Tips and Tricks of Olympians for Educators

I'm Brian Martin, a second grade teacher who find so much joy and fulfillment in what I do. Being in the classroom for almost 20 years, I know all about the time, effort and energy that you are continuously pouring into those you serve. That's why each week, I'm going to bring you an inspiring message to give you a little joy, and help fill your cup back up. Thank you for being here. And welcome to the teaching champions podcast. What's going on everybody, I hope this finds you striving and thriving and doing absolutely amazing. Another beautiful week went by, and I hope it was a good one for everybody. This week, I attended a virtual conference put on by Jen Jones, and she's a literacy specialist. She did a fantastic job. And it's always amazing to me how dedicated educators are, you know, I look across my social media feed. And every day I'm seeing educators taking different professional development offerings, and it's truly impressive. For me, this was the first one of the summer, and it was nice to sharpen that saw a little bit. And the older I get, the more I believe in that saying, the more you know, the more you realize how much you don't know. There's so much to learn out there. But that's why we say we want to become lifelong learners right. Now on the topic of professional development, I was listening to a podcast in Jacko willing was on it. And if you don't know who he is, he's a former navy seal. He has a top podcast. And he's written multiple books in his leadership coat. And he was on this podcast with the division one basketball coach and jack was saying how he likes to read leadership books written by athletic coaches, and athletic coaches there. And he was saying how much he enjoys, and others in the coaching profession enjoy reading books written by former military members. And their whole point was that we can learn from everyone around us, we just don't have to stay in our lane. And there's inspiration to be had and things to be learned from everyone. So if you're doing some PD this summer, maybe experiment with thinking outside the box, check out some areas outside of the teaching field, and see if it sparks ideas for you that you can bring back into the classroom. That being said, it leads me into this next gem of a book in honor of the Olympics. starting up this week, we're going to break down some tips and tricks from the book, train your brain like an Olympian by john Francois monart. This gentleman is a mental conditioning coach, and he works with several athletes on the Canadian Olympic team. He works with business leaders and members of circuit dough select. Now this isn't your typical PD for educators. But let me ask you, we teach our students reading, writing and math. But maybe we should be looking into teaching them mental skills that individuals use at the highest levels, the skills professional athletes and top executives use to stay confident to stay motivated and focused the skills they use to overcome adversity, how they stay calm in the most stressful circumstances. And when you're watching the Olympics this week, think about the Olympian for a second, that Olympic sprinter, who's sitting in the blocks is waiting for the gun to go off. And he knows if he leaves too early, he'll be disqualified if he leaves that 10th of a second too late. That will cost them the race. millions of people around the world are watching. And he's spent 1000s upon 1000s of hours years of his life and sacrifice so much for this one moment. And it will be over in a few seconds. Think about that pressure. Imagine the butterflies that would be flying around in your stomach. I can't even begin to imagine that suddenly Let me ask, do you have moments where you faced pressure? Do you ever have those moments when your heart's racing, the palms are sweaty, and those butterflies are in full effect. Of course, we all do. And we may not be under the pressure of an Olympic athlete, but we face pressure, we face anxiety every single day. And these Olympic athletes, they're not robots, they feel these emotions. But they have coaches, they're specifically dedicated to helping them develop the tools and habits that allow them to function at the highest level. And I'm going to share five tips from john Francoise book. And I challenge you to think about how you can use them in your personal life, how you might be able to teach them to your family members, or how we can use them to teach our students to show them the habits that they can use to handle the different situations that are going to come their what. So first, let's look at building self confidence. When we're self confident, we doubt ourselves last, we lean into more obstacles and challenges. And we take more risks, self confidence, it comes from within. And it can vary from day to day, sometimes we wake up and we're feeling extremely self confident. And then there's the trials that we face throughout the day, we might get knocked down, and it might throw our self confidence off. So john Francoise says, is essential that we acknowledge and celebrate the small wins, you know, we can get caught up on only focusing on the big wins those major accomplishments. But to get to those big wins, you are going to have to have those small wins, over and over and over again. And it's important that you recognize those small wins and celebrate those small wins. And john Francois said he was watching Roger Federer play Rafael Nadal in tennis, and on a notepad that he kept next to me would make a mark every time no doll made a fist. And over the course of one match nador celebrated 82 times. And each one of these celebrations boosted his confidence it fed the fire within him. And that helped him build momentum. So look for your wins, take time to acknowledge and celebrate them. Because growth occurs when we stack those small wins on top of each other over and over again. And when we take time to recognize those gains that we're making, it helps build that self confidence. And it also helps us maintain that motivation to keep getting after. And this past year. Every Monday I would talk to my students about this, we take five minutes at the beginning of the day, and we'd really zero in on it. And we called it beastmode Monday, and it was all about trying to make it visible for the students the successes that they were having, and getting them in the habit of recognizing it and celebrating it. A second strategy that we can use to help build our self confidence is to relive your successful moments. JOHN Francois talks