This episode transcript has been AI generated and edited by our team, for your convenience and accessibility.

William Wadsworth: 00:02
Hello and welcome to the Exam Study Expert podcast and to a very special interview with resilient and high-pressure performance expert, Dr. Brian Hite. Many of us face some high pressure moments as part of our academic journey. I’m thinking those big exams, interviews, assignment deadlines, and so on. Brian is a coach, speaker, and author specializing in high-stakes performance. He has over 30 years experience as a professional stuntman with over 100 film and TV credits to his name. He also holds a PhD in organizational psychology and a master’s in sports psychology. He’s currently a faculty member at Grand Canyon University and a master resilience trainer for the US Army. Brian, welcome to the show.

Dr Brain Hite: 00:45
Thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate it. Let me just clear up one thing. I’m not a master resilience trainer for the US Army anymore. I was for 10 years. But that stopped about two and a half years ago, I guess.

William Wadsworth: 00:57
I don’t know. It’s been a minute. Well, thank you for thank you for the clarification. A heck of a CV, nonetheless. And just indulges before we get down to business. I’m sure listeners would love to just have a little bit of color on the stunt stuff because that that sounds really exciting.

Dr Brain Hite: 01:12
Yeah, sure. I mean, what whatever, whatever you want to talk about, we can hit we can hit stunts first if you’d like. It was interesting the way that you introduced it though, because I’m looking forward to getting into you’re talking about high pressure moments, and and you just said it just comes off your tongue very easily, as it does most people, because that’s how people think about think about pressure itself and even even high stakes situations. There’s there’s a reason why I say high stakes, why I use that particular term. So we can get into that later, but I just wanted to point out, just right from the gate, like you mentioned high pressure moments. And uh and I love it. So I’m looking forward to the to the discussion. But to stunts first, what would you like to know?

William Wadsworth: 01:52
Oh, just give us 30 seconds a little bit of color. What sort of work was it? Any kind of things we’d have heard of, you know, you just just uh just this.

Dr Brain Hite: 01:60
Yeah, I was about halfway through college when I went and I saw a live stunt show at a theme park. It was called Six Flags, and I and I was hooked. I was amazed. I I’d been struggling to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, and once I saw that show, that was it. I I that’s what I wanted to do. I mean, it was we weren’t two minutes into the show before this huge explosion happened and motorcycles came jumping out, and I just I just I was mesmerized. So uh so I went backstage and I asked the people, how do you get this job? And they said, well, you need to know how to do fights, high falls, and motorcycles. So I linked up with one of the people from the show. He taught me fights and high falls. I bought a dirt bike, I learned how to ride it well enough to get hired, and then got a lot better once I did the show. And then I did the show the following summer and and again just fell in love. It was the best summer of my life. Did the show again the summer after that, and uh but but I did end up dropping out of college. So I so I did the show um for one summer, and that was the summer after my junior year of college. I had one more year of college to go. But because I’d decided that stunts was what I wanted to do, I was no longer struggling. I was no longer trying to figure out what I wanted to be, college didn’t matter anymore. And at least to me, I mean, that was how my mind was working at the moment. And and I was failing everything, literally all my classes. So I dropped out with one semester to go, did the show one more summer, moved out to Los Angeles and started doing the show out there too. There was a Six Flags in Los Angeles that I was able to do the show in. And that got me started, you know, working in the film and TV world. I met some of those people, and and it just uh snowballed from there. I worked on one show, one gets you two, two gets you four, and next thing you know, that’s that’s what I’m doing for a job. So since then, that’s been yeah, it’s been 30 years ago. I’ve worked on a lot of different things. Uh if if people are curious, I’d suggest just look my name up in IMDB, the international movie database, I think that is, imdb.com, and you’ll see some stuff. Maybe maybe you’ve seen it, maybe you haven’t. I don’t know. At the moment, there’s a brand new TV show called 911 Nashville that is shooting in my hometown, Nashville, Tennessee, which is where I live. But that’s a new show that I’m doubling Chris O’Donnell on, and so that’s been a fun job. So that’s the stunts.

William Wadsworth: 04:24
Amazing. Amazing. Um, and and thank you for bringing in the a little bit of your um academic background as a as a student as well. I’d I’d love to circle back on that a little bit later in the in the conversation. So I think that’ll be really interesting. Um, so you you mentioned that uh you sort of specialize in teaching high-stakes performance. So tell us a little bit about what that means to you.

