hey we're all here hi I am Joanna Grover um I am the co-author of the choice point with Dr Jonathan rhods and the co-founder of imagery coaching we're delighted to have this conversation today around imagery versus visualization um before we begin and I introduce our amazing uh guests I'd like to invite you all to um participate by putting your questions in the chat we're going to try and get to all of them those that we don't get to we'll get to after the webinar or those of you who are listening after the fact you can email us we love curiosity right John uh we love to have fun and we love to be curious and this is a space that the imagination really loves as well so um today we are honored to be joined by um Dr Colleen hacker Dr hacker has her PhD in sports and exercise psychology she is a bit of a Legend um John and I are really uh honored that she's here with with us today when you talk about mental skills or sports psychology she's top of the Heap ESPN named Dr hacker is one of 30 women in the country who have changed the way sports are played that's a pretty big statement I'm going to read a little bit of your bio I can't read all of it because it will take up this whole 30 minutes that we have together but Dr hacker has served as a member of the United States coaching staff for over six Olympic games during her 12year tenure with us soccer the national team won the first gold medal followed by a dramatic overtime Victory with China in the historic 1999 World Cup most recently Dr hacker hacker has served as the mental skills coach for the US national lacrosse team that won the World Championship in 2022 today Dr hacker has served on the coaching staff of more than 10 World Championship events in soccer and ice hockey and Lacrosse she's been inducted into seven hall of fames both as an athlete and as a coach she's in demand as a speaker and as a consultant for Fortune 500 Fortune 100 she's published um two books one is a catch uh what is it catch them being good I love that title and the second one is one that I am currently reading achieving Excellence the mastering the mindset for Peak Performance in sport and in life so welcome Dr hacker we are delighted to have you here with us today well I'm delighted to be here Joe and every time there's an introduction I'm involved I in in whatever capacity I'm reminded that if anybody's having a bad day just get formally introduced and you instantly feel like your tires have been pumped up in some way so that was gracious and and generous so thank you it's wonderful to be here thank you we're going to jump right in and I'm going to pass it over to another doctor in the house Dr Jonathan Rose yeah I think I think I think we're curious for a few things first off when do you sleep I think is the biggest question but um I think we want to start with with kind of Where it All Began in terms of your imagination as a child did you think you were G to be here now as a kind of a worldclass sport psychologist do you think that was part of your script or are you off script absolutely not and and I think that shocks people I I'm I'm in higher education now and I listen to so many of my students who will publicly and personally own I want to work with professional athletes I want to work with Olympians I I don't think I ever thought that until I was in my third or fourth decade in life all that all that I ever wanted to do John is I understood very early on quite honestly in my own competitive career that The Head and the Heart were the separators you know I wasn't the biggest the tallest the fastest or the strongest but why was I achieving at levels Beyond people that had more physical raw gifts than me and I understood that it was in the psychological Dimension uh let's say it this way I'm of a certain age where majoring in sports psychology wasn't even available to me it wasn't until I went to graduate school so I think that's important to know no this I'm living beyond my wildest dreams even though I'm doing it now I guess it's still not my dream my fundamental dream is to help people maximize the capabilities they have to stay there longer and hopefully to en to enjoy that process and I don't care I I've done my own soccer camp football uh I've done my own soccer camp for 29 years you don't do anything for 29 years if you don't love it and that's for children so so I'm not all into this oh I work with Olympic athletes oh I work with professional athletes I I work with human beings who want to maximize their potential and I'll take that in every any environment at any level in any domain that it comes to me and I feel like it's an honor and a blessing to serve them in that Journey amazing and as a child were you an imaginative child I think I've been interviewed as you can imagine many I don't think I've ever been asked that and if you're an interviewer and you ask a question that's never been asked before gold medal to you it really gives me pause Joe it gives me pause and then you have to be careful of revisionist History right looking back and imbu yourself with qualities that you didn't have but you know I I'm just gonna own it right um getting older beats the old alternative and I'll let that sink in for folks getting older isn't fun but it beats the alternative you know we didn't have cell phones we didn't have there there was not the internet kind of thing and so your question yes I was an imaginative child and your and your question look at what it does to my face I was imaginative in many domains on a daily basis you you were imagin ative in the games you made up you were imaginative in the roles that you played you were imaginative in the Championships rather than consuming the game-winning shot you couldn't consume all the gamewin you know what I'm saying I'm scrolling on my phone now I don't know if people can see me or not you couldn't do it literally so you imagine being on the free throw line you imagined nailing the final dive I I started out in competitive um swimming and Diving so you imagine nailing the competitive all that I'm saying is yes I've never been asked it before and your question makes manifest for me just how ubiquitous imagination was in and I don't mean just in childhood I mean I mean throughout my formative years you know from from cognition to to well into my 20s and honestly I'd say to this day but it was it was fundamental