Mental toughness. It’s a term we throw around in sports, business, and life, but what does it truly mean? Is it about enduring more pain, or could it be something deeper, more sustainable?
This week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Brad Cooper, a trailblazer in the realm of mental toughness who brings both academic rigor and personal experience to the conversation. Brad’s journey is remarkable—after a successful career as an endurance athlete, he earned his PhD at 50 and developed a groundbreaking framework called Functional Mental Toughness. His approach redefines the concept of resilience, emphasizing strategies that not only enhance performance but also protect well-being.
In our conversation, Brad shared his Thrive, Prepare, Activate model—a three-part approach designed to help you excel in a balanced and intentional way. Whether you’re an athlete pushing through a grueling workout, a professional navigating high-stakes situations, or someone striving for personal growth, Brad’s insights offer a fresh perspective on mental toughness that is as practical as it is transformative.
Why Functional Toughness Matters
In an era that often glorifies grinding harder and enduring more, Brad’s philosophy stands out. His model encourages us to go beyond survival mode and instead focus on thriving: aligning our goals with our current life phase, preparing in meaningful ways, and activating the right tools when it matters most.
Here are Dr. Cooper’s actionable takeaways:
- Discovering Your Unique Start Line Strategy
Instead of mimicking others, Brad emphasizes the importance of finding an approach that works for you, whether in sports or life. - Transforming Negative Self-Talk
Learn how to replace those self-critical thoughts with motivational cues that actually boost performance. - Balancing Preparation and Recovery
Using tools like heart rate variability (HRV), Brad explains how to recognize when over-preparation might be holding you back, so you can achieve optimal balance. - Aligning Vision with Life Phases
Goals evolve as we do. Brad’s insights help you align your aspirations with the realities of your current stage in life for sustainable success.
Moving Beyond Hustle Culture
As someone who has often pushed boundaries to achieve big goals, I found Brad’s approach deeply refreshing. He challenges the idea that mental toughness is about grinding harder and instead advocates for a more thoughtful and strategic approach.
Whether you’re an athlete, an entrepreneur, or simply someone striving to perform at your best, this episode will leave you inspired to rethink how you approach challenges—and how you care for yourself in the process.
Listen to Brad’s episode
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Brad’s Links
Episode Chapters
- 00:00 Self-Talk and Mental Toughness
- 01:30 Introduction to Dr. Brad Cooper
- 03:30 Announcements and Podcast Rebranding
- 05:12 Starting Lines and Self-Presentation
- 08:12 Functional Mental Toughness
- 13:44 The FMT Model and Self-Talk
- 13:58 Thrive and Prepare Phases
- 14:17 Phases of Life and Personal Vision
- 57:05 Final Thoughts and Resources
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Transcript
Dr. Brad Cooper 0:00
So what are some examples of self talk? Well, the first thing I would do is listen to what you’re currently doing, because most of us suck and sell like we’re so negative, we’re we would never say these things to our kids, we would never say these things to our friends, our spouses, but we say them to ourselves. Brad, you’re such an idiot. Brad, how could you do that again? Brad, how can you be so far off pace like that’s not helpful? First thing is, listen to yourself. What are you saying? Jot it down, and then look at it and say, Is that helping? Probably not. Now, once you clear out the junk, once you empty the trash, now you can start filling it up with some good stuff. You Sonya,
Sonya Looney 0:55
welcome back to a new episode of The Sonia Looney Show. I’m your host, Sonia, and this podcast is about the intersection of high performance and well being. I am a professional athlete and world champion, a mental performance coach and a mom to two little kids, among many other hats that I wear. Today we are diving into a topic that touches all of us, whether in sports business or everyday life, and that is mental toughness. I’m thrilled to have Dr Brad Cooper with us, a pioneer in what he calls functional mental toughness and the topic of his research, Brad has an incredible story. He went back to get his PhD at 50 after an impressive career as an endurance athlete. I love that, because a lot of us think that it’s too late to go and do the thing that we always wanted to do, but it’s never too late to go after your dreams. Through his research and real world experience, he has developed a science backed free work that helps people excel without burning out. In our conversation, Brad shares his three part model, thrive, prepare and activate. This model isn’t about pushing harder or simply enduring more. Instead, it’s about using practical strategies to enhance your performance in a balanced and healthy way. Some of the things that we’ve talked about you might have even heard about on the podcast in the past. So if you’ve ever felt like you couldn’t push through that last bit of effort or stay calm under pressure, you’ll find Brad’s insights incredibly valuable. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride for me. My training was going super well, and then I got sick, which is what happens, especially when you have little kids. And I just wanted to stress the importance of surrender and psychological flexibility whenever we incur setbacks, and that’s something that I’ve really had to learn trial by fire, especially in the last few years, a lot of times we think that all of our hard work is for nothing, or just because we’ve been we’ve had a setback, or we can’t train, or can’t do the thing that we wanted to do, that we’re not going to be able to to achieve our goals. And that’s just simply not the case. Whenever things get challenging, it’s important to remember to stay patient and to remember the big picture. Because sometimes, whenever we are in it, it feels like we are all the way in it, and it’s hard to see past the blinders that we have and to make sense of the things that are happening. So if you’re going through something, or maybe it’s the holidays, and you’re not able to train in the way that you want to train, or do the things that you normally do, and you start making up stories about what that means. Remember to come back to the present moment and to create space and ask yourself where that judgment is coming from. I’m also excited to dive into the new year with you. I will be announcing some new things, number one, the rebrand of our podcast. It will be called the grow the good podcast. So make sure you check back with us the first week of January to hear our trailer and hear what it’s all about. It’s going to be the format that you’re used to already, that we have already transitioned over to, and we will be operating off of some key pillars that I can’t wait to share. Some other fun announcements is I am opening up four new spots in my mental performance coaching and health and wellness coaching, starting in January. So if you are on the fence or you need some support in going after your goals this year, I’m here to help you. Coaching is about guiding. It is about helping you unlock your potential, and I am so excited to bring my National Board Certification in health and wellness coaching, along with my master’s in applied positive psychology to help you on your journey. You can reach out to me through my website, sonialumi.com and click the Contact Form if you are interested in working with me. And in other announcements, I will be announcing in January some group coaching that I will make available, and you’ll just have to listen to get all the details. In January, if you are enjoying the show, please don’t forget to hit that subscribe button or that follow button and to tell your friends about it. We are also looking for some fresh reviews, so if there has been something that has really stuck with you over the years or even over the last week, head on over to your favorite podcast player, leave us a five star review and share your insights so that other people can benefit from them too. Okay, so let’s dive in and let’s. Get started to learn how to build sustainable mental toughness that supports not just your goals but your overall well being.