Dr Brain Hite: 04:44
Yeah, high-stakes performance to me is performance in any situation where there’s a big difference between the consequences of success and the consequences of failure. When there’s when there’s a big gap between what happens when you win and what happens when you lose, what happens when you succeed, what happens when you fail, that’s what I call a high-stakes situation. And even within that definition, there’s still a lot of subjectivity in the sense that what matters to you, what you think is important, might be very different from what matters to me. So you and I could find ourselves in the exact same situation. I would think of it as a high stakes situation, you would not. That’s entirely possible. So there still is some subjectivity.

There’s no way to just objectively label an event as high stakes. But I think it’s way better than calling it high pressure or high stress because for sure situations aren’t that. And what I mean by that is again, going back to the two of us, you and I could find ourselves in the exact same situation. One of us might experience pressure and the other one may not. One of us might experience stress and the other one may not. And there are differences between pressure and stress, they’re not the same thing. So so within the you know, the limits of pressure and stress, I think that that talking about situations in terms of those really makes no sense. But even in but but with high stakes, I think it’s still important to remember that that even those we create the stakes. And that that’s important too, because one of the things that we can do to lower the likelihood of pressure and stress being being encountered is to lower the stakes of the situation. And although we may not be able to change the circumstances of the situation, we can absolutely adjust our perceptions of the situation, what we choose to focus on, what we choose to prioritize, how we choose to see the circumstance that we’re in. And just that switch alone can change the stakes and can adjust our levels of pressure and stress that we experience.

William Wadsworth: 06:54
That’s a really interesting insight. Yeah, I’d love to ask you more about that at a moment. Um, so you you’ve got a background in in psychology and and academia. Um, from an academic or research perspective, I’m just curious, what what do we kind of know about what how how kind of high stakes can impact us, you know, anything it does to kind of how our brain works, our ability to think clearly. Yeah, kind of what do we know from the research?

Dr Brain Hite: 07:18
Yeah, well, the theory that I lean on in in terms of stress is what something called the transactional model of stress. And essentially what it says, this is by Lazarus and Folkman, it’s been around for a long time. But essentially what it says is that when we are in a situation, we do what’s called a primary appraisal. And that’s simply asking the question: is this a threat? Is there a potential threat? Might I be harmed in some kind of way in this situation? And if the answer is yes, then we move to a secondary appraisal. And the secondary appraisal is asking the question, do I have the resources necessary to deal with this threat effectively? And if the answer is no, that’s where stress happens.

So stress is experienced when we perceive a situation as a potential threat and we don’t believe we have what it takes to deal with that threat effectively. So I think that that’s useful information for people because that means that if we’re experiencing stress, debilitating levels of stress, but I would argue any stress in a performance situation where you want to perform, and we can get into that comment more if you want to, but we can tackle stress in two different ways. One is let’s change the perception of the situation being a threat. And the other is if we can’t change the perception of the situation being a threat, then we can change how the resources that we have available. We can bring our attention to some more effective resources, we can take steps to augment resources we have, maybe some weaknesses that we have, can lean more heavily on some of our strengths, but we can tackle stress in those ways. And what what I mean in terms of the threat situation of if we can’t, if we can’t say that there isn’t a threat, then we can go to the resources is this.

One of the things that that I’ve really had to think a lot about is that a lot of the common advice around these, uh around these situations where people experience stress is well, just don’t think of it as a threat. Think of it as a challenge, think of it as an opportunity, look at it as a chance to to whatever, fill in the blank. And there’s value in that for sure. And and that switch in perspective absolutely can can adjust the stakes and the way that we see the situation and can help us lean in rather than avoid these these situations that are really important to us. However, I personally myself, I’ve been in quite a few situations where if I did it wrong, I wasn’t gonna go home. At least not in the same condition I showed up, or somebody I was working with might not go home. So there’s no way to talk myself out of the fact that it’s a threat. And the same thing with police officers or firefighters, you know, I mean, when there are bullets flying, it’s a threat. You can’t rainbow and unicorn your way out of it. It just is. And that’s okay because we can still tackle stress and create conditions for ourselves to perform to our potential through that secondary appraisal. All right, but what resources do I have? Yes, it’s a threat. Something bad might happen. I might die. I might have whatever. This is this is very real.

It’s that’s just reality as we’re experiencing it right now. Let’s acknowledge that. And I have the resources to deal with it. I have the skills, I have the training, I have the the learning that’s that’s necessary. You know, I mean, part of the topic of this podcast is exams. Well, you know what? I’ve studied for the test. I’ve I’ve I’ve looked through my notes. I’ve asked myself and answered hard questions about the material. You know, I I have I have people I can go to. I have a professor or teacher that I can go to to ask some questions to get clarification. I have resources that I can use in this situation. I’ve slept well, I’ve eaten well, I’m not hungry. I have the resources to do well in this situation. So is it a threat? If I screw this test up, might I not get into a school that I really want, or might my future be in jeopardy, or might I lose a job or something? Yes, that that if that’s the reality, that’s the reality. Is that a threat? You can certainly call it that. That would be legitimate. All right, but it doesn’t change the situation. So let’s look at what resources we have. And if you can acknowledge the resources, if you can recognize the resources that you can bring to bear to help create conditions for the best performance possible, then that that will alleviate the stress. So so we don’t just have to talk ourselves out of something being a threat. If we focus on the resources, we can eliminate stress as well.

