SPEAKER_01 0:17

Hello and a belated Happy New Year. Welcome to the eighth episode in the second season of Slice of Pie, where the pie is the psychologically informed environment, and the mission is to try and understand what that looks like, whether it's sport, business, the public sector, performing arts, the military, and any domain where we are striving for better levels of performance and well-being. It's been a while since the last episode was launched, and sometimes when you lose a bit of momentum with something, be it exercise and fitness, motivation at work, learning a new language or a new skill, it's sometimes easy to put things down, or get down on yourself about losing that momentum. I've taken a lot from the writings of Acceptance, Commitment Therapy or ATT author Dr. Russ Harris, and he likens living by your values like a ship on the ocean. Sometimes you might notice that your ship is drifting off course from your values or your goals, but whilst you might be far off from where you'd like to be, starting again is at least heading in the right direction. So hopefully these episodes will come a little bit more regularly from now on. And speaking of ACT, today's episode focuses largely on ACT principles and in particular, the notion of living life through a strongly held set of values. I'm joined by chartered sports psychologist Joe Davis for this conversation. Joe runs her own sports psychology consultancy based out of Ryegate in Surrey. She is the sports psychology lead at the Army Elite Athlete Performance Centre, working with the Army Target Shooting and Army Boxing Teams. She is also a sports psychologist for TASS, the talented athlete scholarship scheme. And regular listeners of the podcast will remember the episode with Dr. Emma Vickers from TAS, and if you haven't listened to that episode, it's well worth checking out and hearing all about the great work TASS does for student athletes. Previously, Joe has also worked with the Academy Athletes at Surrey County Cricket. She supports several scholars at British Universities, and is a guest lecturer at undergraduate and master's level programmes. How does she fit all of this in? Jo also has a background in a question as an athlete, and it's interesting to hear in the conversation how she uses her development and expertise in sports psychology to practice on herself during competition. Jo is an advocate of utilising ACT principles within sports psychology work with both the individual athletes and teams that she works with, and it's fascinating to hear some real life examples of how this has benefited her practice. As always, we'll dive into the conversation and then emerge at the end for a full-time reflection. So let's jump into the conversation with Joe Davis. Joe, how are we?

SPEAKER_03 3:10

Yeah, good, thank you. I'm a little bit tired because I've worked all weekend, but I've got today off, which is really nice.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

So you've done the reverse bank holiday, you've worked the weekend, and then you've you've taken the bank holiday as your weekend.

SPEAKER_03 3:22

Absolutely. Yeah. So I was at um a riding camp all weekend working with dressage riders. And today I'm actually going riding myself. So doing this podcast and then off show jumping, and then I think having a very lazy evening.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Is riding your escape?

SPEAKER_03 3:38

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I very fortunate when I was younger, kind of grew up riding, and it's just it's just always been a big part of my life, even when I lived in London for a bit, kind of commuting out to Surrey and getting on a horse is uh yeah, to me, it is like walking or cycling. It just kind of is. I think I think once you've got the bug, you don't lose it.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Okay. Because some people take up things when they're younger, get really into it, get to maybe a decent level, and they kind of drop it, maybe because they they lose that competitive angle, but you've you've kept it up. Is that is it's just always been an intrinsic love of being in the saddle?

SPEAKER_03 4:16

Yeah, I I think my dad hoped I would give it up. But I think all through my teenage years he was secretly hoping that I might find something else that I preferred that was you know slightly more cost-effective or less timely. But um, yeah, I I think it's it's something about being around horses as creatures. But you know, you talk about the competitive element, and I'm I'm fortunate that sort of in the last year or so I've actually found a horse that belongs to someone else who I can compete myself, and and it's great because actually it gives me a chance to put into practice all the sports like work that I do and approaches that I work on with other other people with clients and putting it into practice myself, which is quite cool.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Hmm, yeah. So you the the stuff that you're working on with clients, you get to kind of rotest some of that uh some of that work when when you're competing yourself.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I I work with in my private practice a lot of riders. I work across all sports from you know, sort of eight-year-old gymnasts up to the oldest guy I've I've worked with was in his 70s, he was a ballroom dancer. But uh in fact, a lot of the of that private work, or maybe 50-60% I would say is equestrian, just because I think people like the fact I can kind of speak their language and relate to the challenges of working with an equine partner.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

From what I've read around flow, this kind of this idea of being completely engaged with what you're doing. A lot of the the sports that seem to be associated with that are sports where you ride something like downhill mountain biking or snowboarding or skiing or surfing. Do you do you ever get that with riding? Do you ever have that that sense of just pure connection? You you don't even you don't even feel like you're thinking, you're just doing?

SPEAKER_03 6:01

Yeah, for sure. I and I would say that's almost more when I'm going for a gallop or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Going for a gallop.

SPEAKER_03 6:09

Yeah. Just that buzz of, you know, you've got an open stretch in front of you, and you let the horse go and it really wants to go. And yeah, and there's not really anything else to think about other than that rush of you know, who's underneath you and wind on your face and all of that fairy tale stuff. Um, probably not so much for me when I'm doing something like jumping, and I'm, I suppose I'm sort of more maybe got more cognizant of ingredients of what I need in that jumping round, like quality of my canter or straightness to a jump, things like that.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

I love it. I love I love the idea that there's someone else in your household is going through the house trying to find out where you are, and there's just a post-it on the fridge that says gone for a gallop.

SPEAKER_03 6:54

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think I've got I've got a waterflash somewhere which says um cantering is my cardio. And and that that is that is pretty true.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Love it. Um okay, well, I'm gonna attempt a cheesy segue here. So from galloping to cantering, we're gonna we're gonna attempt at a an a nice canter through your your journey up until this point. Um for for those that don't know too much about your your pathway and your your history, uh, how did you how did you get to become a sport and exercise psychologist? What's your journey been?

