Falling in Love With Boredom to Become Great: The Drive of Elite Athletes

He’d been playing football since he was 7 years old. It is no exaggeration to say it was his whole life: he went all the way to the Super Bowl, becoming a nationally recognized NFL player. And then it ended.

“I've built my whole life around this and I'm no longer gonna do that. How do I deal with that? How do I move forward? I have no idea what to do. I don't even know what the future holds for me right now. I can't tackle people anymore.”

Ryan Mundy played eight seasons in the National Football League. He was drafted by his hometown team, the Pittsburgh Steelers in the sixth round of the 2008 NFL Draft. He won Super Bowl XLIII with the Steelers over the Arizona Cardinals. When Ryan Mundy left the NFL in 2016, he tells me he felt “absolutely depressed, and also dealing with a ton of anxiety.”

The wonderful thing about being a pro athlete, Ryan says, is that the punishing routine protects you from anxiety. “You just kind of just show up. You don't have to think about scheduling the organization of your time and how to best utilize it. Somebody else is doing that and you just follow the schedule. And when that rug is pulled from under you and you no longer have somebody doing that for you, it's like, ‘what do you mean I gotta do this on my own?’ 

Ryan used the experience of a mental health crisis, and his inability to find a therapist who understood what he was experiencing both as a Black man and a pro athlete, to start a wellness business called Alkeme. Mundy has raised almost $5 million dollars to create “The Peloton for Black mental health.”

How did Ryan put together a new life? “I looked at what worked for me in the past. What made me feel alive? When was Ryan Mundy at his best and what are the elements that I could pull forward from that?”and what are the elements that I could pull forward from that?”

The more I learn about elite athletes the more I’m struck by this: they understand the question “When am I at my best and what does that tell me?” 

Elite athletes are also skilled in staying in the very opposite of anxiety: staying completely in the present. This seems to me a really healthy way of powering drive. Anxious achievers' drive is often powered by anxiety about the future, which can drain us.

My second guest this week is performance psychologist Dr. Alex Auerbach. Alex has served as psychologist for the NBA’s Toronto Wildcats and for the elite college athletes at Arizona State University. 

Alex tells me the difference between great athletes and good ones is presence. “Again and again these athletes go about their business and do what they need to do without looking too far ahead into the future. They show up every day. Maybe their contract is running out in six months and they're not even worried about it right now. They show up every day, they give great effort, they try to play their best and then they do it again tomorrow. That level of commitment, the ability to repeatedly do boring things.”

“These players at every level I've worked at honestly have this incredible ability to immerse themselves in the game, stay focused on that, and fall in love with boredom and become excellent. “

The ability to repeatedly do boring things in service of being great. Understanding the elements of your greatness. Channeling your drive into the present moment, not worrying about the future.

Maybe you’ll never be in the NBA, but you can practice being in the game like an elite athlete.

Practice Being Present

If your brain is racing ahead in time, running through a to-do list or worrying, you can use breathing to quiet your mind and reset it back to the present moment. Here’s an exercise you can do at your desk, adapted from meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein:

Breathe in for 4 beats. Say in your mind, “I’m breathing in.” Hold. Breathe out for 6 beats. Say in your mind, “I’m breathing out.”

If the racing thoughts come back, say “Noticing.” “I’m noticing.”

Do this until all you hear in your mind is this breath, not your worries.

Morra

PS: You can also practice being in the present by eating! Seriously. Smell your food. Take a bite. Taste it. Listen. It works!