NBA Psychologist: The Secret to Thriving Under Pressure | Dr. Wayne Chappelle

In order to become extraordinary, it's not just being extraordinary in ordinary conditions. You have to be extraordinary in extraordinarily difficult conditions. So what gets you there? And it's these traits that define people that allow them to, in my opinion, thrive under these very difficult conditions. Hey, great to have you back for another episode of the Craig Rochelle Leadership Podcast, where our whole team, you can't see them, they're behind the scenes, but our mission is to help you become a leader that people love to follow. Today, I'm going to get ridiculously open. I have with me both the co-author of my new book, Heal Your Hurting Mind, Dr. Wayne Chappelle, but not only is he the co-author of the book, but he's also the person who counseled me through a difficult time in my life. He's worked with top government military officials. He works with Olympic athletes. He is one of the brains behind the Oklahoma City Thunder. He works with top pastors, and he works with top business leaders around. He has a brilliant mind, and you're going to see why today I'm welcoming Dr. Wayne Chappelle. Dr. Chappelle, welcome to the Greg Rochelle Leadership Podcast. Thank you. So just so our community will know and they can get to know you, I want them to get to know you. I affectionately nicknamed you Dr. C. Is it sticking? Yes, it is sticking. Good. So this is Dr. C. Glad to have you on. And you are not only the person I called to help me kind of as a, some would say, an executive coach, a counselor, a psychologist, but you are a fascinating person, hard to introduce. I want to tell our community a little bit about you, and you can fill in the blanks. Correct me when I'm wrong. Okay, will do. So you have helped top government military officials, both personally, professionally, and have been the strategic mind behind a lot of important stuff nationally. That's exactly right. Yes. You work with top Olympic athletes. Yes. You are one of the geniuses, and I say one of them because the Oklahoma City Thunder has a team full of brilliant minds. But you have helped put together what may be one of the greatest basketball teams in history. That's been an honor and a privilege to be a part of it, for sure. Yeah, so you actually help select players based on mental resilience, work with the team and such. Yes. Work with elite athletes, and you work with top performers, both in ministry and professionally in business as well. Yep. Amongst many other things. So we got to know each other, I think, 2019. Our mutual friend with the Thunder, Dr. Strack, recommended you to help me when I hit a point where I needed outside help. And since then, we've been doing a lot together. We actually wrote a book together. I'll hold it up for those who are watching, called Heal Your Hurting Mind, Biblical Hope for Anxiety, Depression, Burnout, and the Emotions No One Talks About with Craig Rochelle. And this is your first book, right? It is my first book. Dr. Wayne Chappelle. I want to go back to the military training. And you work with leaders as a leader. Before you even got to that, when's the first time? you saw yourself as a leader? That's a great question. I think I first started to see myself as a leader when I joined the military. It was about a year afterwards. And the leader that was overseeing the clinic that I was a part of and the organization ended up being removed. And they thrust me into this position. And before I knew. How old were you then? I was probably 30. Okay. Yeah. So, you were 30 before you saw yourself as a leader. Yes. Interesting. Okay. Yes, That's right. And what happened in that leadership role? How did you start to see yourself differently? Well, it's interesting in the sense that I really started to realize that what I was doing individually with clients and helping them kind of navigate and become extraordinary under these very unique conditions, what I had to now do is start thinking about things in a very different way in that I was having to lead and influence people at a much broader level. and lead people into what I have to say organizational missions and battlefield missions that were very harrowing. And I had to be really effective in terms of not only taking care of myself, but making sure that I was dialed in to each of the individuals that I was leading. And it was a fairly large organization. So we have a lot of people that would be newer in leadership, or they might be in a middle management position, and they want to try to lead the people that are above them. And that's not always easy, you would have been a young man leading, at some point, consulting with and leading top military government officials. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So that had to be a little bit intimidating. Oh, it was very intimidating. So tell me about what went through your mind to where you could give a two-star general advice or correction. So before I even got there, it was really the influence I was having in terms of being able to look at men and women who are in extraordinary positions, especially in terms of the things that they do, the special operational sort of missions and other sort of things that were really very dynamic. And when we got really good at helping identify, to select, to shape, and influence them to do these extraordinary things, it was General Seve Wilson, who was a four-star, he was a vice commander of the Air Force, who looked at me and says, whoa, you're doing really, really good at this in terms of helping these individuals. I'm also seeing now the applications for generals. So can you also do this for generals that anybody who starts to pin on a one-star, can you run them through this assessment program and start helping them? And I thought, well, okay, let's give it a shot. It was relatively new for me, but that's how I got involved. And it was first starting with really doing the job that we did with the special operations guys. So everybody's important. Every single person is important. Some people have more influence and more responsibility. And you love everyone equally, but you tend to work with, I mean, top 1% or even better in different fields. What would you say are some of the distinguishing characteristics between the leaders that get the most done and have the biggest impact and other great leaders? I'm talking about not just great, but you work with those that are considered extraordinary. Yes. What's the difference between – some of the differences you see between great and extraordinary? Oh, that's a fantastic question. We can spend all day just on that alone. But let me boil it down into a few different characteristics. One is the level of emotional resilience that they have. going into very extraordinarily difficult conditions. In order to be extraordinary, you, well, let me, let me back this up. Let me just rephrase this. Back it up. Back the truck up, Dr. C. I'm going to back this up, man. Back it up, Dr. C. All right. Beep, beep. Okay, let's