William Wadsworth: 12:06
Yeah. Yeah. So you so you talked a lot kind of in terms of how you can prepare for that exam. I think it’s both how you prepare and then also recognizing that you have done that and bringing that to the forefront of your mind. So it’s both the act of doing the prep and then also having that on your mind and that kind of helping alleviate some of that stress. Is that true?

Dr Brain Hite: 12:24
Yeah, I mean the preparation for sure, but also even in the moment. So what resources do you have to bear in the moment? Well, uh, you know, I I I’m really good at recognizing which problems are easy and which ones aren’t, which ones I need to skip and which ones I need to come back to. Uh I’m not quite as good at organizing essays. So if the if the question involves writing of some sort, I know I need a little bit of extra time for that. Those are resources. That knowledge, that self-awareness, that’s a resource that we have. And we can leverage it in the moment. So it isn’t necessarily about just preparation, it’s also in the moment. And also, you know, so while you’re taking a test, maybe you recognize that the tension starts to get higher, the arousal levels, your pumped upness starts to get a little bit too high, muscle tension starts to get a little bit too much, and you recognize that. Well, in the moment, if you have as your one of your resources, the ability to uh separate from the situation, to step back mentally, to physically relax your muscles, to change your breathing, take control of your body in that moment. Those are resources too, and they can be used in the moment. So it isn’t just about preparation. There are also resources we can leverage while performing that are helpful as well.

William Wadsworth: 13:46
Yeah. So okay, let’s say we we hit a question in the exam. It’s it’s a it’s a tough question for us, or or maybe you know, we ran out of runway on our prep time and you know, God forbid, we we missed it out from our prep entirely. And so we we have that sense of panic rising up step by step. What do I do in that moment?

Dr Brain Hite: 14:05
Well, it it would depend on the type of question, because what what my answer would be is well, what do you need to do? I mean, what is the t what are the task relevant things that would be helpful? It and if it’s skip the question, then it’s skip the question. You know, I mean it’s sometimes it’s just it’s it’s cut your losses.

William Wadsworth: 14:23
And that’s how it’s say so let’s say it’s it’s I had this in one of my my final exams at universities. I say it’s three three hours, three essays, one hour per essay. So it’s a third of the exam.

Dr Brain Hite: 14:34
Okay. Well, it doesn’t have to be, you know. I mean, it’s certainly possible that one of the essays is very easy and will flow very quickly and you get it done at 20 minutes. It’s possible that one of the other ones is more challenging and maybe it lasts a minute. You got three hours and there are three essays. It doesn’t have to be an hour per essay, unless it is. I mean, some of the tests are timed and they say, no, you have one hour, and at the end of that, whatever you’ve gotten written is what you’ve gotten written. But if it’s if it’s the way you described it, three essays in three hours, then think of it as three essays in three hours. And and for some people, it might be challenging to do this. If you hit a snag in one essay, switch to another one. I mean, there are some other strategies. I have no idea. This is just coming to my mind right now. I’m talking, you know, I’ve never tried this. I’ve no idea if it’s a good idea. There might be people who are holding their ears or would scream at the loud and like, don’t do this.

But essays happen in sections. There are there are different sections of essays. So you have an introduction, you’ve got some some evidence, you’ve got, I mean, there are different sections. Might be useful to write the first section of each essay and then you know, go back. So you’ve written, you write the first section of the one, go to the other one, and then you come back. For some people, they might find that helpful to not be so locked into one, or especially if you run into a snag. Like, I don’t know exactly how I’m gonna tie together this and that. All right, well, let’s let’s not worry about it. Let’s go over here to this other one. Because disengaging our minds from one task and engaging in another one fully, for whatever reason, things happen in our brain. And when we go back to that first task, sometimes the answers are just waiting for us. And it’s a really weird experience, but it’s a very cool one when it happens. So, so give your brain the opportunity to do that, to just process things in the background while you’re working on something else. Come back and see if anything’s changed. If it has, great, you move forward. If it hasn’t, well, you’re no worse off than you were before. You were stuck before, you’re stuck now. So, you know.