Sonya Looney 5:11
Dr Brad Cooper, does your heart race whenever we see the countdown to start the
Dr. Brad Cooper 5:14
podcast? You know my little alarm is the serious thing from the Chicago Bulls whenever they introduce Michael Jordan me. And of course, it went off when I was taking a shower this morning, so I got to hear it 17 times. So I think that settled my heart for today. So I should be okay.
Sonya Looney 5:32
This makes me dive right in thinking about start lines for races and events, or even a start line that’s just going into a meeting or stepping onto a stage, and how we show up in that moment when it’s counting down, are you smiling? Are you super serious faced? What do you think about that? What is a great way to show up on a start line? I think
Dr. Brad Cooper 5:53
the best thing is to show up as you. There are some folks that like they want to be super serious, and I don’t talk to me, and I’m dialed in, and I’ve got my earbuds in, and I’m doing my thing, and I’ve got my playlist, and you got other people that are social. They’re like, hey, so Joe sounds good to see you, Joe’s, it’s awesome. You ready to race be you don’t try to be that other person. It doesn’t work like that’s what we learn about mental toughness and high performance is imitating someone else is a terrible strategy. Finding out who you are and going fully in on how you were created and the person you are uniquely that’s the best way to go.
Sonya Looney 6:36
So how do people figure that out? Because a lot of times we are looking at everybody around us and looking at people we want to be like.
Dr. Brad Cooper 6:43
You’ll feel it out. Listen, listen to, listen, listen to here, if you’re at the starting line, for example, I’m an introvert, so if I’m at the start line, it’s fun for me to see all the friends and folks I’ve been training with, whatever. But when it’s go time, I just, I just need that time to myself, and I’ve tried both. So it’s just like you do any other experiment, put in some new variables. Say, Okay, today I’m going, I’m going to do this half marathon. I know 10 people. I’m just going to chat a lot, and I’m going to see how that plays itself out in the first two or three miles, and then the next 10k whatever you got coming up, do the opposite, go off by yourself, show up two minutes before it starts. And how did that feel? What what did? What was going on inside you? So you’re trying to treat yourself as an in of one study. You’re trying to say, Okay, I’m gonna, I mean, if you’re only doing two marathons a year, or two Iron Mans, it’s kind of hard to do. But if you can try this, some of the other events that maybe you’re involved with, and test it out. Add another variable, add another variable, tweak that variable. Oh, that didn’t work. Let’s do this one. That’s where you’ll and then journal about it, sit back afterwards and say, okay, so doing that, it really got my mind off, and I was super relaxed going into those first couple miles, or the opposite. I got more stress because I was worried about whatever. So I think treat yourself as that end of one, play with it. Experiment, add variables, and then reflect on what was the result.
Sonya Looney 8:14
So using curiosity and self reflection to figure out what works best, huge. So you have kind of done research, and you’ve created this term functional mental toughness. Can you tell us all about this? Because everybody listening to this podcast is like, Yes, I need more mental toughness.
Dr. Brad Cooper 8:33
Yeah. So the journey that took me, I didn’t go back for a PhD until I was 50, so I’m an oddball to start with. My my two professors were amazing, Martin Jones, Mark Wilson, at the University of Exeter, and they adopted me as their older son for all those years, and talked me off the ledge many times when I was like, I just I can’t do this. But what drew me into that was I had an opportunity to do a pretty unique series of races, the Race Across America bike race, which is a 3000 mile race. We won it in about seven days, and then qualify for the Hawaii Ironman World Championship, and then run a sub three hour marathon. And I was 49 at the time. So it was a unique year. It also happened on the heels of a bike rack where I fractured eight bones in my ribs and my pelvis and my clavicle, and was super fortunate, no spinal injuries, no head injuries, except maybe a minor concussion that hopefully won’t come out in this interview. And the result was the mental side became this super intriguing element to me, because the physical was there, the physical you can train, you know, you know where you’re at with all these physiological aspects. But I was, at times, in those races, good, and at times I was a disaster. I just it. Was wrong with me, and so that’s why I wanted to go back and study it. But I didn’t want to study it in the the click bait social media context of just bite your lower lip and keep running. And I don’t care if your foot’s broken, just keep going, because that means you’re tough. It doesn’t mean you’re tough. It means you’re an idiot. Like, come on, folks, this is a lifelong thing. You’re not a paid professional. You don’t need to finish the race and have a fracture that lasts maybe the rest of your life. So I’m gonna explore it from the that’s why we named it functional mental toughness. It’s not stupidity mental toughness, it’s not glorious mental toughness, it’s not movie style mental toughness. It’s what type of mental toughness Can anyone utilized, from the single mom who’s trying to keep five plates spinning at the same time on no sleep, to the student it’s going into finals week, to the executive, to whomever the athlete, clearly, but what are the functional elements that we can integrate that will help any of us, not just the crazy people, not Just people with a video playing so they can get their Instagram post up, but any of us perform at a higher level based on that cognitive strategy.
Sonya Looney 11:10
All right, so how do we do it? Let’s go,
Dr. Brad Cooper 11:12
Yeah, you got seven hours, right?
