Beyond Grit: The 10 Powerful Practices of High Performers with Dr. Cindra Kamphoff
Watch/Listen here or on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts“I believe as the leadership team goes, so goes the rest of the company. So if you don't have that consistent and significant sustainable growth, you've got some work to do.” — Mike Goldman
Cindra Kamphoff has spent over 20 years specializing in grit, resilience, and high performance. She is the founder of the Mentally Strong Institute, where she helps leaders and athletes achieve their goals faster, build confidence, and increase their influence. Her work includes coaching the Minnesota Vikings and the U.S. Olympic track and field team. She is also the author of Beyond Grit: 10 Powerful Practices to Gain the High Performance Edge.
Defining Grit & Why It Matters
Grit: Passion for long-term goals and perseverance through setbacks.
Different from “grind” — grit requires energy, self-care, and the right mindset.
Many people don’t have clearly defined long-term goals; grit starts with clarity.
The 10 Practices of High Performance
Grit – Passion + perseverance for long-term goals.
Purpose – Clarity on your “why” for motivation and alignment.
Mentally Strong Thinking – Managing self-talk and mindset.
Self-Awareness – Leading yourself first.
Dominate the Controllable – Focus on what you can control.
Own the Moment – Staying present to reduce anxiety and pressure.
Choose Empowering Emotions – Gratitude, confidence, optimism.
Authenticity – Show up as your true self.
Live & Let Go – Release mistakes and setbacks.
Choose Courage Over Comfort – Push beyond fear toward growth.
Signature Tool: Learn, Burn, Return
Learn – Ask, “What would I do differently next time?”
Burn – Use a phrase/action to let go (e.g., “shake it off” or “flush it away”).
Return – Rebuild confidence with affirmations or power poses.
Builds psychological safety in teams and helps avoid confidence erosion.
The Power of Purpose
People with a clear purpose live 7–10 years longer.
Purpose should guide decisions, priorities, and daily actions.
Key questions to uncover purpose:
Three words describing you at your best.
What do you want to create or do for yourself/others?
What value or results do you provide?
How do you help or guide others?
Purpose often emerges from “crucible moments” — adversity or life-changing experiences.
Owning the Moment
Harvard research: 53% of attention is not in the present moment.
More time in past/future = more anxiety.
Strategies: Mindfulness, meditation, box breathing, and visual anchors (e.g., plastic ant for “automatic negative thoughts”).
The Confidence Crisis Study
National research shows 1 in 2 Gen Zers and young Millennials feel they’re “not enough.”
Confidence is both a personal and organizational issue.
Lack of focus on confidence impacts productivity, culture, and revenue.
Leaders can build confidence by:
Setting stretch goals.
Recognizing achievements.
Delegating responsibility.
Modeling vulnerability and authenticity.
Barriers & Traps to Confidence
Self-doubt, overthinking, judgment, and comparison.
Use the Truth Meter:
Is this thought true?
Is this thought serving me?
What’s a more empowering thought I could choose?
Compare yourself to your past self, not others.
What the Best of the Best Do Differently
Train their mind daily.
Guard and upgrade identity (“I am…” statements).
Use affirmations to align belief and performance.
How Cindra Helps Clients
Speaking – Keynotes on mental strength and high performance.
Coaching – One-on-one for leaders, entrepreneurs, and athletes.
Certification – Training leaders to bring Mentally Strong practices into organizations.
Academy – Ongoing live training for mindset mastery.
Free resource: freementalbreakthroughcall.com
Thanks for listening!
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Mike Goldman (00:02)
As a you know how important leadership, grit, and resilience are. That's why is here today. She specialized in this area for over 20 years. She's the founder of the Mentally Strong Institute, whose purpose is to help purpose-driven leaders like you and us, as well as athletes, get to their goals quicker, multiply their confidence.
and increase their influence. Cindra has worked with the Minnesota Vikings, helping their football players improve their mindset. The U.S. Olympic track and field team has worked with her at the Olympics for the exact same reason. Her bestselling book, which we're going to talk a lot about today, is called Beyond Grit, 10 Powerful Practices to Gain the High Performance Edge. It is an Amazon bestseller, and many of the ideas we're going to talk about today come from
that book. Cindra, welcome to the show.
Cindra Kamphoff (00:59)
Thank you so much, Mike. I'm just pumped to be here with you and can't wait to provide awesome value to your audience.
Mike Goldman (01:04)
Yeah, I know you will and I can't wait to dig in. We'll start with, Cindra, what do you believe from all of your experience is the one most important characteristic of a great leadership team?