go. Let me just tell you that if you are extraordinary, you can't just be extraordinary in ordinary conditions. You have to be extraordinary underneath ordinary or extraordinarily difficult conditions. Say it again. Let's make sure it's clear. Yeah, so in order to become extraordinary, it's not just being extraordinary in ordinary conditions. You have to be extraordinary in extraordinarily difficult conditions. So what gets you there? And it's these traits that define people that allow them to, in my opinion, thrive under these very difficult conditions. One is the emotional stamina, the ability to not only regulate their emotions under these very difficult conditions, but also to help other people regulate their emotions. So there's an emotional IQ component to it. The other piece is a social IQ component. And that is not only the ability to adapt to different social settings and situations, but also to help and work with a variety of different personalities and different social teams. Your ability to jump from one group to another and to integrate and to be effective in terms of how you communicate and how cohesive you are. The next trait that I've seen is drive. extraordinary people will put themselves in positions in which they hold themselves to extraordinary standards. And so, there's this desire to not just simply be ordinary, but to put themselves and hold themselves accountable to conditions and behaviors and achievements that most people would not hold themselves accountable to. And then this relentless movement, this desire to constantly be energized and moving towards or with others, as well as having a sense of purpose and a mission that they wake up to every day. Excellent. I want to go back to a couple things you said. And as I'm interviewing you, a lot of what I want to do is I kind of want to put it under an umbrella of mental health in the workplace because I want to talk to leaders. And leaders, when you lead big things, you deal with extraordinary challenges. And mental health issues can be real. I want to go back. You said emotional resilience and you said emotional stamina. Are those two different things? Yeah, I would have to say they're related to each other. sort of like a Venn diagram, where emotional resilience is the ability to cope in extraordinarily difficult conditions. Emotional stamina is consistency over time. So resilience says I can walk into a very difficult condition and actually stay composed and effective and not let my emotions get the best of me, especially when the conditions are very stressful. The emotional stamina is, can you consistently do that over time? As you're saying that, I'm sitting here thinking to myself, I talk all the time about leadership, and this is probably one of the most under-discussed and simultaneously important subjects that I'm realizing we need to talk about it more. Let's talk about it briefly. Is it innate, natural? Is it self-taught? Can it be learned? Can you get better at emotional intelligence, resilient stamina? Yes, all of the above. Yes? Yes. What's the process? So first of all, it's recognized that our emotions can be influenced by genetically how we're designed. Emotions, in fact, are regulated by neurochemicals in the brain. And sometimes physiologically, we just might have struggles in that particular area. And so in some cases, you might be a little bit more prone to having emotional difficulties than others. There's no shame in that. is just recognizing, one, that there is a genetic and physiological component. So I'll give you an example. I'm healthy. I'm fit. For a guy who's closing in on 55, you know, I have a fairly good level of exercise, and I would have to say diet. That's probably in the upper 10% of the general population, but I still have to take high cholesterol and high blood pressure medication simply because of the way I'm genetically designed. Emotional stamina and resilience do have some genetic components to it. However, you also can strengthen that area by changing your habits, changing the way you think about things, regulating the thoughts that you have in response to the stressors that you are exposed to on a daily basis, as well as the behavioral health habits that you engage in routinely. So emotional stamina and emotional resilience, although can be affected physiologically by how we're designed, it can be built and forged. And it can often be built and forged under the most difficult conditions that we're faced with. So I'm reading a lot into what you're saying, but it sounds like you're saying, and I'm going to kind of take a jump, but to be really effective as a leader, yes, you have to have an emotional stamina, resilience, and that starts with an emotional awareness. You've got to have an extraordinary drive. You have to hold yourself to high standards. You're going to have to surround yourself with the right people. And then you have that relentless movement. You cannot do that and be just smart. You can't do that and be just effective at vision casting. You kind of have to have a holistic life system of development. Would you agree? Absolutely. Absolutely. Because you're talking about diet. You're talking about, talk to me about that. If someone wants to be in the top 1% of extraordinary leaders, give me some thoughts about whole life development that then impacts leadership impact. Okay, so when you're talking about whole life development, let me make sure that I'm tracking on this one. When I think about whole life development, I'm thinking about you have to be intentional in terms of how you're taking care of your body. You have to be intentional in terms of how you're taking care of your mind. And then spiritually, you have to be intentional about how you're exercising spiritual disciplines every day. Now, one of the things about mental health I think is very important for leaders to understand is they oftentimes assume that you either have it or you don't. Or they become aware of it when they start to struggle. However, I want to change that particular perspective, and that is mental health is on a continuum. And let me define it into three particular areas. Mental health can be where you're struggling. And what I mean by that is you're struggling with some kind of emotional, social, behavioral issue that is affecting your ability to do the things that you need to do at work as well as at home. And that's what we would call struggling. And that's oftentimes when leaders are like, whoa, maybe I need to do something differently here. A holistic lifestyle doesn't mean you wait until you're having a problem. A holistic lifestyle means you're developing habits every day that allow you to withstand the challenges and stresses you're going to face. surviving on that mental health continuum is, hey, I'm good. I'm in a great place. I'm very comfortable. And I do relatively well. I don't have any anxiety or depression on an ordinary day. Right? And a lot of times leaders think that they're thriving, but in reality, they're just surviving. And thriving though is your ability