But as far as the stress and pressure of the situation, it would be keeping your mind focused on the task. That’s the biggest thing. Because as soon as you start letting your mind wander to the clock or to the consequences of not getting things done in a certain amount of time, that’s where attention is squandered. That’s where effort is wasted, that’s where energy is wasted. Because no amount of thinking about time or imagining future consequences, and that’s that’s an intentionally chosen word, imagining. We’re imagining future consequences. We don’t know the future. We’re not sure of what exactly is going to happen if we screw this up. I have a great story on that with um with 911 Nashville on a stunt perspective. But uh but we don’t know. It’s imaginary. And and any time spent on that is wasted time. Time needs to be spent on task-relevant activities, whatever they might be.

William Wadsworth: 17:31
So I I had I I was apologizing when we joined the call, Brian. I was uh just running a couple of minutes late. And the reason for that was I’d um I was I was plugging all my tech in, and then for the life of me, I couldn’t find where I’d put my my my microphone cable. And and so I my office is a mess of cables uh around me. I was trying to find this cable, I was trying to find this cable. And and you know, I I was feeling that sense of of high state. I f I was feeling some pressure, I was feeling some stress, um, you know, because it means a lot to me to show up for my for my guests, for my for my audience, and and and and and do what we do here on the show. Uh I mean this is the classic thing. It was you know, it was already half plugged into my laptop, and the other end was just dangling off the desk, like it was just there. It was where it needed to be already. But I couldn’t see that. Like I was blind, like if I’d been calm, I’m sure I would have noticed that. But I was almost like blinded to that because because of the kind of mental states. Like, is are there any tools I could have used in that moment? Is I like is there like a pausing for a mindful breath? Is there a breathing thing? Is there like a you know, uh, uh place in your mind to go to the thing?

Dr Brain Hite: 18:35
So let me tell you a story. Yeah. So I was uh this is when I was I had just started working with the military, and one of the things that they that they do prior to deployment, and this is back when they were deploying to Iraq fairly frequently, is they went to the National Training Center, which is like the World Cup training event for the army. Like you have to go there and you have to do well in order for the Army to say, yes, you’re good, you can go overseas, you can deploy. And I deployed with a unit, or I went to the National Training Center with a unit that I was working with. And one of the things that they did was it was called mount training, M-O-U-T, military operations in urban terrain, clearing buildings. Now, this was a unit of combat engineers.

Combat engineers, their job is usually route clearance, meaning they’ll go very slowly down a certain route looking for explosive devices, different things that might cause problems for the convoys going through. They either diffuse, get rid of those explosive devices in whatever way, and then the convoys can travel more safely. That’s the job of a combat engineer. It’s not clearing buildings, but back in that particular war, everybody was clearing buildings. It didn’t matter what your job was. There were just a lot of buildings to clear, so everybody did it. So that was part of the training at the National Training Center. Well, these guys, because that wasn’t their primary mission and they didn’t spend a whole lot of time practicing, they were really bad at it. And they went in and it was, it was like a circus. I mean, they were so bad. I didn’t even know much about building clearing at the time, and I could tell that they were bad at it. I mean, they were rushing through stuff. They would, they would, there was communication was nil. They were stumbling over things, they were missing the intelligence. They were supposed to clear the room and then look for, I don’t know what, computers or different types of intelligence things to see that. They didn’t see any of it. Just like you said, you didn’t see the court, it was right in front of your face. They didn’t see a computer, literally right in front of them. And and that was part of what they did. So they finished the the four buildings or whatever it was, and they’re the person in charge pulled them together and said, Look, you guys, you guys gotta calm down, and you need to take a tactical pause before you go into each room.

And I thought that was excellent advice. But what he didn’t do was tell them how to calm down or what to do during the tactical pause that might be helpful. And but we had trained that. I had gone through some things with them. So I said, remember when we talked about breathing? Remember when we talked about cue words? Remember when we talked about routines? This is the stuff you can use. And so they developed their own routine that incorporated keywords and breathing. They would stack on a door and then they’d say, slow is smooth, smooth as fast. That was their keyword that kind of reminded them to just stay, stay focused, stay smooth, stay, stay controlled. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Ready, big breath, go. And that’s what they did before every room. They would clear the room and then they’d do what they need to do. They’d stack on the next door, slow as smooth, smooth as fast. Ready, go. And each time, what it was doing was resetting them mentally and physically. There’s a right physical place in terms of energy activation that we need to be in order to perform well. It doesn’t matter what the task is, whether it’s a test or whether it’s clearing buildings. There’s a right physical state for us. And there’s a right mental state for us. And they work together, the physical and the mental.