Cindra Kamphoff (01:18)
think the most important characteristic is psychological safety. So that means to me is the ability to make a mistake and to openly talk about your mistakes. And today we're going to talk about a tool that you can use called Learn, Burn, Return to help you build the confidence of other people. Because we also know from our 2025 National Research Study on Confidence is that confidence is not just a personal issue, it's an organizational issue. So that's what I think is the most important characteristic.
Mike Goldman (01:47)
beautiful and I'm sure we will, as you said, dig much deeper on that. And I want to start since your book is called Beyond Grit, let's just start with kind of the obvious question, which is what is grit? How do you define that?
Cindra Kamphoff (02:00)
The way I define it is similar to a researcher named Angela Duckworth who first coined the term. And to me, what grit is, is having passion for what you do, persevering despite difficulties and setbacks, but knowing exactly what you want long-term. And you know, most people, Mike, haven't really thought about what they exactly want. They don't have it written down. They haven't written down their five-year, 10-year goals. And grit is about persisting. Now, what grit is not is grind.
And I think sometimes people get, they misinterpret that word. think, grit just means I gotta keep pushing. But really to have passion and perseverance for really what you want, you need energy and you need to take care of yourself and you need high performance toolkit to be able to pick yourself back up when things don't go great.
Mike Goldman (02:48)
Why did you decide to focus so much of your effort in your business and your life, why did you decide to focus so much of your effort on grit?
Cindra Kamphoff (03:00)
Great question. So my background, before I went to college, I was in high school, a really fast runner. So I ran the fastest mile in the state of Iowa my senior year. It's where I grew up. Yeah. I, you know, Mike, I broke lots of records, believe it or not, some that still stand today, 20 years later.
Mike Goldman (03:20)
That's incredible.
Running past all that corn on the, the only thing I know of Iowa is driving on Route 80 through Iowa. And I think I saw corn and I don't know what else I saw.
Cindra Kamphoff (03:24)
Exactly.
Yes.
Yeah, there was one summer where I had a goal of running down every street in my hometown and I got done with that in about a month. That's how much I was running. But when I got to college, I got a full ride college scholarship to run cross country and track at the highest level. it was there where I was really, I got in my own way a lot. I doubted myself. I thought the more I beat myself up, the better I would do.
Mike Goldman (03:42)
Wow.
Cindra Kamphoff (04:02)
But we actually know that's the opposite, right? The more kind and compassionate you are to yourself when things don't go perfect. That's one of the ways that supports our grit is self-compassion. And we know that self-compassion leads to high performance and more why I help people be mentally strong is because I didn't do that my own self. And I wasted most of my college career just getting into my own way.
doubting myself. And that's what I really feel like is my core purpose today on this earth is to help people play bigger if that's on the field, but in leadership and in life.
Mike Goldman (04:39)
Love that. your book is called Beyond Grit and it covers the 10 practices of high performance. Take us through at a high level and we'll drill in to a few of these, take us through at a high level what those 10 practices are.
Cindra Kamphoff (04:56)
So the book is called Beyond Grit because the first practice is grit. And these 10 practices are supported by research and performance psychology. So that's what my PhD is in. And they really are what allows people to thrive and be their best more often. But Mike, the important part of that is the word practice. And what that means is that we're not born with any of these things, but we have to continue to practice them. And some days we might be really great at them. Some days we might not be.
Right? And we have to just keep on resetting. So grit is number one. Purpose, understanding your purpose, why you do what you do is number two. Mentally strong thinking is practice three. Practice four is self-awareness, understanding yourself. Right? Because you're the hardest person to lead is yourself. Practice number five is dominate the controllable. So can you stay focused on what you can control? Practice six is own the moment. So
You know, we know that majority of our attention is not in the present moment throughout our day, and that leads to more anxiety and pressure. So can you be in the moment? Number seven is about choosing empowering emotions like gratitude and confidence. Number eight is authenticity. So showing up as your true self, which is a practice. Nine is the most difficult one for people to practice. And that one is number nine, live and let go, which we can talk about.
And then 10 is about choosing courage over comfort and really going after some big goals and being courageous, because that's how you step into your potential and what you're meant to do.
Mike Goldman (06:30)
Let's drill in on a few of those. Hopefully everybody, you're listening, I know you've memorized those 10 already, but let's drill in to a few of those. And you mentioned one of them that you mentioned, I think you said it was number nine, live and let go is the one that's kind of most difficult for folks. So drill into that a little bit. Tell us why it's most difficult and what can we do to get better at that?