Sonya Looney 11:15
Exactly, just not one minute more then. All right, we’ll
Dr. Brad Cooper 11:19
keep it to seven. I’ll give you the basics, and then take this whatever rabbit trails you think would be most helpful to your listeners. But we’ve got this little diagram. And one of the things I love about the FMT model, and you’ve seen it, you know, it is the simplicity of it. You can literally be sitting with a friend at a coffee shop, pull out a napkin and draw this diagram, and essentially, in the center of you’ve got a circle so, so picture almost like a, I don’t know, like a planet with some star flying around it, or something like that. And the three things that are flying around the planet are, thrive, prepare and activate. Now, the planet they’re flying around is the functional mental toughness bank, or the FMT bank, that bank that’s the key to everything. Anytime, if you’re a coach and you’re working with somebody, or you’re trying to help your kids with something, or a friend, you always come back to the bank, because the idea of the bank, just like with your finances, you want to limit the leakage so you don’t want to spend your mental toughness on things you don’t need to be spending it on. Let’s save it for the stuff we really need it. So for example, it’s Saturday morning. You’re going off to a half marathon. Please tell me you’re not. At that point, trying to figure out, what am I going to wear? Which gels am I going to use? When am I gonna take them in? Where should I park? When should I leave for the race? Those are all things that need to be figured out two or three or five days beforehand, so that all of your mental energy can be spent at mile 10 of the half marathon or mile 19 of the marathon, not on figuring out where am I gonna park, and what time should I leave, and like, only four gels a day, or five gels, I don’t know, stop. Like, we don’t want the leakage. Just like with your bank account, you don’t want to have these little fees that keep draining off. You got a fee for taking money out. You got a fee for having a low balance yet you don’t that’s, that’s dumb money. Don’t. Don’t spend your money on the dumb stuff. Same with the mental toughness. So there’s that piece. We want to fill it up as much as we possibly can. You want to fill that bank account financially. You also want to do the same with your mental toughness. You want to fill that up. And then when we need it, we want to be able to access it. It doesn’t do any good to have your money sitting in something that all of a sudden, that refrigerator breaks down you can’t get to it, and it doesn’t matter how much mental toughness you build up if you don’t know how to access it when it is mile 10, or when it is that finals, or when it is your kid’s yelling at you, and you need to dial in a little bit more. So that’s the essence of the model. Is the FMT bank. Everything comes back to the bank, and then we create those things through enhanced thriving, preparation and right in the moment that activate, I
Sonya Looney 14:10
think I want to start actually with activate, because there’s a lot of people where when there isn’t pressure, they’re able to activate, but when there’s a certain amount of pressure, they’re unable to activate that mental toughness bank. How can people work on that?
Dr. Brad Cooper 14:26
Let’s give them one little low hanging fruit that I think everybody can use, and that’s the self talk piece. We did a really interesting study as part of my PhD work on self talk. We had three female athletes. They were all very gifted, but in very different ways. One was an Ironman triathlete, one was an Olympic distance triathlete, and one was an 800 meter runner. She was a she was a high school coach, but she had run the 800 meters in high school, in college, I think. But none of them were trained. She hadn’t run it for years. And the Olympic distance triathlete. That wasn’t part of her training style, and the Iron Man triathlete was like, What’s a track? So they came out and they did four weeks, three of the nicest. And I can’t share who they are, but they know themselves. If they hear this, I am forever grateful. They showed up to the track. They met me, I think, 15 or 16 times over a four month period. So there’d be, you know, a week or two weeks in between each one. And the first four or five times, we just had them go, run an 800 as fast as they could, just everything you got, no queuing, no train, just just go, and then they come back a week or two later and they do it again. And always anyone out there, if you haven’t done an 800 you’re gonna get faster. I get that’s that’s just given because you learn, you learn how to pace you, you get the feel for that kind of stuff. So we didn’t want that influencing the study. So we let that wash itself out over the first four or five times, once they plateaued, then we introduced self talk, and the self talk was unique to each one of them, and that’s very important here. So there I’ll give you some examples, but these examples may or may not be helpful to you, just like we talked about Sonia was asking about, what do you do before a race? Well, I don’t know. Depends on you. Same thing with your self talk. So I’ll give you some cues, but they’re everyone’s unique. So whatever cue you want to try, test yourself, just like we talked about at the starting line. So n of one try some variables, see what that turns out to be. What was unique about this study is these three women. They all had, they all had individualized self talk. I didn’t give the same self talk strategy to each one of them. There was some, certainly some overlap. But we tried what works, and we went from there for context, caffeine, which is the most powerful legal performance enhancer, has a 2.3% increase in performance on average. We saw among these three women, a nine point, and I can’t remember the decimal point, but something 9% plus improvement in performance. And I just I expected there to be some change. I never would have guessed a 9% I mean, it was we looked at the data and just thought, huh, now you can’t extrapolate that too far. We cannot take Olympians, give them self talk, because they’re already doing like it’s already built in, but for the average person, for me, it’s super helpful. So what are some examples of self talk? Well, the first thing I would do is listen to what you’re currently doing, because most of us suck and so like, we’re so negative, we’re we would never say these things to our kids, we would never say these things to our friends, our spouses, but we say them to ourselves. Brad, you’re such an idiot. Brad, how could you do that again? Brad, how can you be so far off pace? Like, that’s not helpful. So first thing is, listen to yourself. What are you saying? Jot it down and then look at it and say, Is that helping? Probably not. Now, once you clear out the junk, once you empty the trash, now you can start filling it up with some good stuff. One of the super unique and Alex Hutchinson, we’ve had him on the coaching lab podcast, one of my favorite writers. He’s he’s written about some studies on self talk where they look at the phrase, you’ve got this versus I’ve got this. I don’t know, have you heard this study? Sonia, it’s fascinating. I have. It’s just you’re smiling.
Sonya Looney 18:36
Yeah. Listeners maybe haven’t heard this so Oh, and
Dr. Brad Cooper 18:39
I loved your smile with that. I’m like, Oh, she knows this one. It’s fascinating, folks, you’ve got this versus I’ve got this. The you’ve got this is more powerful. It’s like you have a cheerleader. It’s like someone else care. You’re being seen. Someone else is out there cheering for you. Versus I’ve got this is like this, and maybe it works better for you. Again, this was a study with multiple people. So certainly, some are better, some are worse, but as a whole, the you’ve got this, even though I’m saying it to myself, had a more powerful impact. So I would start there, and I would just think about, what am I? What am I saying? And then the other thing to keep in mind is self talk falls into a number of different buckets. There’s there’s motivational and there’s instructional. If you want to look at the associative version of it, motivational is exactly what it sounds like. Come on. You got this? Just like we talked about the instructional is more like that. Coach, okay, drive with the arms. Let’s push. I’ve got a marathon coming up in a few weeks, and one of the things I’m working on is a different arm motion late in the race, so I’m not crossing over as much and wasting energy. And so one of the instructional self talk pieces I’ll be using it mile, if I’m coherent. At mile 2223 will be some things around the arm position, the hand position. And the pointing the thumbs, that kind of stuff. So I don’t know. Does that help get you started with this? This activate piece. I think self talk is a great place for people to start as they’re moving through that.