SPEAKER_03 7:26

So I it started off uh I suppose in a fairly typical way, where I did a psychology undergrad at the University of Birmingham. Um, I then had a couple of years out because actually, when I ended my undergrad, I did not have a Scoobies what I wanted to do. Um, and some of my friends were going off and doing masters, and some knew they wanted to go on to chartership. And I I literally did, I did not have any idea, Pete. And I remember, I remember I went through several jobs, uh, sort of moved to London as you do, and I was sitting in this one job and I was thinking this was must have been about 2011, uh, sort of three years after I finished my undergrad. And I was just thinking, I can't do this forever. I was I was in this job and it was fine, but I was basically doing it for the London life. You know, I had really good hours, it was a really easy job, and I lived for the weekend and to, you know, live the party life in London. But I was thinking this is not how I want to live my life, you know. I didn't feel challenged, I didn't really feel a passion for the work that I do, and I suppose this kind of comes back to values in terms of okay, well, how can I challenge myself? How can I find something that I am more passionate about? And I started to look back into okay, what can I do with my psychology degree? And it sounds ridiculous now and quite ironic that I did not appreciate at that time that uh sport psychology existed as its own profession. Um, so this this was sort of music to my ears at the time because I've always been really interested in sport. I obviously had a passion for psychology, and to combine the two seemed like a really great idea. So actually, I managed to get a job over London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which was awesome, not in a psych capacity, just in a kind of a management capacity. And then off the back of that did my master's uh 2012 to 13. Then from from that moment on, I always knew that I wanted to become a sports psychologist, and I always felt that my passion was going to be to build my own consultancy. I guess having that sort of life and work experience of working under other people, I just loved the idea of having this freedom and flexibility to grow my own business and work for myself. So my goal across my postmaster's stage two training towards chartership was very much around how can I build that consultancy and have this plan by the end of stage two, but I kind of wanted to be self-sufficient in that. And I initially worked part-time in another job alongside my stage two, but as my client base grew, uh, that became true. And by the end of my stage two, and for the last, what I became chartered in 2017, but for the last what, six, seven years, I've been working in private practice for the last couple of years. That's been full-time in private practice, and I've kind of had various contracts along the way. So I currently have a contract with army sport that's predominantly, yeah. I love it because actually, one of the things about private practice, as much as I love the flexibility and freedom of it, is that it can feel quite isolating. So within the army sport environment, I'm part of an MDT, so I work alongside the coaches, the physio, the SNC coach, the lifestyle coach, etc. So that it's really refreshing actually to look at that team approach and how we work together to support a team of athletes. Uh, who else do I work with? I work a bit through Task Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme at the moment. I work with some university scholars and I work on something called ACE, um advanced apprenticeship and sporting excellence within uh the southeast uh athletics, so uh track and field discipline. So so quite varied. Basically, I'm full-time, full-time applied practitioner.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

So bit of a bit of a zigzag journey there, isn't it? Because you you've you've started with the the psychology, taking the the couple of years out, have a little think and dipped your toe into the London life. Um I like that that reflection around ticking boxes, a combination of boxes of what you maybe think you should be doing, because lots of other people are doing the London life thing, but also probably some boxes that you just want to tick at that age, a bit of kind of a cathartic blowout um on the weekends, etc. And then you've got to this sounds like a moment. Was it was it a moment? Were you sitting in an office or one day and did this realization just kind of hit you? Um was it a growing thing that happened over time?

SPEAKER_03 11:52

It was probably slightly growing, but I I do remember, Pete, sitting in this office with these not that I didn't get on with uh the other people in my office, but I just remember sitting there and thinking, is is this it? You know, uh and and the the other uh ladies who were working in the office at the time were slightly older than me. So I was thinking to myself, in in 15, 20 years' time, if I'm still sat in this office doing what I do around similar people, how am I gonna feel? And I was like, this is this is not what I want to do with my life. And I guess at that time I'd maybe prioritise lifestyle over career. And maybe I needed to do that to then feel ready to come back into academics and looking at a different career. Maybe I kind of needed that blowout or that life experience and time out to grow as a person and then decide what I wanted to do. I'd, you know, I know we've talked about this before, but I think actually, had I come out of my undergrad and tried to do my master's and stage two straight away, I actually don't think I would have been well equipped to do what I'm doing now as quickly as I have. So I don't, I can't I can't see that I would have been ready to grow a consultancy at the age of 22 based on how I feel I I was at that point in terms of confidence, in terms of communication skills, etc.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Yeah, it's that that big picture, I suppose, is that having had a few few different experiences and few more life experiences to to bring to them what you're you're doing is gonna it's gonna give you that bigger picture, I suppose. But but you know, there's one thing in there that I'm I'm gonna throw a bit of a curveball on here uh at you, Joe, because and it is it's a bit of a difficult question. And it's really what you were saying there around, you know, thinking, is this it? You know, is this what I want to get out of a job, is it close to my values, etc. I think there'll there'll be lots of people listening to this that that will resonate with them. But I think there's there's also some interesting stuff written about this this idea of of getting kind of meaning and and having a purpose in work, not all of it in the academic literature, but uh a lot of pop culture articles in national newspapers and you know articles in in places like The Economist in the Atlantic, talking about how if you were rewind the clock 60 years, 70 years, um, and we think about what the the the picture of the workplace or the picture of employment looked like coming out of say something like World War II, there was a real appreciation of just being employed at that time. There, you know, there's a couple of you know big shocks to the world happened through the early part of that century. And and certainly you can you can see it when you or you can hear it when you talk to older generations in your family about their relationship with work. It was very much an appreciation of just being employed and being able to get some money and put food on the table for family and and set set the family up. Um, and it feels like over time there's been a bit of a shift from that kind of quite pragmatic getting a good job, that steady foundation support the family to a more kind of an individual need for for meaning, for for purpose. You you might even argue a kind of Maslow hierarchy of needs, you know, type thing. Do you think we're we're kind of quite lucky as a generation, or do you think we're, you know, or certain people like ourselves are quite lucky to even have that, you know, that question or that problem? You know, what was that, what was that meaning?

