TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'm DOING

Hello, everyone. I'm Shayamal Vallabhjee. I'm a performance psychologist and a leadership coach, and you are listening to trust me, I know what I'm doing.

My name is Abhay Dandekar, and I share conversations with talented and interesting individuals linked to the global Indian and South Asian community.

It's informal and informative, adding insights to our evolving cultural expressions, where each person can proudly say trust me, I know what I'm doing. Hi, everyone. On this episode of trust me, I know what I'm doing, I chat with sports scientist and performance psychologist, Shamal Wallabji. Stay tuned. We may or may not know it, but sports and games are all around us.

Sometimes we're on the field and competing with a ball or bat, and other times we're competing with ourselves to simply improve and be our best. But honestly, that's the simple version, and in actuality, the nuances and micro details of how we perform and what motivates and drives our continual achievement in just about every action and reaction is just part of the gamification of nearly every aspect of our lives. And speaking of actions and reactions, thank you for listening and watching and taking the time out of your day for trust me, I know what I'm doing. I know it takes time and effort, and so I'm greatly appreciative to you for engaging with me here and for sharing this with your friends and family. And if you're enjoying these and if you can support the show, please take a moment and share a kind rating or submit a written review wherever you're getting this right now.

So like most people, there are days when we're laser focused, and complex things seem simple and our muddy dashboards of tasks and actions seem clarified and sharp, sort of like Neo finally visualizing the matrix. And then there are other days when we're just simply not on our game or we just can't seem to make that shot or finish that run or complete any tasks properly. So what is it that impedes or even accelerates our performance? And if change and improvements and achievements, big or small, are victories, then how do we win and then keep winning over time? This was on my mind as I shared a conversation with performance psychologist and sports scientist, Shayamal Vallabhji.

Shayamal grew up in South Africa with a sports background, and after 2 master's degrees in clinical and industrial and organizational psychology, he has been the on field performance and mindset coach to some of the world's leading athletes, sports teams, and CEOs. Whether integrating spirituality and ancestral wisdom gained during his 4 years of living in an ashram or the practical advising skills gained traveling with the South African and Indian Cricket teams, Davis Cup Tennis and Olympic teams, and on the ATP and WTA tours for 7 years, Shamil's expertise is sought after by everyone from elite athletes and teams to global leaders and executives. And by the way, he's an ultra marathoner and a mountaineer, so he's certainly living what he's teaching. We had a chance to catch up about everything from setting goals and empowering individuals to sustaining performance and cultivating trust in your achievements. But I started by asking him if by nature and indeed relevant to his work, whether he would actually describe himself as a competitive person.

Do I feel I'm competitive? I feel I'm overly competitive. I feel every environment I step into, I, you know, wanna give my best at all times. And I have spent such a long part of my life in this performance ecosystem that I think the funniest thing you would ever see in your life is when I get called to give a talk at a school, and they are probably, you know, grade 5, grade 6 people in there, and you hear me speak. And when the camera pans to the audience, you're gonna you kind of break out laughing because sometimes I lose context of where I am.

So, yes, I am highly competitive. It it spans right across everything from, how I would author book or how I would prepare for a talk or how I would travel or everything. It's it's highly, highly competitive. First off, has that come with a lot of iterative practice? Like, that comp competitiveness has has been there for a long time and it's just sort of taken different forms?

Or or for that matter, does it sometimes get in the way of true kind of development and growth for yourself? Like, do you have to sometimes keep that, competitiveness in check? I think I I do have to keep it in check, but it was inorganically nurtured in me in the environment. So, for example, not necessarily from the competitive sporting environment that I grew up. To to give context to everyone listening, I'm of Indian diaspora, but I grew up in South Africa.

I was born there, and I grew up in the apartheid. So the apartheid was institutionalized segregation for people of color. So what happened in that was that if you want to replace sport, we had something called a quota system, so only one person of color could play. Yeah. So what happened and where that competitiveness came in was that you weren't fighting for 11 positions on a cricket team.

You're fighting for 1 position, you know, and you had to be head and shoulders above everybody else to to grab that one position. So it was the ecosystem itself that inculcated in me this competitiveness. And I obviously, like you said, channeled it in various different ways to bring it out, but I've always found it there. And I feel that, you know, I reference their part in, but I think discrimination in any form brings out that a little bit of that competitive edge that you need to that's the first barrier you need to overcome that becomes part and parcel of your makeup. Yeah.

Have you since, of course, expanding your, environment and, you know, now as someone who has a a global experience, do you have to to, again, like you like I said, keep that in check, modulate that in a way that certainly takes into background the, experiences that you had, but then also makes it so that that's not the most overwhelming thing that people get when they when they're interacting with you? Yeah. 100%. Because, you know, I I work right across the span from kids playing sport to professional athletes to even corporates. And I think one of the first things I've had to, to use the word modulated proper context is, I think, it's more perspective shifting to understanding what's really important for them.

Yeah. Because what may be important for me may not necessarily be important for them. Yeah. So the question is, how do I dovetail everything towards helping them achieve their goal? That's really and truly that performance mindset that we want.

Because at the end of the day, if a person is not aspirational or motivated towards a particular goal, no matter what I say I do, we're not gonna achieve it. So Right. It's really about it's really about dovetailing everything towards their specific, need, ask, or goal. Let me ask you this. I mean, in order to study the performance of another individual of a of a team, whether they're, you know, a world class athlete or a a new novice to a particular sport or or performance area.