Sonya Looney 20:11
Yeah, I love that you talked about self talk and then gave some practical applications, and also shared some research as to how potent and effective this can be for people, a question I have, and I’m sure you’ve heard this before, that comes up, is, well, I need my negative self talk. I need my self criticism, because that makes me better, and that drives me so they’re reluctant to give up on these self critical things that they say to themselves,
Dr. Brad Cooper 20:36
yes, thank you. David Goggins, it may work. So my opinion on that is the the if we zoom out, what are you really wanting? Are you wanting to run the fastest one time race, or are you wanting to live a better life, if you’re an Olympian, if you’re paid to run it’s probably worth tapping into that childhood abuse. It’s probably worth hammering yourself at certain points. But folks, I’m pretty sure most of us, aren’t that person. So if you use it selectively, just realize when you are using it and don’t let it carry over into other areas of your life. Athletics, for many of us, is a really big part of our life, and so the things that the habits that we pick up in our athletic lives oftentimes carry over into our marriages, carry over into our parenting, carry over into our personal the way that we see ourselves. So that’s that is a strategy, and it works. Michael Jordan’s category number one. But what is your long term goal? What are you training for? Are you training for a better life? Are you training for a better marathon? And maybe it’s both, but if it is both, and you found that the negative side, the self deprecating, not deprecating, the self flagellating side is if you found it’s helpful, just please, please, please make sure it’s not carrying over into your parenting. Please, please, please make sure it’s not carrying over into your your marriage or your relationships, or your friendships, or the way you’re seeing yourself in the other 23 hours and 17 minutes of life every day.
Sonya Looney 22:26
The hard part about hosting these podcasts is I want to go deep into tiny, little holes, which isn’t good for the listener, but would be fun for you and me. Exactly. What are some other ways that we can activate we talked about self talk. What are other things?
Dr. Brad Cooper 22:40
Yeah, one of the things for those who do like social media, I’ll give you one you can actually use in a positive way, and that’s the concept of future self. So maybe it’s social media, maybe it’s a friend, maybe whatever, but you go out to the track and you’re doing 12 by four hundreds, and at number seven, it’s just one of those days, and you’ve dropped off from 67 seconds to 70 seconds to 72 set. And you’re just like, I’m just gonna pull the plug. And then future self kicks in, and you’re like, I’ll just give my example. My son loves to run, and he’s he’s faster than me when he’s training. Fortunately, he doesn’t train as much because he’s med school. So that saves me a little bit. Gives me a couple more years to hang on, but we would text each other after our workouts, not every workout, but once a week. If we’re doing a speed workout order, he should be now go, Hey, here’s what I do, and I’d be doing the same. Now he knows he’s faster than me if he trains, and so I’m not competing with him, but I am trying to be a good dad. And I think part of being a good dad is modeling we do the best we can. And so I will, I will, at number seven, think, what do you want to text Josh? Do you want to text him that you gave up after seven, or do you want to text him that you struggled at seven and then you hung in there and it wasn’t as good as you wanted, but those last two you rallied and you came back. Does that make sense? So that future self, it’s a half hour from now, an hour from now, is influencing the decisions, choices I’m making now social media is similar to that, if the one, maybe one or two good things of social media is the thought of, I’m going to be putting this on Strava, I need to finish this thing out, or however you handle social media in your life. But the future self can be a valuable one. One of the things that I’ve been fiddling with lately that fits under the activate phase, and I haven’t, I haven’t added this to the diagram yet, but I was just talking to Sabrina. Sabrina is one of our incredible coaches at catalyst that is helping some of the practical elements of this. This model for coaches is the idea of. Letting go. And there’s so many times Sonia, just quick story. So I’ve struggled immensely with stomach issues in longer races, Iron Mans and marathons, and I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried no coffee for a month. I’ve tried different foods. I’ve tried different drinks pre race, during the race, amounts more, less. Nothing. Doesn’t matter. And then basically, if I would have listened to my wife 20 years ago, I would have figured this out, but she just kept reminding me, I’m so focused on the clock during a race, like I’m and so I’m like, Okay, I’ll race without looking. I’ll just go. I’ll run as hard as I can, fast I can, and I won’t look at the watch. Guess what? The stomach did pretty well. I was, I was standing at a starting line saying, all right. I turned in this massive optimist, and all of a sudden I set these paces that are completely out of the it’s impossible, but in my head, it’s not impossible. Yeah, I’m ready. This is gonna happen. So that becomes the rule for me. And here’s your negative self talk kicking in. So that becomes a negative the rule for me. And at mile one, I’m on, but by mile 234, I’m off, and I’m off further, and it’s just this downhill, falling off a cliff. So what am I doing? You’re, oh, you suck. What’s wrong with you? You idiot. You put in all this time for training, and you know, your wife flew out with you to this race, and you just, it’s a waste of time. It’s a waste like and when I started this year, it’s just, I’m 58 I’m just starting to learn some basic concepts here. I said, Okay, I’m gonna race this year without looking at the watch I wear it just so I can look at data later. But I don’t look at even the marathon I ran recently. I didn’t look till mile 23 and my stomach has been pretty good. It wasn’t the food, it wasn’t the drink, it wasn’t the pre race. It was this dug on head so that letting go piece. When you get in that activate phase, you’ve done the work, whether it’s preparing for the final exam, being the best parent you can be ready to at the starting line that race. If you are doing the bad Brad piece of okay, it’s gotta be exactly the space. And if you get off, you’re familiar with challenge threat, but maybe that’s a good thing to share with your your listeners. There’s this research on challenge threat response, and when you look at something, you can have the exact same person. So let’s say two exact twins that have done everything, the same, live the same, grew up, same, same genetic everything. One sees it as a challenge, the other one sees as a threat. The person who sees it as a challenge, their heart actually pumps more effectively. Their blood vessels actually expand to allow that blood to flow through more effectively than when you see it as a threat. And when I get to that point, or anyone gets that point where you’re going off that cliff when you don’t let go and let your work put it, let your work go, do its thing, you end up in a threat state which starts to shut the body down, and even subtle changes there have a big impact. So the letting go piece, I’m again, we’re adding it to the model. Haven’t figured out exactly where, but it’s something about a high interest loan in that in that FMT bank, that you’re now restricting your ability to access everything that you’ve put in because you’ve clamped it down. Maybe we should put security guards. Maybe that’s what the visual is. But regardless, I think there’s something to let it go in the moment. Once you get to that moment, let it go.
