Author: Gareth J. Mole

How Important Are Words?

I have often pondered how important it is to use the correct word. Both in professional situations as well as personal ones. Yes, maybe it’s the flight of an overthinker, but the fact is that words matter.

As a sports psychologist, does it go against the Psychological Flexibility framework that underpins all of my consulting to insist that certain words are better than others in specific situations?

Let me use an example before diving into the main dish of vulnerability and team cohesion. Some clients will know I’m not a huge fan of the word ‘mistake’. From time to time, I have suggested that we even consider replacing this loaded term with the far more accurate and potentially beneficial phrase of ‘unfortunate occurrence’.

I will endeavour to write an entire article on this subject in due course, but here is the gist. Too many athletes take too much blame when something unfortunate happens during competition(s).

Imagine a team sport like volleyball where serving is a significant deal. Let’s consider a scenario in which one of the players cannot find any rhythm when starting the points. Are these mistakes? Or are they simply unfortunate occurrences? For me, to use a word like mistake (and the potential shame that comes with it) when the volleyball player – in this example – is trying her best seems wrong. Maybe a mistake is when the error was made on purpose. Very, very rare, but not unheard of, think of a tennis player tanking the rest of a game or set. If you are not stuffing up on purpose, then it’s not a mistake. It’s an unfortunate occurrence.

Back To Vulnerability

But I digress. The word vulnerability wasn’t used much in applied or academic sport psychology until recently. 

So, let’s look at the actual word itself. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the word vulnerability means ‘able to be easily hurt, influenced, or attacked’. Hmm, that doesn’t sound that great! The Merriam-Webster free online dictionary isn’t much better with ‘capable of being physically or emotionally wounded’.

The appeal to want to become more vulnerable takes an even bigger blow when you look at the origins of the via Etymonline (below) 😬.

Brené Brown’s Work

Due to the smallness of performance psychology as a profession, more often than not, the research needs to come from a more generic source. And this is certainly the case here where the work by the legendary Brené Brown put vulnerability and related concepts on the map.

Before I stumbled across the work of Brené Brown, I must admit that I was guilty of not seeing the hidden benefits of learning to be vulnerable. Maybe it’s like sport itself. Maybe you need to do it to have an idea of what it’s really like. So this I did.

The Bridge in Kentucky, USA

Partially for personal reasons and partially for professional reasons, earlier this year, I spent two weeks at a facility in Kentucky, USA, called The Bridge. For those who follow the work of Dr Peter Attia, it’s the same Bridge he attended and mentions in his highly recommended book Outlive.

I will not include a full breakdown of my experience in The Woods of Kentucky, mostly because a thorough account of the entire program would be a far more appropriate subject for an entire book, not a 1000-word blog article. However, I’m happy to disclose that one of the most significant inclusions of the process was learning to be vulnerable in a group setting.

And when it’s done properly and professionally (and boy, was it), there is no substitute from a team cohesion and togetherness point of view. In 14 days, we went from a group of complete strangers to people who feel more like family than friends.

Emotional Courage

I know that for some reading this, it’s just semantics, but in 2024, before the world catches up, maybe what I was taught at The Bridge is better described as emotional courage. And I couldn’t help but notice when Googling Brené’s website to link it above the blurb in the search results puts the word courage first: Brené Brown is a researcher and storyteller who’s spent two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy.

The courage to let down the walls and let your real feelings come out. Brené correctly describes doing this type of work properly is messy. And messy it is, but necessarily messy. Unavoidably messy if you want the benefits on the other side. 

Team sports athletes – especially the men 😬 – are typically not very emotionally courageous with each other, and maybe this is necessary if the facilitator is not trained and experienced. Like dentistry, if it is not done properly, it can backfire and be disastrous.

But one thing is for sure. We will ensure that our growing team of sport and performance psychologists gets the appropriate skills training in this area. We will be ready to assist when the sporting world fully embraces vulnerability as a mental skill to be taken seriously. If you can’t wait until then, feel free to get in touch via Our Contact form beforehand (like now).

I recently wrote the below feature on the topic of Natural Talent, and when I went to add it to the website, I realised that I’d written an article on the same subject many years ago. So, instead of deleting the old one, I have added the new one above it. So, below, enjoy not one but two different essays on this fascinating concept of sports psychology.