to withstand personal and professional challenges and stressors and very difficult conditions, and yet excel where most would fail or begin to crump And you don just magically thrive Thriving is based upon a person holistic lifestyle approach in terms of how they take care of their mind body and soul every day And so when you think about mental health now, you think about it in terms of, hey, what does the upper 1% look like? The upper 1% looks like individuals who have forged habits in the way that they think about things, in the way they do things, the relationships that they build personally and professionally that allow them to thrive under extraordinarily difficult conditions. So we could talk for hours about each of these subjects. I apologize in advance, but let's go a level deeper on that. What are some of the habits? If you look at the top players, are there in different categories, are there certain habits that you generally see? Yes. Give me something. So we'll start with, say, the physical side of the house. The mind and the body are very connected. And the strength of your mind is a direct correlation to behavioral health habits that you engage in. And what I see some of the most phenomenal leaders do is they're very intentional about the type of exercise they get, how much time they spend exercising. And they're very intentional about building it into their daily habits. and they look at and they go, okay, this is a time that I'm set aside and prioritizing to make sure that I am engaged in some sort of anaerobic or aerobic exercise that is designed for what my body needs. That's number one. They're very intentional about their sleep, making sure that they're getting adequate rest each night or as much as they possibly can. And they're very effective with that. They're also looking at their diet and going, okay, I'm going to go in and I'm going to get lab draws and I'm going to look to see what my body needs. And I'm going to adjust my diet to what my body specifically needs. What's interesting about that is those specific behavioral health habits are a direct correlation to how the mind thinks and processes information and how the mind navigates moods, as well as how the mind navigates specific challenges that one is faced with. Speed and accuracy of information processing are often a direct correlation to those physical behavioral health habits. It's super interesting as I'm thinking about this. Are the disciplines the cause of the effect? I'm trying to put this together. So in my life, one of the things that I've tried to do is constantly tweak for improvement. And so it's the body, how much water done in a day, what supplements, and drawing blood. Four times a year, I'm looking at levels, tweaking them, diet, how do I sleep best, and all that kind of stuff. And I did that more out of a stewardship to honor the body God gave me, but I started to recognize that's actually a tool to lead better. But I didn't early on. And then kind of mental strength of being able to renew my mind. I started to do just because I knew I needed to do it. And then the byproduct was, I think, better leading. I don't hear a lot of people, a lot of leaders even talk about this, but the best of the best seem to, is it intuitive? Do they learn it? Is it accidental? How do they become that? If someone's out there going, I hear what you're saying, but I still eat the wrong thing. or I watch TikTok at 2 in the morning. What's the difference between where someone is and the journey toward that? What's a first step or two someone should take? First step is recognition and prioritization. When you recognize that your behavioral health habits are a key component to your ability to lead, and what I mean by that is the emotional stamina and the resilience that you talked about. Man, when you have really good health habits, your emotional stamina and your emotional resilience increases. so does your situational awareness and your ability to make good decisions because you're being able to think more effectively. So the first thing is awareness. The second thing is intentionality. And then the third thing is get expert advice. It's not a one-size-fits-all for everybody. And so if you're looking at going, okay, I need to make sure that I'm intentional about my diet, well, don't buy into the first fad that you see. Go out there and actually talk to experts. have blood draws, have them look at your and analyze what your physiological needs are, and then develop your diet around that. Yes. I've worked with, I'm going to guess, I'm just going to throw a number out there, probably 40 different leaders over the last 15 years that I've talked to that said, hey, tell me about how you got in better shape or whatever. And so we started with all the things from checking your hormones, checking your blood, looking at your diet, looking at your sleep and supplements and on and on. And I'm not an expert, but I got them on a path. And of those 40, I would say they all would echo that their leadership has gotten better when they're prioritizing their health got better. 110%. Yes. Absolutely. And so then we would also take that, and that's one component. Our mental part is tied to body. Spiritually, that's going to matter. Relationally, it's going to matter. We could talk forever and ever. But looking at all those big components of your life to hit the top level of leadership impact, you're not going to be great at one or two things. You want a whole life, discipleship, development, improvement, tweaking the whole time. Yes, continuously. Continuously. All the time, all the time, all the time. That's exactly right. I'm working on something today. All the time, something different. And it's obsessive, yes. Yes. Yes. Is that okay? Yes. Yes, the one percenters that are out there. It is absolutely necessary. So let me just throw someone out there. So somebody might say, look, I am really doing a great job in my exercise and my nutrition, my sleep. I'm really solid there. That's great. You have to be intentional about that. Not just some days, but every day. Because your ability to take care of your body is a direct correlation in terms of how you respond to all the challenges. However, that's necessary. It's not sufficient. You also have to be developing really good habits in terms of how you navigate your mind, how you navigate the way you think, how you process information, how you respond to relationships and other sort of challenges. So while you develop intentional habits and you talk to experts about the body, now it's also about talking to experts about the mind and developing habits centered around being able to regulate the brain. Good. So I'm going to be transparent, get a little bit personal, only to set you up to talk about more things. So in 2019, the cumulative impact of my workload increase started to have a negative impact on me personally. It did not show on my performance, but it was impacting me personally. I decided to get help. I called you. We worked together, I'm going to say probably 18 months-ish. Is