SPEAKER_03 15:23

Yeah, absolutely. Um yeah, I would count myself as very fortunate that you know I I was born in the UK, that I was born into a family where I got financial support to be able to go to university, etc. So, you know, I I certainly don't discount the the fortune that I've kind of come across in terms of being in a position where I can make that choice. And yeah, I agree with you, Pete. I think it's so much more the norm now, as as a general rule, to be able to change profession or make those different choices. And I yeah, I I guess when I come back to the values and you talked about meaning and purpose there, I guess my my job satisfaction here when I'm thinking back to that office job I have where it was that kind of defining moment for me, my job satisfaction was really low. Whereas I would say uh values in other areas of life or or life satisfaction within uh relationships or social or growth in other areas of life was was actually really high. So, you know, to go through a couple of years within a job that I wasn't that enamoured by, I wouldn't say it was massively impacting my life satisfaction as a whole, because actually at that point in time I prioritized the social and the relationships and and the the growth in in other areas of life. But actually, I think there came a point where I went, do you know what does what meaning does my career have to me and and what values do I want to pursue there? And and then and then and then it kind of shifted in terms of priorities. But yes, coming back to to your point, very fortunate to be able to be able to make that choice.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Yeah, it's quite interesting. It kind of reminds me, you know, what you were saying in terms of the you know, the different factors that that play into employment or or anything really. It feels like the kind of a jigsaw puzzle of of different elements, and you know, you might be really good at something, you might have that that really high self-efficacy in what you do. You might love working with your immediate team so you have that connection and you might have autonomy over your job. And that might mean you really enjoy working, but there's always this maybe sticky little question at the back of your mind thinking, is the output of what I do actually in line with my values or meaningful? But that that might just keep people going in the short term. Um, and and you hear from people and vice versa, don't you hear from people that work for charities or work for companies that really do good in the world or work in the public sector, um, teaching comes to mind where you know your your contribution is so meaningful, but some of those elements, other elements aren't there, which makes it a very could make it quite a distressing experience.

SPEAKER_03 18:03

Yeah, true. And and I guess, I guess maybe that's one of the challenges of building a career within Sportsy, right? Is that during stage two, there are these number of different demands in terms of finances and time. So as much as you might be passionate about the topic of sports psychology and want to go on and become a sport and exercise psychologist, actually it can be a very tough process in in terms of uh you know, following values, but there's some really difficult demands along the way.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Talking about values, we we've been talking a little bit over email and and just before coming coming on air around acceptance, commitment therapy, ACT, and and the role of values within that that model. Um I know you're it's something you're you're quite passionate about. I've just read The Happiness Trap by Ross Harris, which I loved and can't wait to learn a little bit more around ACT over the next few years. If you're working with values in different environments with with athletes to help them recognise what their values are, how do you go about doing that? What's what's the kind of the process you go through? Or do you have any particular perspectives or opinions on how values should be should be used in consultancy?

SPEAKER_03 19:17

Yeah, um, that is a massive question. So um I'll make a start and we might kind of unpack it a little bit, I guess, as we go. But maybe I'll start by just kind of defining values and and and really when I talk about values, it's it's talking about what we care about. So what brings us meaning? And if we look at the sport context, what brings us meaning in sport? What brings us vitality? Why do we do what we do? And I tend to ask this question really early on in consultancy. You know, if I've met someone, you know, tell me about your your sporting journey or sporting experiences, and okay, like why do you do it? You know, what do you love about it? And when I first started asking this question, I felt like it was going to be quite an easy question for people to answer, but actually, seemingly not, you know, so many athletes would come back to me and say, Yeah, I don't know, it's just it's just what I do. You know, if they're full-time for a professional athlete, it's yeah, well, it's it's what I do day to day. Of course, you know, it's just what I do. And and for for other people, it might be I've you know, I've always ridden or I've always done cycling or swimming. So why would I stop? And actually, how often do we stop and pause and reflect on the whys behind why we're doing something? You know, the the passion, the meaning, the vitality it brings us, what's our purpose behind it? Values are kind of different from goals, I would say, in the sense of a goal is a destination, if you like, it's something we're moving towards, it's something we can tick off once we've achieved it. Whereas values tend to have ongoing meaning and purpose for us. So if I was to start to ask an athlete around what personal characteristics do you feel you want to bring to your sport? How do you want to treat yourself? How do you want to treat others within your sporting environment? You know, they might come up with things like, I want to have courage, I want to be disciplined, I want to have sportsmanship, I want to act with integrity, uh, I want to uh have positive communications or loyalty with my team, etc. And then we start to think, well, what does that look like? You know, what would that look like from day to day? What would that look like in a training or a competitive environment? Why do we do what we do in terms of sport motivation and purpose? There's an element of what values, characteristics do we want to bring to sport to be at our best. And there's also this concept that I really like and have developed, I think, more and more in my practice of what is an athlete's values across life? So we're not just looking at their athletic identity, we're looking at their identity as a whole. And that might be okay, what do you care about in your relationships at home? With your family, with your partner, what do you care about? You know, if you've got a dual career in terms of your career, what's important to you there? Or and/or what's important to you in terms of your personal growth, your self-nurture, your self-care? That I think really fits into this concept of well-being. So, what I really like about values when we look at them in a sport context, we can use them to develop whole person identity and well-being and balance. And we can also look at them in a real sport-specific context and go, Well, what values do you need to bring to training or a competitive performance to be your very best self? Um, I'm not sure I've answered your question, Eddie, at all.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

Well, as you've as you acknowledged, it was an enormous question full of multiple sub-questions. So I like the way that you you break that down and start to talk about actually what is a value, it's something we care about, it's something that brings us meaning and vitality. Lovely use of the word vitality. I love that. What brings you meaning and vitality? I thought that was really interesting, the observation that it's something that you might think someone has got clarity over, and yet actually a lot of people don't. And do you think there's a reason? Is it you think there's a reason for that? Why do we think that athletes or people in general might not have clarity over their values?