Cindra Kamphoff (06:36)
Exactly.
The reason it is most difficult is because we make meaning based on the past, right? So just as humans, and we also it's difficult because, you know, we have a negativity bias. So events that haven't gone well for us, mistakes or disappointments are more likely to run through our mind than our successes. And so I teach a signature tool in this practice nine called learn burn return that I trademarked last year and
It's really what I teach to professional athletes I work with, to leaders, and it's all about quickly moving on from a mistake. And I want to tell you a quick story to apply this. So I've worked with a guy named Adam Thielen in the NFL. I first met him like maybe 14 years ago. He played for the Minnesota Vikings and now plays for the Carolina Panthers. And he fumbled the ball in a playoff game against where the Vikings were playing the Saints.
He went over to the sidelines and he kind of put his fist right here by his cheek Mike and he pushed it down Okay, so if you're just listening you kind of put it by his fist and then kind of anchored it down Well, no one knew what he was doing And an ESPN reporter was watching him. Okay now next drive He's right back in that fast and I'm snapping because that's how fast he got back in and because he had this next play mentality He caught this 43 yard catch over his head. It was absolutely gorgeous
and the Vikings won the playoff game, Mike. And afterwards, this ESPN reporter named Courtney went up to Adam and said, Adam, what did you do to, you know, to quickly move on from a mistake? And she said, what was this action? Now, I'm a little embarrassed to tell you what he said. Do you want to know?
Mike Goldman (08:33)
So now I want to know even more, of course.
Cindra Kamphoff (08:35)
He said, well, I was pretending to flush a toilet. Okay. The next day in ESPN, the headline came out and it said mental coach taught Adam Thielen and how to flush away his mistakes. And I'm like, come on, that's how I get headlined in ESPN, flushing a toilet. So that connects to learn, burn or turn. And this you can use anytime you are having a difficulty moving on from a mistake, anytime you're ruminating.
Mike Goldman (08:39)
Hahaha!
Cindra Kamphoff (09:02)
Anytime you're overthinking, I know most overachievers who are listening to your podcast are overthinkers. And I have a few actions with this tool so you don't forget it. So the first step in the tool is called learn. And the first thing you want to do after you've made a mistake or experienced a disappointment is to just say, what would I do differently next time? Because you can't do anything about the past, right? And you want to think more objectively and just remind yourself.
Mistakes are never who you are. And then the second step is a burn. And burn means you choose a phrase or action. You want to use the same phrase or action every time. you have to like flush a toilet. Yeah, mine is that fast. Or maybe you want to channel your own Taylor Swift and say, shake it off. OK? And then the return is a power pose. So if you're watching this, you'll see me kind of put my hands on my hips and.
Mike Goldman (09:38)
or flush a toilet.
Cindra Kamphoff (09:55)
What that means is after you've learned and burned, you really need to return. And that means building your confidence back up, reminding yourself this is what your passion and your purpose is. And I know most of your listeners, they might learn, they likely don't burn consistently, and they never return. They never build themselves back up after a mistake or disappointment. And that's so important to protect our confidence.
Mike Goldman (10:20)
You know, I think that's important for us, but I would imagine as leaders kind of turning this to how does this something like this not only impact an individual, but impact a team is as leaders, we need to learn from that and model it ourselves. And I imagine help others do the same because if not, and we're going to talk about your confidence, you know, research that you've done, but that what not doing that.
know, over time is going to kill your confidence and kill the confidence of members of your team.
Cindra Kamphoff (10:50)
And that's why when you asked me that question about what's the most important leadership practice, I said psychological safety. Because when I think about a lot of the sports teams that I work with, when I introduce learn, burn, return, what happens is then no one is on the sidelines beating each other up after a mistake. They're like, hey man, you got it next time. You can do this. And it changes the energy on the team.
We need to continue to do that as leaders on a leadership team as well. Not punish people when they make a mistake, but help lift them up and help them move on quickly when things don't go perfect.
Mike Goldman (11:27)
So that was drilling into this idea of living and letting go. And I've got in front of me, got, I actually have all 10 in front of me. I was prepared for us. And one of them that I want to drill into is actually your second one, which is getting clear on your purpose. Talk a little, and you talked about your purpose. You mentioned that, as to why you've decided to focus on grit and going beyond grit. But.
Cindra Kamphoff (11:37)
Good job, Mike.