that about right? Yeah, yeah. I've made significant improvement, woke up one day and said, I think I'm getting better. Am I getting better? And you said, I think you're getting better. And then I moved on. It wasn't like a three-year process. We don't talk regularly about my situation. It was I was in a difficult place. I called you. I worked hard. You developed a team of people around me. We can talk more about that. But I got better and moved on. As a different person, I want to give you permission to talk about that. But first, what I want to do is say, in the last five years, based on your experience working with the best of the best in sports, in military, pastorally, in business, is there anything different that leaders are facing today? If so, what? In terms of? Pressure, challenges. It seems to me that there are more people struggling now than 10 years ago. Yeah. And so, I'm trying to determine, is there a reason? Is that accurate? Is there a reason? And in my reading into it, is there anything different today than five or 10 years ago that leaders are facing? You know, it's hard to describe specifically what we would say today they're facing. Is it any different than what we saw 20 years ago? The world around us is constantly changing, continuously evolving. And as a result, leaders are going to have to adapt to that. Now, one of the things I think is really important, and we may not be able to go, okay, well, this specifically is what's different today than where it was 20 years ago or even five years ago. However, I think it's what is really important for leaders to understand is things that they were doing four or five years ago to kind of keep themselves in a good place may not be working today. And part of being a really good top one percenter is to recognize that who you are today should be different than who you were a year ago, and who you are a year from now should be different than who you are today. And so, sometimes leaders are struggling because they're still implementing or trying to do things that they did a year ago that are not having the same impact or same success that they're having today. Yeah, what got you here won't get you there. That's exactly right. The imagery I use is like, and I think people do this. I know I do. You go to an elevator, you push the button to call for the elevator to come, and it turns red, and you wait. Nothing happens. You don't hear anything. And so I go back and push the button harder again. Yeah. And I go, that doesn't help anything. But I think that was an image of what I was doing in leadership is when I got a certain result for years when I pushed this button. And then I would push the button, and the results would be a little bit different. And I go, oh, so I push it harder instead of saying, maybe I need to push a different button. What I want to do in writing the book with you, Heal Your Hurting Mind, I wanted to, it's interesting, I had mixed feelings about writing a book on mental health. One is I should never write a book on mental health on my own because I'm just a pastor, but I can bring biblical insight. But I needed someone like you to bring the level of authority that a book like this needs. I wanted to do it because I see a lot of great leaders that are struggling. At the same time, I don't like to bring too much attention in a bad way to saying, if you talk about some things too much, it almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like, are you depressed? You look depressed. Are you depressed? Maybe I'm depressed. I didn't want to do that. What I want to do is give you permission, and we did this together in the book, is to talk about how you helped me. In doing so, maybe it can invite others to be vulnerable like I needed to be. Talk about what you saw in me when we met and what were some of the first stages of diagnosing a plan that would help me to get myself out of the challenging place I was in. Yeah, you know, let me start by saying that we live in a culture in which when we have problems or we have stress, we like to be able to put a diagnosis to it. And then we like to think about that diagnosis. And then all of a sudden, everything starts to be filtered through the diagnosis. So if you look and you say, oh, my gosh, you're depressed. Now, all of a sudden, and you think about it and you talk about it so much, everything in your life you begin to focus in on that says, yes, I'm depressed. And that actually makes the situation worse. We're a generation being raised this way. We exactly. That's exactly right. Dangerous at times? It's very, very dangerous. In fact, I think it's very unhelpful because in some cases, some of the- I will go and meet, I apologize for speaking over you. I'll go to a campus, meet a 16-year-old, and they will give me five different terms they've been diagnosed with, this, this, this, this, this. And I'm not an expert. I'm looking at that going, I don't think that's good. They lead with their diagnosis. Hi, I'm so-and-so, and I battle with this, this, and this. And I see that regularly. Yeah, I want to give you an example. I was just recently speaking to a prominent leader in California. And this prominent leader was standing up on stage, and he would have some anxiety, and he would struggle, and he'd sometimes lose focus of his thoughts and stutter in his speaking. And he talked about how he's more of an introvert than an extrovert, but getting out and doing public speaking was very difficult. So he went to talk to a therapist and the therapist says, oh, you're on the autistic spectrum and you have ADHD because the symptoms that this psychologist was looking at was going, oh my gosh, it fits into this. And I'm looking at this individual and I'm going, yeah, no, I do lots of evaluations and what you're experiencing is very normal to an unusual situation. So, sometimes we have a tendency to want to be helpful and label something, and now all of a sudden, it actually makes the situation worse. Yes. So, we started out, and I might have said, hey, give me a label, tell me what's wrong, and you wouldn't do that. What did you see in me as the things that I didn't see that I needed to work on? Well, I'll be genuine with you. So if you remember when we first met, I asked you a lot of questions. Man, I was asking you questions about how you were behaving, what your emotions were like. What you didn't realize is I was going through all the diagnostic checklists to see, do you actually meet the clinical criteria for some of these conditions? And then when you began to share with me the level of exhaustion and we'll say depletion that you were experiencing as a result of the work, I was thinking, oh, my gosh. These are relatively normal conditions or symptoms in response to extraordinarily difficult conditions. However, I also noticed that if you didn't make changes in the way you were thinking or doing things, it would eventually lead to some of these more prominent diagnoses. So what was happening then, essentially, my strengths in the extremes of work