In other words, when our physical, when we’re in, you know, panic physical mode. Where muscles are all tense, hearts racing, breathing’s going crazy. Well, the mind is very it’s racing and going crazy as well, and the attention’s focused. Uh, same thing fit uh mentally. When we get our minds caught around some of these consequences, oh my God, well, if this happens, then this is gonna happen, then that’s gonna happen. The next thing you know, I’m gonna be homeless under a bridge. And that’s just happening in our minds, but it will be felt in our bodies as well. So taking control of both simultaneously is very helpful. What’s a mental thing that you can do to ground yourself, to anchor yourself in the moment? What is a physical thing that you can do to ensure that your energy activation levels are in that ideal place for whatever task you’re doing? And it varies from task to task. It will be different for a test versus clearing a building from you know getting hit by a car to to having a conversation with a kid. It it varies. So, so that’s that’s the story. So, what they did is they went through the whole thing again and they applied that. They was slow as smooth, smooth as fast, ready, go.

And it was a I I’ve I’ve seen a lot of improvement from time one to time two with different things. You would expect some improvement, and in when you provide guidance, you would expect even more improvement. These guys, they went from like a two to an eight in terms of on a scale of one to ten. They were good the next time around. They they cleared the buildings efficiently, they found the the intelligence material that they were supposed to. Communication got got way, way better. They were talking to each other, and they came out much less tired than they did the first time. They weren’t as winded, they weren’t as exhausted after clearing the buildings. So that’s I don’t know if that story helps in terms of what you’re talking about, but that’s that’s an example of of how we can combine a mental and physical strategy in order to create conditions in this moment for what’s important.

William Wadsworth: 23:58
So the the deep breath’s gonna work for for everybody, isn’t it? How do you how do you kind of develop that association for the the key word you were talking about? Like how did you like train in a calm condition associating the two?

Dr Brain Hite: 24:09
Well, you just have to ask yourself, what do you want? I mean, what what what is did you want? In their case, they were just they were hectic. They were all over the place. And that they were trying to be fast, but by trying to be fast, they were actually being slow. So so they had to remind themselves of something that would help ground them and get them into the right place. So we just have to ask ourselves, well, what’s your challenge? And what do you want? What does right look like? And figure out something that works for you that reminds you of that in the moment. And then it becomes a question of becoming aware of the challenge once it starts to arise as quickly as possible. So developing self-awareness is critical. And then accepting reality for what it is. We’ve talked about that a little bit. Look, right now I’m feeling tense, I’m feeling anxious, I’m feeling worried, I’m feeling scared, whatever it is, that’s what it is. I don’t need to try to talk myself out of it. I just need to acknowledge what it is. And then I can make some changes. I can regulate. I can, all right. Well, so I know that when I feel scared, when I feel worried, when I feel tense, these are some things that I can do. These are some of the resources that I have available that I can lean on. Physical resources, mental resources, emotional resources, social resources. We can draw on all of those to help us in those moments. So it starts with self-awareness, becoming aware of what’s happening and staying aware of it as much as possible, accepting reality and then making the changes using the resources we have at our disposal.

William Wadsworth: 25:40
Nice. Nice. Just one other little detail to pick up on this. It’s such great advice, Brian. Thank you. And you mentioned routine along with keywords and breathing. One of the things I’ve I’ve long taught for exam strategy is having checklists or almost routines, I guess. So whether you’re with the sort of things you run through when you sit down at your exam desk, uh maybe things you run through in response to a specific kind of question, I’m going to do this, this, this. Is that the sort of thing you’re talking about with routine?

Dr Brain Hite: 26:08
Yeah, routines take different forms at different times. What I we developed pretty early on in my career with the with the military, a four-phased approach to performance. So one of the things that we found was lacking in in the mental skills training and application across the board, just not with the military, but just in general, was the idea of okay, we’ve got the skills, we understand goal setting and keywords and routines and mental imagery, visualization, et cetera. But when do you use them? Like when’s the right time to put these things into practice? And is there are there different ways to use them at different times of performances?

So we divided performances up into a before, a right before, a during, and an after. And the before, during, and after has been talked about in the literature before, but we added a right before. And that really stemmed from my work as a stunt man. When, you know, when I show up on set, there, that’s a before. So it’s before things are happening. I I put on wardrobe, I go to hair and makeup, maybe I get a little food, I we go to rehearsal, I see what I’m gonna do, we figure out what the thing’s gonna be, and then we just kind of hang out until it’s time to do it. So that’s before. Now I can’t stay in my performance state physically and mentally that that I’ll need to be in when I actually do the stunt. Let’s say it’s a stairfall. So somebody’s I’m gonna do a little fight and get punched and fall down some stairs. There’s a, there’s, there’s a mental and physical state that I need to be in prior to the stairfall in order to do it well. But I can’t stay in that state for, I don’t know, five, six, sometimes 10, 12 hours before the thing actually occurs. So the before is important. So what do you do before? What do you do to maintain the skills, to rehearse things, to stay physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially engaged and prepared. And then there’s the right before. So this is where performance is imminent.