In order to kind of study the performance and the outcomes and and developing an understanding of skills and behaviors, do you need to establish or or help establish a definition of excellence, or or is it the other way around where you need to understand the foundation and then measure the performance, etcetera to get to that particular area of excellence? Owe, I mean, this question itself is a beautiful question and can be a 1 hour podcast because we peel this away in so many layers as such. Yeah. You know? In in my world, I I say, first thing I differentiate is the difference between high performance and elite performance for everyone.

So I asked them that question. A high performer is a person who's raising their personal bar month after month, year after year. They can see themselves getting better. That is high performance. A high performer may not necessarily have what it takes to cross the threshold of greatness.

You know, Elite performance means the threshold is set, and I will do everything I can to cross that threshold, because if I don't, then everything around my identity ceases to exist. Mhmm. So the first question I frame with people is, do you wanna be a high performer, or are you an elite performer striving for a certain thing? If you wanna be a high performer, then we analyze what are the routines and processes and actionables that will get you there, and the pace is irrelevant in high performance. But if you wanna be an elite performer, we have to establish what the gap is, the gap between where you are and where you want to cross, and what is the most scientific evidence based way for us to cross that threshold.

So most conversations, irrespective of where I am, are starting by just finding clarity in these aspects. And the reason why I do this is because 99% of the time, it's a lack of clarity that prevents people from achieving anything. And in the world that I work in, I tell people, you know, I don't have metaphorically a machine gun in my hand hoping to hit something. I've approached everything by the way. Yeah.

Exactly. I approach everything with the mindset of, I'm a sniper. I have one bullet and one target, and I have to assess variables to make sure I hit the target. And once you approach things with that mindset, then everything you frame everything completely differently. So irrespective of who we're looking at, the first challenge I found in in working with people is to reframe the mind towards what is needed.

Many people have this thing where we will try a 100 things. If something works, we'll go in that direction. That's not really an elite performance mindset because the energy that you bring to every one of those things is very diluted. And one of the toughest things you learn that we have to teach athletes is how do you leave every single thing on the field or on the practice game every single time. The reason why you have to leave everything is because the margin is so small and the penalty is so great that if you hold anything back, you'll never cross that threshold.

Mhmm. Yeah. So this is generally where we're starting to peel away the layers. And and in this one conversation here, by asking questions, you have a tendency to understand which way people are leaning. Right.

A lot of times, you know, just for instance, when I walk into a patient's room, sometimes it takes me less than a second to understand the dynamic and what's going on with that patient. Absolutely. Yeah. And other other times, I I need a fair amount of observation. I need a fair amount of time and experiences with that patient to to really help understand and then set a framework, if you will, for improvement or or acquiring better health.

So, you know, in in your case, I mean, have there been conundrums where you've been like, boy, I I just can't figure this person out. For sure. For sure. I mean, I'm laughing because the parallels between my world and your world run so close. It's it's making me laugh, actually.

Right. And and the reason why I'm saying this is you've hit the nail on the head. You could walk in and sometimes you figure a first half and sometimes you need to peel away a few layers. But one of the most interesting things about it is just like in your world and in my world, you need to know what you're looking for before you venture down the world of capturing data. Yeah.

Because data could be a very big distraction. So the main thing that I tell people is if you don't have line of sight of the direction that you're moving in and what you're looking for, you'll never find the answer. Yeah. So when I'm when I'm doing this and peeling away the layers, the first question I'm trying to ask and trying to ascertain is, you know, what exactly do I want the answer to? Because if I go down the rabbit hole of just capturing data with devices and tests and and, you know, biomarkers and stuff like that.

It'll lead me down a wrong path that's very, very misleading. Sure. And I always ask people, you know, are we using data because data is available? Are we using data because data is informing that decision? Right.

Once you differentiate between these two, you move in the right direction. And and what I generally advise people to do is when you start with a question like, what are you looking for? Then the framework of the testing and the process of capturing data that exists, they go out the window. Because now, once you have clarity about what you want, you can create your own metric for how to find the data point around it. You know?

And you can start to lean with that. So Yeah. 100%. You know, sometimes it's clear. Sometimes it's definitely not crystal clear.

Yeah. But when it's not clear, the last place to look is in datasets, because you will get lost in there. And those datasets, you know, will inform you a few things, but they will not give you the granular understanding that you need to to make those decisions to move forward. And that's probably a process that I imagine has come, you know, through your your study, through your experiences where the more you observe, the even better you get at actually translating and synthesizing that because you can you can in fact inform yourself and then then hopefully the the person you're working with. Yeah.

Absolutely. You know, I'll give you I'll give you a fascinating example. You know, when we look at I work with professional footballers, and if you look at a data set that comes out of a professional football game, you could have anywhere, depending on the number of cameras and devices we have, anywhere from a 100,000 data points in 90 minutes to about 650 to 700,000 data points. Yeah. You could get that in 90 minutes.

Right? Now, if you don't know what you're looking for, you're gonna get lost in there. Right. So one of the simplest things I ask people and I coach them, I said, how do you distill dial dial dial dial dial? So the first thing that I look at is I say, okay.