What Exactly Is Natural Talent?

For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in concepts related to natural talent. How significant is nature (genetics) regarding human excellence versus nurture (lived experience)? While researching this article, I thought I would try to see if there is an agreed definition of natural talent and what it’s not. Surprise, surprise, I could not find a standard clarification, but this was my favourite:

“Natural talent is an innate or inborn gift for a specific activity, either allowing one to demonstrate some immediate skill without practice or to gain skill rapidly with minimal practice.“

Full credit to Blue Print Tennis for this definition contained within this fascinating article on the same topic.

Natural Talent Vs. Natural Ability

It’s important to emphasise the context in which we tend to come across the concept of natural talent in our work here at Condor Performance. Virtually everybody that we work with has one thing in common. They want to get better at something … or a bunch of things.

Sometimes, this performance area is evident and tangible. They want to improve their golfing consistency because they won’t be able to secure their tour card for next year without it. A surgeon gets nervous before surgery and needs to improve her composure to be the best possible surgeon she can be.

Other times, this performance area is far less obvious but still a performance area. The athlete who wants to be a better husband struggles due to the sheer amount of time they spend training. A soldier desires to be a better father by not allowing traumatic and recurring memories of the battlefield to impact his time with his young children. 

Each of these examples, along with many others, has an element of talent or ability. The last example is probably the best to emphasise this. We know from the research that, for some reason, specific soldiers who return from the battlefield seem to cope very well with adapting to everyday life. On the other hand, some military personnel who experience precisely the same situations return home and have their functioning compromised by their experiences. What is going on here? 

Earned and Unearned Competence

Sometimes, I think it might be better to think of the Natural Talent debate in terms of earned and unearned competence at something. 

Earned competence is essentially the most common type of competence whereby you are good at something because you have spent a lot of time becoming good at it. However, not all competence is a direct result of hard work.

Unearned competence is when you are good at something without having spent hours and hours honing that skill. Why? How? We are not sure. Genetics undoubtedly plays a part. But maybe there are also many environmental factors that we are entirely unaware of. Perhaps the soil in the country in which you live is much richer in nutrients than in other countries. So without you having to do anything, the quality of the vegetables you’re putting into your body is slightly better. 

Undoubtedly, at the end of the day, how good you are is a combination of the two types of talent/ability/competency. It’s also worth pointing out that some performance areas are arguably more susceptible to one than the other. In other words, it’s incorrect to say that ability is 50% natural and 50% nurture. 

Let’s Look At A Few Examples 

First and foremost, the more complex and challenging the performance area, the less likely experts will be as such because of inherited advantages. Let’s look at a sport like the decathlon.

The vast amount of different motor skills, physical, psychological and technical requirements needed to be an excellent decathlete means that it would need to be more influenced by hard work and less by Mum and Dad’s genetic offerings.

Maybe the opposite example also comes from track and field. If we look at sprinting, it is easy to see that there appears to be a more significant genetic predisposition to running incredibly fast.

I am not taking anything away from the hard work of the world’s fastest men, women, boys and girls. But here is a fact: if you were born into a family of Caucasian shorties, good luck trying to win a 100m or 200 m Olympic medal.

Fortunately, due to advances in sports science, we don’t need to guess these things any more. There now appears to be universal agreement amongst the academic community that in the case of sprinting, fast-twitch fibres (which are entirely genetic and cannot be increased post-birth) play a significant role in how quick you will be. Of course, you still need to put in the training, BUT the training seems to pay much more dividends to those with more fast-twitch fibres. 

How Much Influence?

As is often the case, it can be beneficial to consider how much influence we have on all of this. For virtually every performance area, a certain percentage of how good you can get will result from inherited elements. A better question should be, “How much influence do we have on our natural abilities or lack thereof?”.

The answer is simple. None, nada, zilch!

So because we have no influence on these, I suggest you accept and ignore them equally. Instead, focus on aspects of improving that you have the most influence over.

What’s that? I hear you shouting.

The answer is simple. The quality and quantity of improvement endeavours. This might be called training, practice, preparation, or something else depending on your performance area.

A Personal Example

I have two children. One finds most sports far more straightforward than the other. During Covid, when they were homeschooled, we spent a lot of time just working on basic physical literacy. Throwing, catching and kicking basics. One of our favourite activities was throwing tennis balls between one another and trying to catch them with a baseball glove.