So in terms of a test, maybe the before starts the day before. Maybe it’s it’s uh maybe it’s the day of, the morning of. I always, when I’ve talked to people about tests, I’ve started it the day before because eating, sleeping, uh, even exercising, stretching, these are things that if you do the day before, can be beneficial the next day. So I always start it then. But whatever it is, then there comes a time when you walk in the door. Like it’s it’s a it’s imminent. You’re not taking the test yet, but it’s coming and it’s coming really quick. So, how do you shift from the physical and mental state that exists in the before to the physical and mental state you need for the performance? That’s the right before piece. So, in that right before, that’s when the transition happens. That’s when the rest of the world disappears and we only focus on task-relevant things, preparing ourselves in this moment for what we are about to do. And so, what strategies do we use? And we develop the strategies for to make that transition happen.

And then phase three is the performance. This is when, okay, go. Time starts now. When whatever the words are that get used, you know, and action, whatever they are, but it’s all happening right now. And that’s the performance. So, again, in the performance, what skills can you use to get your attention where it needs to be, keep it there, and regain it once you are inevitably distracted because we’re human beings, that happens. So we have those strategies. How do we stay tuned into our physical state and monitor that energy activation level? Uh, and then the performance is over. It ends, we’re done. Some people just that’s it, but it can’t be it. There has to be another phase, the the phase four, which is the after phase. What do we do afterward? And there are two things I focus on in that phase. One is recovery, because you’ve just expended energy, mental energy, physical energy. Again, it’s hard to distinguish between the two. And anybody who’s taken a test will understand what I’m talking about. Your brain feels tired, but so does your body. And uh, but it’s over.

So, how do we recover that energy? But the second part is how do we learn from this experience so that the next time that we perform this task, and and it may be it may be immediate. So, for example, you can do this within tests. So, if tests have sections, you can you can in the performance mode, you’re in phase three for the test itself, and time’s up. Okay, great. So now we move back to phase two and or even phase one, because you’ll get a little break. Whatever that break is, five minutes, 10 minutes, could just be 30 seconds, whatever it is, but you can take that time and you can cycle through. All right, so I’m in the before. How do I prepare? Let me just visualize what’s coming. New section. All right, let me transition, make sure I check in. Slow, smooth, smooth as fast, checking in with that physical state, that mental state, getting myself ready. All right, and time for the section two, go. Now we’re in performance again.

So we can do it within an immediate, but most performances we engage in at one point in time, we will engage in again later. It might be a month later, it might be a year later, but we’re gonna do it again. So, how do we learn from the experience we just had? So, how and when does that happen? So, I encourage people to finish the task, take a few minutes, recover, just just be, just be with what is. Recognize again that awareness, recognize how you’re feeling, what you’re thinking, what’s going on. Don’t try to learn, don’t try to change, don’t try to, you know, don’t get into the second part too fast. So, with athletes, for example, I said, you know, if you’re gonna debrief this with your coach and you’re gonna go back and you’re gonna you’re gonna figure out, okay, well, what worked, what didn’t, don’t do that immediately upon the end.

Like just have a second to sit and figure out what you’re feeling and and what you experienced. Then have the conversation after you’ve calmed down, because then you’ll you’re gonna be mentally in a place where you can process the information more effectively and take away the lessons probably more thoroughly. And so those are the four phases. Phase one, beginning, just preparation, you know, getting your mind kind of where it needs to be, making sure you’re set up physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially, right before transitioning from that walking around state to that performance state during, again, whatever needs, whatever needs to be done in order for you to keep your mind and body where they need to be on task relevant things so that you are performing to your potential. And then afterward, how do you recover energy? How do you learn? That’s the four-phase approach. Amazing, amazing.

William Wadsworth: 32:40
I’m really helpful to think through that. Thank you. Thank you. Um I’m conscious our time is coming towards an end, Bright, and you’ve been very generous with your your thoughts and your time, Stacey. So thank you on behalf of everybody listening. It’s been really, really fascinating. Um, I just wonder as we bring this towards a place, if you had uh someone in your life, you perhaps a younger relative, for example, who you who you love and care about, they’re facing an exam next week and they’re they’re nervous about it. Is there a little practical tool or something you’d you’d give them? Um perhaps we’ve already touched on it, or perhaps it’s something just a little thought that uh that you throw it.