I wanna look at only one thing, and that one thing that I'm gonna look at is not physiological data inside their body. I'm gonna pick their top speed, their top speed in running, for example. Just one data point, and that tells me everything. Because if my winger has a top speed of 34 kilometers an hour, and the person marking him has a top speed of 32 kilometers per hour, I'm winning every single time. Yeah.

I don't need 800,000 data points. But once I have clarity about what I'm looking for, then everything becomes crystal clear. If you don't know what you're looking for, you look at the wrong thing, and it'll look very, very pretty. Now, this is an example of where the data is available. Another example is when a kid comes to me and someone, a parent brings a child and they want to become a professional.

You know? Yeah. They wanna do that. So, you know, now the first thing I wanna ascertain is, okay, what's their discipline like? How how would they how disciplined are they with their routines?

And they generally tell me, oh, we go to practice 5 times a week. That's great. All of that. So I said, I'll ask them, write a list for me of everything that you want to do this week or in the next 2 weeks. So if you have to go to school, so many practice sessions, so many classes.

Go into granular details even. How many protein shakes you wanna have. Create a exhaustive list. I said, thank you very much. Just send it to me.

After about 2 weeks, I send them that same list, and I ask them to tick every single thing that they achieved. There's no column for reasons why you didn't do it. There's only did you do it or didn't you do it. And first up, with these two data points here, I got a wish list of what they want to, and then I get a list of everything that they did. Now this is giving me a data point with how much do they aspire to do versus how much they do.

What is the gap between these 2? Then I take everything that they've done, and I send it back to them, and I said, I want you to categorize it. 1 is very easy, 3 is very hard. Break it all up. Then I get a percentage of how many hard tasks that require a little bit more mental toughness and a little more preparation are they doing versus is that list full with 1 and twos only.

Mhmm. This gives me an indication of, a, how hard they're willing to work, how much of conviction they have in their own process, and what is their relationship to challenging their comfort zone. Yeah. Now this isn't an assessment. You can't find this anyway.

This is just something I've created. Yeah. But because I know what I'm looking for, you were able to create a very simple assessment to capture that data that can now start to inform everything else. You're listening to Trust Me. I Know What I'm Doing.

After a quick break, let's come back to our conversation with sports scientist and performance psychologist, Shayamal Vallabhjee. Stay tuned.

Conversation. It's the antidote to apathy and the catalyst for relationships. I'm Abhay Dandekar, and I share conversations with global Indians and South Asians, so everyone can say trust me, I know what I'm doing.

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Welcome back to Trust Me. I Know What I'm Doing. Let's rejoin our conversation now with Shayamal Vallabhjee.

People have been examining, you know, whether they're for teens or for corporations or for, you know, incredibly elite athletes, but I think people have been examining this sort of intersections of of sports psychology with with so many non sports venues. Right?

Sports science to to include in that. But perhaps what's the biggest surprise that you've encountered where a new variable or a new application took you sort of, you know, again, by surprise where it was an unexpected finding. In in a world where, you know, data is, like you said, 100 of thousands of data points. But have there been intersections or variables or outcomes that when working with a whole variety, a spectrum of of different people, have there been some, you know, memorable surprises along the way? So one of the very, very interesting ones, which you won't find as a data point anywhere, is when we are trying to ascertain, for example, how an athlete's probability of becoming a professional athlete is, especially in the in the individual sport, and and let's assume that that person's a teenager as such.

Yeah. One of the interesting things that we look at, which is not even a data point, but we assess that, is the relationship between the parents and the child, and how comfortable are the parents with the child being away them. You know? The reason why we look at this is because once the child makes that decision and the parents make that decision that we wanna steer them down the line of being professional, they're gonna be spending on average between 200 to 250 days away from it. Right.

Now, if that relationship doesn't allow for that proximity, then that child and that parent's mind is gonna be the biggest distraction that we're gonna have to overcome. Right? So this isn't a data point, You know? You'll not find this. You can't get this anywhere.

But experience has taught us what questions to ask for and what to look for to understand whether this journey is gonna be easier versus gonna be harder in that. Then, obviously, then the second thing is there's a lot of research around environment. Environment is is critically important. You know? And for us, environment is actually people.

It's not the equipment. It's not the facilities. So we don't have a data point, but we start to look at how many people in the ecosystem are they surrounding themselves with or engaging with them on a day to day basis that are mimicking where they want to go or representing that behavior pattern first. But the most important, and I think the most profound insight that we've seen is that a child moving towards being great or a professional moving towards being great, and you see this a lot in your area in Silicon Valley with entrepreneurs around it. Yeah.

It's not the quantum of time that you have spent at practice. It's not the quantum of time that you spend in front of the computer coding. It's all of the conversation outside of that that actually molds the brain. Of course. You know?

Yeah. So that is one of the critical things that we're looking at. I'm looking at what is the quantum of conversation around the sport, around the idea, around that entrepreneurship. Right? That's molding the nuance of success in that field.

Yeah. And we call it the unseen hours. So for me, my slogan is it's the unseen hours that pay. Seen hours are hours in front of your computer. Seen hours are hours at practice or hours at the gym.

Right. What is the stimuli that you are receiving in those unseen hours? Because that is informing me as to how the mind is pulling in data, subconsciously that's gonna mold you in the right direction. So these are just a few terrific. It's just a reminder, of course, of how important those unseen hours are.