Great.
Mike Goldman (11:55)
When we talk about a leader getting clear on their purpose, let's unpack that a little bit. What does that mean and how do we do that?
Cindra Kamphoff (12:04)
Well, the reason why is because we know that understanding and living your purpose can lead to a longer life. In fact, the research shows that people live up to seven to 10 years longer when they understand their purpose. So it's vital for our health, our leadership, our wellbeing. There's an amazing exercise in Beyond Grit where it actually have you write a purpose statement to guide you. And ⁓ sometimes purpose can be a little scary, Mike, you know, like,
People think it needs to be like this download or you know people are intimidated by it So they really don't take time to write their purpose statement But the key for the reason you want to do that is I want you to think about purpose like a layer of onions You know like an onion with a whole bunch of layers the more you examine it and think about it you get to what that core is all about and you want to own your purpose not only just know why you do what you do, but
Let it inform your decisions, what you say yes to, what you say no to. It should align with how you show up. And I see my purpose as being authentic and to help people go after their goals quicker and to play bigger. And when I say, you know, I have the, use the kind of play bigger as my tagline for my goal or my purpose. ⁓ that helps me show up intentionally on your podcast because I know I'm here to help people who are listening.
play bigger. And that means going after their more courageous goals, the goals that they are really inside them, that maybe they're doubting themselves around or, you know, they're questioning if they can do it. Because we all experience self-doubt and automatic negative thoughts. We all get in our own way because we're human.
Mike Goldman (13:46)
want to dig into that a little further because figuring out what your purpose is, it's something so many people struggle with and or give up on. help companies understand their purpose as a company by saying, what do you do? And then talk about peeling back the onion. They say, here's what I do. You know, we're, you know, we were a solar energy company or where we do marketing. And then I say, why is that important?
And then, and why is that important? And then why you ask it about five times and you get to the heart of why they do it. So I've done it with companies, but for the individual, is there an exercise you recommend to help someone try to get to the heart of what their purpose really is?
Cindra Kamphoff (14:32)
Yes, in Beyond Grit, and then I have a workbook called the Beyond Grit Workbook, I have people answer four questions. And the first question is, are three words that describe you at your best? What do you want to create or do for yourself or others? What value or result do you provide? And then how do you want to help and guide others? And so we know that purpose isn't just about us, right? To truly live your purpose, it's about
helping you understand how you serve and the value you provide for others. So I ask people to write those four questions and then they put it in a structure and work with it. know, Mike, what's fascinating is our purpose can come from difficult moments or what's called crucible moments in our life. In fact, there's a psychologist I bet you've heard of named Abraham Maslow that his research shows that trauma crucibles difficult moments.
can lead to what's called self-actualization, which is our ability to live with purpose. And when I got really clear on my purpose, it was 2013, I was just finished running the Boston Marathon, and I was a block away from the Boston Marathon bomb. So I was at or near the finish line when that happened, and very, very, very scary.
What was hard is I just ran the fastest marathon of my life, you know, but that didn't matter. What mattered most was like getting back home and seeing my family. But at the marathon, you know, that night, was fascinating to me is, you know, normally we'd be celebrating and we'd be, you know, just pumped up for each other's races, but my race didn't matter. And what mattered was my purpose. And I kept on asking myself, like, what difference do you make?
Why do you do what you do? Why are you here? And it was that struggle that night and the next several nights that followed that helped me understand that I was playing small. That, you know, I was a college professor, which, you know, I still teach on Tuesdays, so I still do that. But I knew that I was meant for more. I wanted to speak. I wanted to write. I wanted to work for the Minnesota Vikings, even though I didn't play football.
Like I had all these really huge courageous goals that I realized I was holding myself back from. And being at that marathon made me realize to do something courageous every day. Like could I just do something courageous every day? And that I think allows you to live your purpose. When you do things that are just a little bit scary because you're really pushing yourself to be all that you are meant to be.
Mike Goldman (17:13)
Love that. And it's on the difficult days when, you know, no matter what you do and how good you are, what you do that, you know, not every day is, is, is great. And on the difficult days to be able to step back from a difficult phone call or conversation or it step back and say, yeah, this is why I'm doing this. It is so powerful. So the next one I want to dive into a little bit is, one of them, what is it? It's your number six. When I looked at my notes,
Cindra Kamphoff (17:31)
Yeah. ⁓
Mike Goldman (17:41)
is own the moment. Talk a little bit about what that means.