Dr Brain Hite: 33:12
Yeah, well, I I would four things. They’re they’re not quick, but I’ll I’ll try to go through them as quickly as I can. One, I mean, we’ve already talked about it, so we can go is so stress, is it a threat? I mean, be honest about that. Is it a threat? And like what are what truly could bad happen to you? I mean, you’re not gonna die because of a bad grade or whatever the score is. Usually, the the one it’s not a be all end-all kind of a situation. It’s one grade of many, depending on who what the exam is and how it is. Often we can retake things. So, so really truly, I mean, is it a threat? Is that the right way to think about it? Maybe not.

But if so, and I’m not gonna try to talk you out of it, because sometimes maybe it is. Well, you’ve still got some resources. So identify what your resources are that you bring. What are your strengths that you already have? What are some weaknesses that maybe you have time to augment a little bit? And how can you apply those resources? And then speaking of the application of those resources, maybe think in terms of those four phases before, right before, during, and after. What resources can you leverage in each of those situations that can help you? Like I said, in the before, making sure you get enough sleep, that you have whatever things packed the morning of already the night before, that you’ve eaten well. Uh, so the four phases, when are you gonna, when are you gonna operate those, you know, to put those resources in into account? Um, and then pressure, again, pressure and stress, we didn’t get into this, so I’ll get into it in in just a little bit. Pressure and stress are different. Pressure is about a focus on the consequences themselves. If I screw this up, then whatever follows the then, when our attention is on that, that’s where we experience pressure. Or a sense of have to.

So I have to do this, I must do this, which is not even different from the consequences. Because if you follow up with, okay, but why do you have to do it? Well, because if I don’t, then and now we got all the consequences again. So, so pressure comes when we focus on consequences, the the imagined outcomes of things. Stress comes from the situation itself. Do we perceive it as a threat? Do we believe we have the resources necessary to deal with it? So there’s a distinction between the two. So, with pressure, what I tell people is number one, be a little bit humble in the sense that you don’t know for sure that the consequences that you’re imagining are actually going to happen the way that you think that they’re gonna. Sometimes we’re wrong. Often our crystal balls don’t work the way we think they’re gonna. So we have to acknowledge that.

Number two is is it’s take on some wisdom and recognize that let’s just let’s say you can predict the future and you know exactly what the consequences of success or failure are going to be. Well, you don’t know if those consequences are ultimately going to be good or bad. What we label as good today, sometimes we label as bad tomorrow. I don’t know. I mean, when I’m eating a piece of cheesecake, that’s a good thing. And then, you know, ask me, I don’t know, an hour later, is it a good thing or bad thing? My answer, my answer’s gonna change. It’s bad. So the same thing, the a divorce is an example that I use. When I got divorced, if you were to ask me, is this a good thing or bad thing, I would say it was the worst thing I’ve been through in a long time. Now, if you were to ask me, that’s it’s been close to 10 years, I’d say it was probably the best thing that’s happened to me. It opened a lot of doors that weren’t open at the time. So have that wisdom to recognize that good, bad, whether the consequences are gonna be good, we we don’t know. There’s no way to know ultimately down the road. And then the third thing is let’s say we do know. Let’s say we can predict the future and we know that if we screw it up for sure, everything’s gonna be bad. There’s no way to it’s gonna be otherwise. Well, it doesn’t change what we need to do right now to create conditions for the success we want. And that is keep your attention on the task-relevant things in this moment, do what you can do, control what you can control to create conditions that will maximize the likelihood of the outcome you want. And so that’s what I tell people with pressure.

And some of that, too, the fourth thing is just involving motivation. Be clear on why you’re doing what you’re doing. If it’s to please a parent, if it’s to get some number, if it’s to avoid some kind of unpleasant whatever, those are tough motivations and it will be challenging to keep your attention where it needs to be in that moment. But if you can tie the behavior, the taking of this exam, to something that is personal to you, that’s meaningful to you, that really matters on an individual value-based level, well, now when those struggles come up, you’ll be much more likely to be able to take that breath, to refocus and to re-engage without getting stressed out or freaked out or what you know, whatever may tend to happen to you. Really being clear on what the motivation for doing it is and trying to connect it to ourselves, our inner selves, as much as we can. So, and that’s long-winded advice, but that’s the advice I got.

William Wadsworth: 38:21
Oh, that’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. Thank you. Um, wonderful, Brian. I think we need to let you go. So thank you so much uh for today. It’s been it’s been fascinating to talk and thank you once again. I’m just thinking in your head, just as what you were talking just now. You know, if we’d had your um, you know, younger self thinking of dropping out of college uh on the call today, I wonder if things might have worked out differently. Particularly the bit about motivation and finding a why, perhaps.