I I mean, I'm thinking about this, you know, are you are you around high performing elite athletes who sometimes, based upon some of these childhood experiences, still suffer from separation anxiety? Yeah. They are. And lot of I mean, they don't really sep suffer from separation anxiety. You know?

To be honest, a lot of my athletes, after they've made it, you know, they get a lot of, friends and family who come out of the woodworks that want a piece of that limelight and stuff like that. So, you know, there there's a lot of emotional strings that get pulled at from that end. The athletes themselves are very, very focused on on what needs to happen. Right. And and as a rule of thumb, we try to keep the environment very, very insulated and very, very tight so that they can focus.

You know? Yeah. We try not to allow different things to flow in from different ways. And and, you know, having said this with everyone, you know, the sport environment, as difficult as it is to to to succeed in, it's one of the easier environments to succeed in because the competition time is fixed. The rules are fixed.

You know when to show up. You know how to show up. Everything's taken care of. Outside of that world, whether it's in school or whether it's in business, you have no idea who's coming from where, who's gonna say what, what emotions you're dealing with. The the playing field is so wide, isn't it?

So Yeah. The unseen hours are I mean, they have just so many variables and risks involved. Absolutely. Absolutely. And this and I use this as a metaphor to highlight to people that if you look at the quantum of work professional athletes try to do to maintain their environment, and if you try to look at the amount of variables and things you do to try to control your environment, ours is drastically low considering we have so many variables to play with.

Mhmm. And theirs is extremely high considering how tight that environment is. Yeah. So that is the first dichotomy that that we need to sort of reframe for people. I'm thinking I'm thinking of this, of course, the athlete who's going from one quantum to the other and and based upon, you know, perhaps who we are and and, you know, this this, conversation, certainly, the myriad of random aunties and uncles who now come out of the woodwork and try and be part of the, unseen hours is, can be, you know, super overwhelming.

You you know, we're we're both of of Indian origin. Right? You're you're a South African, and I'm an American. And how much does that cultural and generational ancestry and behavioral condition conditioning and and pattern, how much do those affect the science of athletic performance? And for that matter, as you mentioned, the the particulars of those unseen hours?

Yeah. I think I think there are definitely cultural things that do impact it. And the reason why I'm saying cultural is because what happens when something is cultural is that when, the subconscious mind is taking over, you would default to that. Mhmm. So conscious mind requires a lot of energy.

I mean, you have constantly think. So, for example, you know, if I grew up in an Indian family where my staple diets was roti and bread and dal and sabzi that was cooked with lot of spices and a certain amount of chili, my conscious mind will have to kick in every single meal for me to eat a cleaner, healthier, you know, oil free, gluten free thing and and maintain that. I have to. When the subconscious mind kicks in, I would default to what is cultural. So we're seeing elements like this kick in a hell of a lot with respect to to culture and how it is.

But, you know, just this morning, I was having a conversation, and and I was reflecting on something with a friend. I was saying, you know, in the world of sport, anywhere in the world you go, you know, if you're of an Indian diaspora, you know, you have succeeded and elevated to where you are because, cognitively, you're processing a lot. We we a lot sharper on the cognitive intellectual aspects. We learn fast. We absorb.

You know, we go into different environments. We pull it in. And then I'm saying, I was looking at the the sporting environment in India, and I said, you know, we've only won 6 medals for 5 consecutive Olympics, 20 years. Mhmm. Right?

We've won. And I said, if I look at the strategies we're trying to imply, we're trying to put more emphasis on the physical, and we've got that up. We're trying to mirror techniques that are taught abroad. We're trying to mirror strategies that are done abroad. And if you look at the 4 components of athletic performance, physical, mental, technical, and tactical, Right?

I feel that the way we can really and truly elevate on that world is by tactical, by cognition, by thinking out smarter ways to do it. And if you look at, you know, that's how we've succeeded in every country, in every other field that we've tapped into. But yet in the world of sport in India, I feel we're deviating towards a blueprint that exists somewhere else and not leaning into our strengths. And I fundamentally believe that we have and can can excel if we think about how to win in a completely different manner. Mhmm.

Our advantage has always been to be able to think differently and apply our strengths differently. Yeah. And yet we we're applying a blueprint that doesn't apply to us in there. So it's very interesting that we we're going down this route and talking about it, but, yes, I see cultural things play into it, but I also see us not using some of our strengths, our innate strengths. We're not using that to our fullest potential.

Is this a matter of doing some unlearning, doing some deprogramming? Is there is there some barrier to that as to why we're not necessarily tapping into that tactical? I mean, what what you're saying makes a lot of sense, and and inherently, that probably happens in in so many other arena yet in sports, particularly when it comes to Olympic athletics and for that matter, you know, perhaps performance as as as a whole for India's athletes. Is there a strategy as to to make that pivot and to perhaps get more tactical? It does it require first off, does it require cloning you in a in a number of ways and and finding, you know, the strategies for athletes?

But, is there is there a more global institutional, change that has to happen? There is a little bit of unlearning that has to happen, but I think what needs to happen more is empowerment. You know? What I find is in every ecosystem, academically, whether you come from IITs or IIMs or Ivy League Colleges or you become an entrepreneur Yeah. You are empowered to think in a different way.