about an Olympic snowboarder that he works with. He said before his athlete makes us run. He will stand at the edge of 150 foot ramp that this gentleman will be traveling down at speeds over 40 mph. And when he hits the end of the ramp, he will do three backflips while making four and a half rotations all while holding on to a snowboard. Have you ever stop and think about what must go through these athletes minds when you're standing at the edge of that ramp and is 150 feet down. In you know, once you go down it, it's going to propel you into the air. My head would be all over the place. JOHN Francois says to calm the nerves and be 100% focused at the task at hand. His athlete takes a moment to remember and reconnect to the training runs he did the day before he pauses and he goes through in his mind the minute details such as reaching that perfect speed, hitting that jump with patience and precision executing the flips connecting with that spatial awareness and hitting the landing. He says reliving most past successes and thinking about everything that he did to the most minute detail helps him focus on what has to be done. And this can be used for us in every aspect of life. Remember your successes, break down those tasks, to the most minute detail, walk through similar moments and think about what you did to be successful, that builds your self confidence that helps you focus. And it can get those butterflies flying in the same direction. A third strategy that we can use deals with inner chatter, you know, we all have those thoughts that are running through our minds every day. And these thoughts, they can empower us, or they can make us weaker. I thought, they influence our behavior. So controlling that chatter is important. And a lot of mental conditioning coaches will say, talk to yourself, don't listen to yourself. And there's a difference. Our brains believe what it hears in our stores, they can get easily distorted. Have you ever told yourself a story in your mind, and the more you tell that story, the stronger your emotions get? JOHN Francoise says, to take out the negative words, instead of telling yourself what you don't want. Tell yourself what you do. Think about if you're giving a presentation to your peers, instead of saying, Don't talk too fast. Tell yourself to speak nice and slow. Instead of saying, Don't stare down at the floor, tell yourself, I'm going to keep my head up. And I'm going to make eye contact with those in the audience. It's about telling ourselves the actions we need to take. Not the actions we don't want to take. Think of is when we go grocery shopping, we don't make a list and say, Don't pick up candy. Don't pick up hot dogs don't purchase condiments. We don't do that. We create a list of all the things that we want to purchase. And the same should go for our actions. Telling your mind what you need to do, not what you don't want it to do. Because remember, our thoughts influence our behaviors. A fourth strategy is develop a calming routine. When that blood pressure skyrockets, then that anxiety starts flowing. We want to have a routine that's going to help us refocus to calm our minds and eliminate those superficial thoughts. And john Francois talks about a juggler he worked with from Sergei dough solet. And right before the artists will go on stage, the artist would inhale three times deeply in through the nose and out through the mouth, he would focus his attention on his feet, then he would sway right, forward to the left backward, and then back to the center. And he would take three more deep breaths. And then he would call out What time is it? Now, where am I here. And then he goes out and he performs in front of the audience. So think about a routine that you could build to help battle those hurtful nerves. Having a routine that we can use when we feel out of sorts that can help us keep calm, to control our nerves and recenter ourselves can be so useful. The last strategy deals with facing those moments when we're feeling overwhelmed. Did you experience that at any point this year? And not just this year? How about every single school year, the moments when we feel completely overwhelmed. So use this strategy is called step back. And we all have a lot on our plates. It seems like there's obstacle after obstacle that's standing in front of us and can become frustrating, it evokes negative emotions. And if we're not careful, it can stop us from pursuing the things that we want to achieve. So make it a habit to step back. take your eyes off what lies ahead and think about how far you've come. A few episodes back I told the story of how I climbed whiteface mountain with my dad. As we were on the way down the mountain. I turned around, and I found my dad staring at the path we had taken. And when I asked my dad if he was okay, he sat there and he responded. I can't believe we just did that. There's times when you need to do that. Whenever you're feeling overwhelmed Take a step back. Think about how far you've come and tell yourself, I can't believe I did all that. Now, these are just a few strategies that can be found in the book. This is definitely a book that's worth reading. We can all use those strategies to help us when obstacles are thrown in our way. The book is called train your brain like an Olympic athlete by john Francoise menar. And I'll put the information in the show notes. Thank you so much for being part of the teaching champions community, we encourage we support we lift each other up. And if you could rate, leave a review, or share this with someone I truly appreciate. It is all about serving each other. And always remember, it doesn't matter if you're from rural America, to urban America, to Canada, to Spain to Bahrain. We're all on that same team. We're all on that same mission. And we're always better together. My challenge for you this week is the pick one of the strategies that were shared, whether it's celebrating the small wins, we live in a past experience controlling the inner chatter, a common routine, or stepping back this week, make it a point to do one of these each and every single day. The thing is, we can't wait just for the moments when we feel the pressure to do these. We have to practice and make them second nature. So take time this week in practice, hit me up on social media. Let me know what you're working on and how it's going for you. Keep me in amazing, my friend. And as we go out into this week, may you step into your strength, may you step into your shine, and let's build our champions up. Have a great week, everybody.