Cindra Kamphoff (17:46)
What that means is, you there was a research study done by Harvard scientists a couple years ago that found 53 % of our attention is not in the present moment. So we're only like 50, you know, 47 % of our day is in the present moment. And what the researchers also found was, you know, the more time you spend in the future or the past, it also correlates with more anxiety.
And so we know that anxiety is and fear are all future based emotions. Pressure is a future based piece. We're focused on the future. But in the moment, that is where you are at your best. Right? Like you can't experience flow, high performance when you're in the future or in the past. And so how to increase that is to notice where your attention is and then gently get it back to the moment.
and we have to keep on doing that over and over and over again. There's practices like mindfulness and meditation that you can use to get in the moment, but that is the only place you can be your best. It's the only place that flow and high performance happens. And I think the cool part is it's a practice.
Mike Goldman (19:00)
Yeah, that's helpful for me. See, interesting thing when I think about this one and where I have a challenge. And by the way, I love using these sessions to get my, my episodes are all about me getting coaching on how to get better. And I get, I get free coaching. It's great. You charge a lot of money and you're to give it to me for free. but you know, when, when I have that issue, it's not, it's not when I'm working on something and I'm thinking about the future or I'm talking to someone, but I'm thinking about the future. It's I wake up at 2:30 in the morning.
Cindra Kamphoff (19:11)
I know, I love it.
Mike Goldman (19:28)
And when I'm trying to go back to sleep, that's when I become more future focused. I don't worry about the stuff that went wrong yesterday or early. I don't obsess over that, but I think about the future and at 2:30 in the morning, the future is never as bright as it should be. I'm all, it's always the worry what's going to go wrong. And it's so hard for me to stop that focus on the future and just
You know, and I think, you know, some kind of mindfulness, some kind of meditation may be the thing I need because I will just obsess over the future. What was that? There was a Men at Work song many years ago called Overkill that was all about waking up in the middle of the night and just, you know, just obsessing over all the stuff that's wrong. And that's where I find that I probably need to, you know, be more in the moment is not when...
Cindra Kamphoff (20:08)
Yeah.
Mike Goldman (20:21)
You know, it's really what I'm trying to go back to sleep. I've got to stop thinking about the future.
Cindra Kamphoff (20:26)
Yeah, you know, and Mike, that actually just happened to me last night where I had a difficulty kind of getting back to sleep. I use box breathing when that happens and box breathing is where you breathe in through your nose for four counts, you hold it for four counts, you breathe out through your mouth four counts and you hold it four counts. So it's like a box. And what's most important is that you count with it because your brain can't think about the thing you're anxious about.
and counting with it at the same time. you know, I, that's a strategy. One, last year I was speaking at a school and I spoke there three different times to their staff. the first, the second time I was there, there was this guy sitting in the front, his kind of like, you know, hands kind of crossed like this. And he just looked like he wasn't liking anything I was saying. I had a hard time just even.
focusing on him because I was thinking about why he doesn't like this. He came up after me afterwards and he was like, your first talk changed my life. And I was like, what? You don't even seem like you're interested, you know? But the point is is that you never know really what your audience is thinking. But he said that he has had difficulty sleeping and he used one, two of my tools together.
I talked about this concept from Daniel Amen called automatic negative thoughts or ants and I brought like this little plastic ant. And then I talked about learn, burn, return which you and I talked about just now, right? So one of the things he did was he put, he bought a plastic ant, he put it by his bed and he'd wake up in the middle of the night and he'd look at that ant and realize that those thoughts are just automatic, that he's not choosing any of those thoughts.
and then he would use a burn phrase or action. And that is what allowed him to go back to sleep. And he said, I have been having a hard time for 30 years not sleeping and your tool changed my life. And I was like, cool.
Mike Goldman (22:25)
There you go. You just gave me many, many hours of sleep back. I hope, I hope. I'll let you know how it works. Sidney, you mentioned earlier the national study that you did on confidence. Talk more about what that study was about and what you found.
Cindra Kamphoff (22:31)
I hope so. I'm sending you some ants, Mike.
Yes, and people can download it at ConfidenceStudy.com and they should because it is fascinating research. We conducted this national research study across all areas within the United States, so Midwest, East Coast, West Coast, and across all generations. And one of the things that we found
is that we do have a confidence crisis in America today. And this was one of the most shocking findings that we ⁓ have in the study is that one in two Gen Zers, so a Gen Zer is defined as between the ages of 18 and 29. So one in two Gen Zers consistently or frequently feel like they're not enough. One in two. One in two younger millennials also have the same stat.