But in the world of sport, we're not empowered to think differently. We ask to execute. We seem to disassociate the the execution from the thinking, and that's where we fracture ourselves. Mhmm. And if you look in any environment, the person who's executing, when empowered to think, grows faster than anyone else.

Right. But in an environment where you disassociate execution from strategy, those people are stunted. Complete both of them are stunted. Yeah. Just that they're stunted at completely different levels.

The strategist is stunted at c suite, and the executioner is stunted on the floor of an organization. You know? Right. But they both are not moving anywhere. Yeah.

We know cognitively, execution and strategy must come together for true empowerment to happen, and that's the only way we're gonna grow. So the question is, yes, unlearning, relearning, but the more is we shouldn't be afraid to, you know, to make a mistake. We shouldn't be afraid to let them make a mistake, to ask questions, to let them try it. Yeah. You know, I was listening to this beautiful conversation, and Kobe Bryant was giving an interview, the late Kobe Bryant, and he and he was coaching his daughter's, school basketball team, and there were a bunch of parents, and they were about 9, 10 years old.

And a lot of parents went screaming from the sidelines. And this is Kobe Bryant who was their coaching, and he goes up to the parents and he says, I need you to please be quiet Mhmm. Because your voice is a distraction. Their brain is trying to figure out what to do. Yeah.

Alright. Right now, their brain doesn't know whether to listen to you or whether to figure it out. So it's such a powerful statement, and I think that's what we need, is we seem to be courageous in allowing people to fail in the business world, fail in the medical world, fail in the engineering world, fail in even aeronautics. Right? But yet, you know, the failure is just a byproduct and not part of the process that sporting world, which is something that I feel we can change.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I mean, being able to marry the strategy and the execution, avoid distractions, and and really sort of find a way to, you know, eliminate some of those, again, tactical barriers. In a way, what you're describing is, again, it's going from one quantum to the other and perhaps even how do you maintain things.

So I'm curious for you. What's more satisfying or impressive, helping the elite athlete to engage in long term sustained, greatness or bringing an average performing athlete to realize that leap to greatness? Both of them are are equally rewarding, I must be honest, because what is not rewarding is one win. You know? Yeah.

One time at the Olympics, you know, one tournament, one championship win, that is not rewarding. Because if you've got there once, you have the ability to sustain it. You have the the thing. So so unlocking a person's mindset to believing they can get there is exactly, for me, the same in terms of rewarding as teaching a person and giving him the tools to stay there. Now I come from that performance lens, and I use performance as a way to empower people.

The reason why I did that was we started up the conversation. I said, you know, I grew up in the apartment Mhmm. And I played sport, and sport should have been fully inclusive. But because of the system, it excluded some people. Sure.

I used performance as a way to bridge the gap that gap. So I dedicate everything towards discovering performance tools and giving it to people, because I want them to feel included in the environment that their heart is highest. Yeah. You know? Is this a manifestation perhaps for you of some unrealized potential?

Is the is the spirit of giving and sharing and coaching, is is there an element of it that that sort of, for you, allows to allows you to maybe reconcile some of that? Oh, it's it's definitely. I think it's one is I don't think I'm I'm doing it to realize my untapped potential of doing that. Sure. I think it is addictive to be on that sports field.

Yeah. There's no 2 questions about it. I miss it. Whenever I step away and I'm doing some corporate works, I'm I phone my athletes, oh, which tournament you're playing next? I'm wearing it.

Because there's something so addictive to that energy. You know? It's it it brings out this youthful energy. It brings out this you know, the the belief. You see the impact it has in everyone.

So I feel that, yes, I I'm in love with that as well. I'm not trying to fulfill any of my things that I didn't do through that. Sure. The one thing that I do wanna do is I do want to use sport as a platform for empowerment. I do wanna use sport to make people feel included.

Yeah. And I feel you know, the the most beautiful thing is I remember, I met a friend of mine in South Africa, and his his child was having a difficult time. You she was having a little bit of a difficulty learning in school. You know, they were considering changing the school. And we're having a conversation, and his daughter at the time was about 13 years old, you know, and I said, you know what?

Do me a favor. Take 7 days off. Right? Kilimanjaro, it's not far from here. Yeah.

Single highest peak in Africa. It's a very slow 5, 6 day ascent. One and a half days, you're back. It's not difficult. Not a lot of ice.

Do me a favor. Take her on this claim. Right? Because irrespective of the world is seeing her differences. Right?

Once she comes back from there, she's gonna have one little star that no one else in the environment has, and what that's gonna do for her in terms of confidence is gonna be absolutely monumental. Now, I didn't go with them and I didn't climb, but my role I see is about finding that little nuggets, right, which maybe the world is not looking at because they're not invested in looking at. But make you see it so that it breaks that glass ceiling of your potential, and you now can move forward with a little bit more energy. Even if the environment changes, it doesn't matter. No one can take it away from you after you've done it.

And I think that's why I love sport. You know, you become a unicorn in entrepreneurship. Tomorrow, there's the next unicorn the media is not interested. Right. You run a marathon, no one can take it away.

It's there. It's etched in history. You did it. Yeah. You know?

And you had to do it. You couldn't pay someone else to do it. You had to go there yourself and do it. So these are the small things that I love, and and I try to bring this in either in corporate worlds or in sporting worlds or in school worlds because the gift it gives, you know, is something that pays back year after year forever. And and I imagine that, you know, for you as someone who is coaching and consulting and and really helping to steer those conversations, it must be incredibly empowering for yourself.

