Mental Training Lab

Master your mental game with the Mental Training Lab, hosted by Pete Kadushin. With 15 years of coaching experience and a PhD in performance psychology, Pete digs deep each episode to provide practical tools and expert insights so you can perform your best when it matters most. Enhance your focus, harness stress, and overcome challenges whether you’re an athlete, leader, or high-performer. Subscribe to learn how to elevate your game in work, play, and life.

In today’s episode we’re joined by Dr. Ashley Cranney. Ashley is a licensed professional counselor and certified mental performance consultant, employed at West Virginia University as Assistant Professor of Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology. She has been consulting with athletes and performers for nearly fifteen years, sharing her passion for performance enhancement with anyone who will listen. One of the many things that makes Ashley so great is that she’s worked with a wide variety of top performers across sport, dance, first responder, and military contexts. Another superpower that Ashley has is her ability to name complex concepts with clarity and simplicity, which really shines through in our talk here as she gets right to the heart of stress and performance.

I’ll be honest… we really only scratched the surface when it comes to what Ashely can offer, and I hope we’ll have a round 2 soon. This time around, we dive into the stress cycle, and specifically the six concrete behaviors you can use to help complete the stress cycle. Ashley also spends time talking about how the sport environment is designed, if we’re mindful of some of the pitfalls, to be biologically respectful. This one’s packed with specific tools we can use, and pairs really well with past episodes we’ve had on embodiment and presence. It was amazing having a rockstar like Ashley share so much in a potent window of time here, and I know you’re going to get something good out of this one… time to jump right in. 

Today’s episode is about unpacking a bit of well meaning and ultimately bad advice. It’s advice that puts us in a no-win position where we are spending a ton of energy and attention on forcing our internal experience to fit into a narrow window of conditions. It’s also advice that inadvertently tells us we can’t expand that window to create more grace under fire and a sense of freedom within uncontrollable performance environments. And all of that happens even though it’s being shared with the best intentions in mind. 

As always, the show will close with some specific practices you can work on to expand your window of success and your capacity for big experiences so you can be more poised when it matters most!

Today, we’ve got Dr. Adrian Ferrera (@dradrianferrera) in the lab, and I couldn’t be more excited. As you’ll hear soon - Adrian and I go way back, and it was amazing to get to hear so many amazing and applicable tools from an old friend. Adrian spent a lot of time unpacking the power of self-regulation, how awareness acts as the first step of the mental training journey, and how he gets parents and coaches to be his greatest ally as he’s working with teams and athletes. 

I got ahead of myself though. Who is Adrian? Adrian’s a licensed professional counselor and performance consultant. He’s directed both mental health and performance services at the University of Washington, Auburn, and West Virginia University, and before that he worked with US Army special operations at Fort Bragg. Look, he’s the real deal, having worked with pros, national champions, and world champions. He’s now ventured into the world of executive coaching. Simply put, he’s great at what he does, and he shared a ton of it with us today. To connect with Adrian, visit www.dradrianferrera.com!

Today’s episode is going be a short exploration of our most important resource, which is the combination of time and attention. We’ll start with a short thought exercise, talk about the implications of low quality attention, and then wrap up with how you can be training your attention starting today. 

My guest today is Dr. Jesse Michel. Jesse helps lead the Performance Psychology Program at Deloitte, where his team provides support and services to over 8500 principals, partners, and managing directors across the US. Previously, he spent four years as the mental skills coordinator for the Houston Astros, and another four years before that as the Lead Master Resilience Trainer at the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness Training Center. Simply put, he has a diverse background and a sharp skillset, and he poured out a ton of pearls of wisdom in this conversation! 

In this episode, Jesse shares how he has changed his mind to focus more on the environments we create. He riffs on the art and science of coaching, providing some actionable tools for anyone in leadership positions to use, and then closes with a discussion of how important high quality attention is to peak performers across disciplines.

You can find more of Jesse here:

Jesse on LinkedIn

Jesse on Twitter

Mindset for Excellence

Mace and Travis Macy join me today for a really special episode. Their new book, A Mile at a Time, is a well-written and unapologetic look at one family’s experience with the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease. Travis and Mace use humor, vulnerability, and channel their willingness to do the hard, important things, to share the highs and lows of their journey.

Oh… and in case you didn’t know, both of these gentlemen are powerhouse ultra-endurance athletes! In fact, Mace and Travis, a year after Mace’s diagnosis, tackled Eco-Challenge Fiji - appropriately dubbed the World’s Toughest Race… a 10 day, 417 mile race over mountains, rivers, swamps, and oceans. Travis (@travismacy) has finished over 130 ultra-endurance races, and held the record for the Leadman Challenge (if you don’t know… you absolutely have to look it up).

Mace (@mmacy146) is one of the OGs from the ultra-endurance world, having competed in everything from the Ironman Triathlon to the Leadville 100, and participating in all eight of the original Eco-Challenge races. Both the book and this interview have a ton of teachable moments, and it was a privilege to spend time with both of these guys. I know, without a doubt, you’ll enjoy this one. 

In today’s episode, Raymond Prior (@bts_mindset on twitter) comes back to tackle some of the common myths we hear in the performance psychology world. Honestly, one of my favorite games it so poke the bear and see if I can get Raymond riled up, and so I tossed him some cliches to see what would happen. I tried - and failed - to make this a lightning round… and the truth is there was a lot to dig into as we discussed things like “Just be positive” and “fake it til you make it”. Raymond’s book, Golf Beneath the Surface, is now available anywhere you find your books, and is worth the time if you take performing your best seriously! 

Throughout the ages, there are a number of myths that invoke this image.  A commander and their army step onto foreign soil, and knowing that they are outmatched by the enemy, the commander makes a daring choice.  The army is ordered to burn their boats, leaving only two choices: victory or death.

Today's short episode examines the relationship between commitment and trust and how they're critical for our capacity to perform our best when it matters most. As always, there's also a quick discussion of how to train these qualities so you  can have access to them consistently!

This is part 2 of my interview, Cam Smith (@camfromcb). If you missed his first episode, it’s definitely worth checking out, and as a quick refresher, Cam is a world-class ski mountaineer and trail runner. He’s an 11 time US Skimo national champion, and 5 time north American ski mo champion. Cam holds the course record for the three largest skimo races in the US, the Power of Four, the Grand Traverse, and the Gothic Mountain Tour. He’s the first American man to finish top-10 in a skimo world cup race, with his 3rd place finish in Andorra earlier in 2022. He’s won a long list of trail running races as well, and has qualified for the Mountain and Trail Running World Championships in Thailand this year.

Today, he talks about the benefits of being a two sport athlete, exploring the dark moments in endurance sport (and how to plan for them), and why blending motivations can make you a better competitor.  

To round it out, he shares a wicked reflection tool that has helped him squeeze a lot of extra growth out of each race. What really stands out throughout is that Cam is a dual threat and has found a way to be both a (great human being + elite performer).