SPEAKER_03 23:18

I think I guess maybe several reasons. One might be that we don't often stop and think about it. It's not really a question we're asked. We kind of fall into routines and then it just becomes habits. And in our busy everyday lives, you know, sport is a routine, or I do it here, here, and here. And I don't really stop and savour or reflect on my whys. But but I think also we can be in quite a goal-driven culture generally, whether that's a goal set by ourselves or whether that is goals set by coaches, teams, federations. And I'm not saying that goal setting isn't important because it is. We need to know what we're working towards. But like I said, the goal is kind of the destination and the value is about the journey there. Maybe to put that into context, you know, we might speak to an athlete who has set a goal of meddling, that becomes really important to them to the point where, you know, I've had athletes say to me, if I don't qualify for this, it's gonna feel like it was a waste of time putting this much investment, effort, time into my training. Whereas if we take a values focus and go, well, what makes that journey meaningful almost regardless of meddling or not? And I'm never gonna take away someone's ambition or try to do that. You know, if meddling's important, yes, we work towards that. But what makes that journey meaningful along the way so that the focus isn't so much on the meddling, but on what helps me to get meaning to be at my best through that journey. And then the meddle is the the sort of more uncontrollable outcome, if you like, that either comes or it doesn't come, but there's less pressure on it. Again, I feel like I've gone off on a slight tangent there, Pete. But uh but but uh coming back to your question, why don't we have this idea of what our values are? I think we don't often think about it, and sometimes we can be very goal-driven.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Yeah, no, I don't think you went off on on a tangent at all. I think the the observation there or the insight there is we live in quite a goal-driven culture, and and what you might do with athletes is is not to say your goal doesn't matter. That might be quite a controversial thing to do as a as a as a practitioner is to throw someone's kind of dreams out the window, but to augment and build on that and go, yeah, that's important, but how can we make the journey meaningful as well? So whether door A, B, C, or D happens, that the at least the journey has been valuable and whether it leads after that can be valuable as well.

SPEAKER_03 25:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and I and I think kind of picking up on that a bit more by focusing in on values, we can actually help someone to enjoy their sporting experience more in the moment. I've worked with a cricket player, for example, who was putting so much pressure on his bowling to be a certain way. And and it, you know, if his bowling wasn't going to plan in a competitive match, he would get all kinds of tricky thoughts, feelings coming up around this isn't going well, I don't know what to do in this situation, I'm getting sweaty palms, typical kind of fight-flight instincts coming up, almost to the point where he didn't want to bowl. So there was very much this outcome focus for him as we reflected on I should be the best bowler in the team and I should be taking this many wickets. Whereas then, when we talked about his batting, which he put less pressure on, what we recognised was there was much more of a values-focused or process-led focus in terms of, you know, when he talked about batting, I was going, I I love the battle. Um, you know, I I love being there and knocking balls around and having this banter with the bowler, and and I just love this idea of being in the battle and sort of trying to dominate and be more assertive. And and so we kind of built upon that by going, okay, what are the values that you're using or moving towards when you're batting? And it was about this committed, I'm I'm dominating and I'm passionate, and just that shift of recognizing, okay, if that's if that's what's important here, if that's what what I love about my batting, then what do those values look like within a bowling context? Being able to then reframe that and move towards, well, what do those values look like? How can I move towards them there? Brought him just a completely different view of of bowling and kind of reflecting over time. He was saying, actually, do you know what I'm much less focused on the goal of I've got to take this many wickets, but I'm much more focused now on where am I bringing passion into my bowling? How committed am I? Where am I, you know, where where's kind of this battle coming in? Can I have this banter? Can I be really engaged in the game rather than in my head about what everyone else is thinking about my bowling or how many wickets I'm taking?

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Is the fundamental aim there? Obviously, one of the big aims, as you talked about, is to bring values to the fore. But is the the knock-on effect of that is by bringing values to the fore, as you've mentioned there, get out of your own head so that the thing that you need to do in the next 25 seconds, which is to run down the pitch and bowl 22 yards to to someone else, you actually focus on that opposed to being your own head. Is that one of the big useful elements of values is bringing you back to the present?

SPEAKER_03 28:32

Yes. So it would be, you know, you mentioned uh acceptance and commitment, commitment therapy earlier, our act. And values is one element of an ACT approach, but the other key elements of ACT would be noticing and accepting internal experiences. So um thoughts, feelings I might have that hook me away from who I want to be. So in this example, it would be, you know, the bowlers going, what am I doing? Why did I do that? What are other people thinking? And then another key element of this act approach would be around being in the present. Can I mindfully be in the now? You know, I can't change the past, I can't control what's going to happen in five minutes' time. But if I can be in the now and engaged in a now, then yes, you're right, Pete. Coming back to the values can help us to be in the now and think about okay, but what would passionate look like now? Or what would commitment look like now? So it automatically gives you an action to engage in, if you like, rather than, like we were saying, kind of being in my my head and letting these tricky thoughts or feelings hook me.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Yeah. That kind of process that you've just mentioned from noticing or being aware that when you are being hijacked, let's say, hijacked by your thinking self, or or hijacked by this, you know, the kind of the automatic, the computer is being written by other authors, noticing that the first step, recognizing that you have a set of values that you can commit to in the present and then taking action off the back of that. No wonder. I mean, I went I went to a workshop last year with with Joe Oliver and and um Mr. Bennett, I forgot his first name, Richard Bennett. Oh, Richard Bennett. And uh and they remarked that most people come away from the workshop not only excited about working with clients on this stuff, but actually doing it themselves. And and no wonder, because it's quite a simple, pragmatic process that noticing, trying to disconnect from that if you feel it's helpful, and then connecting with the value and then taking action off the off the back of that. It's it's quite a simple, pragmatic process to go through.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

Yeah, it it is. Um, putting it into practice, I would say, is sometimes not simple. So it's it's it's a simple process, but to actually be able to use that process in the height of a pressure moment in sport or when you are at the height of kind of fight, flight, and and tricky thoughts, feelings coming up, I think that's where it can be really tricky to help athletes implement it, which is why you know this idea of kind of practice, be really experiential in my sessions with clients, bringing in, for example, pressure moments into training environments so they can use these tools and approaches to set them up for you know those moments when they do really need it, when it's at the the height of pressure in a competitive match or situation. Um, so yes, I agree. It's it can be a simple process, but uh but being able to actually put it into practice can be quite challenging.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Yeah, that's interesting. My follow-up question to that would have been okay, so what do you what do you do with athletes, but I like how you've you've you've caught me off at the past there and you've already told me some stuff. I suppose because ACT is a is a third wave uh uh amongst a cognitive behavioral kind of approach, what you've talked about there around experiential learning, experiential practice, um pressure moments, that reminds me of kind of behavioral experiments from CBD or kind of exposure training. So putting people in those positions repeatedly to test how they can use that process within increasing levels of difficulty. Am I getting that right?