Sonya Looney 28:44
Yeah, there’s a there’s so many really helpful things that you said there. One of them is letting go. And that’s something that I’ve actually talked about, is we’re always told control the controllables. You know, focus on the things you can control. You can white knuckle the controllables. You can be having a death grip on the controllables and at us at a certain point, it’s no longer helping you anymore. So control the controllables and then let go totally. And another thing I was hearing and thinking about is this idea of character. So you’re talking about, you know, thinking about your future self. What What am I going to tell my son? What am I going to tell my followers on social media? Those are external things, but that is really like, what type of person am I? What type of how do I want to use my strengths of character through this thing so that I can activate properly? Yeah, another thing I heard you saying was, like, looking at the clock, right? And all of us do that, like people. I’ve had friends quit running because they can’t they can’t stop looking at their clock, and it’s become so dissatisfying, because it’s not about running anymore, it’s about the clock, and they forget why they’re doing it in the first place, and they are disconnected from themselves, and instead, they’re looking at something outside of themselves, and it takes a lot of discipline. And to stop doing that, like, how many of us have, you know, I got to round out my Strava miles. So if it says, like, you know, but then is that still good training? Or are you just kind of trying to hit some number, or is it for the reason why you’re doing it in the first place? So those are things that I think about a lot, in terms of racing and in terms of training and in terms of everything else is like, be careful what you measure, because that could end up screwing you up absolutely
Dr. Brad Cooper 30:26
well said,
Sonya Looney 30:29
yeah. So another thing that I wanted to talk to you about was actually the Thrive piece, because I think this piece is often overlooked, and I’m really interested in that piece. So can you elaborate on that?
Dr. Brad Cooper 30:44
Yeah, Sonia, it’s a good point that it is overlooked. We see we coach a lot of executives and leaders around the country, and one of the things that’s hilarious to me is they blow off the Thrive piece because they’re looking for a different secret they’re looking for, yeah, yeah. I know I should eat better. I know sleep’s important. I know I should be more active. But Brad, like, what’s the real secret? Like, can you help me be a higher performer? And the really cool thing about the FMT research is it is, it brings that back into context. So these execs, these leaders, these high performers, go, Whoa, you’re saying it’s not just healthy for me to eat better. It’s not just healthy to sleep. And by the way, we have these cornerstones to make it easy for your listeners. There’s four things, move fuel, rest and connect. So think of those as your cornerstones, move, fuel, rest, connect. So we’ll throw those out the high performers like, yeah, yeah, but what really, and when they see the research about when I sleep better, I’ll have better mental toughness when I eat, when I we call it fueling, instead of just eating, when I fuel, I actually will have better so it’s like it gets their attention, they’re going, Wait, oh, okay, then let’s talk about fueling, or let’s talk about sleep, or let’s talk about connection, or sleep, you know, whatever. So I think that, to me, that’s the exciting part about the Thrive being a part of this model is, instead of trying to be some magical again, bite your lower lip, move forward, no matter what we say, no, no, what can we do at the core level that will make me a better human and thus a higher performer? So that’s where the Thrive piece comes in. It’s really those, those four elements, those cornerstones, and that allows us to be at our best. So the other way to look at these three areas, thrive, prepare and activate. Thrive is the ongoing that’s the life, that’s who you are living, and that’s the life you’re living out that prepares the things that you’re doing in the two or three months, two or three weeks, two or three days leading up to the test, the exam, the tough conversation with your teenager, the you know, whatever my the big board meeting, the activate is in the moment. And the fun thing about the model is, any of them makes your boosts that mental toughness. It fills that FMT bank. And if you come into it, if one of your clients comes to you and says, I’m just I’m not sleeping, well, I’m not and they go through the list, and I haven’t really prepared, is there anything I can do at this race? Well, we can’t make up for not training. But yes, there’s always something you can do. So that’s the cool thing about the combination of those three. I
Sonya Looney 33:41
want to come back to thrive, because a lot of people think that I just need to keep working harder, and they don’t realize that the rest is part of the work. So sleeping is part of training, fueling well as part of training. Going home on days you’re tired or maybe you shouldn’t be pushing through that also is part of thriving and training. And then a second thing I want to add to that is about this challenge threat appraisal that you were just talking about, and how if you’re not fueled properly, if you’re tired, all those things that impacts if you view something as a challenge or a threat,
Dr. Brad Cooper 34:13
absolutely, and you know that as well as anybody, based on your background and the things that you’ve accomplished, there’s no doubt that that’s accurate.
Sonya Looney 34:21
So for for this preparation piece, this is another thing that popped my mind, like a lot of my work and clients are in the perfectionist area. So preparation, of course, we’re going to prepare, but we’re going to over prepare, and we’re going to over strive. We’re going to overwork. This is also the case with athletes who aren’t perfectionists, but they just over train because they lack confidence or they don’t trust their training. So prepare. How do we not over prepare?