ethic, drive, production, improvement, over time, little more, little more, little more, little more little more little more little more little more little more just became too much And so I came to you and said it was to the point in 2019 where I said this sounds dramatic to say out loud I look back and say I almost embarrassed by who that guy was that you met. But I said, if I'm not careful, this job one day will kill me. And that's literally what I thought because I was working myself into the ground. And so tell me a little bit about, because I've told my version of it, but what's your version of the things that you offered me that started to help me make the changes to be back to health and strength again? For sure. So I think that one of the things that I thought was very important when working with you is to understand that you are not an ordinary individual. You work in a very highly demanding, highly visible position. And as a result, there's a tremendous amount of stressor that you're going to face that the average person doesn't. And that's what we typically see in the top 1% of leadership. Also, what you do is very influential. The decisions that you make, the actions that you have really do influence the organization that you're a part of, not to mention all the people who are dialing in to listen to you on a weekend, right? Or listen to your podcast. So the first thing was really helping you recognize that where you were at was very treatable. Even though that you were struggling with depletion and exhaustion, it could be corrected. Not necessarily with throwing medication at you, but simply by making changes in your behavioral habits, as well as your mental habits. Now, we talked earlier about the physical health habits with regards to diet, exercise, sleep, rest. The mental habits that are critical are, one, being able to think about your thinking, being aware of the type of thoughts that you have in response to the challenges that you're faced with, the routine that you develop throughout your life, throughout the day, throughout the week, and then being able to correct, change, and modify the thoughts that you are having in order to see yourself differently and the world differently. And once you began to see yourself differently and the world differently, that led to changes and behaviors. Well, one thing I had to, first of all, recognize there was hope because for me, I thought I was going to drown in a content and leadership pressure world and there was hope. One of the things that you introduced early on, I want to talk about because I like to envision our community being some of the best of the best leaders. I really think, I mean, anybody who's listening to this podcast has taken their leadership seriously. And so that puts them in a different category. And there are going to be people that are pushing it. they're going to be people that deal with extraordinary pressures. You didn't just help me, but you wanted to help the people around me help me. And so you said, let's develop, these are my words, not yours, but let's develop a team of wingmen. And that doesn't mean men, wing people that are around you. They're going to help you manage the extremes that make you successful, but not let those extremes end up costing you. And so you worked with my office team. You worked with Amy. You worked with three or four close friends. And then you worked with the pastors and leaders that are around me to help educate them. Talk to me a little bit about that and why someone listening right now may need to empower their wingmen. Find wingmen and empower them. So, let me answer that question by backing up just a little bit. Back it up again. Because it's going to really set the stage for why the wingmen are important. And that is, you might be part of the one percenters, but you're just human. And you're not perfect. And as a result, there's always going to be some level of gaps, right? And what gets us into trouble are a few things. One is we're either, we're blind. We didn't see that what we were doing or how we were thinking was a problem. We all have blind spots. And we all have blind spots. Number two is complacency. Oh, I recognized it as a problem, but I didn't really think it was a big problem. And so I didn't do anything about it. It should get better on its own. That's exactly right. It'll magically work itself out. So you got blind complacency. The next thing is distraction, where, yeah, I knew it was an issue. I knew it was a problem, but I was so busy as a leader that I really didn't prioritize it with the- I don't have time. I'll get to that later. Exactly. And then the next one is despair or excuses. Despair being, I know it's a problem. I got to do something differently about it, but I feel hopeless. And so those are things that you will have to wrestle with every day. It's not like all of a sudden, magically, all the blind spots are better or the complacency, the distraction or whatnot. Surrounding you with wingmen who really care and love you are the ones that will help you work through blindness, complacency, distraction, and despair. Nobody ever becomes the best version of oneself by oneself. It's always the collective group by who they surround themselves with. And so, first thing that one percenters will do is make sure that they're surrounded by good people that are willing to help them work through that. And that means they have to speak the truth. And you have really good wingmen. Thank you. Yeah, I do. And great friend, great team. They have the ability to tell me the truth. but I didn't have the language to ask them to help me in the ways. Well, first of all, I didn't have the awareness of how I needed help. And then I didn't have the language for it. And what I would do is I would say, hey, I'm not doing great. And they'd go, well, you showed up and you're working hard and your sermon was okay. And you look fine. And so you helped train the people around me that my emotional expression can be low. If I say I'm not doing great, you need to treat that as a level nine warning. If I say I'm doing pretty bad, but I still look normal, that's a level 9.8 warning, and you got to pay attention to it. So it was super helpful to me, and I want to say a couple things, and I apologize. I don't want to dominate this. One is to the great leaders out there, if you're a professional athlete, you've probably got a private coach, maybe two. If you're going to be the best of the best, you probably want someone in your corner like a Dr. C. And over a 30-year period like I've led, I might need two or three or four of you different people along the way because you don't continue to grow for decades without work and coaching. Get a coach, get help, get people to speak in your life. The second thing is the people around you, one of the most valuable things you did was you helped them understand why my extremes are extremely effective and dangerous to me. You've met with Amy, you met with my assistant, you met with Bobby, you met with Jerry, you met with Sam, you met with my