SPEAKER_03 32:13

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. You're right. So, you know, act is built upon behavioral analysis. So whereas I think in in my early career, I was using maybe more cognitive approaches around, you know, trying to use cognitive restructuring, which is an approach where we would look at an athlete's negative automatic thoughts and try and challenge them and look at more helpful thoughts to have in that situation. I would now use uh an apt approach called diffusion instead to actually rather than argue with tricky thoughts or tricky feelings that come up, actually almost allow and make space for them, knowing that I can still do what I want to do. Um, so so I have a choice, right? And it's kind of this press pause moment where I get these tricky thoughts or feelings come up. Now, if I was using cognitive restructuring, it you know, in the let's say I'm about to go and uh jump a show jumping round and I'm getting a thought in my head of actually, gosh, these jumps look really big. Rather than try and restructure that thought in the moment, my way of thinking is it's much more helpful to be able to, okay, notice and accept that thought as just my limbic system part of the brain, it's looking up for threats and dangers for me, it's trying to be helpful. Um, but to actually ground myself in the moment with a breath or with a body movement and come back to um the value or the process that I said I wanted to commit to. Because an act approach would give the example that if we are trying to argue with thoughts or reframe thoughts in that moment, we're actually not in the now, and we're not fully present. For example, if I'm show jumping, I'm not fully present in the moment with my horse approaching the fence. I'm in my head, whereas I want to be connecting head and body with this present moment, and that that grounding technique of you know, kind of breathe, move, focus on the value is actually to me more helpful in that moment.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Yeah, it's interesting it's interesting. Do you find that one thing that I found, I don't really found this with clients with athletes, is in terms of kind of beliefs or or thoughts, so kind of talking maybe around the the more REBT side of the cognitive behavioral approach. I find that quite a lot of clients feel like they know how they want to think or they they have a if you ask them the question, you know, what is your your outlook on sport and performance or or how you should be reacting in games, they kind of know how they'd like to think. But when it gets into that moment, that's when you can get hijacked. And what I'm hearing here is cognitive re-restructuring or working on beliefs hugely valuable. If someone's got a really unhelpful belief on the world, that's obviously something you might want to work on. But actually, in that performance moment, do you actually have the time to go through the process of analysing that belief and thinking about whether it's helpful, etc.? Because in the next two seconds you might have to tackle someone or you might have to jump jump a fence or you might have to answer an interview question.

SPEAKER_03 35:16

Yeah, absolutely. I think I think the other element of that is if we're always trying to restructure our thoughts, well, A, that's exhausting, and I don't really have time to do that. But B, I think we can fall into a trap of thinking we're doing it wrong, like life wrong. Like I always say to people, if you're having negative thoughts or self-doubting thoughts or imposter syndrome, your brain's working really hard for you. You're not doing anything wrong. You know, we don't control what thoughts come into our mind. And actually, I sort of alluded to it earlier without really explaining it. You know, we've all got this part of the brain called the limbic system that its job is to look out for threats and dangers for us in day-to-day life, whether that's a physical threat, um, you know, in sport that might be opponent approaching, or an emotional threat or an emotional threat to my ego in terms of what if I don't do well today? What if people judge me? Now, these these are just really normal thoughts to have because it's my mind trying to be helpful, trying to protect me. And what what I see when I explain that to athletes, to clients is almost this relief, you know, like that's that somehow this positive mental attitude approach has been sort of drilled so much, you know, in sort of pseudoscience almost, that people think they're doing it wrong if they're not thinking positively all the time. And and and and so when we talk with clients and sort of do this psychoeducation piece around it is normal to have negative thoughts, self-doubt, but actually it's just a story that that part of your mind is telling. If we can step back and observe that that's where our thoughts are going and that's not helpful, then we can ground ourselves in the now, and that's when we have a choice to be able to move towards values or move towards a process or plan that we want to commit to. Yes, I suppose I'm not saying that cognitive restructuring can't be useful in terms of you know, we might want to challenge beliefs at some point, yet it's certainly in the moment for me being able to allow and accept thoughts, feelings to come, but know I've got a strategy to manage those. And actually, that's just a story my mind's telling me to try and be helpful, but in the here and now I am okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

Yeah, I I love that what you said there about falling into the trap of thinking we're doing life wrong and changing the lens on that to well, actually, that's that's not you, that's your that's your brain, it's your limpic system, that's the the threat-seeking part of the brain that attacks everyone. I can't remember the stats from the workshop, but they they say it's I don't know what it's 80,000, 80 to 100,000 thoughts you might have a day, and up to 60 to 80 percent of them might be negative. I don't know how they work, I don't know how they work that out. But if that's happening to everyone, I suppose the other thing there is is another trap we fall into is when we compare our insides to others' outsides, because when you you look at other people in either your sport or just in life, or your CEO and you see this kind of really calm, cool person, you're kind of assuming that that doesn't happen to them. But in all likeliness it does.

SPEAKER_03 38:21

Yeah, absolutely. So someone said a really good quote to me, which I now use myself, and it's don't compare your back of house with someone else's front of house.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Oh, I like it.

SPEAKER_03 38:32

Yeah, in other words, summarising what you've just said, Pete, don't compare what's going on behind the scenes for you, all that tricky stuff coming up for you with someone else's poised or articulate or composed approach that you see on the outside of them. They've probably got their own tricky stuff or almost definitely got their own tricky stuff going on inside. It's just that we don't always see it.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

The back of house, the front of house. Do you know what? You're exactly right, because when I was trying to fund myself for university, I used to work at uh Royal Ascot every year. And you know, whilst the the champagne was flowing and everything looked perfect on the outside, I used to I saw the storeroom and I can tell you it was an absolute mess back there. So I like that quote. Right, so we've just talked about how some of the ACT principles and things like values and diffusion apply on an individual level. Let's widen the lens a bit because obviously the name of the podcast is the psychologically informed environment or the the interest of the podcast is the psychologically informed environment. How do we take some of this stuff and apply it in a group or an environmental level? Does it get a bit trickier when you've got a mix of people's individual values and then the organization or the sport team's overarching values?