And 47 % of young millennials and Gen Zers constantly compare themselves to others. And so we found in our study is that confidence isn't just a personal issue that you and I might think. Mike has to grow his confidence, Cindra has to grow her confidence, but it's really an organizational issue because Gen Zers are the next generation of our workforce. And we also found that when a company doesn't
focus on confidence and building the confidence of other people and their employees that there are significant consequences such as low productivity, higher stress and burnout, toxic workplace culture, even a decline in revenue. So leaders need to just be thinking about how can they continue to grow their own confidence, not arrogance, right, but their own confidence, and how can you continue to build the confidence of other people because it is essential to the bottom line.
Mike Goldman (24:33)
So how do we do that? What's a technique or method we could use to help, I guess to help build our own, I'd love to know both. What's a technique we could use to build our own confidence? And maybe learn, burn, return is one of those. But also what's a technique we could use to help build the confidence in our team members?
Cindra Kamphoff (24:49)
Yes.
Perfect. I will start with team members and then let's talk about individually. Team members, what we found in our study was that the ways that leaders hurt confidence of others at work is by providing a lack of direction and support, by micromanaging, not showing any empathy or understanding and being unresponsive to concerns and creating a culture where you can't make mistakes.
Right? That's why I said psychological safety is so important. The things you can do as a leader to build the confidence of others is set, help them set goals that are outside their comfort zone. Recognizing their achievements. Also delegating tasks and embracing failures. So there are certain things that you can do as a leader and I think what's the most important thing is just to help you just reflect on
What do you personally do to build confidence in others? And how can you do that more often? Just by saying, I believe in you. I see what's possible for you. I think you can do blank, blank, blank in the future. Having someone supportive by your side at work is so important to retain those employees. So that's how I would answer what we can do as leaders.
Mike Goldman (26:10)
One thing
I might add to that, and I'd love your thoughts on it, is I find that there are some leaders that believe they need to come across as perfect. There's no vulnerability there. And those leaders make it very hard to all of your points on being able to make a mistake or ask for help. It's very hard on team members when they look to their leader
Cindra Kamphoff (26:21)
Yes. Yes.
Mike Goldman (26:36)
as Superman or Superwoman with a cape on, they're perfect. So one of the things that I talk to leaders about a lot is they need to be vulnerable first. They need to be able to say, I screwed up, I need help, I don't know how to do that, I'm not very good at that. And that vulnerability helps other people feel like they could be vulnerable too, but it also helps other people understand, ⁓ I don't need to be perfect either,
And I can still be good. I don't need to be perfect.
Cindra Kamphoff (27:07)
One of the, one of, so we had like a list of eight ways that leaders can boost confidence at work. One of the ones I didn't mentioned is model authenticity and not always having all the answers. So you're spot on on that. Yeah. I think the ways that we can grow confidence in ourselves is to realize that confidence is a feeling and also a belief in self. And sometimes we, the feelings of confidence can actually fluctuate.
Mike Goldman (27:19)
There you go.
Cindra Kamphoff (27:35)
And you know, high level executives that I've worked with, sales people, financial planners, I, you know, we work with and coach a wide variety of people at Mentally Strong. Even professional athletes I've worked with have told me their confidence can fluctuate. And I think that's important to realize, you know, there's feedback that can impact confidence. There's, you know, maybe a disappointment or a difficulty or a setback that can influence confidence.
but don't let the feeling of confidence impact your belief in yourself. Those feelings, it's really more how you interpret that feeling that's most important. In my upcoming book, I have a book that's gonna be published by Simon & Schuster in September, 2026. So yeah, I'm pretty, I'm very pumped about it. But in the book, I talk about seven practices to grow confidence. And one of those is learn, burn, return.
Mike Goldman (28:18)
Congrats!
Cindra Kamphoff (28:29)
So quickly moving on from things when they don't go perfect.
Mike Goldman (28:33)
Yeah, wondering too, want to get your thoughts on this? what, you know, and again, this, this is me getting therapy for free is when, you know, I'm generally a confident person. believe that. However, when my confidence wanes, it's typically not because I screw something up or I don't think I'm very good at something. It's comparison.