When we think about sports and games, you know, we have to remind ourselves that they're they're still measured by wins and losses. But, obviously, we know that there's great learning and there's great power from the journey and the nuances and the shades of gray that are within that journey itself. So so in an environment that's oftentimes, especially for elite athletes, very high stakes. They're very highly competitive. They they have so many risks involved if there are, you know, losses, so to speak.

So so in those highly competitive environments in sports or business or or ever a benefit to pointing out a healthy loss or an unhealthy win? There is a difference between a between a an unhealthy win and a healthy loss. What is the difference between these 2 is, did your process produce that result? So if you stuck to a process and you lost, metaphorically, it's actually a win. You know?

Sure. If you didn't stick to your process and you won, you've actually lost because you have actually nothing to optimize. You have nothing. You had a strategy that you didn't stick to. Right?

So you don't know if that strategy wins. Right? And you have a new strategy that you just came out, which is completely different from your process, so you don't know which way to go. You are actually the biggest loser in that situation in there. So, you know, in the world of sport, we don't like to use the word wins and losses.

The reason why we don't like to use it is because I ask people. I said, when you win something, do you learn a lesson? They said yes. I said, when you lose something, do you learn a lesson? I said yes.

So if 2 things are teaching you a lesson, why should they be viewed any differently? Sure. You know? They shouldn't. So what we do in sport is that every single experience and and there's no difference from a game and a practice.

We bring the same energy to everything. We take the same learning out. In fact, it's not just a practice. It's every ball you hit in that practice is in itself an individual incident that can teach you something, and every single repetition keeps dialing down into process. I I should I should, quickly mention, of course, that the oftentimes, the world around that athlete doesn't necessarily look at things that way.

Right? 100%. Yeah. The the world doesn't, and that's why we try to keep that world super tight. This is why, you know, very very often, we don't allow in big competitions, we tell our players we're going in, Don't read any new newspaper.

Stay away from social media. Yeah. Only speak to your loved ones that that you want to keep it circled very, very tight. We try to keep it as concentrated as possible because you're right. The word has every interest in pulling it in completely different directions Right.

For different reasons. You know? So we keep that environment there, and all we're trying to do is distill down to process. Every single thing is, you know, what do we add to the process? What do we take out from the process?

Because the the essence of every single great athlete is you will come to a moment when you've had an absolutely beautiful, flowing, seamless, almost perfect execution. It could be in a match. It could be in an innings. It could be in a single run. Yeah.

Your entire existence is about repeating that. Yeah. Capturing that as many times as possible. If you can't repeat that, right, you will question yourself till the day you die. Yeah.

That's why process is so critically important. You know? Yeah. Because if you cannot repeat it, you know, to the word, it may be a great win, but to you, you will die wondering for the rest of your life. And I'm sure that that must cause you know, in in order for someone to realize that and to sustain it and to reproduce that.

Often, I can imagine that that causes a lot of friction, you know, in in themselves because, again, they've been conditioned perhaps to to think of it as as simply a win or a loss. I I remember talking to, Parag Manarte, who's a NFL executive, in American football here, and he was talking about how to have success be a longitudinal thing. How can you have longevity with success? And he was telling me that, you know, he he really tries to practice not getting seduced by the high victories and not getting too down by by the low points and the losses. And and that again keeps it, I imagine, you know, back to that process, back to that iterative learning as to how to perfect and and sort of maintain that level.

Yeah. So one of the interesting things that I think people should take away from here is how do you do that? The question and the way we do that is after every incident, either a practice or a game, win or a loss, we have something called a debrief where we deconstruct what happened, and that debrief will happen no later than 48 hours from that incident. More than more often than not, it's it's in the first 16 hours. We go back, sleep.

It's at the very next practice we have a debrief. If you don't have a debrief, the mind will ruminate on all its things and go in different directions. The debrief is a way in which you encapsulate everything, and we've got multiple tools in which we use in this debrief. But if you do not debrief, you do not bring closure to that incident, and you'll never be able to sort of move forward either win, either loss. So Right.

What you wanna take from here, you know, Prag's advice was brilliant. And the way to use his advice is to bring the debrief as close to the incident as possible. You know? Either a practice, either a meeting or whatever, encapsulate it, take something away, and then you can move forward. If you don't take something away, you don't learn it, and you don't know how to bring it to process, you'll ruminate in it for a very, very long time.

Yeah. I love that. You're listening to Trust Me. I Know What I'm Doing. After a quick break, let's come back to our conversation with sports scientist and performance psychologist, Shayamal Vallabhjee

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Every story told is a lesson learned, and every lesson learned is a story waiting to be told. I'm Abhay Dandekar, and I share conversations with global Indians and South Asians so everyone can say, trust me, I know what I'm doing. New episodes weekly wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hi.

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I'm Lilly Singh, and you're listening to Trust Me. I Know What I'm Doing. I'm Abhay Darnikar, and you're listening to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing. Let's rejoin our conversation now with Shayamal Wallabji. You know, we we've talked about younger athletes and and teenagers, of course, and and children who are getting to that high performance level.