Dr. Brad Cooper 34:49
We talked about that in of one study with a couple of different categories earlier in the conversation, and I think it comes back to that example. I. I use morning HRV every single day, and if you’re I know there’s a lot of tools out there that assess it. Some work well, some not so much. Be sure you’re doing your research. I use the HRV for training. We don’t have any connection with them, but love Dr Mark altini’s work on that, and it’s a 62nd test every morning and it and I’m one of the people you describe. I tend to over train. So it’s not like, oh, what’s the minimum I can do? It’s like, what can I squeeze out there that? And my wife says, you Brad, you always get injured when you use the words, I’m just gonna sneak in, fill in the blank, and so I’m now acutely aware of that phrase. Last week was a great example. I mentioned, I’m training for a marathon. My week had 58 miles in it. Well, the old Brad would have been like, I’m totally doing 60 like, why would I stop at 58 the Brad who listens to his wife a little better, was like 58 was planned. Good job. Nice. 58 mile week. So it’s those pieces where you look at that in of one with a feedback mechanism. So mine is the HRV train for training tool that each morning tells me, did you ever do it yesterday? How’s your recovery? If you haven’t been sleeping, well, you haven’t been eating, well, you’re training too much. Train too intensely. You’ve got work stresses, family stresses, whatever it might be, it comes out in that tool. So create resting heart rates, another one that I like to look at first thing. So have some kind of a feedback mechanism. And there are so many of them out there right now, but put one of those in your system, be accountable to someone, your coach, your friend, your spouse and and check. And if it’s not there, bring it back. And I think one of the things to think about too is, who are you? Naturally? I’ll use my son as an example. He would always, he would always do all the workouts and and works, how you could etcetera. So when he was like, I think I My foot’s not quite right, or my knees not quite right, or My Hammy, or whatever I’d be like for you. Josh Cooper, when in doubt, sit it out, because he’s one of those. And this is most of your listeners who they do it all like they’re not looking for an excuse to do less, they’re looking for an excuse to do more. So for that personality, for that mindset, when in doubt, sit it out, it won’t hurt you. But however, there are people that aren’t that person also, and if that’s you, if you’re like, Yeah, I kind of look for anything, for an excuse. If If it’s raining, I’m going to take the day off if it’s sunny and too hot, I’m going to take the day off if it’s windy, I’m gonna take like, if that’s you, well, that doesn’t apply to you. So it’s again, knowing yourself and but, but for the folks you’re talking about, when in doubt, set it up.
Sonya Looney 37:58
Yeah, like this one size fits none. Idea is so true across so many areas of psychology, and that’s that’s why, like working with a coach can be so beneficial to help you have different things that you can try. I’ll share just to add more, just more things. Because you’re n of one, I’m n of one. I can have amazing HRV, amazing resting heart rate and still feel like garbage in my training. So for some people, using HRV and resting heart rate is a very important part, because their cardiac system tends to be the limiting factor. But there’s other factors that can be limiting. So whenever you get readiness scores from some of these different, you know, wearables that you’re that you’re using that’s just measuring one part of readiness, mental fatigue, is another part that isn’t easily measurable, and a lot of us have, and I’m sure you’re familiar with Samuel Marcos work like a lot of us have, co
Dr. Brad Cooper 38:48
presented in Germany together.
Sonya Looney 38:50
Oh, that’s so cool. Yeah, she’s
Dr. Brad Cooper 38:51
an interesting dude.
Sonya Looney 38:53
The mental fatigue part impacts your physical performance, and it might not be shown up as easily unawareable.
Dr. Brad Cooper 38:59
Yeah, that’s one of the things I love about the HRV for training. Is it? It asks those questions, how mentally fatigued are you today? How excited are you about today’s workout? How well did you sleep? Did you have any alcohol last night? Are you traveling? Are you sick? You know? Do you have muscle soreness? And it builds that in. So your HRV number, as you very aptly described, might be fine as a number, but if those other elements are there, it yellows out your score and says, I know your number is fine, but you’re not. So let’s, let’s take it easy today. Yeah,
Sonya Looney 39:33
it sounds like that uses a much more balanced approach. I know I use that app a long time ago, before there were wearables, and I would try to, like, be laying in bed measuring my heart rate, but, yeah, these, I think these wearable, these wearable devices, it would be, and even training peaks, you know, should ask more questions to build a better, a broader picture of how an athlete is feeling, instead of just how their numbers are. A hack for people, if you say, oh, like, I. My weekly mileage is 58 miles. Or this run I did is, you know, 9.8 miles. I have to just go round it out in your mind, switch it to kilometers, and then it won’t be, it’ll just be some other number. Like, I live, yeah, I live in Canada, but I’m an American. And, you know, everybody does stuff in kilometers here, but I still measure stuff in miles, but sometimes stuff shows up in kilometers. So that’s been a hack to help me disengage from the obsessive piece. And that’s where I wanted to go next is talking about passion. And I’m sure you’ve seen Bob valeran work on obsessive and harmonious passion, and how, I want to know how, like, mental toughness and passion, and I can elaborate more if it’s been a while since, since you’ve read that stuff. But, like, I don’t know how mental toughness impacts our passion, or if it can, if it can help it, if it can hurt it, yeah, one
Dr. Brad Cooper 40:48
quick comment on the the hack, because that’s a great idea. Another hack is to see this is mental toughness, to be able to stop at 9.8 miles, to congratulate yourself, not for Well, I have to round it out to being like I am so tough man, there is no runner out there posting a 9.82 mile run, and I just did, boom, I’m making progress. So that mental reformatting can be be helpful as well. So I love you bringing that up, expand a little bit more what you’re looking for on the combo of passion and mental toughness. Yeah, so
Sonya Looney 41:26
I want to, and I’ll elaborate on this, especially for the listeners. So there’s two types of passion and harmonious passion means like, you really love doing something, you associate with the thing, but you’re able to stop doing it, even it doesn’t become addictive. You’re able to do it, but it doesn’t become compulsive behavior, whereas obsessive passion, it becomes so fused with your identity that you can’t stop. And so an example would be, you know, if you’re a cyclist, ride racing the level 100 with a cast on your wrist, not that I’ve done that, haha. Whenever, whenever you are doing things that become detrimental because you are so fused with the thing that you can’t not do that. And whenever, I whenever a lot of people think about mental toughness, they think about what you said, you know, wrongly, like, it’s just gritting your teeth and doing the thing and doing it no matter what. Never like the David Goggins thing. Never give up. You know, even if you’re bleeding and battered, that’s actually obsessive passion in some ways. And there’s not a lot of research on how to move away from this obsessive passion to this harmonious passion part. And I actually kind of am wondering if having mental toughness based on your definition, can help somebody step away from this almost compulsive thing that they keep doing in they can’t stop themselves, even though they know it’s bad for them. Yeah,