yeah I love that thank you for going there with us we like to ask questions that sort of broaden the mind because the imagination does Like Oxygen and air and one of the things I really appreciated about you is hearing that before the World Cup you had everyone put down like the stats and the planning and the strategy and they simply went and did team building and they had fun I I love that and I don't know if I I'll tell the story in the shortest way as you can imagine but here is the coaching staff the United States national team number one ranked in the in uh team in the world playing for the grandest prize like Americans like gold medals a little bit more unless you're a footballer you don't for but in football World Cup is it it's just it it's not the gold medal they're fun they're fun but it's the World Cup so here we are playing on the world's largest stage in the world's largest sport with the highest viewership for any female sport on planet Earth so you can imagine the coaching meeting the day before the last night do you know what I'm saying so two before we played and some on the staff our coach Tony deico was wonderful about bringing in experts and then listening he made the final decisions but just briefly one coach is saying we need to add some set pieces because we've been so heavily scouted another coach said let's look at some more film let's look at China and break down CH really logical common themes each person made their point and I said I don't want this team to think they're missing anything I don't want this team to feel as though there's another piece that if they just get that other piece then they'll be the best they already are there they already have it so let's focus on us and lift and we laughed our faces off for the last night now it was purposeful it wasn't just fun for Fun's sake right if you know anything about experiential learning and adventure education I I would like to say I I carefully orchestrated what we did so there's always a message and then a meta message but we laughed our faces off we marched and and you know We're In Cadence with each other we waved Flags we drank apple juice and pretended it was champagne we just loved on each other and we loved on the opportunity that we were going to get tomorrow and when I look at when I look at some athletes competing in their Pinnacle Sport you just see the seriousness the heaviness the tightness like this is important and I will be great today and I'm like nah it's not your superpower it's not your superpower so I'm surprised that you knew that and I love that story about the 99ers we chose team building I love that because it's interesting because quite often especially before big competitions people go very internal like thinking about their game thinking about the following day rather than what you did was connect people get out their heads to connect to share stories to laugh together I think that there's something really valuable in that human connection piece always as psychologists or as Leaders or whatever we do to connect each other um especially before big pressure events uh is really essential yeah and and in some ways I'd say it's the equivalent of thinking a pass ahead you know we're taught to do that uh better performers think a pass ahead best performers think two passes ahead that that our head coach selected that pitch for lack of a better way to say it he made the final choice I made the pitch he made the choice but he selected that knowing that there would be pressure expectations tightness and said we've got an antidote for that we've got an antidote for that it it is about relationships you don't go to work Sports you go to play sports and I think we often forget that I think we often forget that and especially I might add at the highest levels you play tennis you play soccer right think about our own language so do our actions reflect that knowledge do our actions reflect those values and I know you're really into words right when you words matter you say that in your book and these two words visualization versus imagery can you talk about that difference Joe and Dr rhods here's the first thing I want you to hear from me can I clone you can I clone you you both will know I'm telling the truth and all that I'm gonna do is throw myself on the belief of your audience to say before we met way before I this isn't about the podcast or whatever I wrote to you and said thank you thank you thank you you for talking about imagery rather than visualization I feel like if I hear the word visualization one more time someone's gonna get hurt and I don't know if it's G to be them or me but words do matter visualization is ubiquitous it's old it's so narrow it is there's little data that visualization improves performance and 's a huge body of literature that imagery improves performance so it's like can we get out of the 50s and 60s I've been living in that old language for way too many decades it ain't the 50s and 60s anymore Sports writers coaches and athletes it's the modern era and imagery language does matter imagery is correct and the and the the more sophis phisticated our tools become you both know about fmri that didn't exist early in my career so we talked about psychon neuromuscular hypothesis we talked about um theories now we can point now we can point and say this is your brain this is your brain on life this is your brain on imagery look at the similarities so a as we've got this gives me goose when I when I talk about me too I have Goosebumps we it's just a fact so imagery is poly sensory it needs to be contextually mapped as close to the actual event in vividness in controllability and an emotional affect and an emotional correlat which is the third piece that even people that know to say imagery now forget the emot piece of it so as long as you're dealing with those big three now we see the literature coming to your support providing foundation and I would argue a springboard to more to more likely achieve your potential love it I'm with you I'm with you I think um again I think you know there's that whole whole need to be multisensory or poly sensory um do do you feel that that there are situations where you know you need to have all senses utilized or situations where you feel that as a shortcut in your experience of you you know using imagery is it three four centes does it matter yeah