friends, you met with the team. Tell me a little bit about why that's important and why there's leaders out there that might be missing something with their wingman that could be really strategic to helping them be both healthier and more effective. Yeah, so that's a really good question. I think, first of all, when what you had an advantage of is when you have just an amazing marriage. The marriage that you have with Amy is absolutely extraordinary. It's been very strong and supportive. And so, it was an advantage of working with her because she could very much sit you down and say, hey, sweetheart, we need to make some adjustments here. And you were very open to that. So, part of being able to become the best version of yourself and have those one-percenters is to make sure that not only are you open, but you're also responsive. So, that's number one, and making sure that you're open to hearing some of the things that the wingmen need to tell you. If you're surrounded by wingmen who just tell you all these wonderful and great things, that's a problem. You need to have wingmen who are actually going to sit you down and say, hey, let me speak some truth into you because I'm a little bit worried. Two, the language, but also the judgment. What 1%ers struggle with is that they can get on stage and look exceptionally good, and they can perform at a high level even when they're struggling. One of the things we talked about earlier about emotional resilience, right? What makes great leaders is compartmentalization as well, where they can get out on stage and perform an exceptional level and push all the issues and struggles aside. One of the things that I train people to do, which is very counter to what you learn in modern culture today, is I say, let's take your emotions, let's take them, put them in a box, put a lid on that box, and put them on the shelf. Because right now, they're not functional. One percenters have learned how to do that so well that sometimes they don't know how to communicate and take that box down. Yes. And so part of this… I'm going, I know where that box is right now. Yes, you know exactly where that box is. So, taking that box down of emotions and then being able to say, hey, I'm not doing great, and being able to describe that, that's one. Two is understanding that when you communicate something, they're not just judging you by how you look, but what you're saying and what does it really mean. So, when you're saying you're not doing great, they're going to look at you going, are you kidding me? You're performing great. You're out there doing exceptionally well. You're making good decisions. You're leading people. You're doing awesome. What they see on the outside is not what's going on on the inside. And so one percenters can do a really good job looking great on the outside, but suffering on the inside. And that's where the wingman can pick up on the little subtle things and then go, hey, guess what, Craig? You got to make some adjustments here. And when they hear you talk about certain things, they recognize I'm not judging a book by its cover right now. So here's what happened yesterday, just to give you an example of a wingman. is, I'm in what you would call a work sprint right now, very high pressure season, probably more to do than what's wise. And you see the schedule today behind the scenes, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And that's just one day of many. Bobby, who's a wingman, created a YouVersion, came into my office yesterday and he said, remember the December cycle. And I'm like, what is the December cycle? He said, remember, Decembers are like this for you every year. And so I said, they are. And he goes, yes, remember, this is a cycle you get yourself into. So how are you mentally going to prepare yourself for it? And I'm going like, oh, you actually are. You're right. And so the people around, I'm going to say this to the people listening, the people around you right now see some of the cycles you go through. If you empower them to speak to you, they can help you through them. That was extraordinarily helpful to me because he reminded me, you've been here before, how do you need to mentally prepare for it? And what changes do you need to make so that it doesn't take you down and so you continue to perform well through it. Extraordinarily helpful. And that you helped give him permission to do that and taught him to see the cycles around me. We have some leaders right now, I am certain, performing well externally, hurting internally. What advice do you give them? What's the next step they take? First of all, recognize that and communicate it. To whom? To people who are trusted advisors, to people who are close to them that they can receive feedback that will be honest. It's sort of like when I had a four-star general who said, look, every time I walk into a room, people tell me what they want to hear, and I need to make sure that I have somebody that's there that will speak truth into me. And so part of helping him get better was to understand when he was struggling to surround himself with somebody who will speak truth. So the first part is the recognition. The higher you rise, the harder it is to find the truth. And oftentimes the lonelier it can get. And the lonelier it can get, yes. And so, you know, I'm a pastor, and I can speak directly to pastors. A lot of pastors, and I'm certain business leaders would say the same thing, but pastors, they have employees and they have church members. Can I empower an employee to be that honest with me? And can I empower a church member? I'm supposed to be their boss and their pastor. Speak to that. Yeah, you want to be able to have people around you that can speak truth. Something that I'd love to share is we had a four-star general who was trying to improve the selection processes of special operations, and we were struggling with it. I will never forget this. I am a young captain sitting in the peanut gallery watching generals at the table and the four star says, hey, this is what we need to do. And everybody around goes, you know what? Sounds like a great idea. Yet the lowest ranking member in the room stood up and said, sir, that's not a very good idea. It'll actually create problems. This general looked over at that young, lowest ranking individual in the room and said, man, well done. And I so appreciated that because you have actually helped us solve an equation and a problem. So empowering people to give feedback, honest, respectful, is really key in order to maintain that situational awareness and get through blindness, complacency, and distraction. I want to talk a level down, not just to the leaders who are leading, but I want to talk to the leaders who are leading other leaders. Yeah. There seems to be a little bit what I'd call just less resilience in the workplace today. Would you agree? I think that to some degree, there is less resilience in the workplace. It seems like, maybe I'm wrong, but if we want to help create people that are more emotionally, spiritually resilient, how