It's I, know, one of the things that I do, and this is, this I believe is a good thing, but it comes with some consequences that I have needed to be aware of is one of the things I learned early on is I always need to upgrade my neighborhood. Who am I spending time with? Am I spending time with all people that are kind of at my level or aspiring to be at my level, you know, mostly on the business side I'm talking about, or
Am I spending a lot of time with people I aspire to be who have done amazing things, who have stronger businesses than I have? And there's so much positive in doing that because it challenges me to be my best and it challenges me to set bigger goals that I learn from them and I'm inspired by them. But at the same time, it could be a kick on the ego. Like there are whole bunch of people that look at what I built at my business and say, my God, Mike, how did you do that?
But I spend most of my time looking at people that have double and triple the size businesses I have and saying, why aren't I there? So it's a double edged sword.
Cindra Kamphoff (30:01)
It is there are barriers and traps to confidence such as here's four of them is our own self self doubt overthinking is a barrier. Judgment is a barrier judgment of ourselves or judgment of others and comparison is a barrier. And you know we know that what is that quote from Jim Rohn you're the average of the five people you spend time with. I love that quote and there's research to support you do become.
Mike Goldman (30:22)
Yeah.
Cindra Kamphoff (30:27)
who you surround yourself with. But what's important, I like to use this tool called the Truth Meter that I think that you'd like. It was published in my second book called Beyond Grit for Business. And it's a series of three questions when you notice yourself holding yourself back. Or you experience a disempowering thought. Question one, is this thought true? Question two, is this thought serving me?
Like, is it helping me be the best version of myself? And question three is, what would be a more empowering thought I could choose instead? And what I love about the Truth Meter is it allows you just to take a step back and examine, my thoughts really true? We know most of our thoughts are not true, and they're just a repeat of what we said yesterday, right? So what do you think the actual thought is that
And people can do this as they're listening with their actual thoughts, but what's the actual thought, Mike, that you think creates the comparison?
Mike Goldman (31:26)
I think when I look at that for me and I look at someone, say it's a coach or a speaker that's got a bigger business than I have, and bigger isn't always better, I just did a whole interview with someone on that, but let's say it's bigger and better, I might look at that and say, is that true? And the first question might be it's true, but your second question, is that thought serving me to say I'm less than because they've got this bigger business?
No, it's not serving me. And then the third question, you know, a more empowering thought would be, you know, the more time I spend with people like that, the better I'm going to be able to build what I want to build or, you know, a more empowering thought might be just because that's what they built doesn't mean that that's what I should be building. Maybe I should be building something else so that, but, for me, it's, it's this thinking of
being, you know, feeling less than because someone has done more. And the quote I always have in my head that helps, but it doesn't mean I don't fall into the trap, is I'm a big Teddy Roosevelt fan. his famous comparison quote is, comparison is the thief of joy. And I was thinking of it as like, that's true when we're ourselves to others. What I like to do is compare myself to who I am now versus who I was.
Cindra Kamphoff (32:39)
Yes.
you
Yeah, it's awesome.
Mike Goldman (32:51)
That
I think is a beautiful comparison, but it's when we compare ourselves to others that we can get in trouble.
Cindra Kamphoff (32:56)
Right?
Yes, and I mean, I love the way you just went through those questions. And and you know in Beyond Grit there's a chapter about comparison and we never compare our whole selves to someone else's whole self. You know our whole business to someone else's whole business. It's usually like the thing I really, really like. You know, I used to compare myself to my friend Lindsay a lot who I like to run. She likes to run and she's so tall and slender. OK, and it's like.
But when I look underneath my comparison to Lindsay, realize it just is what's underneath that. This is my desire to be faster as a runner, right? So I'd encourage you to also think about what's underneath that comparison. What is that comparison really telling you, Mike, about what you want and what you desire? And maybe that could be the powerful thing you repeat to yourself when you know that you're comparing, you know, that more empowering thought.
But I love what you said is like, what can I learn from them? Or how can they inspire me? Because underlying everyone's negativity is this belief we're not enough in some way. And even your statement represented that. Like I'm less than, I'm not enough because my business is in blank, blank, blank. You're not alone. We all do that.
Mike Goldman (34:05)
Yeah.
Love that. Love that. Now,
you, Cindra, work with, you know, some of the world's best athletes, like you said, Minnesota Vikings, the ⁓ Olympics, entrepreneurs, leaders. What, what do you see the best of the best doing differently?