Because of natural gifts, one of my children spent no extra time trying to learn how to catch the ball better. The time the three of us spent outside was all the practice they got.

But my other child, who, for some reason, even though they have the same mother and father, found catching a much trickier proposition. So this child, without being prompted, spent far longer in the backyard trying to improve by themselves. What was the result? Two children who are exceptionally good at catching a baseball.

But What If …

I sometimes ponder how good the first child would be if they had/have the same work ethic as the second child. In most cases, this never happens. The natural talents work less because they can get away with it. The less naturally gifted try harder because they have to.

And every once in a blue moon, you get someone who combines extraordinary natural liabilities with exceptional quality and quantity of practice. These rare individuals are already mentally very healthy yet go out of their way to further improve the mental aspects of what they do. They choose to work with sports psychologists (like the ones at Condor Performance) not for a couple of months but for a couple of decades in the knowledge that there is never an end to improving.

We have names for these unique creatures. They are the top 0.1%. Some are called GOATS. They are the Hall of Famers, world champions.

Suppose you are following the logic of this theory. In that case, you might realise that, unfortunately, for some people, their genetics will mean they will not be able to reach the summit, irrespective of the quality and quantity of practice. Maybe you are one of these people. If you are, then I would suggest this mindset. Let’s see how far we can get without the biological head start.

If you need a hand, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Natural Talent – Previous Article

Words or combinations of words, primarily when spoken, are powerful and need to be treated delicately. As a general rule, I try hard not to dislike certain words. Instead, I choose not to use specific combinations myself. For example, the word control is used prolifically in performance psychology circles. As my colleagues and clients know, I prefer to use the word influence. In my opinion, it’s just a much better word for exerting an impact on something.

As a sport psychologist who doesn’t use direct cognitive therapy techniques, I try not to correct my sporting clients when they use the word control. Instead, I just choose not to use it myself. I refer to our varying degrees of influence on different aspects of our life and performance.

Two Words Not One: Natural + Talent

But I am particularly offended by one pair of words: natural talent. Before pulling it apart and explaining why I feel these words should be banned, let’s look at each word by itself.

The ‘natural’ part refers to genetics, what we’re born with, and our DNA. In other words, it is the former in the Nature Versus Nurture concept/debate. Like most scientists, I believe most of our abilities are made up of a combination of nature and nurture.

Most experts now believe it’s a fairly even contest between genetics and environment. And this may well be the case in many areas I know little about. However, in sports, I firmly believe that genetics is vastly overplayed as a determinant of success. Let me be 100% clear here. I am not dismissing the role of genetics. I am simply saying that factors such as height and hand size play a much smaller part than many people believe they do.

Not All Performance Areas Are The Same

As performance psychologists, we work right across a multitude of performance domains. Some of the most exciting work I have done is with male and female professional models. By models, I’m referring to men, women, boys, and girls who make a living by doing catwalks and photoshoots. Imagining a performance domain with a more significant genetic component to professional modelling is hard. After all, height is considered critical for most adult models.

And the last time I checked, it didn’t matter how hard you tried, but you couldn’t make yourself taller. Yet even in this cutthroat industry, I still assert that success is more than 50% about non-genetic factors. Chief amongst these uninherited factors is effort, or how you apply yourself. Suddenly, natural talent doesn’t feel that natural.

What About Sports?

Not too far behind professional modelling are sports that benefit from particular physical attributes. Height is useful for basketballers, netballers, and high jumpers.

But what about sports which are much less physical? Sports such as golf, lawn bowls and figure skating. Are there some genetically predetermined characteristics that allow some people to have an advantage in these psychologically brutal sports? Instead of sharing my views, I invite you to add your thoughts to the comments section below.

Why Should I Get Out Of My Comfort Zone?

Getting out of your Comfort Zone probably requires three elements. First, you need to know what your Comfort Zone looks like. Next, you might want to understand why it’s necessary to improve yourself mentally. Finally, knowing just how far outside of your Comfort Zone to go would be handy. I will attempt to address all of these in this article. As always, after you have read it, please share it with your networks and add a comment or question at the bottom. I’m good, but I’m not a mind reader.