do we go about helping others grow stronger? Boy I can spend an entire year talking about that But let me take a step back Part of one percenters the leaders part of high organizations is this desire to excel continuously and to sprint And yes you want to be able to sprint You have to prepare yourself in order to sprint and to sprint at very specific times Sort of like with your life, you know that when you look at the seasons, there are certain seasons you're going to have to sprint because of the demand that you're going to be faced with. However, remember I was saying emotional stamina. Emotional stamina is the ability to maintain a good emotional space over time consistently. Part of emotional stamina is not looking at life as though it's a sprint, but an endurance, a marathon. And so there are times in which you're going to sprint, but there's also times in which you have to pull back on the throttle. You have to be able to adjust gears, slow down, and pace yourself well. And then you also want to be able to look at the horizon and go, I see the storm coming, now I'm going to prepare for it. And it's interesting because when you and I were talking, you were like saying, well, you know what? I'll take a break after the storm. And I'm like, no, no, you need to take a break before the storm. You don't want to enter the storm all depleted. No, and that was a new mindset for me. I thought you rest after the work. I never thought of it as resting and preparing for the next leg of work. Well, so it's like that with professional athletes. their pregame routine is absolutely critical, where they want to be able to rest mentally and physically before they go into a demanding environment. Pastors, business leaders, no different. They have to be able to take time in which they are mentally resting. However, you also have to prepare for the storm. And when you talk about emotional resilience in the workplace, there's a series of beliefs. And if it's okay, I'd like to share with you those beliefs that you need to be able to encode into your mind in order to be emotionally resilient. Number one, expect the unexpected. That is absolutely critical. I'm going to interrupt you and just tell everybody he's told me that about a billion times. And like, expect hard times, expect bad things, expect tension, expect persecution, expect the unexpected, keep going. Let me tell you that when a leader says to me, guess what? I'm doing so good. I'm in a great place. I'm really comfortable. I'm like, that's a dangerous place to be in because what happens when you become very comfortable and you think everything is great, you become complacent. Why should I put all the intentionality in terms of maintaining my mental condition? What I'm doing is fine. Well, in order for you to do well in the storms, you have to be intentional and vigilant even in the calm. So, that's number one. So good. Number two, if you're going to be extraordinary, you don't be extraordinary under ordinary conditions. If you want to define extraordinary, it's being extraordinary under extraordinarily difficult conditions. That's the definition of thriving. Most people walk around in the workplace thinking, hey, I showed up to work and did my job. I did good on Monday through Wednesdays, a normal week. That's right. Showed up, did my work, did my job. I had the right resources. I had the right people. So therefore, I'm thriving. I'd be like, no, you're just surviving. A little bit like a pilot doesn't do a whole lot of work until it really matters. When you're in a storm or when you're landing, that three-minute approach in a landing matters a lot. And you face a deer runs across the runway. That matters. That's when you get paid the big bucks. The rest of the time, it's relatively easy. So let's hit that up, right? So why expect the unexpected? Because somebody might say, well, gosh, you're going to be neurotic if you're thinking about the way. No, no, no. The reason you expect the unexpected, because that's life. That is life. That is just strictly life. Oh my gosh, something really bad happened to me. You almost have to be simultaneously optimistic and pessimistic. And realistic. And realistic, yes. Yes. And so when you expect the unexpected. Some people are too optimistic. Yes. Vulnerably. And some people are too afraid. You have to be prepared for the worst, believe it's going to happen, and believe you can lead through it. Absolutely. So the optimism piece, we have what I've coined as fatally optimistic. where they're so optimistic that they can't see things clearly. And then you have individuals who are so negative and pessimistic that it bogs them down. You want to be able to stay in the middle, and that is recognize things for what they are, but also be very hopeful and realistically positive. So understanding that when you expect the unexpected, your brain then, when the unexpected occurs, says, I was expecting this. So it doesn't mean that you're going to react with a level of panic. You will have some level of anxiety, but you've already conditioned your mind to accept it. It's like investing in the stock market. You expect it to have major downturns, and you know that's a part of it. If you invest over the long time, you're going to be successful. That's exactly right. Other things in the workplace that make it strong is cohesion. What's interesting is you could be a business that does exceptionally well. Say you generate profits at 200% or 300%. But if you have a toxic culture in the process of doing that, it is absolutely miserable. So the other thing is to recognize that even though you want to be to some degree self-sufficient, nobody ever becomes the best version of themselves by themselves. Say that one more time. I want everybody to hear it and let it sink in. Nobody ever becomes the best version of themselves by themselves. So important. And so when you're surrounded by the wingman in your personal life, strong marriage, a strong friend like Bobby, it's also recognizing that the people at work are the very individuals who will help you excel and succeed. And investing in those relationships are really important. So nobody becomes the best version of themselves by themselves. The next thing is lean into anxiety. Now, what's interesting is we are taught that anxiety is not good. We are taught that if you experience it, therefore, you need to get rid of it. And I'm sitting there going, yeah, no, that's not really how things work. When you look at how well people perform, they actually perform their best when they're moderately anxious. The research, the science, all of that shows it. We have a culture that says, oh, my gosh, you're starting to experience anxiety. let's medicate it away or let's go to a happy place and think it away. Let's put you on a beach somewhere with your feet in the sand and you're breathing and you're thinking about being in a special spot. And I'm like, well, that can be helpful, but guess what? That actually can be very counterproductive. If you want the workplace to be emotionally