Interviewee: Lindsey Hamilton
Recorded On: June 2, 2022
Published On: June 7, 2022
About this interview
Lindsey Hamilton is the Head of Mindset Conditioning at IMG Academy where she leads, develops, and facilitates a team of 12 mindset coaches that oversee the mental skills development of over 1,200 middle school and high school aged student-athletes. She also leads the IMG Institute through developing and delivering high performance mindset coaching to executive level business professionals and corporate teams interested in optimizing leadership and enhancing organizational excellence. Lindsey holds two bachelor's degrees from Chapman University in psychology and sociology, a master's degree from the University of Utah in Exercise and Sport Science with an emphasis in psychosocial aspects of sport, and is currently pursuing her doctorate in kinesiology at UNC Greensboro.
List of skills discussed
- Being coachable
- Coaching others
- Delivering clear and useful criticism
- Learning eagerly from criticism
- Leveraging Resources
- Reframing
- Staying motivated to take on new challenges
- Taking risks
- Team building
Tips for improving mindfulness skills
- Ask yourself what you would do if you were being your most confident self
- Put that intention into a word or phrase and put it somewhere you'll see/interact with it everyday (like your password)
References
- Lindsey at IMG Academy
- Lindsey on Twitter
- Lindsey on Instagram
Interview breakdown:
Tommy: 1:30
What is a mental conditioning coach?
Lindsey: 1:38
- Mental conditioning is training mental skills so you can perform at your best, regardless of the circumstances
- It's helping your mind work for you and not against you
Tommy: 2:26
Mental skills... what kind of skills are we talking about?
Lindsey: 2:37
- Acting with confidence
- Managing pressure situations
- Controlling self doubt / Using effective self talk
- Visualizing positive outcomes
- Managing anxiety
- Effectively taking feedback
- And many more...
Tommy: 4:46
Those skills seem relevant for everyone, but especially designers...
Lindsey: 5:06
- We are each the designer of our own life
- We can approach ourselves like a design problem: what is the problem to solve and how can I redesign myself to accomplish my goals?
- We often don't see that we can step outside of our anxieties or fears and design our way into more of what we want to be
Tommy: 6:03
Viewing ourselves as a design problem is a fascinating concept!
Lindsey: 6:42
- Self awareness is a skill, too:
1. being able to take a step back
2. having the courage to do so
3. troubleshooting the challenges you find
- Mental performance improvement really starts there
Tommy: 7:16
With what age group are you typically working?
Lindsey: 7:24
- Middle - high school-aged kids, so 13-18 mostly
- Also work with corporate executives
Tommy: 7:48
How do you help the kids develop that self awareness?
Lindsey: 8:01
- Self awareness is where you start everything
Tommy: 9:40
You manage a team of 12 coaches?
Lindsey:
- Actually 13, but just hired 5 more!
Tommy: 10:02
It must be interesting to teach mindfulness and awareness to coaches who teach the same thing to others.
Lindsey: 10:17
- You will get better by default - just by engaging in the work, having conversations, etc.
- But how do we get better by design?
- Planning to create a development program for the coaches so they can continue to get better and accomplish what they want to
Tommy: 12:12
So, you help the kids learn to be coachable?
Lindsey: 12:27
- Coachability is the foundation of building mental flexibility (or mental toughness)
- Sometimes coaching comes from ourselves, sometimes others, sometimes from our mistakes
- It can be hard to take criticism
Tommy: 12:43
Where do you start to become more coachable? How do we develop mental flexibility so we can better deal with critique and criticism?
Lindsey: 14:26
- Sometimes we feel like the work we put forward is final, but it never really is.
- Designers typically understand that product design is iterative and collaborative.
- We can take that iterative, collaborative mindset and apply it to ourselves.
Lindsey: 16:30
- UX design is what you do, not who you are.
- When you have an idea that fails, you're not a failure.
- We need to make space to separate those things because until we do, we're going to have a hard time taking feedback because it's going to feel personal.
- Remember to also GIVE feedback mindfully. We can critique outputs or behaviors without tearing down the person.
Tommy: 17:41
I saw a cartoon once where in the first frame two people were facing each other arguing over something. In the second frame, they were standing together facing the problem together.
Lindsey: 18:17
- We do an exercise with our athletes where they face off across a stretched out rope. They try to convince their partner to come to their side of the rope.
- Sometimes someone will give in and go to the other side. Sometimes nobody will move.
- The way you win is to BOTH move - to switch sides. It rarely occurs to people because they've been facing off "against" another person, even though they were called PARTNERS through the whole exercise!
Tommy: 20:19
What's the difference between the actions of confidence and the feelings of confidence?
Lindsey: 20:38
- People feel like you either have confidence or you don't
- If you woke up tomorrow with all the confidence in the world, how would you do your work differently?
- What if you woke up tomorrow with all the confidence in the world, but nothing changed? We'd be disappointed.
- We want confidence not because it makes us feel a certain way, but that it's going to change our life in some way.
- The actions of confidence come first and the feelings come later
- Nelson Mandela taught this principle throughout his life
Tommy: 27:24
Imposter syndrome is real for so many. Seems like nobody can feel confident until they've put themselves out there and tried.
Lindsey: 28:18
- Most of us have transitioned into our current work or roles by trying something we weren't sure would work
- Hopefully people are constantly pushing themselves out of their comfort zone and then taking confident action that ultimately leads to a better product
Tommy: 29:39
Confidence still leaves space for humility.
Lindsey: 29:53
- What's the different between confidence and arrogance?
- Arrogance is when you believe in yourself to the extent where you no longer feel like you need to collaborate or ask for support; you turn down resources.
- Confidence allows you to believe in yourself and your work while staying open to other ideas and opinions. You recognize you are separate from your product.
Tommy: 32:00
What can we do today to start building mental flexibility?
Lindsey: 32:25
1. Ask yourself what you would do if you were being your most confident self
2. Put that intention into a word or phrase and put it somewhere you'll see/interact with it everyday (like your password)
