How mental preparation elevates performance | Kaplan Mobray | TEDxASU

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]Thank you so much. [applause] When you walk into a room, when you look outside the window, or when you walk outside and you see the color green, you're not just seeing a memorable color, you're also witnessing growth.

[00:00:26]See, green is everywhere. It it it it signals life and vitality and strength and forward movement and progress and go.

[00:00:36]But what happens when life doesn't feel so green?

[00:00:43]You know, life is kind of like doing push-ups.

[00:00:50]You're on your stride. You're on your journey. It's comfortable.

[00:00:56]Everything's going okay [clears throat] and then life gets hard.

[00:01:06]Life happens.

[00:01:09]You get that dreaded phone call that you hope you never receive.

[00:01:15]You lose that job that you spent years of time and devotion and sacrifice to and loyalty to. [snorts] That relationship that you thought would be forever suddenly ends and you get that unexpected health diagnosis that now shapes how you view time and your future.

[00:01:46]Life happens.

[00:01:49]And in that very moment, it's not just the pressure that you feel. For many of us, we become stuck.

[00:02:00]Now, when you think about it, we don't talk enough about mental health.

[00:02:05]But the reality is everyone, especially in these times, are facing a mental health challenge. One in five adults have indicated that they face a critical mental health challenge each year.

[00:02:16]76% of adults globally say that they are dealing with intense levels of exhaustion and burnout and depression and anxiety account for a trillion dollars of lost productivity.

[00:02:32]The real issue is we're not in a mental health crisis alone.

[00:02:39]We're in a mental preparation crisis because think about life.

[00:02:47]Life gives us all these automatic reflexes, a physical reflex. So when you stub your toe, what do you say? Ouch.

[00:02:56]When you touch a hot stove, you immediately your hand pulls back.

[00:03:00]When you're walking and you trip, all of a sudden your hands reach out to brace your fall.

[00:03:07]We have these physical responses, these automatic responses because your life and your body is wired to protect you without asking for permission.

[00:03:23]And then we have these conditional responses, these conditional reflexes.

[00:03:29]When I say thank you, you say what?

[00:03:31]You're welcome.

[00:03:34]When I toss you a ball, you catch it. [panting] And think about these reflexes. When you walk into a dark room, automatically you are [snorts] looking for the light.

[00:03:50]These aren't things that we learned. These are things that we were trained to do and know. And then we have these social responses. Turn to someone right now and smile. Turn to someone right now and smile. Turn to someone right now and smile. When you see a smile, you get a smile, you smile. Now turn to someone and laugh. [laughter] When you hear a laugh, you laugh.

[00:04:18]And when someone cries, you become emotional.

[00:04:24]And then we have these survival instincts. When you feel threatened, automatically you go into fight or flight or freeze.

[00:04:34]When you feel fear, adrenaline suddenly kicks up.

[00:04:41]And what you realize is your body and your mind, they don't wait for instructions. They move to survive.

[00:04:51]So when you think about mental health and high performance, the powerful conversation is we go through life with this automatic connection and response and reflex to physical response to stimulus to conditional response to stimulus to social respond to stimulus to survival response to stimulus. But when life hits you hard, when you lose that job, when you lose that loved one, when that relationship suddenly ends and now you don't know what to do with your future.

[00:05:34]When you lose that financial backing of what you thought would help you be more secure.

[00:05:41]And when that health diagnosis comes in, the question I have for you, what's your reflex?

[00:05:52]This is not a crisis of mental health as a crisis. It's a crisis of mental preparation.

[00:06:02]So that's where I started to ask myself the question, what if there was a way to not just survive adversity or to get resilient after something happens. What if there was a way to embrace a reflex in your mind, in your soul, in your being that allow you to move forward and thrive regardless of the intense pressure that life throws your way.

[00:06:23]And that's where the green method was born.

[00:06:27]You see, when something happens to you, the first G is gratitude.

[00:06:34]Gratitude.

[00:06:36]You know, we're on our phones and we're so busy going through life and we're so busy on our phones, we're so busy. And when life hits us, all of a sudden, we're we're we're like, "What do we do?"