SPEAKER_03 39:49

Yeah, yeah, there's certainly more complexity to that. And I think it's having a shared understanding of what a team or a group's values are, and you know, I've gone into contexts where a team will already have a set of values, and I've been into environments where that there's no values and there's a process of kind of building those group values. So, you know, the the former, sometimes what I've observed is that a team or an environment might have some values and they can reel those off. But and I'm thinking of a particular team that I went into, and I'd I'd done some research on their website, and and one of this team's values, well, one of the key ones seemed to be relentless, and it kept coming up on this website. And so I wrote it on this, you know, on this bit of flip chart at the beginning of this workshop and said, right, this is what I've learned about your team from your website. This is one of your key values. I think immediately they were like, oh, she's done her research. But what I wanted to get to was what does that actually mean to you as a team? Because values can mean different things to different people, and actually, as a team, you know, if I'm watching on the sidelines, watching your team being relentless, how would I know? What would you be doing more of, less of differently? How would you be communicating with each other, treating each other, treating your opponents, working together if you were being relentless? And so looking at that across a training competitive environment and bringing that to life, I think it's really important to have a shared understanding of what that looks like and also coach buy-in, right? So this is not just for athletes of the team to live by, it's also for the coaching staff, the MDT to live by, so that we're all role models and all accountable to what we said was important for us as a team. In terms of building values with a team that doesn't already have them, it's it can be a lengthy process because you know it's it's not like we just click our fingers and go, yeah, boom, boom, boom, that's what's important. I think there actually needs to be a lot of thinking and a lot of reflection. And one of the things I think that helps is to get a team, or an individual for that sense, but a team thinking about what do we like when we're at our best in those games or those matches where we have really felt a sense of teamship or really performed well together or things have just clicked, like what is it that we've brought to the fore? And that deeper question of okay, why do we enjoy working together? Why do we do this? So, yes, it can be quite a lengthy process looking at it as a team because there's all sorts of ideas that come to the fore and prioritizing which values are important. But I think if a team can look at one of, you know, several of their best performances, then that often translates well into shared understanding and appreciation of what the team values are. But then, of course, like you say, Pete, there might be then individuals having different values within the team. So my team might stand for this, uh being relentless, but actually as an individual, I might stand for uh something else, like another value. That doesn't mean I have to be conflicting, it means that we need to think about how I can fulfil my value within the team environment. I guess I might sort of um, I think it's is it a Venn diagram when you sort of draw the two the two circles that overlap? In that instance, you might think about right, well, if one of those circles represents the team values, and if one of those circles represents my individual values, then what's that middle part look like where the circles are overlapping? How can my values and the team values be fulfilled? And what does that look like in terms of actions what I would be doing? That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

Yeah. So in in that middle shaded area, that's where you get the buy in. And is that a just a grown up thing to note, to accept when you go into that environment and you're doing this type of work to say to athletes or people within that group or people in that company, it is fine for us to have different. Different reasons why we come to work or why we come to training. And that's kind of you know, that's what makes a team interesting because you you we're not all identiquate copycats.

SPEAKER_02 44:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 44:09

However, it is important to have this overlapping bit in the center, which we all share because that's the bit that brings us together and helps us in those, you know, times of hardship or jeopardy or yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:22

You you make a really good point there, Pete, around diversity is what makes uh or one of the things that helps make a team a team and appreciating those individual differences, and we all bring something different, and we might, yeah, all be there for different reasons, but when we work together, this is what makes our team the best when we work towards these kind of values together.

SPEAKER_01 44:40

Yeah. And what about other elements of ACT? Obviously, values is probably if you were going to lift anything out of the ACT stuff and and recognize how it's used within teams. And you know, I've on the in the corporate um side of what I do, I've certainly sat in many workshops over the years being a member of teams or a kind of a manager or a director and thinking about values. Um, it seems to be a poster child for lifting that out and applying it to different teams. Are there other elements of ACT that are particularly useful you found helpful working within a team environment?

SPEAKER_03 45:17

Yeah, okay. So I'm thinking of a particular team I was working with. We had looked at the values they wanted to move towards, we would look at what that looked like. And then I guess the next step to that is thinking about well, what are the barriers, what's going to get in the way? Because inevitably there will be, you know, whether that is an external barrier like game circumstances, this particular opposition we know, play like this, or internal things going on for an individual. So to have an understanding as a team that when this individual in the team makes a mistake, um, she has shared with us that she has these kind of tricky thoughts, feelings coming up, then to be able to look at those barriers for that individual and know what she needs from the team, or to be able to, as a team, problem solve okay, when we come up with these kind of external barriers, opposition, game circumstances, we as a team tend to our heads go down, or we start, we start to become more erratic or frantic. So I think again, that's where some of the act principles around noticing, noticing in ourselves, noticing in our teammates, and around bringing ourselves back into the moment. And that might either be an individual process or it may well be a team process. I'm noticing in that teammate, or I'm noticing as a team we are starting to act like this, we're starting to derail and using a strategy to bring ourselves back into the present moment. And that really depends on the team I'm working with. I like them to come up with their ideas on how they do that. So I I can I can give ideas right, you know, whether that is a a word that we say that helps us remember, sort of um notice and be in the now, whether that is the way they formulate team-side chats around, you know, it might be right, like everyone take a couple of deep breaths, everyone get back in the now before we start having our team chat. So any little ways of grounding ourselves when we've noticed. So I'm kind of trying to bring in the, you know, the notice, be in the now, and move towards values with that. But I think you you can structure team chats around that, but there's also this piece around knowing our tendencies as a team, individuals sharing. This is the stuff that comes up for me so that we can help ourselves, we can help each other.