Cindra Kamphoff (34:29)
That's such a great question. I see them every day training their mind. And you know, your mind is what powers everything you do. It powers your emotions. It powers your legacy. It ultimately powers, you know, your activity throughout your day. But most importantly, it powers your identity and your belief in yourself. And when I think about the best of the best that keep leveling up their identity, and what I mean by that is whatever we put behind I am,
we become more of, right? And so like, I used to allow myself, Mike, to say, like, I'm a procrastinator, or I'm terrible at learning people's names. And that's actually not even true. I wouldn't even learn people's names because that's what I believed about myself, you know? Or I wasn't really a procrastinator, I just expected myself to get all the extra things done in one day and it wasn't realistic, you know? And so, but if I believe I'm terrible at learning people's names, I don't even try.
So you have to be really careful with what you believe about yourself. And you know, it's usually those things that we think that we can't do or what we're not that really holds us back. And so continuing to level that up, have statements I say to myself every morning, Mike, that represents like the identity I wanna keep moving into. One is I'm passionate in love with what I do. I hope you know, you heard that just in my conversation with you today. But another one is,
I'm the best damn keynote speaker you've ever heard. Now, that's because that's what I want to be. I want to keep growing to be one of the best you've ever heard. Right? And I want to continue to do that as long as I'm on this earth. And so just by repeating those things to myself, even if it's a silent, silently in my own mind, right? That's who I believe I am. You know, maybe it's like I'm a proud business owner for you.
I wonder what you want to keep on reminding yourself of to build your identity.
Mike Goldman (36:24)
love that. I have a list of affirmations like that, that frankly, you're reminding me to get back into the habit of using them. But a funny story is I was talking to my business coach, who's amazing. I've been working with him about 15 years and I did something that went well and for whatever reason, I was surprised it went well. And he said to me, why are you surprised?
Cindra Kamphoff (36:29)
Yes.
Okay.
Mike Goldman (36:50)
You're Mike F and Goldman, although he didn't say F and he said the whole word, but he said you're Mike F and Goldman. And I thought that's really cool. So, so now I have, I have, you know, on my affirmations, I'm Mike F and Goldman. And the funny thing is I went back to my coach and I said, I said, Hey, David, you know, I added that to my affirmations. I'm Mike F and Goldman. And he said, well, what do mean? I have in my affirmations. I coach Mike F and Goldman.
Cindra Kamphoff (36:53)
Yeah, I love it. You said it myself.
That's awesome! That was funny. ⁓
Mike Goldman (37:19)
I thought that was cool. Sinra, what are
some ways we've talked about so much powerful stuff here for leaders and any individual? How do you actually help your clients? What's your business model? Obviously, you do speaking because you're the best damn keynote speaker. ⁓ So obviously, speaking is part of what you do. But how else do you go out there and help folks?
Cindra Kamphoff (37:36)
Talk to you
Yeah, so I am a keynote speaker. I became one after being at the Boston Marathon bombing because just like following my own purpose, we have a company called the Mentally Strong Institute. And besides keynote speaking, we offer one on one coaching. also, so who we coach is like leaders, entrepreneurs, athletes who really want to be their best more often and realize the importance of their mind. And we do that by
teaching them the 10 practices of being mentally strong, but also helping them get to their goals quicker and build their confidence intentionally. We offer a couple of other things. I do a mentally strong coach certification, and this is for leaders who want to bring the mentally strong practice and the 10 practices back to their organization. And then we offer an academy. So people who want to just learn more from me every month live. So those are the kind of things that we do.
But coaching is like our main kind of bread and butter, the one that we impact on thousands of people all over the world every year.
Mike Goldman (38:44)
And where should people go if they want to find out more about you, your speaking, your coaching?
Cindra Kamphoff (38:49)
I'm going to encourage people to sign up for a free mental breakthrough call. And this is just a call where we'll say, hey, where did you hear about us? And you'll say Mike's podcast and we'll be like, my gosh, we'll help you just better understand what are the takeaways and then we'll help you create a breakthrough. And then if there's anything you want to learn about that I just mentioned, we'll share that with you as well. But a breakthrough to me is just a moment of more clarity. So people can go to freementalbreakthroughcall.com.
Okay, so freementalbreakthroughcall.com to find out more information and sign up.
Mike Goldman (39:22)
And we'll put that in the show notes. Absolutely take her up on that. I got free coaching today and got value out of it. So you will too. Well, Cindra thanks so much. I always say if you want a great company, you need a great leadership team. Thanks so much for helping us get there today. This was great.
Cindra Kamphoff (39:29)
Yeah. ⁓
Amazing. Thank you so much for having me, Mike. I appreciate you and keep crushing on this podcast. It's incredible.
Mike Goldman (39:46)
⁓ thank you very much.