Dr Brain Hite: 38:43
But the thing is, I did drop out, and then four or five years later I went back and I finished my bachelor’s degree and I finished my master’s degree and I finished my PhD. But it was all in in the time that I wanted to do it. It was, again, that motivation was for me. If I’d stuck with college the first time around, I don’t the motivation would have been, I don’t know, because I don’t want to look stupid or I don’t want my parents to think worse than me or whatever it is, but it wouldn’t be my the motivation coming from me. And that would have made it very hard for me to do what I needed to do in order to pass college. But when I re-engaged, it was for myself. The motivation was coming from within. And I think that’s why it’s so important to keep that in mind. And and it’s it’s not that hard to really identify what those things are that we care about and connect them to the behaviors we’re engaged in. It can take some work, but once you you get in the habit of doing it, it becomes easier. So yeah, I mean, it’s it’s for me, it was just a it was a timing thing. I I’m I’m very happy that I dropped out of college, that I quit.

That’s why I tell people, yeah, quitting’s okay. Quit. When when the time’s right to quit, quit. And you know, when the time’s not right to quit, stick with it and and and persevere and work through stuff. Only person who knows whether it’s right to give up on this particular goal and shift to a different goal is us. And it’s okay to do that. And it doesn’t mean that you can’t come back to the first goal. It happens to people all the time. Like they’ll they’ll, you know what? I want to get I want to get a new degree. I’ve got my bachelor’s degree, but I want to get a master’s degree now. So they they enroll in the school and they go for, I don’t know, six months to a year, but then an opportunity comes up at work and like they they can get a promotion. But the promotion comes with some extra responsibilities, and now they don’t have the time to put toward that other degree. Well, they’ve committed to the other degree. So is it okay to say no to it to move to this to this other thing? Some people have a lot of guilt around that. They think that because they said they were going to do this a year ago, that they have to continue doing it, even though conditions have changed. But conditions have changed, and it’s okay to acknowledge that and move in a different direction.

William Wadsworth: 40:56
So I think that’s great insight. I think that’s really great. Thank you so much once again. Um, if we’re interested to find out more, as I’m sure many listeners are, about your your work and this area generally, uh, tell us where we might want to go next.

Dr Brain Hite: 41:09
Yeah, you could start at BrianHiteGlobal.com, B-R-I-A-N, H I T E Global.com. That’s my website. And you can just email me too. If you do, I promise you I will get back to you. The email is Brian B-R-I-A-N at BrianHiteGlobal.com. Shoot me an email. And because here’s the thing if if you do struggle with stress or pressure, anxiety, burnout, these are things that are hard to push through. And and when the stakes are high, it really matters that we’re at our best. And when we’re feeling that stress, pressure, and burnout, we are not at our best. So I’ve been there, I understand how hard it is. Please reach out, ask whatever questions you have. And if I can help you or direct you in some other, you know, to some other place that might be beneficial for you, I’m absolutely willing to do that. It’s it is a hard place. People struggle with it all the time. And uh I’m here to help you not. So please reach out and ask whatever you have.

William Wadsworth: 42:08
Well, thank you so much once again. Uh, it’s been an absolute blast. Thank you once again, Dr. Brian Hite. Thank you. I appreciate you having me. Well, thanks again, Brian. Uh, and if you enjoyed today’s episode uh half as much as I did, I thought it was fantastic. Uh, please do take a moment to drop us a five-star rating. Uh, and if you can, a little review, sharing what you like about the show and how we’ve been able to help you. It’s always hugely appreciated and super helpful uh in helping us to reach uh and help new listeners, which is something we’re always looking to do.

And if you’re heading into exam season yourself, why not treat yourself to a copy of Outsmart Your Exams? Our handy little guide to the top tips and tricks you want to be using in exam week and in the exam hall itself to give you that all-important edge, make sure you’re scoring all the marks you deserve. I’ve been looking at the numbers. We recently passed over 3,000 copies of the book Sold to Date, uh, which, according to Industry Sources, is kind of about typical uh sales for a traditionally published book that was through an actual publisher. Um and so for a self-published book, uh I’m I’m really proud that it’s gone on to reach and help so many people over the years. Uh, with one reviewer on Amazon saying it took their brother up four grades. Uh I don’t necessarily promise that bigger margin of difference to everybody. Um the feedback I normally get from teaching these strategies to my to my coaching clients over the years, though, is that it does all add up to a very noteworthy margin of maybe in the region of five to ten percentage points extra in a given exam, which could easily um be what you need to take you over a crucial grade boundary uh and get the result you’re really looking for. So do check out Outsmart Your Exams via the link in the episode description and Grab your copy today. Thank you so much for tuning in. As always, it’s been a joy to have your company. I’m wishing you every success, as always, in your exams.