SPEAKER_01 47:43

Yeah, that's really interesting. I think the the mistakes one certainly I I recognise, um, particularly in a lot of a lot of team sports from rugby to to ultimate frisbee. If you if you look at the average kind of game stats, that there's no such thing as a mistake-free game. So they're going to happen. Um, and I I remember I've I've had a rugby player tell me once that if he makes a mistake in in the game, he's been at clubs where they'll come and like pat you on the back and they think they're doing the right thing, they're patting you on the back and going, Don't worry next time. And he says, Oh God, I hate it. It's like it's compounded the error, it's you know, it's coming across as um as you know helpful, but it's not, it's like it's sympathy and it's just drawing more attention. And um, you know, I there was an ultimate team that I worked with where they they came to the realization that they were happy to welly each other for anything that involved a lack of motivation, for example, determination to get somewhere. So they're happy to welly each other if it was about actually not spending that extra breath or that extra, you know, bit of energy to get to a point they needed to do to defend a part of the pitch. But when it was mistakes, that was the bit where they had to to fall back and just leave that person alone and just let them deal with it. And uh what I'm hearing there is if if you're actually talking about that as a team and have a group acceptance of how you're going to react when a mistake happens, i.e., um a mistake is a team mistake, and we will we will do this set of behaviors, then I suppose that's going back, like you say, to that kind of that noticing element, that noticing, that grounding, and then right, what's the value?

SPEAKER_03 49:26

What's the next action? For sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You hit the nail on the head.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Right. No, nails hitting is always a good thing. Um, right. So, last thing we're going to talk about, which we discussed uh beforehand, which I think is super interesting, talking about values, people who are listening to this who have spent a long time thinking about their values. They might have had, you know, quite a bit of life experience, a couple of different jobs, lots within their life to reflect upon and to triangulate. How do you do values with a junior, a junior athlete who who might not necessarily have that experience to draw on, or even think that that's something that is valuable to think about, or do you do you just uh approach it in a slightly different way?

SPEAKER_03 50:14

Yeah, yeah, possibly in a slightly different way, Pete. I think the the area of values is still really relevant and helpful to look at with juniors, but I guess for a start, I might not call them values because I I think that word to a junior is quite alien, and what even is that? Um, so I might start by speaking to a junior about okay, well, what sessions do you most enjoy? What do you love doing? And think about you know a specific match or game or training session and what were the best bits. So it's kind of a gentle move into values. Sometimes with or quite often with juniors, they'll go, I I love it when I score, or I love it when I win, um, which is normal, right? Of course they do. But then it's looking at okay, what's behind that? So helping them dig a little bit deeper. So, okay, well, when I score or when I win, it means that I've made progress, or maybe I've mastered something, or I've shown courage or freedom in my performance. And then we're starting to get to the values. Some other sideways moves into values might be asking them about role models. So, what qualities do you admire in the athletes that you look up to? Uh, not just in terms of skill, but in terms of the person that they are and and what you see from them in interviews or how they are with teammates. And another quite nice exercise is one called the Hall of Fame. I don't know if you've heard of this. So you so you sort of think, get a junior to think about in, you know, in however many years' time, maybe 10, 20 years' time, you've achieved loads of stuff in your sporting career, and you've kind of this idea of a hall of fame speech where you're talking about your career and you've got other people talking about your career. What would you love people to say? Not necessarily about what you've won, but about the kind of person that you were and how you went about your training, how you went about your games, what kind of teammate you were, or how you were with your support team. And I guess one similar to that sometimes with adolescents would be to get them thinking about sponsorship. So, particularly with the more elite adolescent athletes I work with who might already have sponsorship or are looking at gaining sponsorship. Okay, well, why would someone sponsor you? What is it about you? Because there's lots of other talented, other junior athletes out there, but what is it about your characteristics, your personality that you stand for that you want to shine through in how you act, how you go about your sport? So I guess that there's means and ways. It's not always about calling it values, it's about asking questions or running through reflection exercises that help a junior come to a point where they're actually talking about values without realizing it. But then I probably would start calling them values and I'll kind of explain, okay, so now we're hitting upon values, and this is what a value is. And I think what's really important with juniors, I've I've realized as I've gone on to work with more and more juniors, and actually, probably 40% of my client base now is a junior client base, is bring their support teams buy-in into that. And I'm thinking of an example where a junior was saying to me in their sport, we were moving towards uh positive and courage, would were two values as junior wanted to have. And actually, the the limiting factor in moving towards those values was was A, some tricky stuff coming up inside the athlete that I can work with directly with them. But B, was actually their parent on the sideline. And as junior was saying to me, you know, I look over at my parent and there's purse lips or there's shakes of the head, and and actually that's what is a real limiting factor and makes me move away from my values because suddenly I go into my shell, suddenly, whatever. Yeah. So so actually then bringing a parent or a coach's buy-in on that junior's values and how they can best support them to move towards that value becomes really important within that junior context.

SPEAKER_01 54:12

Brilliant. So many real-world and pragmatic experiences there that anyone listening could take away and note down. Love the Hall of Fame thing, love the incorporation of parents and coaches into that, into that piece as well. And you know, oh, you got you got me really reflecting there actually about how you come at this idea of values from a different perspective because the clientele that you're working with is a youth athlete, a youth athlete. But I as you were talking, I was reflecting that actually maybe some of this stuff could be useful for adults as well. And the reason why I bring this up is particularly in the corporate world, I think the term values has been used so much that when you sit down with a group and you say, Well, what's the values? It almost comes out automatically. There's not that reflection there because it just comes out parroted automatically, you know, off the top of my head, it's trust, it's honesty, it's integrity, it's work ethic, it's creativity. I'm pretty sure half of those were values of Enron before they collapsed at the end of the 90s. I think it's a kind of famous example of values contradicting a company's actual behaviour. But what I think the questions that you're asking there about what do you you love about what you're doing? What does it feel like when you win a game or win a pitch? Like who are your role models? These are all actually questions that get you to really reflect on what it is that drives you and what you like about your job or your your sport, and might be a nice way of just getting people to actually think at a deeper level, opposed to this kind of this surface level values exercise, which can you know can normally almost be a bit too automatic.

SPEAKER_03 55:52

I I think you're right, Pete. I think sometimes the word values, and particularly in a corporate sense, it's a bit, it can be a bit like, yeah, we've done that, or a little bit dry. And I think making a sideways move and different kind of language just coming at it in a different way can make it something more refreshing or a different lens on it. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 56:14

Yeah. Certainly there was a a point in a company I used to work for where we'd only set we'd only go out and go to the pub if we want to pitch. But what I I try to I try to change it and and make sure that if win or lose, whether we actually completely executed on on all of our, let's say, values and how we would want to pitch the go in terms of working with each other, communication, all of us listening to each other and empathically and having arguments in the right way and getting to a product that we were really proud of, win or lose, we should go to the pub and celebrate that. Um, opposed to the you know, it going to the pub dependent on the on the outcome.

