My interview earlier this year with Positive Psychologist, Chris DeSantis was such a goldmine that I immediately asked him to come present to our Insider Mastermind to teach them about positive psychology.

 In our first episode together, Chris introduced positive psychology, but we really just scratched the surface. I’m thrilled to say that this episode goes so much deeper and leaves you with so many actionable ways to better help your athletes.

In this episode, Chris dives deep into his positive psychology philosophies. As the first person to get his advanced degree in Positive Psychology, he has a unique, valuable, even revolutionary perspective on just about everything related to mental training. Chris shares personal stories and examples of his coaching, and shows what it’s really like to take a client through negative visualization. He even shares the script he uses with athletes so that you can start using this tool right away in your own coaching practice. And since we were live on a coaching call with The Insider Mastermind, he answers loads of real questions from real mindset coaches.

This episode is robust enough to listen to on it’s own, and is also a great follow up to our first interview together, so tune in and let me know on IG @lindseypositiveperform what you think of the episode!

Follow Chris

Website: https://chrisdcoach.com/
Instagram: @chrisdcoach 

Resources:

Here’s a glance at the episode…

[0:55] Chris starts the episode by talking about some of the positive psychology concepts (like “growth mindset”) that have gone mainstream, and how these interpretations fall short. 

[3:30] Classical psychology asks,  “What’s wrong here, and how do we fix it? Positive psychology asks “What is the situation, and where is the opportunity?”

[6:06] Why do people practice visualization? Chris explains the value of visualization, and how it helps the human brain prepare for high stakes situations.

[8:46] There are a lot of unwitting disciples of BF Skinner, The King of Behaviorism. Chris believes humans are more complex than these studies are able to measure. Chris talks about how behaviorism feeds oversimplified assumptions about visualization.

[13:58] If your goal is to NOT think about something, you’ve set an impossible goal. Chris gives a “white bear” analogy that proves his point. 

[17:54] Chris describes what’s happening in your brain during fight or flight, and how he helps to coach swimmers through the “worst case scenario”.

[20:15] Chris shares a specific example of working with an athlete and how he utilized negative visualization to help her move through her fears proactively. 

[24:53] Sharing personal examples, Chris talks about a situation with a swimmer, one challenge of working with young athletes, and the importance of keeping everything in perspective. 

[31:35] Bianca asks how Chris handles athletes who say “I don’t know” in response to his questions. Chris talks about his background in sports media and what it taught him about getting information out of athletes (like Michael Phelps).

[34:59] Lindsey shares a different way she has used negative visualization as an athlete, and the way she teaches it today. 

[39:39] Lindsey and Chris discuss the role of negative visualization in calming the nervous system. Chris answers some questions from the group, starting with one student that asks if negative visualizations should be followed up with positive visualizations. 

[45:40] The Insider Mastermind students are challenged to come up with a metaphor to help athletes release feelings after going through a negative visualization. 

[47:36] Chris chats about his understanding of the relationship between Michael Phelps and his coach. A student asks how Chris finishes a negative visualization session with an athlete. Chris explains his intuitive approach, and relates to feeling nervous about using negative visualization as a coach. 

[51:39] Lindsey wraps up the episode with a quick chat about fear of failure, how to anticipate obstacles, and how anxiety can increase by ignoring the worst case scenario. Chris shares his contact information and plugs his podcast, The Swim Brief.

NEGATIVE VISUALIZATION - SCRIPT

Ask your athelte to sit down and prepare to visualize. Then move through the following questions:

Continue to ask “what will happen next” until you get to the existential question.

The purpose of this exercise is:

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