Dr. Brad Cooper 42:43
a few thoughts there. So your final kind of summary there at the end was beautiful because it brought us back to thrive, part of the FMT bank requirement, the model itself, requires thrive to be at your best. So if what’s happening is as you described it, then you’ve eliminated an entire third. In fact, not even a third. If you were to break these into percentages, thrive is like 72% I’m making these numbers up, but 72% prepares. You know, 26% and activate is 2% so you’re in the model where we’re breaking ourselves down through the obsession we’re eliminating in my silly example of numbers, 72% of our capacity. Why would you want to do that? So that comes back to it. Now, the other thing I’d say is there’s something I love to focus on phase of life. The concept of phases of life, speakers have made millions of dollars over the years talking about the balanced wheel and how, you know, you should have all the spy the the spokes of the wheel should of finance and faith and professional and, you know, personal stuff and relations and and all. It should be balanced. No, it should not. What phase of life are you in? If you’re training for a marathon, an Iron Man, you ain’t gonna be balanced. If you’re a new mom, you ain’t gonna be balanced. If you just started med school, you ain’t gonna be balanced if you’re so you need to consider where am I in my phases of life now. Now, please hear me. That doesn’t excuse you to blow up the others we talk about f5 so faith, friends and family, fuel and fitness, finances and field of play. Field of play is your hobbies and your work. Phase of life directs where you’re putting the majority of your energy, but if you blow up one of the other four, you’re an idiot, like you’re ruining your life. I had a not a close friend, but an acquaintance, who was so focused on going to the Hawaii Ironman World Championship. That his marriage died over a hobby race. Like, I get it. Kona is awesome. I’ve had a chance to be there four times. It’s a beautiful experience. It’s a life altering experience. It doesn’t hold a candle to our marriage like it is. It’s like, not even a blip on the screen, compared to a friendship like so it’s, it’s don’t blow up the other four in the pursuit of that one. Now the other piece I’d really encourage your your listeners, to think about is a clear personal vision. This is not goals. This is completely different. It’s a clear who am I becoming. I’m going through this exercise with a group right now. It’s something I’ve done for the last I think this is year 13, and I’ll start in early November, and I’ll just start journaling about what are, what are some things that pop into mind, what, what is, what might the next year look like, not in terms of accomplishments, but in terms of who I’m becoming, how, who’s, who’s Brad in November, 2025 compared to Brad in November 2024 what is that vision? And once that vision is crystal, crystal clear, your actions, pretty much, your goals, pretty much, take care of themselves. And so the obsession, you know, Sonia, sometimes obsession is your step to where you’re at in that phase of life. I mean, you’re a great competitor. You have to be obsessed at times to beat to do it, the things at the level that you do them. When we did the Race Across America bike race, you don’t have a choice like I’m on the bike, I would take Fridays off and ride 12 hours Friday, 10 hours Saturday and eight hour Sunday, that ain’t balance. That is obsession, but that’s what is required to be competitive in a race like that. So I think it’s phase of life, clear vision and not blowing the others up in the midst of maybe it is an obsession. Maybe it’s a phase based obsession, but then measured in the context of the Thrive pieces that we talked about earlier.
Sonya Looney 47:03
Yeah, I love this idea, this overarching idea of perspective, because a vision provides perspective thinking about, you know, am I myopically going after this one thing at the expense of everything else? Yes, this happens. This is why I did this. This Master’s Degree in Applied positive psychology. I just did was because people will pursue their achievement myopically and let go of everything else that contributes to well being, and it’s easy to do that, like when you’re busy, what’s the first thing to go? I’ll just stay up a little bit later. I’ll just order out some food. I’ll just put off seeing my friends. And like you said, there are times where you need to do that for short periods of time, but some people that becomes their entire life. And this is, this is so problematic in so many different ways. I’m so glad that you, that you brought that up.
Dr. Brad Cooper 47:47
Yeah, yeah. Well said. So speaking
Sonya Looney 47:50
of phases of life, before we hit record, here we were talking about something. So first, first you said, I went back and I got my PhD at 50, which I think is so inspiring and amazing, because a lot of people are just like, ready to mail it in, because they’re they’re heading into their 60s, like they’re done. There’s no reason to continue growing in my career. So why did you go get a PhD at age 50?
Dr. Brad Cooper 48:13
Kind of funny story, I had just had that fun year where did all those cool races, and I was, I was having some injuries, and I’d always seen myself as somebody that endured sports would play a big role, as I was in my 60s, 70s, hopefully 80s, of encouraging others, not as a job, not as a money making, but just to be there, to maybe be a model or encourage or, Hey, there’s that 78 year old out there. He’s still moving. I can do it when I’m 52 whatever. But I started, I was, I was battling Achilles issue, insertion Achilles, and it just would not go away. And so I that whole vision piece of, okay, I had this vision of what I’d be doing in my 70s and 80s. I don’t know if it’s real anymore. So what does that look like? And that’s when I started thinking, I love working with students. I love that mentoring role. I love speaking. I do love speaking around the country and and just an opportunity to up my capacity, my understanding, I had three college degrees. I’ve got two masters in an undergrad in biology. And so I was thinking, what, what can I do to fill that gap that would allow me to be more effective if I’m not doing the endurance sports in my 70s and 80s? And that’s when the PhD started to bubble up, and I thought that would be so fascinating. And then I just got lucky. Martin, Martin Jones, like I said, he and and Mark Wilson took me under their wings, and it was amazing. So a lot of things fell into place, very fortunate, but it was great. Great investment of time and
Sonya Looney 50:01
money. Yeah, I like to think about retirement a lot because in my mind, I’m never going to retire like I might retire from being a professional athlete, but I’m always going to be an athlete. I might retire from, you know, certain jobs, but I’m always going to be looking to be of service to others, to help people with the things that I’m learning, and I think that that actually comes from a place of privilege, because whenever people are working a job that they don’t like, like a utility and if utilitarian reasons, they can’t wait to retire so they can finally do the thing that they want. And this probably going way too much into the weeds. But like, I like to think a lot about, like, why are we here? Are we here to just like, feel good, like going back to like, Aristotle’s view, or is it to feel good, or is it to have a life of meaning and purpose? And I think it’s so important to have meaning and purpose as you get older, and that can become a bit abstract or hard to figure out if you if your meaning and purpose came from your work, this thing that you went to every single day, totally a shifting of what that is. And it sounds like for you, like you’ve, you’ve kind of had a second wind to figure out what is this redefined way that I want to be and I want to live as I get older.
