Meanwhile, gymnast Simone Biles
shocked the world when she pulled
out of the team event this week,
citing her mental health.
KING5's Mark, right,
talked with one of the top mental
skills coaches in the entire country
and mark what can we all learn from
Simone struggles there at the Olympics?
Well Jessica, everyone
has been talking about this story.
What's interesting is what
happened to Simone Biles?
Happens to all of us at one point or another.
She's just on a bigger stage,
but to get some answers,
I went to Sean Quinn with
the Mowad Consulting Group.
This is the company Russell Wilson uses.
To stay at the top of his
game so the bottom line is,
if you're thinking about anything
other than what you're doing,
you will short circuit your performance,
but that is much easier said than done.
Here's part of my conversation with
mental skills coach Sean Quinn.
Well, I feel for her, you know I,
I know that she's she's put
in a lot of time and effort.
You know it's been five years
now since since her last.
You know Olympics, and you know,
knowing that she's kind of an elder
statesman, our state woman going
out there and and and competing.
But this will probably be
one of her last Olympics,
if not her last, you know,
she's not going out to Tokyo to to to,
you know, to to pull out.
You know, I know, she put in a lot of time,
a lot of effort to do that,
and so it had to be something that.
That was big.
Something that was weighing on her,
something that was stressing her.
So really looking at that was my thoughts.
Were, you know,
I hope she's going to be OK,
but also knowing that the computer she is
that for her to make that decision I I was,
you know,
happy to see that she had the
wherewithal to sit there and say,
look,
you know,
this is something that you know it
is bothering me and I'm not going
to put myself through something
or risk myself to get hurt or
my teammates to get hurt because
I'm not feeling right mentally to
commit to to go in to do what I need
to do for a gymnast.
I'm guessing that when you are
not mentally in the right space,
it's not just a problem,
it could be dangerous, right?
Definitely definitely,
and I think looking at a gymnast and
and some of the things that they're
trying to accomplish out there,
you have to be committed.
And I think you have to be committed to what
you want to do and what what your plan is.
And if you're on the bolts or bars
or or beam or whatever, that may be.
If you lack commitment that could
mean severe injury for yourself.
It could be you letting your teammates
down and a lot of times that can get in
our own mind and get in their own head
and we have doubt you know that can
kind of preclude a lot of negativity.
That ultimately leads to you know
having a mistake or or making in
there and making matters worse.
What
does the average person not know
about mental preparedness and mental
conditioning that you guys as experts?
No, because you teach at the highest level.
So give us that little nugget of what's that?
What's that thing that you
guys know and the top athletes?
Come to understand that
that most of us don't know.
I think a lot of times we like to say
the separation is in the preparation.
So how we prepare helps us to get through
certain moments but also that negative
negative moments are going to happen and
it can be really tough to be positive
when a negative moment happens, you know.
And so a lot of times we talk about this
concept of staying neutral which is being
in the middle and I like to call it,
you know this this acronym win
what's important now.
So what I need to do right now as
opposed to obsessing over the negative.
Or telling myself it's going to be OK
when I truly don't believe it's going
to be OK and figure out what I need
to do to get through this situation.
And if I could focus on that and
create a plan,
then I have a plan of action to
help myself get through it.
Or when I have success I understand what
happened and then I can say it's going to be
OK because I plan in place to help myself,
you know, succeed.
So that when acronym he said is really
the key, what's important right now,
and I'll tell you a really short story to
illustrate that Russell Wilson was in a game.
Fumble the snap on his own 5 yard
line at the very start of the game,
he came back to win,
but after the game reporter asked Russell,
what were you thinking about
after you fumble Dan Russell said?
Honestly, I didn't think about it
at all until you just asked me.
So the takeaway is that Russell only
thinks about mistakes to the extent
they will improve his current situation.
Otherwise he just puts them out of his head.
But as Simone showed us.
This week, Jessica, we're all human and
sometimes it just doesn't work out,
regardless of what we want.
OK, if you would like a full link
to the full interview with Sean,
including some great advice from
Deepak Chopra as well,
text the word mental to 206-448-4545 will
send you a link to that full interview.