First Call out: Mark speaks with Nate Zinsser about his career at West Point and work training elite athletes. Today, Commander Divine speaks with psychologist and human performance expert, Dr. Nate Zinsser. Dr. Zinsser has coached cadets at West Point for the past 30 years. He’s also worked with several high profile athletes, including professional football player Eli Manning. Dr. Zinsser shares how he became interested in the psychology of human performance in high school by noticing the connection between expectations and outcome in team sports. Today, he discusses his new book, The Confident Mind, and shares many different ways we can leverage our minds to increase performance in everything from business to athletics. "When you affirm something in the present tense. It just becomes more immediate.. It just becomes more palpable.” "Being able to say to yourself I am enough for this moment." "Our human nervous system in so many important ways does not distinguish between something that we actually experience and something that we vividly imagine experiencing" Key Takeaways: The self-fulfilling prophecy is real. Although it sounds a bit cliche, our expectations truly do influence outcomes. It’s not magic. Our expectations guide our actions along the way. Detailed visualization with a multi-sensory approach is a powerful tool that can benefit anyone in any type of performance field. This tool has to be developed by starting small; layers of complexity can be added in slowly. Train your mind to look for the good things! We need to be deliberate about reinforcing our positive memories and reminding ourselves about what worked well. Don’t focus on imperfections. Sometimes we just have to power through with whatever training and preparation we’ve had and focus on doing the best we can. Links: Nate Zinsser Twitter