Dr. Brad Cooper 51:15
You know, something really helped me with this. We had a guest on the coaching lab. It’s probably been a year ago now, Bob Hotman, high powered CEO partner of a law firm, and he talked about the concept of graduation, not retirement, and and when he said that, originally, we were trading emails about maybe doing the interview, and he said that, I was like, wow. Like, I’ve never heard somebody say that before, and he explained it, and that concept was, you don’t take everything you learned in elementary school and throw it out the window and go to middle school. You don’t take all the stuff you learned in high school and just forget it all and go to college. Every phase sets you up leads into the next phase. And he said, as I’m leaving my professional career, I’m not retiring graduating. I want to take all the things that I learned and garnered and friendships and everything else, and take that into this next phase. So Sonia, I just, I will never, ever forget that interview, because I thought that’s it like that does so much for somebody mentally who’s thinking about what, what am I going to do in retirement? How about what, who am I going to be in retirement? I love the B question before the do question. It’s so powerful.
Sonya Looney 52:40
There’s this book you probably read it, but it’s just for the listeners. It’s called from strength to strength by Arthur Brooks, and he talks about having a second curve into later life, and how all the things that you were doing and this other type of intelligence can kind of morph into a way that you can really be generative and help other people with these all these different skill sets that you have, and
Dr. Brad Cooper 53:03
I’ll add another Brooks to that. They’re not related to each other, but David Brooks wrote a book called The second mountain, and I read both of those pretty much back to back Arthur and David’s books. And Arthur is super valuable. David’s blew me away. I love, love, love, the second mountain. By David Brooks, so another one for your listeners that are at that phase, and for me,
Sonya Looney 53:27
yeah, you know, also, I think people will just make an assumption that it’s too late for me, you know, I’m I’m this far along. It’s just too late for me. Like, like, I would love to do a PhD in the future right now is not the right time, because I can’t move to work with you. Want to work? I want to, yeah, I got little kids, all those things, but I think I’m still going to be doing one, and I might be 50 when I’m 41 I might be 50 by the time I do it. And boom, that’s inspiring to me to see you do that. But also, like, there’s just so many of us that just think, well, I’m whatever age, so why bother starting? I hear this with Mountain Biking a lot. I’m too old to start mountain biking. Like, when the idea of the word old and the way that we talk about aging, like, I’m happy to say my age, I’m never gonna say, Oh, I’m dating myself here. Like, be proud, stand and where you are, because it’s never too late to be the person that you want to become. And hopefully we’re always in a state of becoming not just like staying stuck because of something we’ve told ourselves.
Dr. Brad Cooper 54:30
You know, Sonia, I wrote an article about this six weeks ago or so, called the 88 year mentality, and this maybe will be helpful to some of your listeners. And clearly it’s not. We’re not. No one’s guaranteed 88 years here on my on Earth. Many people have awful, horrible illnesses that cut that short drastically. But for the general population, I think we have historically fallen into maybe a 72 year mentality. Because if you look back 50 years, that was the lifespan. But that included a lot of other element. When you look at lifespan in the US or other places, it’s based on a lot of childhood illnesses and death and childhood and it’s 72 is not accurate anymore. If you live to 80, and I can’t remember the exact details now six months later, but it’s something like, if you live, if you’re reasonably healthy in your 70s, you’re gonna make it to 85 and if you’re reasonably healthy in your early 80s, you’re going to 92 so this mindset that my life pretty much wraps up at 72 which I think the majority of the population probably has flying around there somewhere. Well, that makes sense. Then, if I’m if I’m 67 and I’m gonna live to 72 well, it is too late. But if I have an 88 year mentality, which is probably the statistical accurate number for most of your listeners, if not older, that’s that’s a game changer. Now 63 I got a quarter of a century left to do stuff that’s a different mindset. So I think for some people, that can be super helpful.
Sonya Looney 56:14
Yeah, I love that. Thinking into the future. We had a guest. She wrote a book called 4000 Mondays, and her name’s Jody Wellman, and she talks about contemplating death all the time, and not from like, a really gory Sure, sure, no, no. But it’s like, how many Mondays do you have left in your life? And and using that time instead of waiting until later and then never actually doing anything? Yeah,
Dr. Brad Cooper 56:37
yeah. And you can do visuals that go along with that, you can I like to do 500 day goals, and so I’ve got 500 marbles and a big jar, and I’ll set that target. And then every morning, when I go down to the office, I’ll pull one marble out, and it’s just a visual reminder to act. It’s an action based reminder. I’ve got one day less to work toward that. And it’s, it’s actually pretty powerful.
Sonya Looney 57:05
Yeah, I’ve never heard that before. Thanks for sharing. Well, where can people find you in your work? I mean, we covered so many things today, and you have your podcast, you coach people there, there’s, there’s so much more to offer. Where can people find you? Yeah,
Dr. Brad Cooper 57:19
the podcast, thanks for mentioning that is the coaching lab. They can find it anywhere. I’m on Twitter, x whatever we’re calling it these days, at catalyst, the number two, thrive. So catalyst to thrive. And then our website, we train people that want to be health and wellness coaches for the national board. And that’s catalyst Coaching institute.com so any of those you can find me, and I just really appreciate it. It’s been fun conversation.
Sonya Looney 57:45
Thanks so much for listening to the show. Don’t forget to hit that subscribe or follow button, or please give us a holiday gift and leave us a review. Big thanks to my team at Palm Tree pod. Without them, this podcast would not nearly be where it’s at today, and it probably would have died during my master’s program. Thank you to Anthony, Emily and Caitlin. You are the light and the till in behind this show. Thanks so much for listening, and as always, I’m with you on this journey of personal growth adventure and our mission to be better every day.d that you’re creating space for the mental training as well. Thanks. Applause.