SPEAKER_03 56:58

Yeah, that's interesting because then it becomes kind of a rule and not a value, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 57:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, enough of my random reflections from the corporate world. Loads of like brilliant, interesting stuff there for people to take away. Let's finish with the the question, let's bring some of this stuff together. Let's finish with a question that I ask everyone that comes on the podcast. The pie, the psychologically informed environment. What does that look like to you? What does that mean to you?

SPEAKER_03 57:27

Yeah, I guess I've got a couple of ideas on this which mesh together. Uh, my first when I hear that is about shared understanding. So do we have an understanding of individuals within an environment, within the contextual demands of that environment? And do we have an understanding of the goals? But also, you know, of course, I would say this the values are either inherent or we want to build within this environment. And the current resources we have to move towards those the current limiting factors around moving towards those. So the the first thing was this kind of shared understanding. The the second thing that came to mind was collaboration. So as I've gone on, I guess, uh through through my career, collaboration becomes more and more important in the sense of you know, psychology is not something that's done to you or done for you, it's something that's done together. And whenever I'm working with someone or a group, you know, I'm like, you're you're the experts as well, bring your ideas to this. And I listened to a webinar recently on psychological safety and this you know, ability to uh feed in information freely without concern around comeback. So being able to share things to make a positive influence constructively together. So so my other, yeah, my other area was around collaboration. And then finally, I guess what it means to me is this ongoing process. So if we're starting to work on psychological interventions or changes for an individual or within a team environment, then it's this ongoing process of the shared understanding, collaboration, and putting you know evidence-based approaches into play, but with this ongoing reflection and adaptation. So, how are these things landing and what's working and what do we need to adapt? So, yeah, I guess that's what those are the key things that came up for me.

SPEAKER_01 59:21

Oh, that is neat. Uh, I like that. So we've we've got the shared understanding and not just of the group, but the the individuals and the them in the context of that environment, and the shared understanding of of the values of the individuals and the groups. What resources do we have to support people within that context? And what are the limiting factors that are going to challenge people's challenge people's ability to be able to display those values at the at the pressure points? Then you've got your collaboration piece. So doing it together. I I really liked your I think I was on the same webinar, the the psychological safety one, the uh some of the research from Google around being able to share freely doesn't mean you're being nice to everyone, but but doing it in a in a safe environment where you feel like you can actually bring up anything in front of other people.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:10

Yeah, like constructive debate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:12

Constructive debate. That's what I was looking for. Um nice arguing is uh is not as good as constructive debate. Constructive debate. And then all of this, but I suppose this you've you've got those kind of two key elements, and then you've got this almost force field around it. Well, that's what I've drawn on my pad anyway, which is this kind of ongoing process. So these two elements seem nice on paper, but actually we need to test it out in the field. Goes back to, I suppose, your kind of experiential testing that you were talking about earlier. It needs to be tested out. We need to to understand what actually is working, maybe what isn't working, what do we need to to improve it?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:51

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, really nice summary.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:54

Love it. Well, look, I mean, what it was enjoyable to summarize because it was a really, I think, really good, good answer. So thanks so much, Joe, for sharing your your time, your your insights, your experiences there. It was so lovely to get into something that we haven't talked about on the podcast yet around uh ACT and values and really go quite deep into that and really appreciate some of the real life experiences and little kind of case studies that you've brought there. And I'm sure people who are uh listening to the podcast will be able to take loads and loads of kind of pragmatic, actionable things away that they can do with their clients. So great stuff. For people who want to follow what Joe Davis is is doing, where are the base best places online to keep up to date?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:40

Uh so I'm on Twitter, which is JD Psychology, and my website is www.jdsychology.co.uk.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:50

Great stuff. Uh as always, I'll pop the uh link to those. Sorry, were you gonna say anything else there?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:55

No, no, no, no, just no, just it's been a pleasure to come on, Pete. And uh thank you for having me on. And I've also really enjoyed our chat.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:01

Good stuff. Well, best of luck with everything. I hope you leave a post-it note on the fridge saying that you've gone for a gallop very soon.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:10

That will actually be true today. Yeah, I'm on fighting later.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:13

Good stuff.

Full time reflection

SPEAKER_01 1:02:16

If you're still listening, thank you for sharing another slice of pie with me. Jo said something in the podcast that I've been pondering for a while since. It was the bit where she said, How often do we pause to reflect on the why of why we do what we do? And that resonated quite a bit personally. It's so easy to get swept along by the merry-go-round of life, keeping up with all the tasks, responsibilities, and distractions that demand our immediate attention. And sometimes we can go some time without zooming out to evaluate what we're doing all these things for. Some authors, psychologists, and philosophers argue that this is an intrinsic conflict of the human condition. Terror management theory, for example, proposed by Greenberg, Solomon, and Pasinski, argues that there's a natural friction between our biological driver of self-preservation and the inherent knowledge that death is inevitable. This conflict produces terror, which is managed by a number of coping techniques, including escapism. So neat structures that focus our attention, to-do lists, a game of football, a routine, a university degree, a video game. All of these things focus our attention, but also help us to avoid the deeper and darker questions. Why am I here? Why am I doing this? Joe's experience suggests that helping people get clarity over these bigger, deeper questions helps to frame and contextualise what we are doing in the present and what tasks and activities are worthy of our attention, our focus, and our hard work. I also love the sound bite: the goal describes the destination, and the values describe what you want the journey there to look like. And I think this is a great way of summarising how values and goals can work together. And finally, the last thing I took from this was the part where Joe quite rightly called me out when I described some of the ACT principles and processes as inverted, commas, simple. And Joe said that whilst on paper things like this might look simple, putting into practice the principles is a whole different question. Again, this resonated personally. Some of us may have a pretty decent idea about our values and how we want to live our life and treat each other as the people that we want to be day to day, but in the furnace of competition or in the intensess of a stressful day at work, keeping true to this idealised version of ourselves becomes far from simple and easy. Well that's enough contemplation of the deeper questions for now. I'm off to watch the Six Nations to keep my brain pleasantly occupied for the next couple of hours. Thanks for listening and catch you for the next episode.