What Or Where Is This Comfort Zone?

Like so many psychological constructs, one of the challenges is that it’s very relative and based on the individual. One person’s Comfort Zone might be another person’s Danger Zone. But this much is true. Everybody on earth will have experiences and situations that are more psychologically cozy than others. Typically, these situations fall along a spectrum or a sliding scale.

By this, I mean that the situation can range from highly comfortable all the way through to extremely uncomfortable. And, of course, there is a lot of grey area in between. It is reasonable to ponder why one person might find standing up and talking in public so easy whilst her twin sister might feel sick just by the idea. But as a general rule, I accept that people have developed these preferences and aversions for good reason. Spending too long trying to work out why can take away from time better spent accepting reality and using it as a mental training tool.

So, staying inside one’s Comfort Zone means trying very hard to manipulate our world so that we can spend most of our time avoiding many situations.

Who Is Guilty Of This? I Am For One.

This can often be very innocent, such as deciding not to go training because it’s too cold and wet. Or faking an injury on the day that you know the coach will be making some assessments. So, the Comfort Zone is more of a what than a where. Although it often feels more like a place, it’s normal for most people to ensure that where they live and work is packed full of what they like. Even the experts are guilty. It is not unusual for me to take a pillow with me when I travel. I have also been known to email the host of an Airbnb before leaving home to check the quality of their coffee-making facilities 🤫.

Can You Work Out The Issue With This?

For most people, whose values include challenging themselves, improving themselves and achieving hard things, these come with a certain amount of organic discomfort. Let’s use some common examples we come across as a group of practitioners working at the coal face of sports psychology and mental performance:

• Results are shoved in your face all the time. Many of which the performer only has some influence over. This tends to be very uncomfortable for most people.
• The better you get, the more people scrutinise your performance. This exponentially increases the discomfort levels for most people.
• An injury can instantly undo years of hard work if your performance area is sporting. Talk about severe discomfort all the time!

As these stressors are all possible, avoiding them at all costs is a terrible idea. As fellow sport psychologist Jonah Oliver often says, “It’s not about reducing the stress but about being able to tolerate more”.

Show Me How To Do That

Below is one of many ways of doing this. Warning: It would be far better if you tried to work through these with the help of a qualified psychologist like the one who consults for Condor Performance. Why? Getting it wrong can backfire big time. It’s the same as trying to improve your body. Ideally, your physical training plan is designed and overseen by someone qualified to the eyeballs in that area, like our friends at BaiMed. Same with training the mind. Please be careful of the growing number of pseudo-professionals working in sport psychology spaces.

Take a look at the below drawing. I have adapted it from the circle’s concept at PositivePsychology.com – a great online resource. As you can see, the Comfort Zone (green) is surrounded by two other zones. Outside the Comfort Zone is the aptly named Growth Zone (blue). And beyond that is The Danger Zone (Red). I find it helpful to split the zones into four quadrants to help my clients develop more specific situations to place into the twelve areas. 

Social, Safety, Scrutiny and Stuff

• Social refers to social situations like dinner parties, going on a date or hanging out with a buddy at the mall (shopping centre). Social anxiety is widespread in 2024, yet it’s very solvable for many.
• Scrutiny is related to being assessed. Not the same as social even if the scrutiny is coming from others. This is a big deal in our work. A common thread that links all our clients is the high degree of scrutiny they get compared to the general population.
• Stuff refers to the unavoidable fact that many people use purchasables to make themselves feel much more comfortable in today’s society. In extreme situations, this can result in hoarding, but for most people, it’s relatively innocent – until your lucky pair of socks gets chewed up by the neighbour’s dog the night before the grand final!
• Safety is related to psychological safety. For this category, we must be incredibly delicate to ensure that the ideas we come up with are in the right place. For some people, rock climbing is what they do every weekend (Comfort Zone, green, too easy). For others – myself included – it feels too dangerous, too risky. Red Zone, Danger Zone, avoid, avoid, avoid. But for many, this kind of activity (supervised by the right professionals) is excellent for growth and getting them out of their comfort zone.

Ideas With Action Are A Waste Of Time

The idea is to use the diagram to brainstorm different situations for each segment. It’s often easier to use the table template below. Don’t print it, just redraw it on a bit of paper.