I feel like if I was a medical doctor and you asked me um do you think people should take vitamins and minerals I know the answer is no because you're just supposed to eat it and then you say do you take vitamins and minerals and and they all say yes right it's one of those things I know I'm supposed to say Yes John right they all matter and the but here here's what I would say a couple of things and I'll I'll start with two and then if you if you want to follow up number one I think the literature shows that the more senses are involved the more multisense poly sensory your the more efficacious imagery is so using two senses is better than one three is better than two you you understand what I'm saying so I think the literature is clear on that is multisensory is preferred and and advantageous yeah yeah abely now let's get real I think there's a big three I think there's a big three and if you can bring in four and five I I'm your mama I'm like here with you like you go boy you go girl but I I think you it for my clients whatever your discipline you can go to three and you should so I don't know if that helps at all John know are if you want me to talk about them but those are the I think I think it would be helpful for you to talk a little bit about like because some people they struggle with it initially right like some athletes tend to take to it right away but you'll have some people feel like I don't know is this is this you know really going to help me so how do you handle that yeah well two different questions right court of law that's a that's a compound question but you know how do I handle resistant and reluctant athletes first of all I do on a daily basis I I would argue that about 30% of and there's no data to support this I'm just anecdotal in my career so take it however you want about 30% of elite athletes that I initially work with they're like yeah it's not for me like I'm already w a gold medal like I'm already doing great like yeah it's not it's not their jam and so my entry point I'm a bit of a quah holic but but I love the John F Kennedy quote that says the time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining and so what I try to to to tell them about is let's be proactive let's be preemptive Because by the time you realize that you should have invested in imagery it's too late it's too late I don't want I don't want you to say I would have should have Coulda I want you to say I did so the first thing is that about 30% are what I call the resistant and The Reluctant and then there's a middle third that's like I don't know she's interesting this sounds kind of cool I'll give it a twirl and then the other 30% is like more more more more like they recognize it as their superpower and so when they see expertise and when they get the science they're just going I told you so this is this has been the differentiator so yeah I'm undaunted by people who are non-believers I'm undaunted I look at it as an opportunity um to teach and to motivate I I think when we I think when we know better we do better I just feel that when we know better we do better so I try a lot of different entry points to help them know better because these are not my opinions these are not my opinions there's data evidence research science so you can believe it or not but it's not going to change the fact of it right it's not going to change the fact of it um so so that's that's the answer to the second part of your question the answer to the first part of your question for me the big three are kinesthesis uh Visual and auditory I I don't think there's any sport that if you really are immersed in your craft that those three are fundamental yeah for me it's like look if you can't do three let me help you but but three is my opening bid does does that help I'll see your three yes and I way to Pi see way to pick it up John right like if you can bring in gust great right if you can bring in old factory great you know bonus points for you but let's focus on the main thing not not the dessert I guess is what I I think it's interesting how you say that because often um often visual or kinesthetic is the gateway to other senses so you know if you were to think about balance or you know think about balancing on a bike you're going to probably see the bike and then you're going to probably think about the pro perception and then you're going to you know you start to to set the scene so often having two senses you know they trigger other senses as time goes on as well um where visual often is a gateway you know people often see that link as well um but it's actually interesting to say that because um around you know looking at working with individuals people who generally say you know 30 the 30% who are a nightmare to work with often who don't buy in um it's quite nice being a researcher because I I can often say that's my 30% in my control group and I've got my other group now who I'm going to work with um and seeing is believing for for a lot of athletes seeing is believing so they'll see the the impact and the and the ones who have imagery Based training will be talking about it and and you can you know you can see the Improvement in performance and often the 30% or so who are in the control will say can I have that a way to buy one for this table please one for this table you know it's interesting I'm I'm gonna model what you just said you me hearing you tell that story connected memory for me and memory is a powerful form of imagery like I use the creation and Recreation of past events as as imagery training with athletes anyway just a a quick little fun fact my very first formal meeting with the United States um Women's National Team think of all the mental skills you could pick think of all the things I might have chosen to do and I was in residency so I don't I do think the model that we used is noteworthy in other words I didn't just fly in and do a talk and you know I don't even know what that is like I moved to Florida I lived in Florida I was 247 with that team uh prior to the Olympic Games but now it's my first meeting so it's like oh boy grown-up moment what topic did I choose imagery imagery fact and here's the the second piece to that which which your sentence engendered like I want a piece of that I said to Tony Tony Chico again the head coach I said I don't want it to be mandatory you make people