I I wanna focus on on sort of another edge of that, and that is, you know, I wonder how you help athletes at the end of their careers or or anyone who has to kind of reconcile their performance, you know, now with the passing of time and the change in the or perhaps not only just the change in their own performance, but also the change in the dynamics of the competition that's around them. Is there a way to gracefully age to successfully age in a competitive environment from that sort of sports science vantage point? I mean, there's data that shows us exactly when, you know, you'll be tapering physiologically. The thing is that it's very different in track and field and very different in games based sports. Because in games, you have experience and intuition and all of these things and your skills that could probably circumnavigate around physiological shortcomings.

In track and field, it won't. So we have datasets that inform us when to start having conversations. But you ask a really, really interesting conversation, and I asked this not just to my athletes, but even to the corporate leaders that I work with. I said, you know, how would you like to say goodbye to your profession? Yeah.

You know? Nobody answers this question. Nobody even has clarity around it. In fact, athletes have more clarity than anyone else. You know?

So for example, even yourself as a pediatrician, I'll ask you, okay. You know, if you are to visualize you closing your practice, how would you like your last consultation to go? You've not even thought of that. You know? How would you like your last meeting?

Most people's last meeting is after they've been fired or after they've moved on. Yeah. You know? But the energy of that would decide what you say, and you are not deciding what you say, you're saying. So what we start to do is once athletes have had a prolonged career and they themselves are starting to bring up that conversation.

You know? I'm not sure how long more I wanna go. I'm not sure. Obviously, injury is an isolated incident we leave out of this because there's no way that we can predict it. Yeah.

But if people are having a prolonged career, we start to bring it in. We start to ask them questions. Okay. Like, you know, where would you like your last game to be? Right.

You know, is this your last season? You know, is there anything that could convince you to move forward, or is there anything that could derail that from there? You know, how would you like this to end? Who would you like to be there? Why would you like it to end?

So we start to bring this, and we create that situation. We really and truly create it. And this is what people don't understand about sport, is that everything is created. You know? Even when your favorite player scores a 3 pointer with 10 seconds to go Yeah.

Right, they have so much of conviction in their ability to execute that that very often, they play the game into that situation because that's when you get noticed. You know? I've seen this happen a gazillion times in every single sport. Sure. So I tell my player, and I said I said, if you've played so many matches into positions where you've won it for the team to the point where you have become a legend in your own sport.

Why are you so scared about engineering your finale? Mhmm. You know? Yeah. You've you know?

I so It's a it's an amazing mental exercise. Right? Yeah. It's an amazing and and my job is to really just frame these different questions, ask them questions because they're scared to think about it themselves. And quite honestly, this is not a conversation they can have with too many people.

You know? Right. The coaching teams, generally, you know, it's the medical staff. It's people like you and me in the team who they have these conversations with. Why?

Because we are impacting the way they play, but we're not impacting selection. So we're not sitting we're not choosing whether they play every day, and we can't have this conversation at home because the people at home don't know them, the locker room version of them as they say. They don't know how much this feels and they don't know the emotions that's going. But medical staff, the the physios, the trainers, the psychologists, the doctors, we have such a innate understanding of that player that we are the ones that start to frame these conversations in beautiful ways that get them to think about things a little bit differently. Yeah.

But everything, we articulate it. Right. Right. Okay. I'm gonna ask you a couple of, relatively rapid fire questions.

Sure. Who is an athlete that you're not working with, but someone who absolutely exemplifies the the model of world class tactical and and mental preparedness? For me, that'll have to be Lewis Hamilton, the f one driver. Interesting. Okay.

And and maybe who's, an an athlete who does that, but perhaps no one really knows about because they haven't quite made that quantum leap, but they're they're coming soon. And actually, who's who's coming, they haven't that's that's a tough one. You know? We have multiple in cricket, and so many variables def define that there. Or maybe in cricket, is there someone whose momentum, because of their mental and tactical strengths, it's just a matter of time.

I think there's a there's a young cricketer, left handed bowler called Natarajan. You know, he plays in the IPL. Yeah. You know, he's debuted in India. He's done significantly well.

You know, I worked with him for about a year and a half when we had Kings 11 Punjab, and he had some he had just something about him. He had this, you know, the stillness, this quietness, and it just needed it just needs something to push it over the edge to help him just break through a little bit of confidence. You know, I think culturally, in every environment, he's the quietest person in the room. And if a coach could just figure out a way to get him to express that fire in in a more safer team dynamic, I think you'd see a completely different person, come out there. So he's very young, very, very beautiful left armola, and I think I think he's he would be one person I'd be interested in keep looking at.

Tell me, what's a, a professional team in any sport, but whose whose culture and whose, environment, you admire the most? I used to be the 2 teams, and one is the old black rugby team. You know, but the Old Blacks from when they were really, really exemplary. But current my current team is the South African rugby team, the Springboks. You know?

The the attitude, their mindset, the professionalism, you know, Rasi Erasmus as a coach is just so dynamic, and he brings so many different elements to their coaching. And everyone, it's a very, very humble environment. And, statistically, they're the only team in any sport in the world to have won 50% of the World Cups they've played in. And that is absolutely exemplary. 50 percent of the World Cups they've played in, they've been merged as as champions.

That's that's absolutely incredible. Yeah. And and, you know, the underlying philosophy in that team is, you know, we're not gonna do our best. We're gonna do what is needed. You know?

