflection that’s one data point valuable one,…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): and all that you shared we want our listeners to listen and…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): but certainly where you also, taking in data and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): and we’ll have some resources in our highlight article for you and…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): like you said coaching is incredibly powerful mentorship allies supports your supervisors your faith leader your partner your friends,…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): just please subscribe and you won’t miss any more episodes of anything you want to add. Yeah. Thank you, Amy, and…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): have kind of the diversity of data points and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): we’re grateful for you sharing your expertise. Any less words as we close up here.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): and it will help kind of shape that stronger picture and I think that’s when we think about wellness and performance.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): The power that comes from the integration, I admittedly I will be the first to cringe when I see the PowerPoint pop presentation that pops out about…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Amy and thanks everyone for listening. We’ll see you next time.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): how to manage your stress and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): All right,…

 

Amy Athey (Guest): I always found it humorous and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): all click and on the recording here.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): higher education how we always did Stress Management Programs the week of exams because I’m kind of Duke. I’m not really sure if that’s the time we want to start learning and implementing new skills and the most stressed out time. We don’t learn to hit a fastball in the World Series. We learn here to fastball because somebody put us in a tea in the backyard and had fun and then did soft toss and then at some point you went to the ballpark with what for family members, right? We have opportunities in that integrative approach.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): To really help people make changes that are sustainable in their lives. And so yeah, I don’t want to get off on a tangent there about the siled approach that we see sometimes with the promoal. this is the deck on Stress Management, but I do come to really value the integrative way

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Absolutely. Thank you.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): Thank you.

 

Amy Athey (Guest): I’m just grateful for you both. I mean I mentioned that last performance tenant relationships are on the Agent of Change and I love doing programs like these podcasts because reality is like I learned from you guys as well. So I’m grateful for you both and thank you for having me. awesome