[00:06:50]And we get stuck because we're in the what do we do? We're focused on what happened to us.

[00:06:57]But the first flex, the first reflex when you're dealing with mental health and high performance is to embrace gratitude.

[00:07:04]And gratitude isn't denial. It's perspective.

[00:07:09]And what that means is when something happens to you, you have to first say, "What am I grateful for?"

[00:07:19]It's a hard thing to do in the midst of pain, but you have to say, "What am I grateful for?" There are three levels of gratitude.

[00:07:25]existence gratitude, which simply says this. Take a deep breath, let it out. [sighs] If you were lucky enough, grateful enough to take that breath, then you know that regardless of what you're going through, regardless of what you're suffering from, somebody did not wake up today and someone wasn't able to take that breath today, but you have it.

[00:07:53]Persistence. Gratitude says whatever happened to me, [sighs] I'm gonna embrace and look for the opportunity that it's going to come with it.

[00:08:02]What is the opportunity that's going to come from adversity that I'm facing?

[00:08:05]What is the opportunity? I'm going to look for the opportunity and embrace it.

[00:08:09]I'm going to persist.

[00:08:13]And resilience gratitude says, you know, whatever I'm going through right now, it's supposed to teach me something.

[00:08:21]It's supposed to give me something. New learning, new perspective. That health scare that I had, now I'm going to reemerge better. I'm going to reemerge more healthy.

[00:08:31]The loved one that I lost makes me realize that I need to be more loving to loved ones that I have. I'm going to reemerge better.

[00:08:40]Resilience. Gratitude.

[00:08:43]Gratitude directly impacts your well-being.

[00:08:47]So the immediate flex when you go through something is to embrace gratitude. The R in green is for reach.

[00:08:55]When something pulls you down, you got to reach for something to pull you up.

[00:08:59]You got to reach for it. A reach is an extension, an intention, a stretch outside your comfort zone. You got to reach for new community. Reach for new opportunity. Reach for new skill. But you got to reach otherwise you get stuck.

[00:09:14]The E is for energy.

[00:09:16]It's hard to have high performance if you have low energy.

[00:09:23]So what that means is sleep, [panting] movement, nutrition. You have to power your body to fuel it for the battles of life.

[00:09:36]Energy is a key component. You have to have an energy reflex when you're going through life's hardest seasons.

[00:09:44]E the next E is for excellence.

[00:09:46]You have to hold yourself to a high standard because excellence is not something you turn off like a light switch. Excellence is a choice, a decision. It's who you become. It's a standard. You have to hold yourself to a high standard of excellence regardless of what's happening to you. Because guess what? You are not the adversity that you face. You are the standard that you bring. The sin that you are, the excellence that you are. [gasps] And then and have a non-negotiable.

[00:10:14]If you call your mom on Fridays, call your mom on Fridays. If you go to Pilates class on Tuesday, go to Pilates class on Tuesday.

[00:10:24]If you like to take your dog for a walk at 400 p.m. every day, take your dog for a walk at 4 p.m. every day. But hold on to a non-negotiable because when you are going through something, you need to be anchored in something that gives you stable joy.

[00:10:38]Especially when you are facing unstable life.

[00:10:43]So when I put this all together, it's what I call the green method, the automatic flex that we can step into when life throws us our hardest seasons.

[00:10:54]Because again, the mental health crisis is not just a crisis of mental health.

[00:10:59]It's a crisis of mental preparation.

[00:11:02]And if we can embrace a solid way to be more prepared, we can embrace a way to move forward.

[00:11:11]So in closing, when life throws you the pressure, the pain, the trauma, the grief, the loss, the setback, the adversity, just take a deep breath.

[00:11:25][sighs] What am I grateful for?

[00:11:28]What will I reach for? How will I protect my energy? How will I hold myself to a high standard of excellence?

[00:11:35]And what's my non-negotiable?

[00:11:37]And when you have that as your flex in any season of your life, even the hardest seasons of your life, you can always find a way to move forward. You can always find a way to be green. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. [applause] Thank you so much.