So everyone comes together, and if this is needed, we will die to get that achieved. And, you know, it's just such a beautiful, culture. And and what it exemplifies is that, you know, literally anything anything is possible. Yeah. You know, because no one would have expected this from this team.

Sure. Sure. No. Unlocking so much potential. I love that that idea of, you know, what's necessary and what's needed for success.

Here's one last one. This is not necessarily a quick question, but it's it's one that I'm sure comes up more and more. But what prevents AI from replacing you? What prevents AI from replacing me? You know, AI will mine data, interestingly.

Do you know I there was something really interesting that happened a few days, and I'll give you an example of it, is that, you know, I fly a lot. I take about a 100 to a 125 flights a year, and I tend to stay very loyal to certain airlines. And very recently, I crossed into the maximum upper threshold of this particular airline. Right? And I get an email in there, and the highlight of all of the perks that it gave me, the highlight of the perks was what?

It gave me a number that if I dialed at any time, a human being will answer it. You know. Right. And that The ultimate reward. Was beautiful.

The ultimate reward was human being answer. And, you know, it highlighted a few things. It highlighted to me that, you know, so much technology moving in there, but the differentiator will always be the emotion, will always be the connection that you're bringing to someone else to the point where they couldn't find anything else at the pinnacle of their most prestigious reward program than allowing you to connect to the person. You know? So for me, you know, AI will be able to mine data.

You know? But AI will not be able to frame the way the the conversation in a way that takes into account all of the emotions and all of the feelings that you are going through and every member of your family is going through Right. AI will not be able to take into consideration the gravity of that moment with respect to you and your life. Right. You know, it will be at some proximity to the advice it gives, and the proximity to your advice will always be our greatest advantage in professions like yours and mine.

Yeah. No. So well said. I'll get you out of here on this. I wonder if the realization of potential and executing particularly on that potential is is always sort of a negotiation of different conflicts.

Right? Individual versus team, introvert versus extrovert, drive versus being content, pursuit versus reflection, looking for affirmation outwardly versus inwardly. So so what's your message to those who are are entering this space and and who are perhaps seeking peace with all those different negotiations, especially, you know, like the example of the 13 year old girl who's climbing Kilimanjaro, especially to cultivate their own trust. My my advice to everyone is and it's such a beautiful question. You know, I I break life down into 4 quadrants.

You know, there's physical, which is your physical health. There's mental, which is your mental health and your mental toughness. There is your environment, which is the people you're surrounded with and where you're working and where you're studying. And there's relationships, which are the people you're engaging with at home and at work. I said these are the 4 quadrants we spend 99% of our time in.

We're doing one of these things. You know? And you can categorize everything into one of these 4. Now here's the thing, is that growth is an innate desire of every single one of us. We want to become better.

The thing is that growth, by the nature of it, makes us step into the unknown, And the emotion of the unknown is fear. It's anxiety. It's doubt. It's insecurity. Yeah.

So your inner desire is wishing to move you into a space where these emotions that you also feel are deeply present, so you cannot get away from that. So what I tell everyone, my greatest piece of advice is, I said there are 4 quadrants, body, mind, relationships, and environment. Spend some time and reflect and understand which is your strongest, most undeniable core, your center, where you plug your flag in. For my athletes, sometimes it's their body. They trust their body.

They feel most comfortable when they're moving, doing all of that. Spend 4 years living as a monk. For them, it's their mind. Meditation is their core practice. They the space, the stillness of their mind.

Some of us just have such a healthy relationship with someone, a loved one or the kids, that when you come home, nothing else in the world matters, you're there. K? And sometimes for some of us, it's our environment. We may like the mountains or we may like the beach or when you get home to a specific couch, it just centers you. Yeah.

Identify that place. The first thing you need to do is identify that place because that is gonna be the secret to everything. The reason why is that every time you step out of your comfort zone to grow, there will be fear. If you don't know where you go back to center yourself, you'll never step out again. Yeah.

You will need to step out every single day, but you can only step out if you have conviction in where your grounding center is. Right? Yeah. And if you have any disposable time, resources, or energy, use it in stabilizing that center because that becomes the foundation through which you can springboard anywhere and you can take on anything. No matter who I've worked with.

Right? They knew exactly who was the most important person or what was the most important thing or the most important practice, and you could push them as hard as you want to, or you could break them, and the next day, they would return absolutely normal because they went back to the core and they rejuvenated. Yeah. If you don't know where your core is, you're gonna struggle. If you know where your core is, nothing on life will frighten you.

Well, helping athletes and and corporations and individuals and anyone for that matter, helping them find that grounding center, is critical and helping them negotiate through all these different contrasts and and find peace with their performances, something that that clearly people are benefiting from and and learning more about you is, you know, certainly, you know, part and parcel with that. It it's been such a a treat to to talk to you. I I've actually enjoyed this so much, and I hope we can visit with you once more down the line. Oh, absolutely. It was it was a beautiful conversation.

Thank you so much, Ovett. And I I would look forward to obviously staying in touch, visiting you in Berkeley, and and doing many more of this. I'm I'm truly grateful. Thank you. Thanks so much, Shayamal.

And please check out his work online with the link in the show notes. Please don't forget to take a moment and share a rating or write a review wherever you're listening or watching. It's been quite a year, and I'm looking forward to so much more in 2025 on Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing. Till next time. I'm Abhay Dandekar.