do this stuff and all of a sudden there's push back there's agen there's lack of agency they feel like they're being controlled so a lot of mental skills coaches require everybody there or what I'm like make it voluntary so this is back in the day where we only had 16 people it's just mindblowing to me in the first Olympic Games the ioc only allowed 16 players on the roster if you know anything about the physical demands in soccer they really uh should have had a chat with sports scientists but we had 16 on the roster and I said I'm going to do the first session uh this evening after you get your treatments and so on and so forth uh it's voluntary come if you want don't come if you don't I'm not taking names there's no judgment here 12 of the 16 came 12 of the 16 chose to come and 10 of the 12 were starters 10 of the 12 were starters and you can imagine me taking note I I come back after that meeting I'm like Tony's like oh that was a good group that was a good number I'm like it's not the number look at who came so now the non-starters are watching the starters saying if you have something that can help me I want to hear it yeah in essence the the non-starters were going I don't know if you know this but like I'm good I'm on the national team I don't know if you know this but we're the number one team in the world I don't know if you know this but I want a bazillion Division One National like they were good they were good they were good and the starters were hungry do you see the difference the starters were hungry so I think that meta message without me opening my mouth or being interesting or competent or capable I think that message also resonated absolutely um we're gonna shift to some questions from the audience uh for the last five minutes one and this is a great one from Carol how do you turn negative imagery example failed competition into a positive one with the AF yeah I mean it's a huge question I have answers for it we have to do it all the time I will I will just preface what I'm about to say is if anybody gives you a simple or short answer to a complex human problem run away from that person because because that's the tip off that they don't know what they're talking about I'm just I'm just being blunt so it's more nuanced it's more complex but you cannot run away from failure loss severe disappointment so we want to take so if it's imagery we want to take that moment failure is not final failure needs to be used as fertilizer to fertilize future competition so I want to take that failure year and I always put it in quotes I want to use it as as fertilizer and then again my phrases is like I'm sort of a phraseology but I'll say let's extract the relevant lesson the whole competition wasn't bad where where are these mental toughness moments did you recognize it as a mental toughness moment did you manage there most competitions sort of uh teeter totter on on these critical moments these critical decisions these critical um demands for best performance so let's extract the relevant lesson let's learn practice incorporate refine so now we don't leave it to chance we bring it under control that's the simplest answer but notice I had a lot of commas in there in the verbs that we need to do it's it's a stepping stone but there's people like forget about it forget about it I'm like have you like you know for instance ever worked in sport nobody forgets about they remember it they remember it I can tell you the two silver medals we won I can tell you all about the two silver medals we won I haven't forgotten them but I've used them but I've used them right I extracted the relevant lesson from that silver medal and we're going to take control to change the color of that metal four years from now and and we've done that we've done that yeah um okay well Carol was really happy with that answer um I feel like we can't dive into the next one the next one is about injury which is a great question and we're goingon to answer that um because I think that this is you know having come back from an injury myself oh you want to answer okay all right let's go I guess I'm gonna say quickly because I love that somebody asked that when I'm working with Elite athletes because we have a medical team and I'm part of the medical team when someone has sustained an injury when they're out of practice or competition for a period of time it might be a season might be two weeks what I want the listeners to say the first thing I do with them is imagery be be because I'll just say it simply what the data shows is they'll lose less and they'll come back faster so show me an injured athlete if I'm working with them then we work imagery into that rehabilitation amazing you're amazing I love your energy you have like uh I feel like going out for a run right now um but um really it's been oh we have an Olympian who just posted um Dan Walsh who's incredible rower like a legend in the sport of rowing right rowing is a sport where you have to get through the pain Dan's gonna be he's gonna be joining us for a conversation on how to push past that point of pain or discomfort so stay tuned next time I want to thank you so much Dr hacker um and if you haven't read her book it's really amazing um there's so much good information in here and um and we're gonna be a team we're going to stay in touch and you know sort of have imagery be the word and not visualization that's our that's our mission should we move forward I have valued I have valued what I hope is two long-term friends and colleagues and I look forward to our next opportunity absolutely real quickly and I'll just mention this um somebody who's involved with the Olympic Foundation said could you help us with the Olympic Blues so we'll we'll pick up next time what do you do after you reach your goal right how do we use imagery to help these athletes so I think that's a valid anyway the conversation's going to continue you're amazing we're so happy to have you with us so thank you so much and for those of you who um want to get in touch with with us it's uh imagery coaching.com we have classes so you can use imagery effectively John and the team at the um studying functional imagery training have really dived into what works how do we use it efficiently effectively whether you're an athlete a non-athlete there's something in it for everyone so thank you so much for joining us