resilient, I'm going to share with you two things. One is they need to be thinking about how well they're going to perform their job and how well they're going to stay composed and how well they're going to do it underneath both the ordinary conditions. But then the next thing is they need to actually think about how they're going to do their job, not only in terms of how well they do what they're tasked to do, but how well they relate to the people and exemplify the person they desire to be in difficult conditions. You can't wait for the best version of yourself to magically show up in the storm. You have to visualize that in terms of who you're going to be in the storm before the storm occurs. With professional players, one thing I'll do is I'll say, okay, we're going to go up against a team. This team may end up actually doing some things that we were not expecting. And two, you're a rookie. You're going to go up against veteran players and it's going to be difficult. So let's not just simply, and you're anxious, right? So how productive is it going to be with you visualizing yourself with your feet in the sand and thinking on a sunny day? No, let's visualize yourself playing well and extraordinarily well and adapting to those very difficult conditions. Because now that becomes an expectation, not an aspiration. Does that make sense? It does. It does. So we worked together for maybe 18 months. You helped me get better. And then we almost officially terminated the counseling relationship and said, because I said, hey, we can be friends. And you're like, no, I can't be friends. I'm your counselor. So I was like, okay, I'll fire you. And so then we started doing stuff together outside, just learning from each other in different ways. And we wrote the book together. It's your first book. What are your expectations and hopes from your contribution through the book, Heal Your Hurting Mind? My expectations and my hopes are that people will understand that individuals who are successful are not perfect. And it's okay to be vulnerable and to reach out and to seek help. My other expectation is that they would walk away going, oh my goodness, I'm experiencing some anxiety or I'm experiencing some burnout or I've got trauma in my life. Well, that's part of life. And not to let that control you, but to realize that you can actually navigate through that and end up on the other side a very stronger, more resilient individual. And the other hope I have is for people to recognize that mental health is a continuous process. It's not something that you achieve and that you just can then say, I'm good. it's a daily intentional effort. And that you design a lifestyle continuously that evolves around who you need to be. And that means that like with you, Craig, stuff that you figured out a year ago, you're constantly changing today. Yes. And who you are a year from now is probably gonna be a little bit different. All the time, hopefully so. Yeah. Yeah, well, thank you for being a safe place. I've been able to, I was the first pastor that you worked with now. How many would you say you've worked with? Oh my gosh, dozens, yes, yes. And just being a safe place for leaders that are doing a lot can go and learn and grow from. So you counsel, you do consulting, organizational consulting, you do speaking, you do team development and such. If somebody wanted to find out more about you, where do they go? Well, they can actually just Google my name and Dr. Chappelle. The reason he's saying that right now is because he has a website that I said is a dumb name. Go ahead and tell us the name of the website that go directly there. And I accept that feedback. The reason I say it is, go ahead and say it. What is it? It is PsyOptimal. PsyOptimal.com. That's right. Spell it now. P-S-Y-O-P-T-I-M-A-L. As your wingman, I'm going to tell you right now, if you want people to find you, that's a dumb website. It is terrible. So next time we talk, it might be drc.com, but that would be what's smart. That's right, either drc or drchappelle.com, so for sure. You can find out how to reach out to me there. And there's a couple of things. One is you can, if you want me to come in and speak at your organization, I can do that. work with your teams, even consult with you individually. I do have some space for some limited numbers. Yeah, don't oversell yourself because you're making a big difference. But the other cool thing about this is I've also developed it where you can actually get on the website now and take these assessments that I've developed and get immediate feedback from these assessments on the very characteristics that we know are universal for thriving and becoming part that 1%. Final question, what does it mean to you? You've helped develop the Oklahoma City Thunder team, which could be, potentially go down in history as one of the greatest teams of all time. Some are already saying that's how they're performing. You're helping some of the top pastors in the country. You work with military government officials that are doing stuff that we're not even allowed to talk about on the podcast and some of the greatest business leaders in the world. Personally, what does that mean to you? Wow, that's a great question. I don't really think about that. But what it does mean is that an ordinary individual can accomplish extraordinary things. I didn't have the best grades growing up. I wasn't anybody who was very social or very popular. Yet God can take an ordinary individual to accomplish very extraordinary things. That's a good word. That's a good word. And I hope you hear that. I hope you feel it because God does specialize in using ordinary people. and I would count myself as the same way, not extraordinary in any way, but surrounded by people who are very passionate about an important mission. And so I hope today there's something that was helpful to you and I'm certain there was. The title of the book is Heal Your Hurting Mind. It is available everywhere. If this podcast is helpful to you, please share it on social media. Our team may repost you. Subscribe to the content, like it, write a review when you can. If you're looking for help, Dr. C would be a good place to start. Or just call some wingmen in together and say, nobody becomes their best self by themselves. I need some help from people around me. And the good news is, when you're humble, when you're open, you will get better. And as we know, everyone wins when the leader gets better. Hey, it's Craig here. And you know the weight that comes from being a leader, the pressure, the stress, the mental load that nobody talks about. In my new book, Heal Your Hurting Mind, Dr. Wayne Chappelle and I tackle the struggles so many leaders face. You know, anxiety, burnout, depression. And we show you that getting help isn't a sign of weakness. It's a step toward breakthrough. So I promise you, this isn't just about managing symptoms. It's about finding lasting freedom. So you can learn more at craigrochelle.com or pick up a copy of Heal Your Hurting Mind wherever you buy books.